‘I'm a photographer,not a terrorist’: the use of photography to detect deception

When planning large-scale incidents or bombing campaigns, terrorists often conduct reconnaissance research to identify key targets. This may include taking photographs of potential target locations. Identifying an effective real-time method to distinguish between genuine photographers and those with more sinister intent may be beneficial for law enforcement and security agencies. Participants took photographs in a public place with a genuine intent (truth tellers) or sinister intent (liars). After taking these photographs, the participants were approached by an undercover interviewer (a mime artist) who asked them whether he could see the photographs. Later, the participants discussed their photographs in a formal interview. First, liars were less cooperative in their interaction with the undercover interviewer than truth tellers. Second, in the formal interview, liars mentioned some security features that appeared in the photographs more than truth tellers. The findings suggest that ‘using photographs to detect deception’ is a subject that could prove important to explore to benefit forensic and counter-terrorist practice.     

Police confirmation of use of force in Australia: ‘To be or not to be?’

Despite significant transgressions during encounters with Indigenous peoples and marginalised groups, all six state police organisations in Australia espouse the principle of minimum force and identify service and crime prevention as paramount in community interaction and intervention. This article offers some insight and perspective of police talk and thinking about the potential use or avoidance of force. The four Victoria Police focus groups, when confronted by the specific police use of force scenario, speak of the adrenalin rush and the need to achieve results, if reasonable and necessary by force, but also of the desire to control the situation and follow proper police procedures. Officers support ‘Safety First’ principles that advocate a cautionary and suspicious approach to the scenario combined with rational and methodical tactics rather than emotional responses. The reflective talk of individual officers about the hypothetical situation parallels actual behaviour when police collectively and visibly confront public disorder. Control and containment of the situation—whether the scenario or a major crowd disturbance—are paramount while time, in the form of acting slowly and adopting a low-key approach, can be seen as assets in achieving objectives. In both the scenario and police planning for collective action, a readiness to threaten force, rather than actually employ it, appears central to police thinking. Police justification of non-coercive tactics in certain situations can be revealing about their thinking processes in justifying force in other circumstances.

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‘Done to death by father or relatives’: Irish families and infanticide cases, 1922–1950

In February 1929 the Bishop of Ossory commented on the fact that in Ireland illegitimate infants were often ‘done to death by father or relatives’ (Irish Catholic, 16 February 1929). There were many instances where family members of unmarried women who gave birth were the sole defendants or co-defendants in infanticide cases in post-independent Ireland. Although illegitimate infants were ‘done to death’ by their fathers in a number of cases that were tried at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin between 1922 and 1950, this article will focus on cases where infants were murdered or suspected of having been murdered by relatives of the birth mother both in the Twenty-Six Counties and in Northern Ireland (Irish Catholic, 16 February 1929). For the purposes of this article I have referred to the murder of illegitimate infants as ‘infanticide’ even though there was no separate charge of infanticide in the Irish Free State until 1949. The English infanticide acts of 1922 and 1938 also applied to Northern Ireland. This article discusses the motives of the relatives of single mothers who played a part in the deaths of illegitimate infants. Unmarried motherhood was severely frowned upon in Ireland and the relatives of single pregnant women assisted their female kin in destroying the evidence of extra-marital conception in order to protect the family's honour and moral reputation in the wider community. The records of infanticide trials provide a great deal of insight into the ways in which mainly working-class families dealt with the strain of pregnancy outside wedlock in Ireland between 1922 and 1950.     

‘From weird to wired’: MPs,the internet and representative politics in the UK

On 14 May 2002, the House of Commons voted on proposals put forward by the Modernisation Select Committee for reform of the departmental select committee system. This article examines the origins of those proposals, and the outcome of the vote, focusing on one particular proposal to create a Committee of Nomination to place MPs onto select committees. This raises questions regarding two competing academic approaches to explaining parliamentary reform, the ‘attitudinal’ approach and the ‘contextual’ approach, and concludes that, of the two, the ‘contextual’ approach is better placed to explain the failure to create a Committee of Nomination.     

A Retributive Justification for not Punishing Bare Intentions or: On the Moral Relevance of the ‘Now-Belief’

According to criminal law a person should not be punished for a bare intention to commit a crime. While theorists have provided consequentialist and epistemic justifications of this tenet, no convincing retributive justification thereof has yet been advanced. The present paper attempts to fill this lacuna through arguing that there is an important moral difference between a future-directed and a present-directed intention to act wrongfully. Such difference is due to the restraining influence exercised in the decisional process by the ‘now-belief’, i.e. the belief that the time has come to act, which is exclusively involved in the latter type of intention.     

‘It is necessary that the issue be heard to cry or squall within the four [walls]’: Qualifying for Tenancy by the Curtesy of England in the Reign of Edward I

This article considers the test used to determine the presence or absence of life in newborn babies, in relation to a widower’s entitlement to remain in land brought to the marriage by his wife, as tenant by the curtesy of England. To qualify for curtesy, a widower needed to have produced a live and legitimate child, but, since even a short period of life was sufficient, there might be disputes as to whether a child which was now dead had ever been alive. The common law therefore had to develop a way of settling this difficult matter of confirming or denying the presence of life. Several thirteenth-century sources show an emphasis on a sound as an indicator of life. This article considers the use of a sound criterion in this area, arguing that thinking and practice surrounding the appropriate test were more complex, less settled, and more interesting than has been represented in somewhat perfunctory accounts in the work of later lawyers and legal historians. This is significant for the understanding of this area of medieval law, but also has broader implications within legal history and historiography, and for scholars from other fields such as medieval social and medical history.     

‘I Would Prefer Not To’: Giorgio Agamben, Bartleby and the Potentiality of the Law

In Homo Sacer, Giorgio Agamben suggests that Herman’s Melville’s ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ offers the ‘strongest objection against the principle of sovereignty’. Bartleby, a legal scribe who does not write, is best known for the formula with which he responds to all his employer’s requests, ‘I would prefer not to.’ This paper examines this formula, asking what it would mean to ‘prefer not to’ when the law is in question. By reading Melville’s story alongside Aristotle’s theory of potentiality and Walter Benjamin’s theses on history, it suggests that Bartleby’s interest, for Agamben, lies in his challenge to dominant conceptions of the relation between potentiality and actuality, which, he believes, are rendered indistinct in sovereignty. By reflecting critically on Agamben’s depiction of Bartleby as a ‘new Messiah’, this paper examines Agamben’s understanding of what it would mean to fulfil the law, and what form of political task this would entail.     

Digital Economy Act 2010: fighting a losing battle? Why the ‘three strikes’ law is not the answer to copyright law's latest challenge

This paper argues that the Digital Economy Act (DEA) 2010, already much delayed in its implementation, is fundamentally flawed in three respects. First, there are internal inconsistencies in the complex provisions to be enacted under secondary legislation. In particular, the problem of relying on Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to identify alleged infringers has proved problematic. Secondly, the proposed measures are disproportionate in terms of the offence and severity of the punishment involving a warning-system leading to possible disconnection from the Internet for copyright infringement. Thirdly, the Act is unlikely to succeed in its central purpose to control unauthorised digital copying because of its technological specificity in a fast moving environment, and a lack of consumer acceptance. Finally, by comparing the treatment of these issues under legislation in other countries, in particular New Zealand, alternative copyright enforcement models are explored.     

Mixed marriage, ‘a grave injury to our church’: An account of the 1957 Fethard-on-Sea Boycott

The family was central to the religious formation and indeed the survival of southern Irish Protestantism in the mid-twentieth century. The largest Protestant denomination in the Republic of Ireland, the Church of Ireland (comprising approximately 5% of the national population in 1950) was challenged by demographic trends of late and low rates of marriage, emigration and the ever-prevalent threat of mixed marriage. Against this backdrop the church emphasised the essentiality of the socialisation of children into the church community. It cautioned against the dangers of inter-church marriage where the enforcement by the Catholic church of the 1908 Ne Temere decree obliged the Protestant partner in a mixed marriage to consent in writing to the upbringing of any children of the union as Catholics. The actions of one woman in the small village of Fethard-on-Sea in county Wexford in 1957 in challenging this dictate led to a sectarian and divisive boycott of Protestant business in the locality. Eileen Cloney, a member of the Church of Ireland, chose to leave her home with her two daughters, against the wishes of her husband Seán, rather than allow her eldest daughter attend the local Catholic school in the village. Her ‘abduction’ of her children was condemned by local and national Catholic clergy culminating in the call for a boycott of Protestant businesses and farms by the local Catholic Curate, Fr. Stafford on 12 May 1957. In this article, original oral history research as well as previously unseen documentary sources will be used in an examination of this divisive boycott and its local and national repercussions. The article will explore contemporary discourse on marriage as well as highlighting the significance of the family in church and state discourse.     

Is he or is he not the father?: Pros,Cons effect of following standardized interpretations

Parentage studies in the Lebanese population, which has consanguineous marriage rates ranging from 32% up to 44% and endogamy average of 82%, could be prone to high levels of uncertainty since individuals involved in the parentage dispute may share alleles more than in random mating. Consequently, falsely alleged parents are less likely to exhibit allele mismatches with the child's genotype, in particular when the investigations is conducted in limited conditions such as Duo families and using low STR markers profile sizes. In the present study, ten informative paternity cases showing one mismatch were reevaluated. Different profiles (SGM, Identifiler, PP16HS or ESI 17 kits as well as 24 STR marker combination profile) were used throughout. Also, Duo cases were simulated out of the Trio cases. In several Duo cases, results shifted from non-parenthood to positive parentage conclusions when increasing STR markers from 12 to 16 and/or 24. However, no significant difference in the paternity conclusions could be observed for Trio families when using different profile sizes unless when using the SGM profile. When simulating Duo cases from Trio ones, compromising results were obtained under SGM, Identifiler, PP16HS and/or ESI 17 markers. All compromising cases were resolved under 24 markers. In conclusion, due to the effect of consanguinity and endogamy on the Lebanese population, we recommend the use of 24 STR markers DNA profile for any DNA interpretation, especially when accepting Duo cases requests.     

‘Good soldiers are made,not born’⊥: the dangers of medicalizing ability in the military use of genetics

Advances in genetic and genomic science are of particular interest to the United States military. Responding to Maxwell J. Mehlman''s and Tracy Yeheng Li''s article Ethical, Legal, Social, and Policy Issues in the Use of Genomic Technology by the U.S. Military, this Commentary explores the social consequences of medicalizing what it means to be a good soldier. It begins by reviewing the well-documented consequences of medicalization in the contexts of the eugenics movement and modern genetic and genomic science. It then applies that analysis to the military use of genetics and genomics, focusing on the ways in which genetic or genomic accounts of military ability could entrench existing gender and racial disparities.     

‘Prefer not to say’: diversity and diversity reporting at the bar of England & Wales

The Bar of England & Wales, like the wider legal profession, does not reflect the society it serves. The current data published by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) suggests a profile in relation to gender and ethnicity that gives serious cause for concern. As regards additional diversity characteristics, the BSB (and others) have accepted that the existing datasets are not wholly reliable because of poor response rates to associated diversity questionnaires. In 2011, the Legal Services Board (LSB) introduced mandatory guidance that obliged its daughter regulators to put into place rules that relate to diversity monitoring and reporting across the legal profession. This paper is concerned with how the BSB has operationalised that statutory guidance in respect of the Bar. Drawing on data gathered from the websites of 160 chambers, I show significant non-compliance with the reporting rule, and question both how the BSB itself reports on diversity data and the drafting of the reporting rule. I ask whether non-compliance is partly a function of the complexity seen in how the BSB has made operational the LSB’s reporting requirements. My data also suggests that the BSB should target its enforcement and educational approaches to the reporting rule to small and medium sized chambers.     

‘Letters aren’t good’: the operation of the right to request flexible working post-maternity leave in UK small and medium-sized companies

This article contributes to existing literature on flexible working at an organisational level by presenting the results of a qualitative study of women employees and managers in small firms who have been involved in negotiating part-time hours on return to work post-maternity leave. The study finds that the right to request flexible working has become embedded in the policies of small firms and that the overwhelming experience of women employees was positive: their requests were accepted because they were perceived as valuable and consequently their managers wanted to retain them. However employees who lacked ongoing managerial support had a less positive experience. The study also examines other aspects of the operation of the right to request such as the efficacy of written policies on flexible working and the extent to which the negotiation process was formalised.     

The limits of policy: Rural children and work in the United States and New Zealand, 1870–1920

This article uses public documents and first-hand accounts of late 19th and early 20th centuries child life to examine attempts by public policymakers in the United States and New Zealand to change the quality of rural child life in those countries through compulsory schooling and other related measures. These attempts, however, largely failed due to the demands of the farming economy and the unwillingness of public officials to go to extraordinary lengths on behalf of farm children, as opposed to urban children. Rural children's lives would be changed, not by policy, but by technological developments and the vagaries of the farm economy.     

Constructing a New Scottish parliament for the ‘Europe of regions’: Can institutional engineering assure subsidiarity?

The creation of an elected parliament in Scotland raises questions for legislative scholars, among them how a parliamentary body representing a stateless nation within a member state of the European Union can influence and implement European legislation. One version of the ‘principle of subsidiarity’ states that decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen, encouraging assemblies throughout the EU to articulate and implement their own preferences in key policy areas. Reporting findings from a survey of the Scottish parliament's first cohort of legislators, this article identifies conflicting perceptions of subsidiarity, charts how best to pursue it, and evaluates the institutional norms, rules and procedures put in place to help secure it. Data demonstrate that preferences vary by level of MSP knowledge about European policy, by party membership and by method of election. Low levels of legislator knowledge combined with internal divisiveness constitute barriers to institutional strength in the pursuit of subsidiarity.