Gender, race, and formal court decision-making outcomes: Chivalry/paternalism, conflict theory or gender conflict?

A significant body of research examines the influence of offender gender on court-related decision making and typically finds that women deemed “worthy of protection” are afforded greater leniency than other offenders. There is a less developed effort to uncover the influence of victim characteristics, particularly victim gender and the interaction between offender and victim gender on formal criminal justice outcomes. Drawing from the chivalry/paternalism hypotheses, conflict theory, and gender conflict frameworks, the present research used data on a nationally representative sample of convicted homicide defendants to examine the effects of gender and race dyads on sentencing outcomes. Policy implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Gender, Police Arrest Decisions, and Notions of Chivalry

The extent of preferential treatment toward female offenders during arrest has been a neglected topic in research on female criminality. This article uses data collected in 1977 during police-suspect encounters with 785 males and females to explore the existence of chivalrous treatment of female offenders in the initial stages of criminal processing. These data indicate that chivalry exists at the stage of arrest for those women who display appropriate gender behaviors and characteristics. In general, the findings suggest that female suspects who deviate from stereotypic gender expectations lose the advantage that may be extended to female offenders. Specifically, older, white, female suspects are less likely to be arrested than their younger, black or hostile sisters. In addition, in the initial stage of criminal processing, female property offenders receive no leniency, and some evidence suggests that offenses against property weigh we heavily in arrest decisions for females than for males. Differences in the factors influencing police arrest decisions for male and female suspects are also examined.     

Queering State Crime Theory: The State,Civil Society and Marginalization

This article argues that criminology desperately needs to look at the ways in which states marginalize and persecute lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ) identities. It critically examines the ways in which states reproduce hegemonic dictates that privilege those who adhere to gendered heterosexual norms over all others. This article further considers how the application of state crime theories, in particular Michalowski’s (State crime in the global age, pp. 13–30, Devon, Willan, 2010) tripartite framework, might further foreground the responsibility of the state in protecting LGBTQ identities. Examples of how this framework could be applied are given, with the case study of criminalization of same sex relations being focused on in depth. The article concludes by positing four key points to be considered in any analysis that attempts to critique the role of the state in the perpetuation of heterosexual hegemony.     

Women,Work, and Crime: An International Test of the Emancipation Hypothesis

This study analyzes Interpol statistics on female crime for the 1963–1970 period for a sample of Western nations with the purpose of testing two popular explanations of female criminality. Six measures of female economic participation in society were correlated with female proportional involvement in overall crime rates, theft, fraud, murder, and robbery/burglary.

It was found that women's contribution to the overall arrest rate is neither directly proportional to their employment in the commercial work force, nor to the degree in which their jobs are comparable to those of males. The analysis of the crimes of theft and fraud provided support for the “opportunity” version of emancipation theory. Adler's “aggressive” variant of the emancipation hypothesis was only partly borne out by the data for murder and not supported for robbery and burglary.     

后工业社会福利国家的压力增加了还是减少了？

尽管对现代福利国家的比较研究已使我们获得了对福利国家如何应对由内因和外因带来的压力拥有了丰富的认识，但对后工业社会这些压力的性质和潜在的含义还不甚明了。在研究的文献中，学者们探讨了诸多对福利国家产生压力的各种社会现象，诸如：全球化、欧洲化、人口的统计规律、个体化和变迁中的劳动力。全球化和欧洲一体化作为外在压力，其对福利国家的影响尚有待证明，而人口老龄化、劳动人口的相对下降、工作年限的缩短、多样化的家庭和个人生活方式等内生压力对福利国家造成的影响要重要得多。压力在后工业社会并不是像大家通常所认为的那样被福利国家消解了或重构了，相反，对福利国家而言，真实情况是压力更多了而不是减少了。     

试论我国离婚经济补偿制度的存废

我国2001年修正后的《婚姻法》增设了离婚经济补偿制度,集中规定在第40条,学界对此大加肯认,有学者建议应该修改完善。经过分析与考证后发现,其实不然,应该删除第40条的规定,将离婚经济补偿制度的价值和功能交由完善后的我国夫妻共同财产制予以彰显和实现。     

从法律上可保利益到经济可保利益

海上保险中,被保险人对保险标的应当具有可保利益,否则,保险合同无效.根据英国判例法和MIA 1906,可保利益必须是法律上可保利益.这一原则和制度被大多数国家所接受.然而,法律上可保利益原则具有相当的局限性,特别是给FOB、CFR买卖中装船前货物保险带来了很大的困扰.有鉴于此,人们做了摆脱困境的种种尝试,并最终转向经济可保利益.经济可保利益原则的确立是新的经济条件下保险本质的回归.     

Marginalization,reproduction and assaults against teachers: Ideas on the contradictions of ideological social control

Summary We have analyzed school stratification and delinquent behavior by demonstrating that the connection between the two can be explained more completely by reference to the nature and functioning of American capitalism. By way of a thorough analysis of the reproduction forces at work today in American capitalism, as well as the way consciousness is formed through the satisfaction and fulfillment of species needs and powers, our investigation linked delinquent behavior (assaults against teachers) and school stratification with the social system of which they are embedded. Concentrating initially on the structural forces at work within the labor market, we were able to uncover the foundations which mold the social relations of production. We then turned our investigation to the school, revealing how the underlying function of secondary education today is the reproduction of the social relations of production. With a thorough understanding of these two interrelated phenomena, we were then able to explain why minority students attack secondary school teachers at a higher rate than other students. Specifically, it is because of thecontradiction between the creation of a personality possessing autonomous and independent behavior traits, with emphasis on violent behavior patterns as a means of solving interpersonal problems (marginalization), and the austere authoritarian and control mechanisms of the school (reproduction).I wish to thank Nancy Gilliland for helpful comments and criticism on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Economic credentialing: your money or your life!

The economic overhaul of health care in America is restructuring the business of medicine, and with it the relationship between physician and patient. Previously accustomed to thinking primarily about the best interests of each patient, the physician now finds this traditional loyalty in conflict with competing concerns, including those of government, business, and insurers who watch with alarm the relentless rise in their health care expenditures. And there are competing interests of hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and other provider-institutions who find their survival threatened by high-powered competition and increasingly stringent resource limits, and interests of other physicians and their patients whose health needs compete for limited health care dollars.     

More Norms,Less Justice: Refugees,the Republic,and everyone in between

The paper argues for conflating refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) as two sides of a work-in-progress postcolonial state. To be sure, aliens, refugees, IDPs, and stateless persons are separate legal entities. Nevertheless, this fragmented normative regime stands testimony to more laws and less justice. Many Asian states have no domestic refugee law. India, a common law system, takes a case by case approach as refugees are given “temporary shelter on humanitarian considerations”. Ironically, a work-in-progress postcolonial state sustains even de jure citizens as de facto stateless persons; the erstwhile Indo-Bangla enclaves for more than half a century were an apt example. Surely, the raison d’être of international law on refugees is to end human suffering, if needed, by transcending the absence of positive laws. A constitutional and political desire to minimise human suffering alone could cut the rigour of such positivist legal narratives. The Delhi High Court seemingly walked that path in Koul v Estate Officer noting “refugees and IDPs appear to be similarly situated”. Rising terrorism has made states increasingly believe in a security narrative all the same. A simultaneous emergence of a demographic anxiety particularly in India’s North-eastern states increasingly pits aliens and refugees against the domiciled indigenous and tribal people.     

Strength of Evidence,Extraevidentiary Influence,and the Liberation Hypothesis: Data from the Field

To examine relationships between strength of evidence (SOE) and extraevidentiary variables in the context of Kalven and Zeisel’s (The American Jury, 1966) liberation hypothesis, post-trial questionnaire data were collected from judges, attorneys, and jurors associated with 179 criminal jury trials. SOE ratings were strongly correlated with jury verdicts on the three most serious charges against the defendant, and several extraevidentiary variables (i.e., pretrial publicity, trial complexity, charge severity, and foreperson demographics) were moderately correlated with verdicts. Extraevidentiary-verdict relationships remained significant when SOE was controlled, although extraevidentiary variables yielded only modest improvement in classification accuracy beyond SOE. In partial support of the liberation hypothesis, several case-related extraevidentiary variables were significantly related to jury verdicts only when the prosecution’s evidence was rated as moderately strong.     

TPP与中国的经济一体化法动向和对策

在APEC框架下进行的TPP（环太平洋战略性经济合作协定）是一种广域经济一体化的实践,突破了传统的区域经济一体化法的地理邻接性的空间限制,而其中的美国、日本等国的动向对中国经济贸易发展有重大影响,因此中国有必要在战略高度上审视其经济一体化对策,积极应对TPP带来的新挑战。从国家利益出发权衡利弊,中国应该积极参与到TPP谈判进程中。     

The Intersection of Crime Seriousness,Discretion, and Race: A Test of the Liberation Hypothesis

Spohn and Cederblom’s interpretation of the liberation hypothesis asserts that with trivial crimes, judges are “liberated” to consider extra-legal attributes such as race when making sentencing decisions. The current study posits that this perspective may be too theoretically simplistic because it fails to distinguish between the concepts of discretion and uncertainty. In light of this argument, we examine the sentencing decisions of felony cases in the Florida circuit courts. Results indicate that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be imprisoned than whites, and males more so than females. Contrary to expectations, this disparity increases with crime seriousness. Consistent with the imprisonment model, blacks and males receive longer sentences and the effect increases with case seriousness. We found no evidence that the effect of offender extra-legal attributes depends upon the characteristics of the judges handling the cases. Suggestions for future research and implications for the liberation hypothesis are discussed.     

Toward a New Legal History of Capitalism and Unfree Labor: Law,Slavery, and Emancipation in the American Marketplace

New work on the “history of capitalism” reveals how the personal freedom enjoyed by people living within the liberal capitalist mainstream is often purchased by coerced labor at the social margins. Walter Johnson's book River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom makes this argument with force, utilizing the concept of “slave racial capitalism” to suggest how race‐based slavery constituted a necessary component of early American economic expansion. Using Johnson's framework as a starting point, this essay argues that the legal institutions of property and contract, institutions underwriting a genuinely “slave racial capitalist” regime, also contained certain subversive possibilities within themselves, eventually challenging unfree labor as a modality of rule within the modernizing United States.     

少捕慎诉慎押刑事司法政策研究

少捕慎诉慎押刑事司法政策是推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化,实现强制措施制度回归诉讼保障功能,应对犯罪结构发生重大变化和深化落实宽严相济刑事政策的必然要求。贯彻少捕慎诉慎押刑事司法政策应当在厘清其内涵的基础上规范其适用范围并遵循一定的原则,其实施路径包括正确把握逮捕的条件;进行实质化的羁押必要性审查;用好、用足不起诉制度;与认罪认罚从宽制度合理衔接以及充分发挥辩护制度的重要作用等。检察机关作为捕诉职能的承担者,是该政策有效施行的“第一责任人”,应当充分发挥“司法纽带”作用。时机成熟时,应当对该政策进行延伸,形成“少拘少捕慎诉慎押慎判”的系统的刑事司法理念和政策。     

Less Democracy, More Courts: A Puzzle of Judicial Review in Russia

This article explores why, throughout the 1990s, some Russian regions created their own constitutional courts and others did not. Contrary to current theories that assert that politicians create a strong and independent judiciary to protect them from the tyranny of election-winners in the context of political uncertainty, my analysis finds that constitutional courts emerged only in those regions where governors virtually guaranteed their re-election by consolidating their political power vis-à-vis federal and local governments. The article argues that both federal and regional politicians used the process of creating subnational constitutional courts to legitimize their federalism and judicial reforms. The changes in the balance of power between those governors, who aspired to have their own judicial system, and the federal government that insisted on a single federal judicial system, determined the variation in the process of court-building across Russian regions.     

经济转型、经济创新与经济法的“刚柔并济”

在当前的经济新常态下,经济转型与经济创新是我国经济发展的核心问题.经济转型与经济创新对经济法理论与实践提出了更高的新要求.面对经济转型和经济创新中新情况与新问题的挑战,经济法必须在理论与实践层面进行有效回应.经济法具有“刚”与“柔”两个属性,通过对经济法相关理论的分析和现实生活中具体实例的验证可以发现,经济法的“刚柔并济”的差异性适用理论能够较好地回应经济转型与经济创新中所出现的各种问题.构建经济法的“刚柔并济”的差异性适用长效机制需要从理论体系、立法层面、执法层面和司法层面等方面着手.