THE FUNNY SIDE OF DRUG DEALING: RISK,HUMOR, AND NARRATIVE IDENTITY

In this study, we explore the role humor plays in the narrated identities of drug dealers, in their negotiation of the threat of formal punishment, and in their cultural membership and authority. By drawing from interview and observation data gathered from 33 active drug dealers residing in St. Louis, Missouri, we find that humor facilitates identity work among illicit drug dealers in several ways. Humor is an important symbolic boundary marker distinguishing dealers from others they consider “stupid” or less circumspect. It also indicates dealers’ identities as “smart” and simultaneously establishes and validates their subcultural authority and membership in the symbolic group of “smart” dealers. Furthermore, drug dealers use denigrating humor in their narratives to distance their former and virtual identities from their present identities. Finally, humor also reduces dealers’ perceptions of the threats posed by police and potential snitches by casting dealers’ present identities and former reactions to the threat of punishment in a positive light. We conclude by discussing implications for narrative criminology, extant humor research, and current understanding of symbolic boundaries, identity work, and deterrence.     

Violent men’s paths to batterer intervention programmes: masculinity,turning points and narrative selves

Drawing on interviews with voluntary participants in intervention programmes for perpetrators of intimate partner violence in Sweden, the present article analyses violent men’s turning-point stories, that is, their narratives of deciding to start and starting treatment. Three types of turning-point stories are identified: narratives that describe men recognizing their violence either before or during treatment, and narratives of returning to treatment. Through these stories, the men not only present reasons for joining therapy, but also produce gendered narrative selves. In particular they present themselves as morally ‘good’ and self-conscious men by simultaneously acknowledging their abusive behaviour and distancing themselves from being violent men.     

Narratives of criminal action and forensic psychology

Purpose. In commenting on Youngs and Canter's (2011) study, Ward (2011) raises concerns about offenders’ personal narratives and their link to self‐concepts and identity. His comments relate to explorations of personal life stories rather than the narratives of actual crimes that are the focus of Youngs and Canter's (2011) study. The elaboration of this different focus helps to allay many of Ward's (2011) concerns and reveals further possibilities for developing the narrative approach within forensic psychology. Methods. The focus on offenders’ accounts of a particular crime allows the development of a standard pro forma, the Narrative Role Questionnaire (NRQ), which deals with the roles a person thinks they played when committing a crime. These roles act as a summary of the criminal's offence narrative. Multivariate analysis of the NRQ clarifies the specific narrative themes explored by Youngs and Canter (2011) . Results. The examination of the components of the NRQ indicates that offence narratives encapsulate many psychological processes including thinking styles, self‐concepts, and affective components. This allows the four narrative themes identified by Youngs and Canter to provide the basis for rich hypotheses about the interaction between the dynamics of personal stories and identity. The four narratives of criminal action also offer a foundation for understanding the particular, detailed styles of offending action and the immediate, direct processes that act to instigate and shape these. Conclusion. These developments in our understanding of offence narratives generate fruitful research questions that bridge the concerns of investigative and correctional applications of narrative theory.     

Summonsing Criminal Desistance: Convicted Felons’ Perspectives on Jury Service

This exploratory study is the first to examine how convicted felons view the jury process and their role in that process. Data derived from interviews with former and prospective felon‐jurors in Maine, the only US jurisdiction that does not restrict a convicted felon's opportunity to serve as a juror, reveal that participants displayed an idealized view of jury service, stressing a commitment to serve conscientiously. Additionally, inclusion in the jury process affirmed their transitions from “offenders” to “nonoffenders.” In response, participants exhibited a sense of particularized self‐worth, emphasizing that negative experiences with the criminal justice system make one a more effective juror. In sum, this study suggests that among convicted felons, inclusion in the jury process may prompt conformity with the “ideal juror” role, facilitate prosocial identity shifts by mitigating the “felon” label, and help former offenders to find personal value.     

Boundary Work: Transcendence and Authoriality in Religious and Secular Law

The semiotic investigation of the divine or transcendent authoriality of religious law involves, in the context of discussions concerning the propriety or impropriety of the influence of religion in “secular” political and legal systems, preliminary boundary work to discern the meanings of “religion”, “secular”, and “belief.” Jeremy Waldron’s account of the propriety of religion in “secular” politics, mirroring but reversing John Rawls’ account of religion’s impropriety in that context, can be contrasted with neo-Calvinist (and other) conceptions of pluralism and the inevitability of fundamental “beliefs” in all political and legal thought. In the latter perspectives, religious believers are neither unique in their appeal to transcendent values, nor relegated to advancing theocracy (because pluralism is conceived as a religious value rather than religion’s opposite). A workable alternative to the conventional discourse of religious influence in politics and law is therefore evident.     

Shedder status: Exploring means of determination

“Shedder status” or “shedder type” are commonly used terms that categorise an individual based on their ability to deposit “touch” DNA via direct contact with a surface. However, it is not yet clear how best to categorise an individual into a shedder class, or how to allocate a shedder score on a sliding scale. This study considers categorisation of participants into discrete shedder categories based on DNA quantity and profile quality data, the maintenance of their shedder status over an extended period, and explores whether different methods of deposition or collection directly from hands or other body areas are interchangeable and/or more appropriate means of determining an individual’s shedder status.The shedder categorisation of participants was possible from their handprints and remained unchanged over three years. Washing hands had limited impact and shedder categorisation was not readily possible from samples collected directly from hands, other body areas or gloves after wearing gloves for a set duration. Use of consecutive deposits may assist in establishing a participant’s shedder status. As shedder categorisation may be of relevance during activity level assessments further efforts towards the ability to do so are necessary.     

Peacemaking Criminology

This is an overview of the work of criminologists that informs how people build trust, safe and social security in the face of violent social differences. The article begins with a story of how the term “peacemaking” came to “criminology.” A theory of peacemaking emerging from this beginning is then stated, including a review of criminological literature that informs the theory. The theory is grounded in a paradigmatic departure from criminology’s tradition—the study of crime and criminality—to proposing instead of studying what replaces human separation with cooperation and mutual trust. This paradigm implies that stories of dispute handling are its most authoritative data, especially stories people tell about their own relations. It also implies new ways of evaluating the fruits of adopting a peacemaking paradigm for learning and living.     

The Human Side of COVID‐19

The COVID‐19 pandemic has had, and continues to have, a broad, deep, and pervasive impact on our lives, our work, and how our justice system functions. While it is easy to contemplate the “system” as a massive behemoth that is impervious, impersonal, and impenetrable, the truth is that the “system” is made up of people. The men and women whose work is the building blocks of the justice system are individuals, each with their own narrative, experience, perspective, and role in the administration of justice. To understand the system and the impact of COVID‐19, it is essential to understand the stories of those who work in the system. This article presents the individual and human stories of four professionals whose professional lives are a part of the justice system. Each of these professionals tells their personal story of COVID‐19 and reflects on how the pandemic affected them and their approach to the work that they do.     

公职人员双轨惩戒制度的宪法基础

政务处分法设置双轨惩戒制度有其宪法上的依据。我国宪法为公职人员设置了两种责任制。在功能上,权力责任制强调公职人员应当受人民监督;工作责任制则强调提高工作质量和工作效率。在理念上,权力责任制体现了“为人民服务”的政治要求;工作责任制则意在“反对官僚主义”。由工作责任制发展出的“社会主义责任制”,还进一步确认了相应组织具有宪法赋予的自主管理权。以上述区分为指引,可以合理划分处分决定机关的管理权限。政务处分虽可用于落实工作责任制,却主要是落实权力责任制的工具;任免机关、单位的狭义“处分”则主要是落实工作责任制的工具。监察机关依法不能代替机关、单位直接作出狭义“处分”。狭义“处分”程序可由公职人员任免机关、单位的组织(人事)部门推动。     

Religion and the Practices of Popular Constitutionalism: Sarah Gordon's The Spirit of the Law

Sarah Gordon's The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America (2010) details the advent, beginning in the 1940s, of a “new constitutional world” pertaining to the religion clauses. By focusing on case studies, Gordon's narrative history shows the emergence, maturation, and waning of a rich historical moment in which religiously motivated popular constitutionalists had a profound impact on how the Constitution was technically interpreted by the courts. Shifting perspectives from history to ethnography, the essay synthesizes Gordon's stories to yield an anatomy of “religious” popular constitutionalism as it appears in Gordon's book and conjectures at what it might look like if we left court records behind.     

Lovely Beasts,Bestial Lovers: Animals,Righteous Men and the Semiotics of Musical Mirrors

In Aesop’s narrative world, metaphorical representations were apparently used to point out human flaws by attributing those to beasts, while anthropomorphic animals were actually able to disclose how bestial mankind is. In mediaeval bestiaries the same animal may carry multiple meanings, depending on what particular aspect of it is being highlighted and on its relationship with the other animals appearing in the same context. Even music forces to a continuous re-structuring of sounds in configurations which change depending on context, and which determine the conditions for a process of meaning-making based on both internal and external systems of relations. Thus, there seems to be a perfect analogy between the language of the bestiaries and that of music, and a commonality in how both bestiaries and music bestow on Nature its role as locus of truth. But how does musical rhetoric intervene in the effective construction of similarities, of metaphors and allegories that condense or articulate a narrative transformation through the organised conjunction of different animal figures? Throughout an analytic journey from mediaeval Italian musical bestiaries to erotic madrigals, from the intriguing fashion of musical “portraits” to the French late baroque representation of savages, this essay investigates the semiotic device of music as an ironic reversing mirror, which points out alterity and reveals the true bestial nature of mankind.     

Story interface and strategic design for new law curricula

This article argues for the essential value of stories and strategic thinking in crafting new law curricula – the re-imagination of which is compelled by the rise of information technology and the virtual age. In canvassing the stuff of curriculum, it argues for the restoration of the notion of law as a community of discourse, rather than as a body of rules and content. It highlights the Ramist influence giving rise to the conventional notion of curriculum and its emergence in concert with printing press technology. This influence, in turn, spawned the centrality of the textbook to university education. A new notion of curriculum is proposed as something emerging in concert with cyberspace, framing a journey of personal transformation, a process of initiation or a rite of passage. Strategic design is then identified as the kind of thinking necessary for crafting new law curricula, with observations about some of the central opportunities and constraints presented by the virtual age. Finally, the notion of “story interface” is proposed, drawing upon Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and hero’s journey for supporting students through their initiation into the discipline. Such initiation clothes students with a new identity and a developed capability for serving not only the community of legal discourse, but the stabilising core of democratic society at large.     

Narratives on World War II in Poland

Memories of the World War II in life stories about its events and experiences are part of every Polish family history. The analysis of life stories of wartime helps to discover the meaning of past events and experiences to individuals, as well as to whole social strata. The role of family affiliations in Polish narratives about the war is briefly discussed, and chosen details of historical background are characterized in one case, using the biographical narrative interview. Two sisters, when telling their own biographies, present the history of their family. Their reasons for concentrating on the collective aspect of their war experiences are explained, and significant social and historical processes exemplified in their story are described. The sisters' family history represents a part of tradition that has been forgotten in postwar Polish society. Pauperization of the landowner stratum prevented the process of transmitting this part of cultural heritage to forthcoming generations. Communist authorities welcomed this process of forgetting, whereas the important aspect of Polish cultural and social heritage based on the lifestyle of the countryside estates was emasculated.     

Narratives on World War II in Poland: When a life story is family history

Memories of the World War II in life stories about its events and experiences are part of every Polish family history. The analysis of life stories of wartime helps to discover the meaning of past events and experiences to individuals, as well as to whole social strata. The role of family affiliations in Polish narratives about the war is briefly discussed, and chosen details of historical background are characterized in one case, using the biographical narrative interview. Two sisters, when telling their own biographies, present the history of their family. Their reasons for concentrating on the collective aspect of their war experiences are explained, and significant social and historical processes exemplified in their story are described. The sisters' family history represents a part of tradition that has been forgotten in postwar Polish society. Pauperization of the landowner stratum prevented the process of transmitting this part of cultural heritage to forthcoming generations. Communist authorities welcomed this process of forgetting, whereas the important aspect of Polish cultural and social heritage based on the lifestyle of the countryside estates was emasculated.     

Pressing for Sentence? An Examination of the New Zealand Crown Prosecutor’s Role in Sentencing

Prosecutors are among the most powerful actors in any criminal justice system. Their exercise of discretion, however, has not been subjected to the same level of public and empirical scrutiny as other parts of the criminal justice system. To deepen understanding, I empirically explore for the first time the form, function and limits of the New Zealand Crown Prosecutor’s role at the sentencing stage of the criminal justice process. Semi-structured interviews of a non-representative sample of ten Crown Prosecutors are analysed using Hawkins’ framework of “surround”, “field” and “frame”. Findings suggest that whilst New Zealand’s regime shares history, principles, and structural features with English and Australian regimes, it goes further to permit Crown Prosecutors a more assertive role in sentencing. In the ‘surround’, populist and managerial pressures create frustration, strain, and concern. Changes to funding models suggest the potential for unjust sentencing outcomes has increased. The “surround” also intrudes upon and transforms decision-making “frames”. The opinions and presence of stakeholders influences decisions and practices at office and individual levels. Justice may be reactive, forward-looking, or negotiated depending on the particular mix of individuals involved – something accentuated by the regime’s privatised and decentralised form. Findings also suggest that Crown Prosecutors “frame” their role in occupational terms. The lack of interest of universities, professional bodies, and law and policy-makers in offering or requiring prosecutorial training before entry to the role is influential. This renders decision-making more susceptible to pressures in the “surround” and “field”, and increases variation in decision-making “frames”.     

Criminalizing Big Tobacco: Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Responsibility for Health Risks in the United States

This article reinterprets the discursive terms and cultural meanings that redefined the legal campaign against Big Tobacco during recent decades. We underline the palpable shift from a conventional tort‐based logic of products liability claims, which most analysts emphasize, to a logic incorporating key features identified with criminal law or “crimtorts.” The study builds on legal mobilization theory and combines narrative history of events with systematic analysis of media coverage across a twenty‐year period to demonstrate how Big Tobacco was criminalized over two decades.     

古代法制的生成及其演进逻辑——以事制为中心

中国古代法制在其发展过程中,实际上形成了事制与刑制并驾齐驱的两面:一方面是通过"议事以制"——"制事典"——"令以存事制",编成令典;一方面是历经"不为刑辟"——"正法罪"——"律以正罪名",编成律典。它们是中国古代法的两个重要组成部分。人定规则的生成、成文法的出现、法典编制成功及"诸法合体"格局的突破,是中国古代法生成发展的三个关键节点。而从先秦的"制事典",到中古的"益事律"、"存事制","议事以制"的传统一脉相承,演绎了中国古代法源远流长的另一面。     

Beyond the Ghetto: Police Power,Methamphetamine and the Rural War on Drugs

Viewing police as important cultural producers, we ask how police power fashions structures of feeling and social imaginaries of the “war on drugs” in small towns of the rural Midwest. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and a collection of interviews focusing on police officers’ beliefs about the causes of crime and drug use, we locate a narrative of rural decline attributed to the producers and users of methamphetamine. We argue this narrative supports punitive and authoritarian sensibilities and broader narcopolitical projects more generally and ignores long-standing social inequalities observed in rural communities. As such, the cultural work of rural police provides important insight to the shape and direction of late-modern crime control beyond the familiar terrains of the city and its “ghetto.”     

SILENT CHANGES: TRANSSEXUALS’ RIGHT TO MARRY IN CHINA’S MAINLAND AND HONG KONG

In comparison to the arduous process of rights advocacy in Hong Kong, transsexuals in China’s mainland achieved their right to marry via some “silent changes”: there was no legal activism from transsexual communities, no debates or hearings in the legislature, and no landmark judgments made by the judiciary. From a perspective of comparative law, this article attempts to analyze the legal changes regarding transsexuals’ right to marry in China’s mainland in light of the struggles in Hong Kong. It endeavors to discuss to what extent the seemingly “smooth” and “unintended” way of opening up marriage to transsexuals in China’s mainland could be beneficial to trans rights and equality in general.