Assessing the Impact of Knowledge and Location on College Students’ Perceptions of Gun Control and Campus Carry Policies: a Multisite Comparison

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Recent incidents of mass shootings in schools have raised questions about the availability of “military-style” firearms and need for campus carry...     

The Role of Denial in the ‘Theft of Nature’: Comparing Biopiracy and Climate Change

Since its inception, green criminology has highlighted, examined and analysed environmental degradation and destruction. The ‘theft of nature’ is both an example and a driver of illegal and ‘lawful but awful’ acts and omissions that degrade the environment. Even though this theft is widespread and sometimes well known, it persists because powerful actors put forward an influential narrative of denial that obstructs interventions. This paper explores the role of denial in two thefts of nature—biopiracy and climate change—and compares and contrasts the manifestations of denial that contribute to their continuation. We consider the ‘appeal to higher loyalties’ (economic interests over environmental concerns), and discuss the implications if such denial goes unchallenged and remains the central narrative.     

A commentary on the principle of the child’s best interests —the weakness and improvement of marriage and family law

International documents like the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) propose that in mediating on children issues, the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration. In China, the Constitution and the Law on the Protection of Minors have already set out the terms in principle for the protection of minors, however, it has not been defined in the Marriage Law (2001). In order to enforce the commitment of respecting and safeguarding human rights, the child’s best interest principle should be established in marriage and family law, along with amending related provisions.     

Children’s Reports of Disclosure Recipient Reactions in Forensic Interviews: Comparing the NICHD and MoGP Protocols

Reactions from confidantes who receive children’s abuse disclosures can affect children’s well-being and the likelihood that they will recant. Disclosure recipient (DR) reactions were coded in 95 forensic interviews of 4- to 13-year-old alleged sexual abuse victims. Half of the interviews were conducted using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (which includes a disclosure phase focused on the child’s initial abuse report) and the other half using the Memorandum of Good Practice (MoGP), a predecessor of the Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) guidelines used in the UK today (which recommends asking about children’s initial disclosures but has no designated disclosure phase). Children reported a variety of DR reactions, including supportive and unsupportive responses, and noted that many DRs questioned them about the allegations. NICHD interviews contained more references to DR reactions than MoGP interviews. NICHD interviews elicited more DR reaction information using invitations rather than more focused prompts and by asking children explicitly about their disclosures rather than relying on children to provide the information spontaneously. Findings indicated that children may be willing and able to provide disclosure information but may require prompting.     

A Comparison of Chinese and US College Students’ Crime and Crime Control Views

While there is a growing trend to look at criminal justice issues from an international perspective, there has been little literature examining differences in views of crime, criminals, punishment, and treatment between the citizens of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America. Using data from 524 students at a large university in China and 484 students from a large public university in the USA this study found that, while US respondents were more likely to agree that crime was high in their country, Chinese respondents were more likely to feel that crime was the most serious social problem facing their society. Chinese respondents were more supportive of the death penalty for serious crimes but also were more supportive of rehabilitation of offenders in general. In addition, the study found similarities between students from the two countries in their views. The reasons behind the differences and similarities were explored.

Does the Controversy Matter? Comparing the Causal Determinants of the Adoption of Controversial and Noncontroversial Rape Law Reforms

Do the causal determinants of legal change differ for controversial and noncontroversial laws? Using rape law reforms as an example of legal change, I answer this question via a longitudinal examination of the intrastate characteristics and interstate processes that affect the adoption of both controversial and noncontroversial rape law reforms. The results show that the adoption of partial reforms significantly decreases a state's likelihood of passing a stronger version of the reform only for controversial rape law reforms. Other factors, such as women's economic power and the interstate process of diffusion similarly affect both controversial and noncontroversial reforms. Thus, contrary to the idea that the process of diffusion operates differently for controversial reforms, the results indicate that spatial proximity negatively affects the adoption of both controversial and noncontroversial rape law reforms. These findings have important implications for theoretical explanations of legal change, research on rape law reforms, and social movement research and activism.     

Constitutive Criminology and the ‘War on Terror’

This article presents a constitutive criminological perspective of the ‘war on terror’. The article will first deconstruct the ‘war on terror’; showing how constitutive criminology provides a framework in which foreign policy, the UK state; the police, and society can be systematically analyzed in relation to one another. Second, the article explores how constitutive criminology enables a critical analysis of the dominant state-centric ‘war on terror’ discourse. The article through discussing the multifaceted ‘war on terror’ demonstrates the relevance of constitutive criminology, as a non state centric approach to critical perspectives in criminology.     

Changing the immigration rules and withdrawing the ‘currency’ of legal aid: the impact of LASPO 2012 on migrants and their families

The provisions of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO 2012) will remove almost all immigration cases from the scope of legal aid with effect from 1 April 2013. Part One of this paper describes the expected changes LASPO 2012 will make and then explores their anticipated impact. It explains that large numbers of migrants and their family members are likely to be without legal advice and representation after April 2013, including in cases where the state-enforced removal or deportation from the UK of a parent is contemplated, with the consequence of separating parent from child. Part Two explores the possibility that an ‘exceptional case determination’ might provide a route back into legal aid funding, and finds that this is likely to be restricted, in immigration cases, to those making applications relying on Article 8 ECHR and who can demonstrate a particular and individual requirement for legal aid. Part Three explores the rationale for these changes, and concerns about access to justice for migrants and their family members in cases involving acute interference with rights to family and private life. It places these concerns in context, specifically the fundamental and restrictive amendments to the Immigration Rules relating to family migration introduced from July 2012. These amendments are enormously complex and their full legal implications have yet to be tested in the higher courts. Part Four questions whether the changes will in fact achieve their stated aim of cost savings or whether the costs will simply be transferred to other parts of the State (especially to the Tribunal system, in dealing with litigants in person). The paper additionally questions, in Part Five, whether the regulators are equipped to regulate the quality of the fee-charging immigration advice services to which at least some individuals will turn. The paper concludes that, at the very least, it is particularly harsh that the Government has removed the ‘currency’ of legal aid at this time, so that those with limited financial resources have neither access to legal aid advice about the meaning of those Rules nor legal aid representation to test their proper interpretation.     

The Paradigm of the War on Crime: Legitimating Inhuman Treatment?

Since 11 September 2001, a new paradigm has developed in criminallaw. Parallel to the idea of the ‘war on terror’,a paradigm based around ‘war on crime’ has emerged.Inevitably, however, a paradigm of war leads to abandoning scientificapproaches based on a legal-moral vision (crime, guilt and punishment)in favour of a merely pragmatic vision, which associates nationalsecurity with social defence. Based on an unclear concept ofdangerousness, presumed by simple membership in a group labelled‘enemy’, the goal is to neutralize, or even eliminate,the criminal/deviant. When combined with a denial of internationalprotections, deconstructing national criminal law thus runsthe risk of pushing a black hole through the rule of law. Manyhave criticized such a paradigm; however, the author pointsout that the paradigm of the war on crime (and more generallythe war on terror), provided that it respects internationallaw, can be useful, because it shows the need to overcome thebinary opposition between war and peace, as well as betweenwar crimes and ordinary crimes. Nonetheless, it must be clearthat this paradigm can only be one of transition. To overcomethe war–peace dichotomy in a global community and to reconstructthe relationship between terrorism and torture, neither a ‘warcrimes’ nor a ‘war on crime’ paradigm is trulysufficient. Only through the amplification of a paradigm of‘crime against humanity’ (itself unstable and evolvingbut free from the war metaphor) can we reconstruct humanityas a value and make it the cornerstone of any legal system.     

Legal and LSP Linguistics and Translation: Asian Languages’ Perspectives

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - This essay opens the Special Issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law...     

Command-level Police Officers’ Perceptions of the “War on Cops” and De-policing

Policing has been the subject of intense public scrutiny for the better part of two years after several high-profile police killings of unarmed African Americans across the United States. The scrutiny has been so extreme that some contend there is currently a “war on cops”—whereby citizens are emboldened by protests and negative media coverage of the police, and are lashing out by assaulting police officers more frequently. In response, it is argued that officers are de-policing (i.e. avoiding proactive stops). We surveyed command-level police officers from a southeastern state about their attitudes concerning the war on cops and de-policing. The majority of our sample believed there has been a war on cops over the last two years. Moreover, officers who felt strongly about the existence of a war on cops were more likely to believe that de-policing is common among officers in today’s world of law enforcement.     

Diffusion of the Budapest Convention on cybercrime and the development of cybercrime legislation in Pacific Island countries: ‘Law on the books’ vs ‘law in action’

The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime,¹ referred to as the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, has been diffused globally, and is serving as a benchmark or a ‘model law’ for drafting national cybercrime legislation in many countries worldwide. This paper argues that, through the mechanism of ‘state socialization’ combined with incentives, e.g. assistance in building law enforcement capacity, the diffusion of the Budapest Convention has had a profound influence on the development of cybercrime legislation in a number of Pacific Island Countries (PICs).² Some PICs have expressed their great interest in acceding to the Convention and ‘imported’ several provisions from the Convention. This article, nevertheless, contends that these PICs do not seem to consider carefully whether the ‘imported’ law is applicable to their existing law enforcement capacity. It is evident that various domestic factors, such as lack of resources, have deterred the enforcement of cybercrime laws in these countries. As the result, although those PICs would have adequate cybercrime laws ‘on the books’, ‘law in action’ is still feeble.     

Rethinking the Notion of a ‘Higher Law’: Heidegger and Derrida on the Anaximander Fragment

The Anaximander fragment, in the readings of both Heidegger and Derrida, speaks of that which exceeds positive law. In this article, the author provides a detailed reading of Heidegger’s Der Spruch des Anaximander, showing how Heidegger relates this fragment to his thinking of Being, the latter having been ‘forgotten’ by metaphysics. Heidegger’s reading at the same time involves a contemplation of technology and of the ontological relation of beings to each other. Derrida’s reading of Heidegger’s Der Spruch highlights specifically those parts of Heidegger’s text where that which precedes Being’s gathering, Being’s disjoining or dissemination, is pointed to. This disjoining, Derrida contends, speaks of the gift of a day more ancient than memory itself and ties in closely with certain aspects of the thinking of Marx. Derrida’s focus on that which precedes Being is in turn related to his contemplation of the law or condition of possibility of technology and also of that which makes possible a relation to the other as other. This condition of possibility, or the gift of Being, which Heidegger’s text also speaks of, involves a ‘higher law’ which can serve as a ‘measure’ for the evaluation, interpretation and transformation of positive law.

Ritual Texts and Literary Texts in Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetics: Notes on the Beginning of the ‘Critical Reconstruction’

In a recent paper in this Journal Hugo David discussed the possible sources for the comparison that Abhinavagupta draws between ritual and literary discourse at the beginning of his “critical reconstruction” of the theory of rasa in the sixth chapter of his New Dramatic Art. The question of Abhinavagupta’s sources raises more general questions about Abhinavagupta’s use of the concepts and analytical procedures of Mīmā?sā in his literary-theoretical works. What, if anything, does Mīmā?sā really have to do with the analysis of literary texts? How, if at all, can we construct parallels between ritual and literary texts such that the hermeneutics of one can illuminate the hermeneutics of the other? And more specifically, what are the examples that might convince us that there are such parallels? With these questions I attempt, modestly, to reach a somewhat better understanding of the beginning of Abhinavagupta’s “critical reconstruction,” which has already received a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention. I also hope, however, that this passage might serve as an example for how to think of the “borrowing” of concepts typically associated with Mīmā?sā into the realm of literary theory.     

Students’ Feelings of Safety,Exposure to Violence and Victimization,and Authoritative School Climate

Although many students feel unsafe at school, few malleable factors have been identified to increase students’ feelings of safety. Drawing on criminological behavior control theories, this study posits authoritative school climate as one such factor. With data from two nationally representative datasets, this study uses path analysis to examine the relationship between authoritative school climate and feelings of safety, as well as the extent to which this relation is explained by exposure to violence and victimization. Across both datasets, a more authoritative school climate was associated with increased feelings of safety at school. Both models also indicated that this relationship was explained in part by reduced exposure to violence and victimization, although the strength of this indirect effect varied across models. These findings suggest that strengthening students’ relationships with adults and increasing the fairness and consistency of rules in the school may both reduce exposure to violence and victimization and help students feel safer at school.     

Students’ foundational understanding of chemical reaction in the forensic science bachelor’s degree program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

ObjectiveTo compare the understanding of the concept of chemical reaction—as operationalized by Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive levels—of students in forensic science bachelor’s degree with that achieved by students majoring in chemistry, as a prerequisite for future professional collaboration and communication.Materials and methodsUsing previously validated and published tests developed to assess students’ knowledge, comprehension, and application of the concept of chemical reaction, we explored how conceptual understanding developed in students enrolled in (a) a forensic science degree program in a Mexican public university and in (b) chemistry undergraduate programs offered by the same university, and whether both groups achieved comparable attainment levels.Findings and implicationsDespite receiving considerably less chemical instruction, forensic science students achieved comparable levels of conceptual understanding of chemical reaction to those exhibited by chemistry students. This finding is encouraging because it might mean that future forensic scientists could graduate with a solid foundation of chemical knowledge. More research, particularly on the learning of other key concepts, will be needed to verify these initial findings.