Formal and informal pharmaceutical economies in Third World countries: Synergetic, symbiotic or parasitical?

Informal economy functions without any formal social control for lack of a supervisory authority. Within a regulated locality the same activities would have an illegal character, but in that deviating situation those informal activities can thrive because the authorities do not intervene. Globalization of our western mixed market economy implies that also the aspect of government control takes on a global character. The fact that formal economies settle in places where an informal market is the rule leads to a combined action which, eventually, creates new market relations. In the present contribution we study the effects of a meeting between a formal and an informal market on the basis of a concrete case. An analysis of the market of medical products in Third World countries gives an idea of the new relations that arise when an informal market of natural medicines is confronted with a formal market of western medicines. We study both the situation in which there are no regulations and the situation in which the formal market is supported by economic regulations. This text illustrates how those situations can give rise to new opportunities for one group and to exploitation for another.     

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Robbed: Inequality in U.S. Criminal Victimization, 1974–2000

This paper investigates inequality in criminal victimization in the United States over the past quarter century. By analyzing data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, it shows that the crime drop since the early 1970s has benefited upper-income households much more than the poor, so that criminal victimization has become more concentrated among the poor (particularly in the area of nonstranger violence). The paper then decomposes this trend statistically in order to investigate factors that may explain it. That analysis finds that demographic changes in each quintile explain a significant share of the growing concentration of criminal victimization among the poor.     

Lucy Pickering,Eric Friginal and Shelley Staples (eds): Talking at Work: Corpus-Based Explorations of Workplace Discourse (Communicating in Professions and Organizations)

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

民生刑法的品格:兼评《刑法修正案(八)》

民生刑法立足于人本刑法观,以尊重人性、弘扬人道、人权保障为价值内涵,以社会权利及其他民生权益的刑事保障为基本内容。《刑法修正案(八)》注重对社会弱势群体的倾斜保护及利益平衡,将宽容人道精神与宽严相济精神相结合,确立了刑事立法的人本价值取向。实现民生刑事保障的人本价值,需要形成和完善功能协调的民生刑法体系,并将人本价值理念在刑法适用、刑罚裁量和刑事执行的过程中加以贯彻。