Remotely sensed: a topography of the global sex trade

Voluntarily or not, women are moved in great numbers from Manila to Nigeria, from Burma to Thailand, and from post-socialist countries to Western Europe: female geobodies in the flow of global capitalism. The recently released 53-minute video essay Remote Sensing by the Swiss artist and video director Ursula Biemann traces the routes and reasons of women who migrate into the global sex industry. Taking a geographical approach to trafficking, the video develops a particular visual language generated by new media and satellite technologies, which traces the migration of women in the age of digital images.All stills are taken from the video that was shot in the Philippines, Thailand, California, and the German–Czech border.     

STR analysis of artificially degraded DNA-results of a collaborative European exercise

Degradation of human DNA extracted from forensic stains is, in most cases, the result of a natural process due to the exposure of the stain samples to the environment. Experiences with degraded DNA from casework samples show that every sample may exhibit different properties in this respect, and that it is difficult to systematically assess the performance of routinely used typing systems for the analysis of degraded DNA samples. Using a batch of artificially degraded DNA with an average fragment size of approx. 200 bp a collaborative exercise was carried out among 38 forensic laboratories from 17 European countries. The results were assessed according to correct allele detection, peak height and balance as well as the occurrence of artefacts. A number of common problems were identified based on these results such as strong peak imbalance in heterozygous genotypes for the larger short tandem repeat (STR) fragments after increased PCR cycle numbers, artefact signals and allelic drop-out. Based on the observations, strategies are discussed to overcome these problems. The strategies include careful balancing of the amount of template DNA and the PCR cycle numbers, the reaction volume and the amount of Taq polymerase. Furthermore, a careful evaluation of the results of the fragment analysis and of automated allele calling is necessary to identify the correct alleles and avoid artefacts.     

A. Reviews and notes of recent bibliographies

i. Middle East and Islam: A Bibliographical Introduction (Bibliotheca Asiatica 15). Edited by Diana Grimwood‐Jones, for the Middle East Libraries Committee [MELCOM]. Revised and enlarged edition. Zug, Inter Documentation Company, 1979. pp. ix, 429.

ii. Middle East Studies and Libraries. A Felicitation Volume for Professor J.D. Pearson. Edited by B.C. Bloomfield. London, Mansell, 1980. pp. xi, 231.

iii. Cultures of the Islamic Near East: A Guide to Introductory Readings for the Non‐Specialist. By John W. Bagnole. Washington, D.C., America‐Mideast Educational & Training Services, Inc. (Occasional Paper, No. 4), 1978. pp. ii, 79. $4.00

iv. The Modern Arab Woman: A Bibliography. By Michelle Raccagni. Metuchen, N.J. & London, The Scarecrow Press, 1978, pp. x, 282.     

Psychiatrists,criminals, and the law: Forensic psychiatry in Switzerland 1850–1950

Between 1880 and 1950, Swiss psychiatrists established themselves as experts in criminal courts. In this period, the judicial authorities required psychiatric testimonies in a rising number of cases. As a result, more offenders than ever before were declared mentally deficient and, eventually, sent to psychiatric asylums. Psychiatrists also enhanced their authority as experts at the political level. From the very beginning, they got involved in the preparatory works for a nationwide criminal code. In this article, I argue that these trends toward medicalization of crime were due to incremental processes, rather than spectacular institutional changes. In fact, Swiss psychiatrists gained recognition as experts due to their daily interactions with judges, public prosecutors, and legal counsels. At the same time, the spread of medical expertise had serious repercussions on psychiatric institutions. From 1942 onwards, asylums had to deal with a growing number of “criminal psychopaths,” which affected ward discipline and put psychiatry's therapeutic efficiency into question. The defensive way in which Swiss psychiatrists reacted to this predicament was crucial to the further development of forensic psychiatry. For the most part, it accounts for the subdiscipline's remarkable lack of specialization until the 1990s.     

Prozessabsprachen als Wiederaufnahmegrund / Zur Hemmung des Strafvollzugs bei Erneuerung des Strafverfahrens

Verfahrensbeendende Prozessabsprachen widerstreiten dem Gebot der materiellen Wahrheitsfindung und sind daher unzul?ssig. Unterl?sst ein Richter die nach der Sachlage gebotene Beweisaufnahme pflichtwidrig, um eine solche Absprache zu realisieren, kommt Strafbarkeit wegen des Verbrechens des Missbrauchs der Amtsgewalt nach § 302 Abs 1 StGB in Betracht. Ausgeschlossenheit gem § 43 Abs 1 Z 3 StPO liegt nicht schon dann vor, wenn sich ein Richter vor der Entscheidung eine Meinung über den Fall gebildet hat, sondern nur, wenn die Annahme begründet erscheint, dass er auch angesichts allf?lliger gegenteiliger Verfahrensergebnisse nicht gewillt sei, von dieser abzugehen. Mit Blick auf die Kompetenznorm des § 362 Abs 5 StPO, wonach dann, wenn es dem OGH zukommt, ein Urteil aufzuheben, diesem die Entscheidung über die Hemmung des Strafvollzugs zusteht, kann zwar seine Befugnis zu einer solchen Entscheidung auch im Fall eines auf § 363a StPO gestützten Antrags aus dem Gesetz abgeleitet werden, nicht aber ein darauf gerichtetes Antragsrecht nach § 357 Abs 3 StPO.     

Administrators and professionals in local government

This article evaluates the shift to an executive and scrutiny model in local government by assessing the changes at Devon County Council. Interviews were used to evaluate support for the changes and identify the key issues and problems. Most members had little enthusiasm for the reforms, support for the changes was dependent on the loyalty of Liberal Democrat backbenchers towards the leadership and central government's legislative agenda. The analysis revealed substantial problems with the operation of the reformed structure and suggested that the changes might fail to deliver the benefits expected by central government.