Complaints of group-stalking (‘gang-stalking’): an exploratory study of their nature and impact on complainants

Stalking primarily concerns the actions of individuals. However, some victims report stalking by organised groups, this being known as ‘group-’ or ‘gang-stalking’. This phenomenon has not been subject to systematic study. An anonymous questionnaire was completed online by self-defined victims of stalking. One thousand and forty respondents met research definitions for stalking, of which 128 (12.3%) reported group-stalking. One hundred and twenty-eight individually stalked cases were randomly selected as a comparison group. All cases of reported group-stalking were found likely to be delusional, compared with 3.9% of individually stalked cases. There were highly significant differences between the two groups on most parameters examined. The group-stalked scored more highly on depressive symptoms, post-traumatic symptomatology and adverse impact on social and occupational functioning. Group-stalking appears to be delusional in basis, but complainants suffer marked psychological and practical sequelae. This is important in assessment of risk in stalking cases, early referral to psychiatric services and allocation of police resources.     

‘Happiness again’: photographing and narrating the arrival of Hungarian child refugees and their families 1956–1957

Abstract

The Australian government has long been involved in creating, collecting and circulating photographs of newly arrived immigrants, displaced people and refugees. Many of these images have been used for internal and external promotional/propaganda purposes. In this article I use news reports and visual photographic material depicting Hungarian refugee children and their families, alongside an analysis of government agendas and communication strategies, to examine how these ‘new Australians’ were understood and presented to the nation. After the 1956 anti-Communist uprising in Hungary, just over 14,000 Hungarian refugees were resettled in Australia. The federal government specially sought out a number of ‘compassionate cases such as children’, and many groups and individuals within the host population offered support to care for what they imagined would be large numbers of orphaned and unaccompanied Hungarian children. These Hungarian refugees came to Australia in the context of increased government interest in public relations and publicity around immigration. A Public Relations director in the Department of Immigration was appointed in 1955 and a publicity section was also established as part of the Planning and Research Division. Discussions by the Immigration Planning Council during 1956 plainly stated that ‘business’ was now the driving force for immigration rather than ‘the “refugee” concept’. Tasman Heyes, the Secretary of the Department of Immigration, agreed but also felt that these two forces were and could be combined, pointing out that since 1951 Australia had received ‘international credit for contributing to the solution of an international problem’ by achieving the integration of these aims. This article examines how refugee children and families were positioned in relation to the fraught pairing of economic and humanitarian concerns, thus interrogating broader understandings of immigration, children and families within the Australian nation that are revealed in these moments of photographic capture and circulation.     

Buried voices: Mexican migrants’ views on the question of illegality

How do immigrant Mexican workers perceive the policies and social discourses that regulate their insertion into American society as noncitizens and illegals? Using ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, evidence is presented that unauthorized Mexican migrants do not consider themselves lawbreakers but rather moral actors responding to difficult socioeconomic conditions. Informed by a keen understanding of the social forces oppressing them, these migrants articulate a discourse of social justice that works as a powerful counterpoint to the hegemonic ideas of citizenship, belonging, and illegality. A careful analysis of migrant social reflexivity offers a much-needed corrective to the prevailing top-down perspective typically offered among contemporary scholars. By looking at the ways in which migrants make sense of immigration policies and articulate their right to have rights, this examination departs from the widespread tendency among scholars and policy makers of analyzing the migrant’s social and civic status as a matter of assimilation and immigration control.     

Swings and roundabouts: The impact of legal drafting on the language and understanding of copyright law and the need for educational materials†

Legislators face the challenging task of drafting copyright law, which takes into account the views of various stakeholders, intended policy and technological developments, whilst ensuring that the wording and language that is used is accurate and precise. Meeting these objectives means that the law in its legislative form can be hard-to-understand, complex and not easily accessible to the layperson. This article explores steps, which have been put in place by various organisations and online resources, to assist in the understanding of copyright for the public and schools, with particular focus on education and teaching materials – as presented on Copyrightuser.org.     

How the game changer was generated? An analysis on the legal rules and development of China’s green bond market

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Despite its late start, China has become the world’s largest green bond market in a very short time. This extraordinary...     

Justice on the line? A comparison of telephone and face-to-face advice in social welfare legal aid

This paper investigates the impact on legal advice of the major shift to telephone-only services in social welfare legal aid, which took place in April 2013. An empirical study comparing telephone and face-to-face advice reveals that face-to-face contact has considerable advantages in the advice interview. Based on interviews and observations with housing law clients, their lawyers and advisers, the findings of this qualitative study demonstrate that clients and lawyers often find it easier to express themselves and understand each other face-to-face. The face-to-face interview benefits from features including the stronger emotional connection between lawyer and client, non-verbal communication, more expansive conversation and the greater ability to consult and confer over documents. Telephone-only advice may be suitable for some more capable clients and uncomplicated matters, but this qualitative research shows that vulnerable clients are more likely to be adversely affected by the potential disadvantages of telephone-only contact. Clients with more complex social needs or with more serious or urgent cases are better served by face-to-face advice. The findings of this research should inform the LASPO review and future priorities for legal aid funding.     

‘It lets out all my demons’: Female young offenders' perceptions about the impact of alcohol on their offending behaviour

The paper reports on findings from 55 qualitative face-to-face interviews with young offenders, and observations of 41 youth offender panel meetings over an 18-month period taking place in two Youth Offending Teams in the Southeast of England. It discusses the perception of correlation between drunkenness and offending asserted by a high number of the female offenders and compares this to perceptions of male offenders, both in this research and from previous research studies. The research brings into question whether current interventions are effective and puts forward suggestions for capitalizing on the apparent greater willingness of female offenders to acknowledge the significant negative impact of drunkenness on their behaviour.     

‘Shut up and bill’: workplace bullying challenges for the legal profession

Competition, work intensification and requirements for efficiency are some of the hallmarks of the modern work environment. Pressures in such settings can result in stress caused by long work hours, a lack of work–life balance and interpersonal conflict. The legal profession is prone to negative impacts due to its highly competitive environment. This, coupled with established hierarchical structures, significant power imbalances and pressure to measure work input rather than output (billable hours), can create ‘toxic’ settings. This paper reports the findings of a study of dignity and respect in the legal profession. Results indicate that many of the issues arise due to negative workplace cultures brought about and perpetuated by work practices and the leadership of the firm. Often the prevailing culture of intense competition, and a win-at-all-costs mentality, has negative repercussions for the security and standing of individuals. Those with position and power use work practices such as billable hours to push others to perform at extraordinary levels, in turn adversely affecting their well-being, quality of work life and tenure in the organisation or profession. The way forward would require a multi-pronged approach and cooperation and collaboration by the relevant stakeholders: regulators, professional associations, institutions and individuals.     

Changing the meaning of ‘vulnerable’ under the homelessness legislation?

The Supreme Court judgement in Hotak v Southwark London Borough Council (Equality and Human Rights Commission and others intervening) [2015] UKSC 30; [2015] 2W.L.R. 1341 appears to have significantly altered prevailing understandings of the meaning of ‘vulnerability’ within the homelessness legislation’s concept of priority need. This paper analyses Hotak’s doctrinal effects, and questions both the adequacy of the court’s reasoning and the likelihood of those formal doctrinal changes leading to a concomitant alteration to the content of the decisions that local authorities reach.     

‘Wrong’ cases and ‘wrong’ plaintiffs: intergenerational relationships and legal consciousness in China

Legal consciousness is not a monolithic concept even in the minds of individual actors. Invoking the law is sometimes viewed positively and at other times not. My study reveals that ordinary people in China consider lawsuits seeking divorce to be acceptable but strongly disapprove of lawsuits seeking intergenerational support. My detailed analysis of this sharp contrast suggests that people consider legal mobilization favourably when claims are brought by the ‘right’ people in the ‘right’ cases, but that they bitterly oppose it when the ‘wrong’ people bring the ‘wrong’ kinds of cases. In this article, I explain how these categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ legal claims and plaintiffs come into being and how they shape the legal consciousness of potential litigants in China.     

‘Narcoballads’: The Psychology and Recruitment Process of the ‘Narco’

There have been several studies conducted about racist groups, gangs, cults, terrorist and other criminal organisations, but very little has been written about the psychology and recruitment process of the ‘narcotrafficker’. This is because like most criminal organisations, they tend to be secretive and difficult to penetrate by law enforcement, academics and others who wish to study them. Using an audio‐recorded content analysis of ‘narcocorridos’ — ballads glorifying the activities of the ‘narcos’ and describing their successes' — as well as Social Identity and Group theories, the author describes some of the techniques used to recruit individuals into drug cartels; the labels, stereotypes and images of the in-group versus the out-group and the similarities in the socialisation and recruitment process of other criminal organisations. This study shows the recruitment of individuals into drug cartels follow similar patterns to other criminal organisations including the need for power, belonging, respect, security and pride.     

New Labour’s communitarianism,supporting families and the ‘rationality mistake’: Part II

In Part I of this study, we argued that New Labour is keen to use legislation to promote what it sees as desirable family forms and to discourage other, less-favoured family practices. The codification of this approach in the 1998 Green Paper Supporting Families - and, in particular, the 'New Deal for Lone Parents' - was compared with recent empirical research on how people make decisions about their moral economies. We concluded that the government's approach is subject to a 'rationality mistake' - people do not make decisions in the way the government assumes and hence legislation can be inefficient or even oppressive. Here, we examine this contention further, this time focusing on chapter 4 of the Green Paper, indicatively entitled 'Strengthening marriage'. Using recent empirical research on mothers' views on marriage and cohabitation, we find further evidence of the 'rationality mistake', where the government has misunderstood the ways in which people make decisions about partnering and hence misplaces the role of family law. We conclude that supportive and flexible legislative frameworks are needed that recognize the varying ways in which people take moral economic decisions.     

‘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 ‘Charlie’: the business of cocaine smuggling in Greece

This article examines the social organisation of cocaine smuggling in Greece. Emphasis is placed on the involvement of professionals from the shipping industry and actors from the ‘upper society echelons’ who play a pivotal role in the transportation and importation of cocaine to Western Europe and Greece. After considering empirical evidence from a variety of sources, our findings indicate that the cocaine market in Greece is ‘organised’ by a system of collaborative relationships between state, business and civil society actors. It is suggested that to better understand the nature of this illegal market, further research is required to take a closer look into the economic, socio-cultural and political incentives of these actors.     

Legal Imaginaries and the Anthropocene: ‘Of’ and ‘For’

Law and Critique - This reflection contrasts the dominant imaginary underlying ‘law of the Anthropocene’ with an imaginary reaching towards ‘law/s for the Anthropocene’. It...     

Tracing the impact of peers on households’ economic behavior

Economic Change and Restructuring - This paper investigates the impact of peer effects and characteristics on households’ multifaceted economic behavior. Using data from a Dutch...