Reforming rape laws

Almost all legislative evaluations and impact analyses in the area of rape reform have involved the U.S. This article examines the effects of rape reform legislation introduced in Canada in 1983. In that year the offenses of rape and indecent assault were replaced with three new offenses of sexual assault. As in other jurisdictions in the U.S., the Canadian reforms were designed to achieve several aims. These included increasing the number of victims reporting to the police, reducing the proportion of reports classified by the police as unfounded, and increasing the number of cases in which a charge is laid. This article presents a time-series analysis of reports of crimes of sexual aggression over a 10-year period around passage of the reform legislation. The results indicate that there was a significant increase in the number of reports of these crimes concurrent with the passage of the legislation. Moreover, the increase in sexual assault reports exceeds by a significant margin the increase in reports made of other personal injury offenses (e.g., assault). However, the legislation has had no discernible effect upon the immediate criminal justice response to reports of sexual aggression: Neither the percentage of reports classified as founded, nor the percentage of reported incidents resulting in the laying of a charge has changed.The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the comments made upon an earlier draft of this article by Ed Renner, the editor of the journal, and an anonymous reviewer. This research was supported by the Department of Justice Canada; the authors thank the Department for permission to publish these data. Finally we would like to thank the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics for providing the data.     

"There are few subjects in political economy of greater difficulty": The Poor laws of the Antebellum South

This article examines the administration of the poor laws in six southern states from 1800 to 1860. Although southerners were influenced to some degree by developments in northeastern communities, the unique features of antebellum southern life caused poor relief to assume a distinct character. Poverty was simply not perceived as a major concern in the South. Consequently, southerners were less inclined to stigmatize paupers, or to adopt a systematic policy of institutionalizing dependents. They relied heavily on such traditional practices as outrelief and apprenticeship. This approach harmonized with the southern preference for a legal system which encouraged informal solution of social problems at the local level.     

Managed care liability today: laws, cases, theories, and current issues

Managed care entities face numerous liability issues in today's changing healthcare environment. This Article provides the plaintiff with a comprehensive road map for navigating the many avenues of managed care liability. The author describes ERISA pre-emption provisions and suggests ways plaintiffs' attorneys can strive to narrow the pre-emption. The Article also provides in-depth analysis of each theory of managed care liability that has been litigated against managed care entities to date, and then goes on to explore state laws imposing liability on managed care entities, and how HMO liability is being reformed through legislative action. For plaintiffs' attorneys seeking the full spectrum of theories of managed care liability, or for defendants' attorneys wanting to remain updated on all potential claims to defend, this Article constitutes an extensive primer on the current issues.     

Fatal (F)laws: Law, Literature and Writing

In this article, we develop an account of judgment as writing which displaces and contests the conventional staging of the signifiers ‘law’ and ‘literature’. If judgment is understood as writing, then it is opened out onto the contexts which structure it, but which it must disavow or repress. To investigate this process, we read the judicial judgment of a killing of a gay man. In this text, the context that is simultaneously cited and repressed is that of literature - and specifically, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. Literature functions not as law's other in this judgment, but as a legal concept. Its chief performative effect is the concealment of a corpse: literature enables law to forget the wounds of the murdered man, and to bury his corpse within the grammar of fate. Our reading is an attempt to illuminate the scene of this crime. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

"出嫁女"土地权益保护的困境与出路——从民间法角度切入

村委会以村规民约等方式限制、剥夺"出嫁女"的土地权益,而这种以村规民约等形式表现的民间法以单系继替偏重的社会继替规律以及"男婚女嫁"的习俗为其存在的社会基础。因此,要实现对"出嫁女"土地权益的有效保护,必须通过发展农村经济、贯彻国家计划生育政策、开展法治宣传、完善农村社会保障制度,动、消除这种民间法存在的基础,实现国家法在农村的有效推进。