Attitudinal change among students in a capital punishment class: It may be possible

Students who participated in a class on capital punishment recorded their attitudes toward the topic on a weekly basis and completed a one year follow-up. The results demonstrate that by the end of the semester 65% of the students indicated opposition to capital punishment. Moreover, one year after the class 73% of the students maintained some degree of opposition to capital punishment. The difficulties associated with assessing attitudinal change as a result of participating in a class and reasons for the discrepancy between the findings of this study and previous research are discussed.     

监狱劳教系统规范执法行为势在必行

最近中央政法委决定在全国政法系统集中开展“规范执法行为,促进执法公正”专项整改活动,这是加强政法队伍建设、提高执法水平的重要部署,是构建社会主义和谐社会的必然要求,是确保保持共产党员先进性教育活动取得实效的重要措施,是从源头上减少涉法涉诉信访的治本之策,也是司法体制和工作机制改革的重要内容。执法工作应当坚持实体与程序并重,不折不扣地严格按照法定权限、法定程序、法定职责行使执法权。然而,在现实生活中,执法随意性的问题在一些执法部门还不同程度地存在着,在有些部门甚至还比较严重。“规范执法行为,     

民事行政裁判执行的检察监督

一、从民事行政裁判执行的现状看引入检察监督的必要性 我国<宪法>确立了人民检察院的法律监督地位,1989年、1991年颁布的<中华人民共和国行政诉讼法>、<中华人民共和国民事诉讼法>又具体确立了人民检察院的民事、行政检察监督权.根据上述法律规定,从应然意义上讲,<行政诉讼法>第10条、<民事诉讼法>第14条都是授权性条款,人民检察院应当享有民事行政的检察监督权,包括对民事行政裁判执行的检察监督权.但自检察机关开展民事行政检察监督工作以来,几乎从未涉足民事行政裁判执行的检察监督.在倡导程序公正和执行程序独立价值的今天,为最大限度地杜绝执行过程中的随意性和权力滥用,重视和解决"执行难"、"执行乱"问题,显得极为重要与紧迫.因此,有必要对民事行政裁判执行建立起检察监督机制.     

以信息化推进劳教执法规范化之浅见

“严格、公正、文明、规范”执法是劳教工作的生命线,是司法公正及实现公平正义的重要体现。近年来,劳教机关紧紧围绕“公正与效率”这一主题,积极启动执法信息化建设,有力地提升了劳教执法工作的规范化水平。随着形势的发展变化,尤其是社会管理创新、社会矛盾化解、公正廉洁执法“三项重点”工作的确立,司法部提出了“执法信息网上录入,执法流程网上管理,执法活动网上监督,执法质量网上考核”的明确要求,如何实现这个目标已经成为劳教执法的重大课题。     

Genetic profiling of a central Venezuelan population using 15 STR markers that may be of forensic importance

The AmpFlSTR Identifiler kit has recently been accepted for use in DNA databasing of forensic samples in the FBI's National DNA Index System. In the present study, we used this kit to analyze the allele distribution of 15 short tandem repeat markers (STR) in individuals living in Caracas city, Venezuela. The allele frequencies of two of these STR, D2S1338 and D19S433, have not previously been reported for this or any other Latin American population. The results indicate that for the population here studied, the 15 STR tested are useful markers for paternity testing and forensic casework.     

Analysis of DNA multilocus profiles in a paternity case in which the child's profile may be partial

This report describes a simple approach to multilocus paternity analysis for cases where the child's sample may be inadequate leading to a partial profile. A specimen calculation is given. A previous paper described how the various band sharing configurations in the DNA multilocus profiles of a mother-child-putative father trio could be combined in a comprehensive mathematical analysis to give an overall Bayesian likelihood ratio. In that paper, it was assumed that all three members of the trio gave full DNA profiles. In some cases that assumption may not be valid but it is possible to extend the analysis to allow for partial profiles. This paper demonstrates how this may be done by considering the case where the child's profile may be partial for one reason or another. A specimen calculation is given.     

Optimal Law Enforcement with a Rent-Seeking Government

This article analyzes public and private law enforcement whenthe government is motivated by rent seeking. A rent-seekinggovernment seeks primarily to maximize revenue. The articleconcludes as follows: (1) if offenders have sufficient wealth,a rent-seeking government is more aggressive than a social-welfare-maximizinggovernment in enforcing laws against minor crimes (such as parkingviolations) but more lax in enforcing laws against major crimes;(2) competitive private enforcement is usually better and neverworse than monopolistic private enforcement; (3) The choicebetween competitive private enforcement and public enforcementdepends on which is cheaper and on the severity of the offense.     

Suicides may be overreported and accidents underreported among fatalities due to dextropropoxyphene

Among prescribed drugs in Sweden dextropropoxyphene (DXP) is the medical compound most frequently responsible for self-inflicted fatal poisonings. To analyze the process leading to the classification of the manner of death in cases of fatalities where DXP caused or contributed to death, a set of explicit and implicit operational criteria was applied retrospectively to fatal DXP poisonings among autopsy cases performed at one department of forensic medicine in Sweden during the six-year period from 1992 to 1997. DXP fatality was found in 113 (2.6%) of the total 4306 autopsy cases. Suicide was recorded in 84 (74%) of these cases, and an undetermined manner of death in 24 (21%). Explicit unambiguous expressions of the intent of the decedent were found in 29 (26%) of the 109 analyzed cases. (In four cases no analysis could be performed). In 46 cases only implicit and no explicit criteria were found. The total number of implicit criteria in individual cases without explicit criteria never exceeded three and in 34 cases no criteria of any type were documented. It is concluded that the classification of the manner of death at DXP fatalities was often based on very limited grounds when the operational criteria were used as a standard for comparison. Information from relatives, friends and others concerning the decedent was rarely accessible. The shortage of information probably led to deficiencies in the death statistics concerning DXP fatalities. Considerable underreporting of accidents and probable overreporting of suicides were found. Failure to report DXP deaths as accidents may delay discovery of the high toxicity of this drug. This might be one of the reasons why the DXP fatality rate is still constantly high in Sweden, while both Denmark and Norway have managed to decrease their DXP death rates by vast restrictions, based on alarming reports of accidental DXP fatalities. In order to guarantee valid death statistics concerning self-inflicted poisoning, the information base leading to classification of the manner of death has to be enlarged. This requires implementation of new routines, including interviews of relatives, acquaintances and significant others to get the information needed to assess the decedent's intention to die. Operational criteria may facilitate the difficult classification process by providing a structured standard, and the set of explicit and implicit criteria applied in this study is recommended.     

建立独立的行政法院可为实现司法独立之首要步骤——从德国行政法院之独立性谈起

行政审判是我国惟一以法律手段控制国家权力的制度 ,是目前司法制度中最亟待变革的部分 ,建立独立、公正的司法体制可由此而始。德国行政法院制度独立性的基础及内涵以及其司法制度的理念对我国的司法改革极具启示性。就我国现状而言 ,德国式的行政法院模式是更有助于确立司法独立的选择模式 ,因而建立独立的行政法院 ,可为司法独立的首要步骤。     

专利权无效后实施费等可否作为不当得利处理

专利权被宣告无效后,侵权损害赔偿、专利许可使用费、转让费应当作为不当得利予以返还.我国<专利法>第47条游离于交易安全价值和公平价值之间,因而使得条文缺乏可操作性,虽可通过法律解释克服这种缺陷,但为了给司法提供明确的裁判规范和为行为人提供明确的行为规范,有必要通过立法予以修正.     

Organised crime threat assessments: a critical review

Since the beginning of the 21st century, several national and international government agencies have initiated organised crime threat assessments. Additionally, a few scholars have published methods to assess the risks and threats of organised crime. These governmental bodies and scholars claim that their reports and methods can demonstrate that certain forms of organised crime are more threatening than others and thus help policy-makers set strategic priorities. In this article I discuss these claims by examining the reliability and validity of the operational definitions of the key concepts used, such as organised crime, threat and risk. This examination reveals that most reports and methods provide insufficient detail—and sometimes even no details at all—to guarantee the reliability and validity of their operational definitions. The search for validity is made particularly difficult by the ambiguity surrounding the concepts of organised crime, threat and risk, while the concept of cost is less problematic. Moreover, establishing what constitutes a threat is at its core a normative decision that cannot be left to intelligence analysts or scientists alone. The challenge ahead lies in acknowledging the normative framework of organised crime threat assessments and within that framework maximising the reliability and validity of the operational definitions of key concepts and related measuring instruments.     

Attitudes Toward a Military Enforcement of Human Rights

In recent years, Western countries and NATO have repeatedly intervened in international conflicts using military means (e.g., Kosovo, Macedonia, and Afghanistan). The countries involved in these military operations have stated that these interventions did not serve strategic goals; instead, their prime purpose was to enforce human rights. Against this background the present paper aims to answer two main questions: First, how can attitudes toward such military interventions be measured? Second, how are these attitudes related to prosocial and antisocial personality dispositions? Two studies were conducted to address these questions. A first study with 275 university students from Germany enabled us to develop a short and reliable scale to measure attitudes toward the military enforcement of human right. A second study (N = 190) revealed that authoritarianism and the willingness to aggressively sanction the antisocial behavior of others were positively related to this attitude, while no significant relationship with prosocial dispositions emerged. Furthermore, it could be shown that a high concern for human rights only then was connected to a positive attitude toward their military enforcement if persons indicated to handle their daily conflicts in an aggressive manner.

     

执行体制的统一化构建——以解决民事“执行难”为出发点

“执行难”的成因是多方面的,但最深刻的原因无疑存在于执行体制本身。我国目前的执行体制中,刑事执行、民事执行和行政执行既各自为政,又相互交叉,不仅在执行机构上显得臃肿和凌乱,尤其难以做到执行资源的优化配置和互补整合,不利于国家执行权的统一化行使。对民事执行而言,行使审判权的法院兼顾行使执行权不仅具有理论上的障碍,尤其在实践中已被雄辩地证明是行不通的。因此,将执行权从法院权力结构中分离出去交由统一的执行机构行使,是化解“执行难”的最佳选择。     

When finding nothing may be evidence of something: Anti-forensics and digital tool marks

There are an abundance of measures available to the standard digital device users which provide the opportunity to act in an anti-forensic manner and conceal any potential digital evidence denoting a criminal act. Whilst there is a lack of empirical evidence which evaluates the scale of this threat to digital forensic investigations leaving the true extent of engagement with such tools unknown, arguably the field should take proactive steps to examine and record the capabilities of these measures. Whilst forensic science has long accepted the concept of toolmark analysis as part of criminal investigations, ‘digital tool marks’ (DTMs) are a notion rarely acknowledged and considered in digital investigations. DTMs are the traces left behind by a tool or process on a suspect system which can help to determine what malicious behaviour has occurred on a device. This article discusses and champions the need for DTM research in digital forensics highlighting the benefits of doing so.