Brazil��s growth performance: a comparative perspective to the Asian giants

We compare economic efficiencies in Brazil, India, and China, where economic efficiency measures the gap between potential and actual output for a given input combination and technological factor. We use stochastic production frontier models to measure the contributions of factors of production and technology to growth and estimate non-positive error terms that capture production inefficiencies in each country. The results suggest that China and India had relatively inefficient production in the early 1980s but have since improved production efficiency substantially. In the same period, production efficiency in Brazil has lagged those of China and India. The gap between Brazil??s production efficiency and those of its Asian peers has narrowed in recent years. However, production remains more efficient in China and India, supporting more rapid growth in these countries relative to Brazil.     

A System��s Approach to Crime Prevention: The Case of Macao

Macao has the world’s largest casino industry and represents a unique political, social, and cultural system that differs significantly from Western societies. The overall crime rate in Macao is relatively low. Scholarly knowledge about crime and crime prevention in Macao, however, is very limited. This paper first reviews crime prevention theories, typologies, and various strategies in Western societies, followed by an introduction and discussion of crime prevention practices in Macao. Crime prevention strategies in Macao may be characterized as a tripod structure with three major supporting legs: traditional criminal justice practices, social prevention beyond the criminal justice system, and situational crime prevention measures. The paper then discusses the factors that may contribute to the low level of crime in Macao and points out the direction for future research in Macao.     

Two Obscure Sanskrit Words Related to the C��rv��ka: pa?cagupta and ku??ak��?a

Two words, pañcagupta and ku??ak???a, are found in modern Sanskrit lexicons such as the ?abdakalpadruma, the V??caspatya, the Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, and A Sanskrit English Dictionary. They are said to signify the C??rv??ka philosophy and an expert in the C??rv??ka philosophy respectively. Both the words have been taken from some twelfth-century Sanskrit ko?as but no example of actual use is available. Nor do they occur in any earlier Sanskrit ko?a, such as the Amarako?a and the Hal??yudhako?a. The inference is that the words must have appeared in some late philosophical work that was critical of the materialist C??rv??ka system of philosophy and the ko?ak??ras found them in the same source.     

Children’s Susceptibility to Misidentifying a Familiar Bystander From a Lineup: When Younger is Better

Children from 5 to 12 years of age (N=779) were shown a videotape where a preschool teacher has money stolen from her wallet. Children were shown a lineup, and for children in the bystander condition, the lineup contained a familiar bystander without the thief. Children in the control condition viewed the same lineup but they had not seen the bystander in the videotape. Among the 11–12-year olds, participants in the bystander condition were significantly more likely than control participants to misidentify the familiar bystander. This effect was not found in children from 5 to 10 years of age. When children in the control condition were shown a lineup that contained the thief without the bystander, the 11–12-year olds were significantly more likely than the younger children to correctly identify the thief. These findings demonstrate that age can both increase and decrease the accuracy of children’s lineup identification accuracy depending on the task at hand and the content of a lineup.     

Reviewer’s Comments to “The Measurement of Legitimacy: a Rush to Judgment?”

Asian Journal of Criminology -     

Defining the limits: the clash between a doctor’s duty to preserve life and enforcement of a patient’s religious belief

This article examines the question whether, under Nigerian law, a doctor has a duty to save the life of a patient whose refusal of medical treatment will inevitably lead to death. An affirmative answer is suggested after an examination of relevant Nigerian laws on the subject matter. Mindful of developments in this area of law in some other jurisdictions, this article concludes that there is scope for the amendment of relevant Nigerian laws to institutionalise a patient’s unqualified prerogative to give informed consent. It however cautions that, in the light of complex social challenges, Nigeria does not appear ready for such a change.     

Law’s not hard; it’s just hard to get into: a study of alternative entry students to law school

Widening access to higher education is a challenge currently under discussion in Australia and the United Kingdom. The increasing number of alternative entry programs offered by universities has made tertiary study, including law study, more accessible. One concern with widening access to legal education is the ability of students entering law school through means other than very high academic scores to undertake a law degree successfully. Students who enter law school are generally referred to as “high achievers”, having qualified through an admission policy based on competitive rankings. The implementation of equitable access programs in some Australian universities has resulted in a number of places being made available to final year high school students who meet the eligibility criteria. Lowering the entry requirements to some courses provides opportunities for students whose circumstances have affected their ability to attain competitive ranking scores. The Principals’ Recommendation Scheme (PRS) is one of these programs. The University of Technology Sydney in New South Wales, Australia commenced the PRS in 2012. UTS:Law was one of the first Faculties to develop a strategy to support these students. The Faculty is committed to resourcing all students in their study and, as a result, is engaged in the ongoing evaluation of the academic and co-curricular programs provided to students. This paper explains the implementation of the PRS and the relevant support infrastructure available to students. It also considers the research into student retention and academic success and makes a preliminary assessment that, to date, the PRS students are succeeding in the transition from secondary education to law school, and that the existing infrastructure is accommodating the needs of these students. The PRS is an alternative entry scheme that provides a model for consideration by other law schools, committed to widening access to legal education.     

Transformation of Macau policing: from a Portuguese colony to China’s SAR

This study examines policing in Macau and identifies major forces that have shaped its transformation over past decades. Prior to 1999, Macau was a Portuguese colony. Its criminal justice system inherited key features of the Continental system, including two independent law enforcement agencies: the Judiciary Police and the Public Security Police. In the colonial era, expatriate commanders drawn from the military or legal professions headed both departments, while the rank-and-file was composed mainly of local Chinese. This policing mechanism, together with the ‘laissez-faire’ policing philosophy adopted by colonial leaders, created segregation between policing agencies and the community. Citizens preferred minimal interaction with police, since they were skeptical about their professionalism, capability, and reliability. Macau became part of the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1999. The de-monopolization of the gaming industries in 2002 brought huge GDP growth, but generated internal social conflict. Growing public demand for accountable governance motivated a series of governmental reforms, some of which have extended to policing. These reforms have improved the transparency of policing, but it remains to be seen if they will ultimately succeed in generating public trust in the police forces.     

From Safety to Danger: Constructions of Crime in a Women’s Magazine

This study examines how the print media constructs signifiers of safety and danger for women. We analyze 155 news articles regarding crime and criminal justice from 1970 to 1990 in Chatelaine magazine, a Canadian women’s periodical. Both content and textual analyses are deployed to evaluate the media representations of crime and their role in facilitating images of fear and safety. We show that the meanings associated with women’s danger and safety in news narratives are socially constructed through claims, sources, content and culture. We find that news reporting did not initially incorporate signifiers of fear. However, crime messages increasingly included images of fear in the later reporting period. We argue that the transformations surrounding these images and texts are influenced by the rise in neoliberal thought in the 1980s. Our results indicate that ideological struggles external to the media are crucial to the representation of crime, which ultimately influence signifiers of danger and safety for women.     

Predestination and Hierarchy: Vallabh��c��rya��s Discourse on the Distinctions Between Blessed, Rule-Bound, Worldly, and Wayward Souls (the Pu??iprav��hamary��d��bheda)

The Pu??iprav??hamary??d??bheda (PPM) by Vallabh??c??rya (1479?C1531?) is a brief work (25 verses) written in Sanskrit in about the year 1500, which is accompanied by four Sanskrit commentaries and one Hindi (Brajbh????) commentary. The most important and authoritative commentary is by Puru?ottama, written about two centuries after the original text. The article contains a translation of the PPM with long extracts from the commentaries, particularly the one composed by Puru?ottama. After an introduction placing the PPM??s doctrine of the hierarchy of embodied souls (j??vas) and their eligibility to obtain states of devotion (bhakti) in a wider context of Vai??ava sectarian and philosophical schools, the text is presented along with the translation and notes to the text (including extracts from the commentaries). The article concludes with reflections on the PPM??s doctrine of predestination, comparing it with those of other Indian religious sects and within the wider context of predestination in Western religions, where these discussions have been ongoing for more than 1500 years. An extensive bibliography is included at the end.     

The call to citizens of Ghana to defend Ghana’s Fourth Republican Constitution: a death trap?

The 1992 Constitution of Ghana grants citizens the right and duty to employ any means to protect the Constitution. It also seeks to protect those who respond to the call to resist usurpers. However, in Ekwam v Pianim (No 2) the Supreme Court of Ghana ruled that a person who failed in his attempt to defend the Constitution against usurpers could not rely on the Constitution he unsuccessfully sought to defend for protection. The issue of the unsuccessful resister is an ‘unanswered question’ of the Constitution. This is a hard case and Dworkin’s adjudicative theory offers insights into resolving it.     

Formalizing China��s armed police: the 2009 PAP Law

While the People??s Armed Police (PAP) has existed in China for over 26 years, the force??s operations, powers and duties have never been formally stipulated. On August 27, 2009, the People??s Armed Police Law was passed by the National People??s Congress. The PAP Law, which contains seven chapters and 38 articles, covers the main areas of the tasks and responsibility, duties and power, safeguard measures, discipline and supervision, and legal responsibilities of the force. The implementation of the PAP Law represents a benchmark development in the history of the Chinese policing. It not only signals official recognition of the need to enhance the legitimacy of China??s social control apparatus, but also maps onto a larger developing trend of progressive legalization of Chinese order today. Although the law provides a legal basis for the existence and functions of a force that plays a critical role in China??s security and stability today, some issues about the boundaries of power and procedures of operation for the PAP remain unaddressed. To what extent that this law will improve the legitimacy and subsequently strengthen the performance of the PAP force is an open question.     

Nozick’s Reply to the Anarchist

Central to Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia is a defense of the legitimacy of the minimal state’s use of coercion against anarchist objections. Individuals acting within their natural rights can establish the state without committing wrongdoing against those who disagree. Nozick attempts to show that even with a natural executive right, individuals need not actually consent to incur political obligations. Nozick’s argument relies on an account of compensation to remedy the infringement of the non-consenters’ procedural rights. Compensation, however, cannot remedy the infringement, for either it is superfluous to Nozick’s account of procedural rights, or it is made to play a role inconsistent with Nozick’s liberal voluntarist commitments. Nevertheless, Nozick’s account of procedural rights contains clues for how to solve the problem. Since procedural rights are incompatible with a natural executive right, Nozickeans can argue that only the state can enforce individuals’ rights without wronging anyone, thus refuting the anarchist.     

Official incidents of inmate-on-inmate misconduct at a women’s prison: using importation and deprivation theories to compare perpetrators to victims

Importation and deprivation theories have long been used to explain prison misconduct and victimization among male inmates. However, the key variables from these theories have rarely been tested on female inmates. In addition, many of these existing studies use combined samples of males and females, while ignoring female-only samples of prisoners. Using data from official misconduct reports collected from 2007 to 2012 from a large women’s prison in Ohio, the current study sought to compare the characteristics of perpetrators of inmate-on-inmate misconduct to their victims. Findings reveal that variables from both importation (age, race, and current violent offender status) and deprivation (mental health status and prior violent disciplinary reports) theories were significant in predicting perpetrator vs. victim likelihood. Policy implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Moore��s Moral Facts and the Gap in the Retributive Theory

The purely retributive moral justification of punishment has a gap at its centre. It fails to explain why the offender should not be protected from punishment by the intuitively powerful moral idea that afflicting another person (other than to avoid a greater harm) is always wrong. Attempts to close the gap have taken several different forms, and only one is discussed in this paper. This is the attempt to push aside the ‘protecting’ intuition, using some more powerful intuition specially invoked by the situations to which criminal justice is addressed. In one aspect of his complex defence of pure retributivism, Michael S. Moore attempts to show that the emotions of well-adjusted persons provide evidence of moral facts which justify the affliction of culpable wrongdoers in retribution for their wrongdoing. In particular, he appeals to the evidential significance of emotions aroused by especially heinous crimes, including the punishment-seeking guilt of the offender who truly confronts the reality of his immoral act. The paper argues that Moore fails to vindicate this appeal to moral realism, and thus to show that intrinsic personal moral desert (as distinct from ‘desert’ in a more restricted sense, relative to morally justified institutions) is a necessary and sufficient basis for punishment. Other theories of the role of emotions in morality are as defensible as Moore’s, while the compelling emotions to which he appeals to clinch his argument can be convincingly situated within a non-retributivist framework, especially when the distinction between the intuitions of the lawless world, and those of the world of law, is recognised.     

The ASEAN-China Investment Agreement: A regionalization of China��s BITs

This paper analyzes the provisions of the Agreement on Investment of the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (the “ASEAN”), especially those on the scope of application, national treatment, Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment, expropriation, and investor-state dispute resolution. The paper then compares the new agreement with other international investment agreements concluded by China or ASEAN. In comparison with existing Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) between China and individual ASEAN member states, there are significant changes in the Investment Agreement which provides a higher standard of investment protection. Such an investment protection is common in the new generation of Chinese BITs, which were signed by China since 2000. However, unlike some other investment agreements in free trade arrangements, the Investment Agreement rarely touches upon the investment liberalization, although the Framework Agreement of ASEAN-China FTA provides for creating a liberal investment regime. This paper concludes that negotiating an investment agreement in China’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) is regarded as an opportunity to update its old BITs, but China is not yet prepared to undertake investment liberalization in its FTAs. The ASEAN-China Investment Agreement is, rather, an extension of China’s BITs at the regional level, which is a demonstration of China’s growing influence at this level.     

It’s a Man’s World,Try to Convince the Men Otherwise: The Role of Women in Irish Policing

Police organizations are historically and predominantly male organizations; as such, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of women in Irish policing. The literature review will analyze gender-specific organizational literature, focused on the United States. Theoretical components include biological determination and social constructivism in the policing context. The study is conducted through qualitative interviews and thematic analysis of 10 current and former Gardaí in Ireland. This study empirically contributes to how the organization views gender and how those differences are institutionalized in that Gardaí are treated differently based on their gender.