ON THE WAY TO THE EUROPEAN RESEARCH AREA： PROGRAMMES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AS FACTOR OF THE INNOVATION DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION IN UKRAINE

Within the framework of the FP7 project ＂START＂, the cooperation with European research centres has had a positive impact on raising the level of innovation researches and the introduction of innovations Institute for Superhard Materials of the National Academy of Sciences （ISM NAS） of Ukraine in the economy of Europe and Ukraine, which in turn permits to speed up the way for Ukrainian science to the European research area through the creation in Ukraine of the scientific organizations of innovative type.     

DOING HER OWN TIME? WOMEN'S RESPONSES TO PRISON IN THE CONTEXT OF THE OLD AND THE NEW PENOLOGY*

Assumptions about gender role socialization dominated explanations for gender differences in responses to incarceration. We suspend these gender comparisons, which produced the focus on homosexuality and kinship networks in women's prisons, to determine how women's pre‐prison experiences, in the context of two different institutions, influence the way they “do time.” We analyze in‐depth interviews with a diverse sample of 70 female inmates housed in the California Institution for Women (CIW)—the oldest prison for women in the state—and Valley State Prison (VSP)—the newest prison for women. These two institutions differ in structure, size, and management philosophy, and accordingly necessitate the consideration of moderating situational effects. We use qualitative analysis to examine how women do time and to determine whether individual variations in doing time are similar across very different institutions.     

ARE WE REALLY LOOKING OUT FOR THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD? APPLYING THE NEW ZEALAND MODEL OF FAMILY GROUP CONFERENCES TO CASES OF CHILD NEGLECT IN THE UNITED STATES

This Note advocates for state laws to be amended to implement family group conferencing (FGC) as the first step in cases of alleged child neglect. FGC was developed in New Zealand nearly twenty years ago and have since become a realistic method of balancing the best interests of the children, families, agencies, courts, and communities involved in the child welfare system. A FGC is a meeting among family members and professionals that is conducted in order to develop a plan for a child who is the victim of neglect. FGC places the family at the center of the welfare proceedings and empowers them to reach a solution without having to resort to the often lengthy and expensive adversarial court system. If FGC is incorporated into the child welfare systems throughout the United States, communication between the parents, social services, and the courts could increase, helping families adequately address the problem of neglect and getting the children out of the child welfare system quickly and more efficiently.     

THE POLICE INVESTIGATOR＇S AUTHORITY TO ISSUE PROVISION LETTER OF INVESTIGATION CANCELLATION： ITS URGENCY IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF INDONESIAN CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

According to integrated criminal justice system, Police is the gatekeeper of the Indonesian criminal justice system or the pioneer State＇s institution and agency in criminal law enforcement. Consequently, when public are disappointed with law enforcement, attention will firstly be directed to the police. Hence, according to the Direction of the Chief State＇s Police No. KEP/3 7/X/2008 concerning the Accelerated Program of the Indonesian Police Transformation towards independent, professional and accountable police, all levels of police structure are ordered to be able to change the paradigm of the police services as soon as possible. In addition to that, police investigators have published some letters of Investigation Cancellation Order （SP3） as it is a part of police＇ authority stipulated in the Code of Criminal Procedure （KUHAP） and the Law No. 2 Year 2002. However, there are still abundant of cases to solve. Consequently, there should be policy regulating the authority of investigators to issue Provision Letter of Investigation Cancellation （SKP2）. This modest article attempts to describe philosophical foundation of the urgency of police authority to issue SKP2 and the juridical implication covers the law enforcement effort, strenghthening the realization of duties and responsibility of the police investigators in settling cases and facilitating the effort to attain the goals of the law namely justice, usefulness, and legal certainty, as well as assisting to search and find the substantially truth by paying attention to the protection of human rights.     

THE RIGHT TO EMPLOYMENT SECURITY IN CHINESE LABOR LAW：LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Employment security is very often examined from a labor law rather than a human rights perspective. This article looks at the employment security in Chinese labor law from a human rights perspective. The right to employment security includes both negative and positive aspects: a negative right to protection against unfair dismissal, including dismissal for cause and economic redundancy, and a positive right to employment stability. Comparing Chinese labor law with international standards, this article focuses on analyzing important changes in the legislative developments in China in the past years, such as severance pay, labor contract with indefinite duration, and labor dispatching. This article also points out the main deficiencies, such as dismissal on the ground of criminal liabilities, weakness of trade unions and law enforcement, and no exemption of small employers. The article concludes with observing a tendency of Chinese law getting closer to international standards and pointing out the approach China should follow: to enhance employability through vocational training and providing better social security when strengthening the legislative protection of employment security.     

THE APPLICABILITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXCEPTIONS OF THE GATT TO CHINA’S WTO-PLUS OBLIGATIONS — WTO PANEL AND APPELLATE BODY RULINGS ON THE CHINESE EXPORT RESTRICTIONS OF RARE EARTHS,TUNGSTEN AND MOLYBDENUM

On March 26, 2014, a panel, established by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, circulated its final report regarding the China — Rare Earths case to WTO Members. This dispute concerns China’s export restrictions on rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum. In its report, the panel agreed with the findings of another dispute, the China — Raw Materials case. It concluded that the environmental exceptions under Article XX GATT 1994 cannot be applied to China’s actions. This conclusion is reconfirmed in the latest appellate body’s report of China — Rare Earths on August 7, 2014. Therefore, China was not able to justify the violation of their WTO-plus obligation to eliminate all export duties, contained in paragraph 11.3 of China’s Accession Protocol. As a consequence of the panel’s decision, it seems impossible for China to justify trade barriers with environmental interests and to invoke any exceptions. Such findings are subject to a fundamental controversy within the WTO multilateral trade system, trying to solve the tensions between environmental protection and trade liberalization. This essay examines the general applicability of environmental exceptions by analyzing the panel’s and appellate body’s approaches to the China — Rare Earths case and their findings, in connection with the purpose of sustainable development as prescribed by the preamble of the WTO Agreement. It has to be examined whether the non-application of the WTO environmental exceptions complies with Article 31 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and is consistent with the balance between the different values pursued by the WTO. This article argues that Article XX GATT 1994 should be applicable to China’s WTO-plus obligation specified in paragraph 11.3 of its Accession Protocol as far as environmental interests are concerned.     

THE PREDICTIVE VALUE OF CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS: DO AGE AND CRIMINAL HISTORY AFFECT TIME TO REDEMPTION?*

Criminal record checks are being used increasingly by decision makers to predict future unwanted behaviors. A central question these decision makers face is how much time it takes before offenders can be considered “redeemed” and resemble nonoffenders in terms of the probability of offending. Building on a small literature addressing this topic for youthful, first‐time offenders, the current article asks whether this period differs across the age of last conviction and the total number of prior convictions. Using long‐term longitudinal data on a Dutch conviction cohort, we find that young novice offenders are redeemed after approximately 10 years of remaining crime free. For older offenders, the redemption period is considerably shorter. Offenders with extensive criminal histories, however, either never resemble their nonconvicted counterparts or only do so after a crime‐free period of more than 20 years. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

HOW COLLECTIVE IS COLLECTIVE EFFICACY? THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSENSUS IN JUDGMENTS ABOUT COMMUNITY COHESION AND WILLINGNESS TO INTERVENE

Existing studies have generally measured collective efficacy by combining survey respondents’ ratings of their local area into an overall summary for each neighborhood. Naturally, this approach results in a substantive focus on the variation in average levels of collective efficacy between neighborhoods. In this article, we focus on the variation in consensus of collective efficacy judgments. To account for differential consensus among neighborhoods, we use a mixed‐effects location‐scale model, with variability in the consensus of judgments treated as an additional neighborhood‐level random effect. Our results show that neighborhoods in London differ, not just in their average levels of collective efficacy but also in the extent to which residents agree with one another in their assessments. In accord with findings for U.S. cities, our results show that consensus in collective efficacy assessments is affected by the ethnic composition of neighborhoods. Additionally, we show that heterogeneity in collective efficacy assessments is consequential, with higher levels of criminal victimization, worry about crime, and risk avoidance behavior in areas where collective efficacy consensus is low.     

RIGHT TO INFORMATION： AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY FROM BRITISH RAJ TO INDEPENDENT INDIA

Democracy is the axis of Indian polity. It requires openness and transparency in every sphere of country＇s governance. Right to Information is the core of openness and transparency. It is not only a lifeline but also an acid test for an alive and vibrant democracy. After a long battle against ＂secrecy-regime＂, Right to Information found legislative sanction in the year 2005. But, the task is not over; because it is not easy to sensitize people in power to do away with the century old colonial legacy of ＂secrecy-regime＂, which helped them to play safely, just by enacting a single piece of legislation. Both political parties and bureaucracy are not accepting the norms set by the Act whole heartedly due to this reason. They often gang up to scrap the Act as well as the decisions of the competent authorities. Massive effort is, therefore, required from every quarter of the society including all democratic institutions to adopt the policy of openness and transparency by putting themselves within the compass of the Act. Only then we would be nearer to the goal of Gandhian concept of ＂Swaraj＂ and     

AGE AND ITS RELATION TO CRIME IN TAIWAN AND THE UNITED STATES: INVARIANT,OR DOES CULTURAL CONTEXT MATTER?*

Current empirical and theoretical understanding of the relation between age and crime is based almost entirely on data from the United States and a few prototypical Western societies for which age‐specific crime information across offense types is available. By using Western databases, Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983) projected that the age distribution of crime is always and everywhere robustly right‐skewed (i.e., sharp adolescent peak)—a thesis that is both contested and widely accepted in criminology and social science writings. In the study described here, we tested this age–crime invariance thesis by comparing age–crime patterns in Taiwan (a non‐Western Chinese society) with those in the United States. In light of Taiwan's collectivist culture versus the U.S. individualist gestalt, we anticipated more divergence than homogeneity in their age–crime schedules. Our findings show robust divergence in Taiwan's age–crime patterns compared with U.S. patterns and the reverted J‐shaped norm projected by Hirschi and Gottfredson. Implications for research and theory on the age–crime relation and for studying human development or life‐course topics more broadly are discussed.     

THE LEGACY OF HARVARD PROFESSOR RONALD DWORKIN FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT： WHY AND HOW HE CHALLENGED PHILOSOPHERS OF LAW,SUPREME COURT JUSTICES,AND POLITICIANS TO TAKE RIGHTS SERIOUSLY

The weaker members of a political community are entitled to the same concern and respect of their government as the more powerful members have secured for themselves.     

LAW SCHOOLS AS DEPOSITARIES OF THE IDEA OF HUMAN RIGHTS -- FROM TOTALITARIANISM TO YOUNG DEMOCRACY （AS EXEMPLIFIED BY POLAND）

The role, which the higher training institutes （universities） played under the totalitarian communist regime, maintaining and developing the idea of human rights, can hardly be overestimated. In non-democratic political .systems, the human rights——understood as certain fundamental and inalienable rights each human being is vested in---have always been regarded as a threat to the existing legal and social order. It is for that very reason that the promotion of human rights under the totalitarian systems is either forbidden or greatly limited.     

DOES THE TIME CAUSE THE CRIME? AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TIME SERVED AND REOFFENDING IN THE NETHERLANDS*

This work uses a sample of Dutch offenders, serving an average of 6.7 months of confinement, to examine the relationship between time served in prison and future criminality. To overcome the selection issues inherent in this examination, this article introduces a new method to the criminological literature that relies on a generalization of the propensity score to control for observed differences in offenders sentenced to different periods of confinement. On the whole, very little evidence of a relationship between time served and future offending was found. In particular, 3‐year reconviction rate and the proportion of offenders reconvicted in the next 3 years do not seem to depend on incarceration length. Although a relationship between time served and future sentence length was found, the evidence is modest.     

REHABILITATION OF DRUNK DRIVERS AND THE SMADIT PROJECT： COLLABORATION AMONG THE POLICE FORCE,THE ROAD ADMINISTRATION AND THE SOCIAL SERVICES

The aim of the SMADITt project is not only to reduce the number of drunk drivers on the Swedish roads but also to reduce the number of repeated drunk driving offences. The SMADIT project is a three-way collaboration between the Swedish Police Force, the Swedish Road Administration and the Swedish Social Services. According to the guidelines the police should inform the suspected drunk drivers about SMADIT and ask if they want to be contacted by the Social Services. If they agree to take part in the project, then a member of staff from the Social Services will contact them within 24 hours. The purpose of this paper is to present the results from a qualitative study evaluating the effects of SMADIT. Thirteen male drivers and one female driver who agreed to take part in the SMADIT project were interviewed. The questions covered their experience of SMADIT, why they agreed to participate, what kind of help they received but also their attitudes towards drinking and driving in general and the event leading up to the conviction. The results showed that the initial contact with the police determined if they would agree to participate in the project or not. Both written and verbal information were essential An important aim with SMADIT project is the early contact with the Social Service. However, the results from this study showed that several informants needed time for reflection and to recover from the shock after being stopped by the police on suspicion of drunk driving. However, according to informants, it was important that not too many days passed before a contact was established. During the meeting with the Social Service, the informants were then offered different kinds of treatment. All of the informants were very pleased with this contact. According to the guidelines provided by the SMADIT project a consensus has to be reached, otherwise the Social Services cannot contact the person. In this study, we found that a person straight after the event does not always think clearly and therefore we propose that the SM