Is Enforced Self-regulation a Form of Risk Taking?: The Case of Railway Health and Safety

Enforced self-regulation exemplifies a number of regulatory trends, in particular the co-existence of public and private forms of regulation, state moves to harness other sources of regulation and the growing attempt of the state to penetrate deep into corporate life. This paper explores the limits of enforced self-regulation through discussion of corporate responses to occupational health and safety regulation in Britain. It takes the example of the railway industry where a particularly extreme version of enforced-self regulation eventually led to tragic consequences.     

A ‘Life-Style Choice’ or a Philosophical Belief?: The Argument for Veganism and Vegetarianism to be a Protected Philosophical Belief and the Position in England and Wales

Liverpool Law Review - The recent judgment in Casamitjana Costa v The League Against Cruel Sports in England and Wales held that ethical veganism was a protected philosophical belief under...     

The Dynamics of Staying and Leaving: Implications for Battered Women’s Emotional Well-Being and Experiences of Violence at the End of a Year

Much of the discourse on intimate partner violence assumes that women must end their relationship with their abusive partner to increase their safety and emotional well-being. Few studies, however, exist to support this assumption. Equally problematic, those studies that do exist have failed to distinguish women who leave and stay out from those who leave only to later return. Comparing emotional well-being and experiences of violence for 206 low-income, primarily Black battered women following different relationship trajectories, this longitudinal study found that women both separated from and together with their partner for the entire year of the study fared best at the end of that year compared to women “in” and “out” of the relationship over time. Beyond challenging common assumptions, these findings highlight the importance of considering the larger context within which an individual instance of leaving occurs.

A Phenomenological and Grounded Theory Study of Women’s Experiences in Drug Court: Informing Practice Through a Gendered Lens

Drug courts have been a growing part of the criminal justice system since 1989. This qualitative study adds to the existing literature by developing an in-depth understanding of drug court from a woman’s (N?=?25) perspective. Phenomenology and grounded theory guided the data collection and analysis, resulting in three themes. First, the women found the drug court team to be compassionate and empathetic, which they reported supported them in being successful in the program. Second, the majority of women reported histories of trauma and felt that the drug court could be improved by offering them more resources to treat their trauma. Third, the majority of women reported being single mothers and they shared examples of how being a single parent was a challenge to being successful in the drug court. Implications for drug court practice are discussed.     

“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” – what about code and law?

Law and information technology are interlinked. Since Lessig's “code is law” the discussions address the viability of law in technology markets. But recently, the direction of view has changed by way of conversion; in the context of smart contracts, the notion “law is code” became prevalent. The contribution looks into the interdependencies between law and code and pleads for a new functional understanding of law.     

Queer Contestations and the Future of a Critical “Queer” Criminology

It is intuitive to include critical criminologists in early conversations about “queering” criminology given that the paradigms and methods of critical criminology can be employed to challenge subordination and inequality in its several dimensions. The first part (and main focus) of this article problematizes this intuition, which is easy to accept at face value, by reflecting backwards and explaining how early influential critical criminological views perpetuated damaging stereotypes and representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people as sexual deviants. The second part reflects forward, and discusses the difficulties of carving a space in the discipline for critical queer perspectives. Drawing on critical and critical race theories, this article advocates a relational, intersectional approach to conceptualize sexual orientation and gender identity in criminological theory and research. This approach considers the connections among sexual orientation or gender identity and other differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, gender, etc.) without assuming or attaching fixed meanings to those differences.     

Taking Sides? Issues of Bias and Partisanship When Researching Socio-political Conflict

The article unpacks the issues of bias and partisanship—and the risk of being accused of these—which confront social scientists who study socio-political conflict. Drawing on the author’s experience when conducting research on the conflict between animal liberation activists and their state and corporate adversaries in Britain (1999–2014), the article argues for a relational research approach—focusing on the interaction between contending parties, rather than study stakeholders singly—as a way to overcome challenges of taking sides when studying socio-political conflict. The debate generated by Howard Becker’s classic essay “Whose side are we on?” (1967), now 50 years old, is used throughout the article as a point of reference for addressing the issues involved. The argument is made for constant reflexivity during research on radical social movements, and for “temporary bias” during qualitative fieldwork.     

“To establish a community of property”: Marriage and race before and during the Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the greatest social upheaval in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. The paper presents results from the first systematic study of marriage during this event, which included slave rebellion (1791), general emancipation (1793) and political independence from France (1803). The article focuses on a single colonial parish, leveraging a sample of roughly 1000 contracts by comparing them with similar documents from same region in the 1760s and 1780s. Ironically, amid a revolution that was ostensibly eliminating slavery and racism, the interracial marriages that had once been common in this parish virtually disappeared. The wealthy “mulatto” families who had been free long before 1791 intensified their pre-Revolutionary pattern of endogamy and cousin-marriage. In the meantime, French male immigrants of the sort who, before the Revolution, had allied with these established clans, now shunned these marriages.     

“Delinquent Boys”: Toward a New Understanding of “Deviant” and Transgressive Behavior in Gay Men

Cultural criminology suggests that crime, deviance, and transgression are often subcultural in nature. For this reason, cultural criminologists often focus on the simultaneous forces of cultural inclusion and social exclusion when explaining criminal, deviant, or transgressive behaviors. This is a particularly useful bricolage for examining contemporary gay deviance and transgression—behaviors that are perhaps closely linked to (if not directly caused by) the past isolation, marginalization and/or oppression of homosexuals by Western heteronormative societies. It is also useful for understanding behaviors that are the result of marginalization and oppression from other sources, namely, the gay community itself. Using subcultural theories of deviance—such as those favored by cultural criminologists—this article explores a perspective that can be used for exploring certain forms of gay deviance and transgression. First, some of the more ostensible criminological theories that satisfy a prima facie criminological inquiry will be presented and critiqued: labeling and stigma, and resistance to heteronormativity. To these will be added a new and potentially productive way of thinking that takes into consideration rule-breaking as a form of resistance to homonormative norms, values and rules.     

“Juvenile Drug Courts and Recidivism: Results from a Multisite Outcome Study”

This study reports findings from a study of nine juvenile drug courts (JDCs) from across the US. A quasi-experimental design, with one-to-one matching on possible confounders and sociodemographics, was used for the outcome assessment (n?=?1372). Baseline and outcome data were drawn from justice system records. Although there is variation across sites and, to some extent, outcomes, these JDCs were generally ineffective in reducing recidivism. Similar findings have emerged in other recent studies of JDCs. Given the results of this study and others, it is essential that juvenile courts work to improve the effectiveness of JDCs by increasing adherence to known principles of effective intervention.     

A Review of “Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases That Changed the World”

Abstract

The biological aspects of illegal harvests of threatened wildlife are outlined. It is shown that local agriculturalists are beneficiaries of illegal harvesting and that competition from agriculture exacerbates the extinction risk. Illegal harvesting of wildlife is driven by the profitability of the exercise, but law enforcement activity can deter poaching by reducing the associated expected profits. Law enforcement may be unable to limit illegal harvesting to levels threatened populations can sustain as a result of perverse consequences or strategic responses by poachers to law enforcement activity. Poaching activity is sensitive to the beliefs of participants about future prices and the availability of wildlife. Erroneous beliefs result in price collapses being observed. Integrating legal markets with increased local control of wildlife and punitive law enforcement strategies may be the most effective and efficient means to constrain illegal harvests.     

LEGISLATION AND REPORTS: Copyright and Parody: Taking Backward the Gowers Review?

In 2006 the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property made a series of recommendations for reforming the intellectual property regime to better serve the interests of both consumers and industry. Among the proposed recommendations was that an exception for parody be introduced within the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. In January 2008 the Intellectual Property Office (the IPO) launched the first part of a two‐stage consultation process on exceptions to copyright. As part of that consultation process, the IPO proposed a ‘fair dealing style exception’ for parody, and sought views on whether a new exception should be introduced as well as what form it might take. In December 2009 the IPO launched the second stage of this consultation process. The second consultation document rejected the case for a new parody exception. This article considers the place of parody within the copyright regime and the objections levelled against the introduction of an exception set out within the IPO's second consultation document. It invites the IPO to reconsider its decision not to recommend the introduction of a specific exception for parody within the UK.     

Beyond a “Victims’ Right”: Truth-Finding Power and Procedure at the ICC

The drafters of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court were presented with a unique opportunity to shape the future of victim participation in international criminal legal proceedings. They were also faced with a critical dilemma – how can the International Criminal Court promote the interests of victims while simultaneously protecting the accused’s fair trial rights? In many respects the final draft of the Rome Statute left the task of defining the parameters of these potentially competing interests to the Court. As a result, a body of case-law has emerged, highlighting textual ambiguities in the Rome Statute and giving rise to novel developments in sphere of victim participation. Amongst the most prominent of these developments is the recognition of the right of victims to introduce evidence at trial. However, viewing this procedure simply as a fixture of the International Criminal Court’s regime of victim participation masks its true significance and potential. This article explores the idea that the Court’s approach to the evidentiary procedure regulating victim participation has given birth to quasi-investigative powers that have the potential to dramatically reconfigure the future of international criminal litigation.     

“Humanitarian aid is never a crime”: humanitarianism and illegality in migrant advocacy

I analyze the case of humanitarian pro-migrant activists in southern Arizona between 2000 and 2010 to explore how contending groups wield law and legality claims in a dynamic policy environment. Humanitarian activists both evade and engage the law. They appeal to a higher law to elude charges that they are acting illegally, while seeking assurances that their actions are within the law. Law enforcement agents rely on the authority and technical neutrality of the law in redefining humanitarian aid as illegal, while expanding their own claims to carry out humanitarian work. This case study of advocacy on behalf of “illegal” migrants highlights how both activists and those who enforce the law redefine legality in strategic ways.     

“Passionate and Willful” Girls

ABSTRACT

Despite attempts at legislative reform girls are still being held in juvenile justice and medical facilities, both public and private, on the basis of relatively minor, status and ^cnon-legal offences and behaviour.¹ This paper questions some of the understandings of girlhood, in particular in regard to their sexuality and independence, that underpin these practices. Drawing upon research in education, psychology and adolescent studies, it is argued that practices which seek to protect girls by denying their sexuality and independence, may not ultimately be in the girls' best interests.     

The “care package,” prison domestic violence programs and recidivism: a quasi-experimental study

Objectives

Although there are many evaluations of domestic violence rehabilitation programs, it is still unclear “what works” in this field, especially when it comes to programs within prison walls. Today, most studies indicate that domestic violence programs based on cognitive behavioral treatment, or psycho-educational models show small positive results. Yet, there is still insufficient empirical literature providing adequate evidence for the impact of integrative treatment, where different methods and approaches toward domestic violence prisoners are employed within the same rehabilitation-program framework while incarcerated. Our study examined the effects of an integrative domestic violence program with a therapeutic “package” implemented in Israel with the goal of reducing recidivism rates among prisoners in general, and especially with regard to violent offenses.

Methods

Using propensity score matching methods, we compared treated offenders to a matched sample drawn from all convicted prisoners who were released from prison between 2004 and 2012.

Results

The findings indicate that the percentages of reincarceration and rearrests of inmates, who participated in integrative domestic violence program, were significantly lower during a period of up to 4 years after release.

Conclusions

Our conclusion is that the integrative effect of different treatments along with a supportive prison climate increased the success of inmates who participated in the domestic violence program.