Conditions making for success and failure of denial and deception: Nonstate and illicit actors

Conclusion Deception is integral to illicit organizations. Cover is a strategic necessity that, at a great cost in efficiency, allows illicit organizations the opportunity to achieve their objectives. The revolutionary organization is, in fact, an alternative reality that seeks to be invisible except when it needs to propagate a version of the truth and to bolster the impact of its armed operations. In the case of the truth, remarkably little deception is deployed. The revolutionaries consider their faith to be inviolate and convincing, without need of apology or equivocation. Reality is often visible. Islamic Jihad preached the truth, the IRA hid it for two years and the Sicilian Mafia makes the hidden truth yield public respect. In operational matters, much that takes place underground is focused on maintenance, supply and distribution, command and control, and communication that needs to be hidden but need not otherwise be duplicitous. Secrecy apart, most operations focus on obvious targets. Strategic deception is rare.     

Implementing and evaluating crime prevention and control programs and policies

The history of crime prevention and control efforts in the United States has demonstrated little progressive improvement in our ability to deter crime. The major obstacles to implementing effective interventions and policies have been a weak scientific knowledge base about how to prevent crime, the research community's inability to effectively disseminate what is known about the causes of crime and to translate this knowledge into operational programs and policies, and a resistance on the part of practitioners and policy makers to evaluate programs and policies and to use this information in the development of new programs and policies. In the last decade, there have been major advances in our understanding about the causes of crime and we have now demonstrated the effectiveness of selected prevention programs. But there is little evidence that this scientific knowledge is informing current practice or policy. Problems in the dissemination of this information and the resistance to utilizing it remain. These problems are discussed and suggestions are made for addressing them. Our knowledge base remains modest, but it is now sufficient to inform policy and practice. The research community must work to do a better job of disseminating this information and overcoming the resistance to utilizing it before we will be successful in implementing effective crime prevention programs and policies. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Politics and Science

To say that science has a great role to play is to repeat platitudes. Hardly anyone with any smattering of knowledge doubts this. In these days, when science is taking truly giant strides, when its achievements are evident to any modern man at literally every step, there is no need to prove that science is indispensable to the progress of society.     

同一制与区别制的对立及解释

同一制与区别制是涉外继承法律适用的两种基本制度选项。从历史基础和继承法律关系性质出发进行考察,同一制较之区别制具有理论优势。《涉外民事关系法律适用法》富有特色地划分法定继承和遗嘱继承的法律适用,前者采用区别制,后者采用同一制。但区别制与同一制简明的立法结构的表象背后,各自隐藏着一系列难以具体规范的复杂问题。无论是最高人民法院未来制定司法解释,还是法官在个案中适用涉外继承冲突规则,都应遵循的基本思路是:区别制的制度运行有时需要同一制的思维方式作为补充,同一制的制度运行需要格外注意不动产所在地法的积极作用。     

犯罪人的适应性非理性及其防控

犯罪人在本质上可以认定为非理性的。界定理性和非理性的标准，从犯罪心理学意义上说，就是看行为人能否考虑和愿否考虑行为的后果。犯罪人在神智正常的情况下，不能考虑犯罪行为的后果，或者不愿考虑犯罪行为的后果，说明了其是非理性的，这种非理性主要表现为低自控和低自珍。犯罪人的非理性的生成是环境适应的结果，可以把犯罪人的非理性看作为适应性的非理性。犯罪人非理性的防控是犯罪预防的根本环节，应该从加强司法惩处和教育宣传等方面出发，引导理性。     

Law and Coherence

Abstract. This paper deals with the questions of whether the law should be coherent and what this coherence would amount to. In this connection so‐called “integrated coherentism” is introduced. According to integrated coherentism, an acceptance set is coherent if and only if it contains everything that should rationally be accepted according to what else one accepts and does not contain anything that should rationally be rejected according to what else one accepts. Such an acceptance set is ideally a theory of everything, including amongst others standards for rational aceptance. On the assumption that the law, as a social phenomenon, is what the best theory about the law says it is, the law must be coherent, because the best theory of the law is part of an integratedly coherent theory of everything. This view is compatible with Raz's view that the law stems from different sources that need not be coherent in the sense that they consistently elaborate the same underlying principles or policies. Raz's view is not a consequence of integrated coherentism, however.     

主观主义与客观主义之分野及趋同

客观主义从人的共同理性、人格同一性出发 ,以行为为中心 ,注重行为客观社会危害的犯罪评价 ;主观主义从人的超越理性、人格特殊性出发 ,以行为人为中心 ,强调行为人的人身危险性的犯罪评价。 1 9世纪以来 ,主观主义、客观主义由对立走向折衷、调和以至统一 ,形成了折衷主义。刑法典与司法运作折射着其背后的理论蕴含。在当代刑法中 ,量刑不仅要依据行为、实害、故意、过失 ,而且需考虑行为人的人身危险性 ,此为量刑之折衷 ;人身危险性从两个角度介入定罪 ,是为定罪之折衷。     

礼仪法与故事关系探析

故事是本朝或先王的已行之事,属于"祖宗旧制"、"先王旧制"。礼仪法是中国古代特有的一个法律门类,由于其事关典礼风俗、礼节仪制,其制定与实施,往往奉行法先王、循祖宗的政策,要"求索故事"。因此,故事与礼仪法之间关系甚为密切,在汉魏晋时代表现尤为突出。     

Democracy and Disagreement

Abstract. According to Popper's critical rationalism, the possibility of disagreement is at the heart of open societies. If this is assumed to be true, is it not illiberal to try to justify principles of justice, which can be regarded as the subject of an unending collective deliberation? I suggest that it is not, using an analogy with scientific progress. Moreover, I try to show that Rawls's achievement is misunderstood if one forgets that it is supposed to overcome the antinomy between “la liberté des Modemes” and “la liberté des Anciens.” In this respect, I insist on some unnoticed similarities between Rawls's and Popper's points of views. I conclude on the idea of the “neutrality” of the theory of justice, suggesting a link between Rawls's approach and the French republican tradition.     

Somnophilia and Sexual Abuse through the Administration of GHB and GBL

Somnophilia, the desire to have sex with an unconscious, sleeping, or comatose person who is unable to respond, is a sexual paraphilia that is seldom reported. The underlying desire is often overshadowed by the act of sexual violation and when using GHB or GBL to induce unconsciousness, as in the case presented here, the victim might not even be able to recall, for certain, that they have been sexually violated. A case study is offered of a somnophile who adulterated drinks to render young men unconscious, so he could rape them in that state, before progressing to administering drugs anally on the pretext of applying lubrication to the anus to facilitate sexual intercourse. The offender's fetishistic compulsion to have sex with unconscious men propelled him to experiment with the means by which he surreptitiously administered drugs to his victims in order to deepen their comatose state.     

Sentences and Dispositions

When a child sexual abuse situation is first presented, it is necessary to look down the road to ascertain what can be done, and what cannot be done. The investigation, process, procedures, and court orders can then all be melded into a cohesive whole which will best accomplish what needs to be done. Thus it is necessary at the outset to consider the dispositions and to plan for it. It thus also becomes necessary at the outset to coordinate the plans and activities of all of the authorities and agencies involved, which may be a sticky invasion of various turfs. There are numerous potential remedies, most of them currently available in most communities, which are readily replicated from other communities. The problem is principally educating all of the professionals into all aspects of the problem, all potential solutions, and somehow to persuade them to coordinate their efforts.     

IT and Law,and Law Schools

If 'computing and law' as a discipline is to push forward and develop, it will do so best within the context of the law school rather than as a joint enterprise between law and other disciplines. It is in the law school that the understanding of the nature of law is at its height. Yet there are problems here-law schools have a strained relationship with technology and their concept of the breadth of 'legal scholarship' can be limited by conventional (or ideologically-biased) views of law and an undergraduate-oriented view of the law school's purpose. There are also problems arising from the nature of communications between lawyers and computer scientists. In this article, I highlight these problems and also argue for a more developed and extended view of legal scholarship which will be able to incorporate study and research of the impact of the computer upon legal society as well as the legal control of the unwanted elements arising from these new technologies. Most writings on IT and the law school concentrate upon its use as an educational tool. My interest here is not so much in this side of things, but in the research culture of the law school. Whilst there is sometimes a view that the linkage of law school and IT is purely related to the use of technology in legal education, the remit is wider and includes the understanding of the link between substantive law and the context of the new computerized world and also the impact of the computer in the practice of law. This latter aspect is becoming increasingly important with the Woolf reforms and computerization of the procedural elements of law, but also in substantive law: for example, administrative systems are becoming more and more mediated by technology, and administrative law must be reviewed and re-worked in this context.     

Contractualism and Punishment

T. M. Scanlon's contractualism is a meta-ethical theory that explains moral motivation and also provides a conception of how to carry out moral deliberation. It supports non-consequentialism––the theory that both consequences and deontological considerations are morally significant in moral deliberation. Regarding the issue of punishment, non-consequentialism allows us to take account of the need for deterrence as well as principles of fairness, justice, and even desert. Moreover, Scanlonian contractualism accounts for permissibility in terms of justifiability: an act is permissible if and only if it can be justified to everyone affected by it. This contractualist thesis explains why it is always impermissible to frame an innocent person, why vicarious punishment is impermissible, and why there has to be a cap on sentences. Contractualism therefore allows us to take deterrence as a goal of punishment without the excess of utilitarianism. This paper further argues that the resulting view is superior to pure retributivism. Finally, it shows why legal excuses and mitigation can be justified in terms of the notion of negative desert.     

Contract Rights and Remedies,and the Divergence between Law and Morality*

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate in the philosophical and jurisprudential literature regarding the nature and possibility of Contract theory. On one hand, are those who argue (or assume) that there is, or should be, a single, general, universal theory of Contract Law, one applicable to all jurisdictions and all times. On the other hand, are those who assert that Contract theory should be localized to particular times and places, perhaps even with different theories for different types of agreements. This article considers one facet of this debate: evaluating the relevance of the fact that the remedies available for breach of contract can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. This wide variation in remedies for breach of a (contractual) promise is one central difference between promises in morality and enforceable agreements in law. The article asserts that variation of remedies strongly supports the conclusion that there is (and can be) no general, universal theory of Contract Law.     

Taxation and trusts

It really is necessary that people, resident and taxable inEngland, should die earlier. Long life is an anti-social activity.It denies the government taxation to which it feels it is trulydue. Early deaths, particularly amongst the wealthy, are necessary:it is the patriotic duty of those with wealth to shuffle offtheir mortal coil as soon as possible and to allow the governmentas much inheritance tax as possible. Ghoulish though this mayseem, it is clearly a view of the current British Government. Why do we say this? The Paymaster General, in explaining thenew rules for inheritance tax treatment of settlements, justifiedher policy in the term ‘Because trusts do not die,     

Use and Abuse of the Internet in Fraud and Money Laundering

The Internet provides an ideal opportunity for defrauding those who are less technologically advanced or who are enthralled by the technology. Yet the frauds and other financial crime which are perpetrated on the Internet are, in principle, no different from those which have been committed over time. The advantages to the criminal of the Internet as against most other media are that there is an opportunity to make vast numbers of cold calls at a cost which borders on the free, the opportunity to create credibility by the use of legitimate imagery from reputable sources and to secure the proceeds of the crime not only anonymously but also in jurisdictions where the pursuit of the offender is difficult. There is also the fact that the prospective victims have been conditioned to believe that which appears on a computer screen: the suspension of incredulity and caution is deeply engendered. For that most pure of financial crimes, money laundering, there is the advantage of ease of communication, the simplicity of setting up schemes, with ready access to otherwise remote geographical and legislative locations. Yet there is another issue which does raise serious concerns, but which is not generally regarded as an offence: the provision of information and advice where there is an element of transfer pricing, with the consequent avoidance of taxes. The challenge is to bring about a system of regulation which enables free exchange of information whilst limiting the opportunity to trick people who are already conditioned to believe what they see on a computer monitor. The Internet does not create new frauds nor new money laundering schemes. It is merely a facilitator that has a high level of credibility. And it creates opportunity for the export at low prices of high value added services to the detriment of local economies, for the first time making onshore facilities fully available via offshore centres, with the consequence that it will become increasingly difficult tell the good from the bad.     

Copyright and its complex and varying contexts

This is the third volume of writings based on papers deliveredat workshops and conferences organized under the auspices ofthe Arts and Humanities Research Council Network on New Directionsin Copyright Law. It focuses on two of the themes consideredwithin that research programme, the protection of traditionalknowledge and culture and developments in related rights andrights neighbouring on copyright. Of the 10 chapters, six consider various aspects of the legalprotection that is, or ought to be, accorded to traditionalknowledge and     

法律与政治:共生中的超越和博弈

法律与政治具有共生性,共同服务于社会目标与价值。虽然在形式上法律表现为政治的产物,依凭政治权力和政治组织而存在,但法律与政治是基于社会结构内在需要的不同而存在,具有基于社会结构的差异性和独立性。由于形式上的结合,人们往往把法律混同于政治,导引出法律的非结构性作用,变异为外在的政治工具;也正因为存在基于社会结构的实质性差异,法律才可以与政治适度分离并超越政治。但其过程充满以社会事件形式表现出来的冲突和博弈,通过这些冲突性社会事件,法律日渐进化为国家和社会之间的平衡互动性制度机制,在实现国家治理的同时能够成为公民维护自身利益的制度依靠。