The Neglect of Elder Neglect as a White-Collar Crime: Distinguishing Patient Neglect from Physical Abuse and the Criminal Justice System’s Response

While research on elder maltreatment has increased dramatically over the past three decades, few studies have considered elder neglect. Even fewer studies have addressed cases of patient neglect committed while older adults are receiving long-term care. In this study, we analyzed 252 cases of elder maltreatment to increase understanding about elder patient neglect and the way that patient neglect can be distinguished from patient abuse. The criminal justice system’s response to these crimes is also addressed. The results show that offenders in elder patient abuse and patient neglect cases receive similar sentences. However, the dynamics surrounding the offenses are different in important ways. Patient neglect cases are more likely than patient abuse cases to (1) involve multiple victims, (2) be committed in groups, (3) be white-collar crimes rather than occupational crimes, and (4) result in more serious consequences for victims. Implications for policy, theory, and research are provided.     

Who's Your Daddy?: The Marital Presumption of Legitimacy in the Modern World and its Application to Same‐Sex Couples

Recently, the definition of marriage has been significantly altered. No longer do we find ourselves exclusively in the midst of “traditional marriage” between one man and one woman. Instead, everywhere we experience different kinds of marriages and diverse, nontraditional families. The United States has finally caught up to many advanced democracies in universally recognizing same‐sex marriage through the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. However, the next question remains unanswered: what about families of same‐sex couples? This Note explores the nature of same‐sex couples, their families, and in particular, their children. It addresses the issue of the marital presumption of legitimacy and encourages its application to all legally recognized married couples regardless of sexual orientation and biology. Even though prior to Obergefell some states were unwilling to apply the presumption, since the implementation of marriage equality, the next logical step would be to utilize the presumption to ensure that all parents, regardless of gender, are recognized and families are preserved.     

The “Tough on Crime” Competition: a Network Approach to Understanding the Social Mechanisms Leading to Federal Crime Control Legislation in the United States from 1973–2014

The increase in punitive sentiment in America over the last four decades is frequently attributed to changes in criminal justice policies and programs. While scholars have studied the impact of legislation and policy on justice system outcomes, less attention has focused on the role of political actors in legislative bodies who are largely responsible for enacting criminal justice legislation. The current study addresses this gap by examining the social organization of federal crime control policy in the U.S. Congress over a forty-two year period (1973–2014). Drawing from research on social network mechanisms, we examine whether crime control legislation was more politically attractive relative to other legislative topics, and whether Democrats and Republicans pursue these policies by working together or competing against each other. Our results provide novel insight into the mechanisms that contributed to the punitive movement at the federal level.     

The Threat of the Thief: Who Has Normative Influence in Georgian Society?

This piece gives an account of the Georgian government's recent attempts to crackdown on the institution of thieves-in-law [vory-v-zakone] within Georgian society. The events surrounding the problematisation of the thieves-in-law are examined and different answers are offered to the underlying question of the article: what threat does this subversive group pose to the government? It is argued that the vory do not represent a potential criminal revolution but are victims of a resurgent state producing a politics of law that seeks to stamp out subverting influences within society. The thieves' world represents an alternative moral order which is attractive in a country which suffers from acute alienated statehood. Thus the fight against the vory should be understood as a battle to win back the hearts of the Georgian people for the state and for the law.     

Could Innovations in Policing have Contributed to the New York City Crime Drop even in a Period of Declining Police Strength?: The Case of Stop,Question and Frisk as a Hot Spots Policing Strategy

Available data make it impossible to reach strong conclusions about the role of policing in the New York crime decline. Instead, we examine whether innovations implemented in New York fit with what is known about effective policing strategies. Our main analysis focuses on how the New York City Police Department (NYPD) could have continued to contribute to the crime drop over the last decade when the number of police declined significantly. We examine geographic data on crime and stop, question and frisks (SQFs) to show that SQFs are concentrated at crime hot spots. We also show that the NYPD increased these specific hot spots policing strategies despite declining numbers. In our discussion, we speculate on whether this “doing more with less” could be an explanation for the continued crime drop in New York, noting the limitations of drawing conclusions from existing data. We also raise concerns about possible backfire effects of SQF hot spots approaches.     

The Proposed 100 by 50’ Act: Protecting Collective Bargaining of Workers in a “Just Transition” to a Clean-Energy Future

There is a longstanding misconception that any overlap between environmental policy and labor rights results in conflict. With the intensifying threat of climate change and the decline of fossil fuel development, international labor and climate groups have collaborated to develop a framework for a just transition to sustainable development that emphasizes social dialog between stakeholders. An increasing number of nations are guided by this framework as each incorporates its own transition model. The United States, however, remains on the sidelines. This article proposes that the U.S. enact recently proposed legislation to transform its energy sector, while also protecting its workers and the environment.     

The pregnant woman and the good Samaritan: can a woman have a duty to undergo a caesarean section?

Although a pregnant woman can now refuse any medical treatment needed by the fetus, the Court of Appeal has acknowledged that ethical dilemmas remain, adverting to the inappropriateness of legal compulsion of presumed moral duties in this context. This leaves the impression of an uncomfortable split between the ethics and the law. The notion of a pregnant woman refusing medical treatment needed by the fetus is troubling and it helps little simply to assert that she has a legal right to do so. At the same time, the idea that a pregnant woman fails in her moral duty unless she accepts any recommended treatment or surgery--however great the burden--is also not without difficulty. This article seeks to find a way between these two somewhat polarized positions by arguing that, instead of being a question primarily about whether legally to enforce moral obligations, the 'maternal-fetal conflict' begins with previously unrecognized difficulties in determining when a woman's prima facie moral rights invoked in the treatment context should 'give way' to the interests of the fetus. This difficulty is mirrored within the law. Thus, how can we tell when a pregnant woman has the moral or legal duty to submit to a caesarean section? Seen in this way, the conflict is a problem which lies at the interface between moral and legal rights and duties, showing that there are important conceptual links between the ethics and the law. Against this background, this article explores the limits of a pregnant woman's right to bodily integrity by focusing upon the idea of her moral duty to aid the fetus through her body. Here we find difficulties in determining the existence and extent of this somewhat extraordinary duty. Such a duty is contrasted with both negative and positive duties toward others in the course of 'general conduct.' Attention to the social context of pregnancy and the refusal of treatment within this is also instructive. Overall, the purpose is to foster understanding and acceptance of the current legal position.     

When Love is a Crime: Is the Criminalisation of Same Sex Relations in Nigeria a Protection of Nigerian Culture?

Even though studies suggest that people do not have a choice about their sexual orientation since it is innate in them, some African countries including Nigeria continue to criminalise same sex conduct between two consenting adults. Before the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan passed the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2014 into law in Nigeria, there have already been laws in the country criminalising sexual relations between persons of the same sex. It appears that the Act of 2014 was motivated to show a resolve by the Nigerian government to clearly point out to certain sections of the international community, who at that time were lobbying for the decriminalisation of same sex relations in the country, that there was no intention by the Nigerian state to cave into any such demand. This paper re-examines the prohibition of same sex relations in Nigeria with a focus on whether the laws protect the culture of the Nigerian people or the moral ideals introduced by religion.     

The Issue of Age Estimation in a Modern Skeletal Population: Are Even the More Modern Current Aging Methods Satisfactory for the Elderly?,

The main idea behind age assessment in adults is related to the analysis of the physiological degeneration of particular skeletal structures with age. The main issues with these procedures are due to the fact that they have not been tested on different modern populations and in different taphonomic contexts and that they tend to underestimate the age of older individuals. The purpose of this study was to test the applicability and the reliability of these methods on a contemporary population of skeletal remains of 145 elderly individuals of known sex and age. The results show that, due to taphonomic influences, some skeletal sites showed a lower survival. Therefore, the methods with the highest percentage of applicability were Lovejoy (89.6%) and Rougé‐Maillart (81.3%), followed by Suchey‐Brooks (59.3%), and those with the lowest percentage of applicability were Beauthier (26.2%) and Iscan (22.7%). In addition, this research has shown how for older adults the study of both acetabulum and auricular surface may be more reliable for aging. This is also in accordance with the fact that auricular surface and the acetabulum are the areas more frequently surviving taphonomic insult.     

The applicability of riparian rights doctrine in Botswana: the judicial refusal to depart from the common law principles?

At independence, a semi-dessert Botswana did not have developed water law besides the common law. The newly independent state of Botswana passed the first post-colonial water legislation a year after gaining independence. This article argues that even though the Water Act grants ownership of water sources to the State, the common law riparian rights remain intact. This article argues that the courts of Botswana are reluctant to depart from the common principles of land and water law derived from South Africa notwithstanding a change of water law in that jurisdiction.     

Rethinking the notion of hosting in the aftermath of Delfi: Shifting from liability to responsibility?

Liability of Internet intermediaries for a third-party content is a complex topic, especially with regards to the storage of illegal or harmful postings offered by portals. The E-Commerce Directive offered a liberal framework for handling such cases, provided that a hosting service provider has not played an active role in content management. Being passive turned out to be the key precondition for immunity under safe harbour provisions. Yet, after the Delfi ruling the legal landscape has changed radically. Although the judgment of the Strasbourg tribunal has been dismissed in some jurisdictions as an error or one-off case, the truth is that it took into account acquis communautaire and imposed liability on the news portal, which followed the guidelines of Google France and eBay rulings. Given the lack of predictability of the current legal framework, the aim of this contribution is to offer a deep-dive into the notion of hosting from a technical perspective in order to better understand why Articles 14–15 of the E-Commerce Directive may require a re-examination. It is also submitted that portals and other online service providers relying on a broad construction of safe harbours should be entitled to Good Samaritan protection akin to section 230 of the American Communications Decency Act in order not to hold them liable for being active in fighting hate speech and other forms of illegal and harmful conduct.     

Is it Important to Examine Crime Trends at a Local “Micro” Level?: A Longitudinal Analysis of Street to Street Variability in Crime Trajectories

Over the last 40 years, the question of how crime varies across places has gotten greater attention. At the same time, as data and computing power have increased, the definition of a ‘place’ has shifted farther down the geographic cone of resolution. This has led many researchers to consider places as small as single addresses, group of addresses, face blocks or street blocks. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of the spatial distribution of crime have consistently found crime is strongly concentrated at a small group of ‘micro’ places. Recent longitudinal studies have also revealed crime concentration across micro places is relatively stable over time. A major question that has not been answered in prior research is the degree of block to block variability at this local ‘micro’ level for all crime. To answer this question, we examine both temporal and spatial variation in crime across street blocks in the city of Seattle Washington. This is accomplished by applying trajectory analysis to establish groups of places that follow similar crime trajectories over 16 years. Then, using quantitative spatial statistics, we establish whether streets having the same temporal trajectory are collocated spatially or whether there is street to street variation in the temporal patterns of crime. In a surprising number of cases we find that individual street segments have trajectories which are unrelated to their immediately adjacent streets. This finding of heterogeneity suggests it may be particularly important to examine crime trends at very local geographic levels. At a policy level, our research reinforces the importance of initiatives like ‘hot spots policing’ which address specific streets within relatively small areas.     

Claiming the Right to Health in Brazilian Courts: The Exclusion of the Already Excluded?

The aim of this article is to test a widespread belief among Brazilian legal scholars in the area of social rights, namely, the claim that courts are an alternative institutional voice for the poor, who are usually marginalized from the political process. According to this belief, social rights litigation would be a means (supposedly “a better means”) of realizing rights such as the right to health care, since supposedly both the wealthy and the poor have equal access to the courts. To probe the consistency of this belief, we analyzed the socioeconomic profiles of plaintiffs in the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil) who were granted access to specific medications or medical treatments by judicial decisions. In this study, the justiciability of social rights has not proven to be a means of rendering certain public services more democratic and accessible.     

Is the power of a state to impose sales tax in Nigeria fettered by the imposition of value added tax by the federal government?

The imposition of sales tax by some states in Nigeria has been resisted on the grounds either that a state lacks the power to impose taxes under Nigeria’s constitution or that a state cannot validly impose sales tax as long as the Value Added Tax Act, a federal law, remains in force, the Value Added Tax Act having ‘covered the field’. This article contends that none of these grounds is valid under Nigeria’s constitution: a state government can impose sales tax in exercise of its residual powers; and the doctrine of covering the field is inapplicable in the inquiry.