The fox and the grapes: is real reform beyond reach in the United States?

As the challenges of maintaining (or, in the US case, attaining) affordable universal coverage multiply, the debate about what constitutes "real" reform intensifies in Western health care systems. The reality of reform, however, lies in the eyes of myriad beholders who variously enshrine consumer responsibility, changes in payment systems, reorganization, and other strategies -- or some encompassing combination of all of the above -- as the essential ingredient(s). This debate, increasingly informed by the agendas of health services researchers and health policy analysts, arguably serves as much or more to becloud as to clarify the practical options policy makers face and remains severely imbalanced with respect to the institutional sectors on which it concentrates, the fields of knowledge on which it draws, and the roles it envisions for markets and the state.     

The politics of race and juvenile justice: The “due process revolution” and the conservative reaction

Through the prism of race, this article analyzes the social structural and political context of juvenile justice law reforms over the past half century. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court imposed national legal and equality norms on recalcitrant southern states that still adhered to a segregated Jim Crow legal regime, and these norms provided the impetus for the Supreme Court's juvenile court “due process” decisions in the 1960s. The article then analyzes sociological, criminological, racial factors, media coverage, and political dynamics of the 1970s and 1980s that contributed to the “get tough” legislative reformulation of juvenile justice policies in the 1990s. During this period, conservative Republican politicians pursued a “southern strategy,” used crime as a code word for race for electoral advantage, and advocated “get tough” policies, which led to punitive changes in juvenile justice laws and practices and have had a disproportionate impact on racial minorities.     

‘Criminal families’ and the court: co-offending in Amsterdam, 1897–1902

This article focuses on a specific aspect of the history of crime: co-offending (offending with one or more accomplices) in a family setting at the end of the nineteenth century. The aims of this article are to analyze how genders interacted in a criminal setting and to show a possible bias in the court's decision to prosecute ‘criminal families’, either in relation to the people involved or to the environment in which the crime was committed. This article also questions the relevance of the concept of the civilizing mission in a court setting towards ‘criminal families’ and compares it with the reality of the court's work. The study is based on the archives of Amsterdam's Arrondissementsgerecht between 1897 and 1902. This court was in charge of trying criminal offences committed in Amsterdam and its surrounding area (a semi-urban environment within a 25-kilometre radius) according to the 1886 Dutch code of laws. Urban and semi-urban co-offending criminal rates in Amsterdam and its surrounding area are compared, as well as gender patterns and class origins in relation to the crimes committed, in order to highlight a possible prejudice towards working-class offenders. The analysis reveals a high rate of co-offending in female criminality and more gender interactions in the urban environment. However, the results also show that, despite a general anxiety towards working-class families and rising crime rates, magistrates were not more inclined to prosecute them. The family situation was taken into account before trials, and semi-urban families were not treated more leniently than urban families.     

The good,the bad,and the ‘vulnerable older adult’

Recent declarations by the Court of Appeal indicate that the inherent jurisdiction has survived the implementation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for adults considered ‘vulnerable’ and whose decision-making is threatened by reasons other than mental impairment – such occasions may include instances of elder abuse. In this paper I argue, however, that the post-Mental Capacity Act courts have adopted a confused and outmoded concept of the vulnerable older adult, in particular where decision-making is threatened by abusive interpersonal relationships experienced by an older individual. This has particular implications in terms of the types of remedies imposed by the courts on older adults in such circumstances. In this article I suggest that by being more cognisant of recent more nuanced understandings of vulnerability, the courts may be better suited to identifying, and responding to perceived sources of vulnerability in a way that is more empowering for the older adult.     

The functional nature of police reform: The ‘myth’ of controlling the police

For at least fifty years, major movements attempted to reform police and their institutions through professionalization, policy making, and administrative decentralization. One major goal of these efforts was to subordinate street officer discretion to bureaucratic due process. Some recent evidence suggests that such reforms produced primarily the appearance of change without fundamentally altering the status quo. An alternative hypothesis is proposed: Reformers ignored the functional nature of the police role as community-based, extra-constitutional in peacekeeping situations, and reflective of the values related to the maintenance of order.

It may be that liberal society solves the anomaly of the police function by fostering the myth that police are subordinate to due process constraints, while leaving them relatively free in a practical sense to respond to the need for order maintenance and peacekeeping. Effective handling of disorder may require police autonomy, while attempting to subordinate them to bureaucratic control may impair this ability. Police accountability in liberal society, as well as the many reforms designed to achieve it, remains problematic, especially in light of a recent important study suggesting the possibility that police effectiveness against community disorder may be a casualty of many of these reforms.     

Witnesses in the special court for Sierra Leone: The importance of the witness–lawyer relationship

This study is concerned with the relationship between witnesses testifying in the Special Court for Sierra Leone and their legal teams. Other research conducted with witnesses in international war crimes tribunals suggests that this relationship has a significant impact on the experience of such witnesses. A structured interview was administered to 171 witnesses who had testified in the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Witnesses generally felt their lawyers' attitude towards them was extremely good. Emotional support and good preparation for testifying seem to be particularly important predictors of witnesses' relationship with their lawyers, as does the level of respect they felt they received from court staff. However, communication between witnesses and their legal teams after the testimony is over did not have a significant impact on witnesses' evaluations of their lawyers' attitude towards them.     

Procedural justice and the judge–probationer relationship in a co-occurring disorders court

Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted on treatment-based courts, there is little quantitative evidence that describes the relationship between the judge and the probationer. The present study examines perceptions of the judge–probationer relationship (JPR), procedural justice, and outcome satisfaction within a co-occurring disorders court (CODC) in Orange County, California. Based on interview and survey data from a sample of probationers within the CODC (n = 24), this article argues that perceptions of procedural justice are linked to perceptions of relationship quality between the judge and probationer. Analysis of the data found that probationers in the CODC have very positive views of their relationships with the judge, and elements of relationship quality are significantly linked with perceptions of procedural justice. Procedural justice is also a predictor of satisfaction with outcome in this sample. The results show promise that procedural justice and the quality of the judge–probationer relationship can positively affect probationers with co-occurring disorders in specialty courts.     

The Jolly Hangman, the Jailed Journalist, and the Decline of Singapore’s Death Penalty

British journalist Alan Shadrake was convicted of contempt of court in 2010 for writing a book about capital punishment in Singapore. This article uses that book and other sources to analyze four aspects of Singapore’s death penalty. It begins with a profile of Darshan Singh, the hangman who executed 1,000 persons over the past half-century. The article then shows that Singapore’s system of mandatory capital punishment does not produce consistency in death penalty decision-making. Next the article argues that the prosecution of Shadrake increased criticism of capital punishment in Singapore by propelling his book to bestseller status. This is followed by an explanation of why the number of persons executed in Singapore has declined in recent years, from an average of 66 per year in the mid-1990s to an average of 5 per year since 2004. The key proximate cause of this decline appears to be prosecutors, who can use their discretion to charge defendants for possessing amounts of heroin, cannabis, cocaine, and methamphetamine that are just under the thresholds for a mandatory death sentence. Capital punishment in Singapore is not really mandatory, and it cannot escape the problems of bias and arbitrariness that have long plagued discretionary death penalty systems in the United States, Japan, and other nations.     

Democratic consolidation and parliamentary reform in Russia, 1990–93

It is a commonly held view that the Russian parliament, created in the late period of perestroika, possessed powers and structures that were incongruous with the process of democratic consolidation.’ It is a mistake, however, to suggest that parliamentary deputies failed to appreciate the problems that hampered both the parliament's work and its relationship with executive organs. Many deputies in both the All Union and Russian assemblies were committed to the creation of a ‘professional parliament’, and numerous reforms were put forward to resolve what some deputies called the ‘crisis of parliamentarism’ in Russia. These reforms, proposed by democrats and conservatives alike, raise new questions about the aims and objectives of deputies in Russia's first post‐Soviet parliament. What did deputies understand by the notion of a ‘professional parliament'? In what form did deputies envisage the new system of government? Were the many, often competing, proposals for parliamentary reform conducive to the achievement of democratic consolidation in Russia? This article will attempt to answer these questions by examining the proposals for parliamentary reform in the Russian parliament between 1990 and 1993.     

Indonesian labour law development and reform： The years of ratifying fundamental human rights defined within the ILO core conventions

Indonesia has a long experience in developing and reforming its labour law in order to response and accommodate fundamental human rights defined within International Labour Organization （ILO） core conventions. It was in particular for enhancing substance of workers＇ prosperity in industrial relationships in the country. For the purpose of changing paradigm in industrial relationships namely the corporatist model or regulatory model into the contractual model and replacing the single union system with multi-union system in term of labor institution and worker association （particularly based on the ILO Convention No. 87 and No. 98）, the government of Indonesia fairly enacted the Act No. 21 of 2000 regarding Trade Unions and the Act No. 13 of 2003 regarding Labor.     

The police,social services and psychiatry cooperation in Denmark—A new model of working practice between governmental sectors. A description of the concept,process, practice and experience

In 2004 a new model of working practice between three public sectors, the local Police Department, Social Services and Psychiatry/Mental Health Services (PSP) was introduced in the municipality of Frederiksberg, Denmark. The aim of this cooperation was to enhance support to vulnerable citizens, who do not belong solely to one of the three sectors and thereby often get lost in the system. The PSP cooperation was introduced to ensure that relevant information concerning vulnerable citizens was shared between the three sectors and to improve collaboration between the sectors involved in order to provide the needed support to the individual citizen. Due to the success of the PSP cooperation in Frederiksberg, the PSP model was implemented by law in Denmark in 2009.In order to evaluate the model, a qualitative study based on structured interviews, focus group discussions and observations, was performed in four selected municipalities in Denmark: Frederiksberg, Odense, Amager and Esbjerg. The evaluation was undertaken by the Danish National Centre for Social Research.It is concluded that the PSP cooperation draws attention to marginalized groups of citizens and helps to prevent social downfall and crime. Participants of the PSP cooperations further highlight positive changes in the cooperation between the involved sectors, which is thought to further improve the support to vulnerable citizens and thereby enhance both prevention and follow up of cases. Furthermore, the recommendations drawn from the evaluation are to adapt PSP cooperations to local conditions, avoid unnecessary red-tape, keep a constant focus on citizens' ethics, as well as involve the frontline workers in the individual sectors, i.e. those who are actually in contact with marginalized citizens.