The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers

The concepts of fairness and justice are embodied within the organizing principle of social justice. Although social justice is a primary focus of social work, social service workers are not always treated with fairness by their own employers. The results from a survey of 255 social service employees from a variety of agencies in Northwest Ohio indicate that distributive justice and procedural justice, two dimensions of organizational justice, are both significant predictors of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, with procedural justice having two to three times the impact of distributive justice.     

A comparative analysis of jails in the United States and Bangladesh

There are comparative analyses in the current criminal justice literature but few focus on Asian cultures and even fewer compare Muslim countries with the United States. While comprehensive comparative studies are needed, preliminary studies that correlate the functional similarities and differences are also necessary. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of the jails in Bangladesh and the United States. The data for this study are taken directly from Bangladesh population summary reports and a matched sample of American Jails from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Jail Census (1990). The comparative data are key functional measures from each country and are used as the basis for classifying the jails into two groups. The findings indicate that there are key differentiating variables (crowding and population turnover) that allow one to classify the jails in the two nations. Although this study provides clear evidence for the differences between American and Bangladeshi jails, further in‐depth analyses should follow.     

Trajectories of Delinquency and Problem Behavior: Comparison of Social and Personal Control Characteristics of Adjudicated Boys on Synchronous and Nonsynchronous Paths

In this paper we identify and distinguish two categories of manifestations of deviance, problem behavior and delinquency, and show that they often follow synchronous developmental sequences. Using data from a sample of 506 adjudicated boys, we investigate the difference between those with synchronous trajectories, in which problem behavior and delinquency follow similar developmental paths, and those with nonsynchronous trajectories, in which the two follow different developmental paths. Comparison of the trajectories shows that personal control variables, such as social maladjustment, value orientation, manifest aggression, and extroversion, are more effective in discriminating between trajectories than are social control variables from school, peer, routine activities, and belief categories. These personal control variables are often not included in studies of delinquency.     

Animal abuse and criminology: introduction to a special issue

I wish I had a penny or a cent or a peso for each of the many times in the past few years that I have listened in on a conversation or read something about human rights and animal rights and then been forced to think through to the variety of its possible conclusions what for three shipwrecked and hungry survivors in a lifeboat on the high seas is the proper thing to do about their thirst and imminent starvation. Suppose that the three survivors of this shipwreck are an adult human, the ship’s cabin boy and a dog. Suppose also that they are several days away from rescue and without hope of acquiring food or potable water from their salt-water environment. For purposes of survival in this dire situation, may one of the two humans kill and eat one of the other two survivors? If so, which one? To these two questions almost certainly the response by two of the shipwrecked survivors themselves, by would-be in-contact-radio-rescuers, by medical consultants, by theological experts and by the general public would be: “it’s alright to eat the dog”.     

“Slinging dope”: The role of gangs and gang members in drug sales

There are two competing views about the role of gangs and gang members in drug sales. The first argues that street gangs are well-organized purveyors of illegal drugs who reinvest the profits from drug sales into the gang. A second approach rejects this notion. Its proponents claim that drug sales by gangs are seldom well-organized and that gang members often act independently of the gang in selling drugs. We examine these two arguments in the context of findings from a three-year field study of street gangs in a large midwestern city. We find that gang members are involved extensively in the sale of drugs, but that sales are seldom well organized. These results are discussed in light of the organizational structure of the gang and the nature of the street drug market.     

Identification of members of the genera Panaeolus and Psilocybe by a DNA test. A preliminary test for hallucinogenic fungi

Abuse of hallucinogens produced by the fungal genera Psilocybe and Panaeolus are a growing problem. Five species from each of the two genera were examined in this preliminary research and a method that will unambiguously identify fungal samples as being of one of these two genera has been developed. The method uses genus specific DNA sequences within the Internal Transcribed Spacer of the ribosomal gene complex. Amplification of a common DNA product and a genus specific product results in two identifiable products, which facilitates the unambiguous identification of material from these two fungi to generic level.     

Education and Marriage as Protective Factors Against Homicide Mortality: Methodological and Substantive Findings from Moscow

This study examines the protective effects of education and marriage against homicide mortality in Russia. Individual data are obtained from death records and population data from the 1994 micro-census, and differentials in mortality from homicide are estimated employing two different methods: a straightforward approach using census data and proportional mortality analysis. We find that the latter underestimates the impact of education on homicide mortality. Despite differences in effect sizes, however, both methods reveal a significantly higher risk of homicide victimization for those that are unmarried and less educated. We conclude that education and marriage likely provide social capital and coping skills that protect individuals against violent victimization, even during times of dramatic social change and dire economic circumstances such as those faced in transitional Russia.     

Three dimensional visualization and comparison of impressions on fired bullets

Currently, optical devices, such as microscopes and CCD cameras, are utilized for identification of bullets and tool marks in the field of forensic science. While these optical methods are easily manageable and effective, they are under great influence of illumination condition. In other words, appearances of striations through these optical devices have possibility to be changed by lighting condition. Besides these appearance-based approaches, we can utilize three dimensional (3D) geometric data of tool marks that are free from lighting condition. In this study, we focused on 3D geometric data of landmark impressions on fired bullets for identification. We obtained the 3D surface data of tool marks by a confocal microscope and reconstructed virtual impressions on a PC monitor from the geometric data. Furthermore, the 3D data are exploited to numerical matching of two surface shapes. We also visualized the difference of two shapes. In order to do this, two surface models are aligned automatically. In this process, pairings of correspondent points on both surfaces are determined. Distance analysis between these pairs leads to a shape comparison. Since comparison results are visualized, they are intuitive and easily perceptive.     

The medical provision of hydration and nutrition: two very different outcomes in Victoria and Florida

Decisions to withhold or withdraw medical hydration and nutrition are amongst the most difficult that confront patients and their families, medical and other health professionals all over the world. This article discusses two cases relating to lawful withdrawal and withholding of a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube (PEG) from incompetent patients with no hope of recovery. Victoria and Florida have statutory frameworks that provide for advance directives, however in both Gardner; Re BWV and Schindler v Schiavo; Re Schiavo the respective patients did not leave documented instructions. The article analyses the two cases and their outcomes from legal, medical and ethical perspectives.     

Rules as Icons: Wittgenstein's Paradox and the Law

In this paper Section 1 distinguishes between two modes of interpreting legal rules: rehearsal and discourse, arguing that the former takes priority over the latter in law, as in many other contexts. Section 2 offers two arguments that following a legal rule in the rehearsing mode presents a riddle. The first argument develops from law, and submits that legal rules do not tell us anything, because they are tautological. The second one develops from philosophy (Wittgenstein's later works), confronting us with the paradox that incompatible courses of action may be derived from any rule. My solution presents a theory of rules as icons (Section 3 ). I use “icon” rather than “picture,” partly to avoid confusion with what is known among philosophers as “the picture theory of meaning.” Interpretation in the rehearsing mode hinges on imagination: imagining oneself in the space of reasons for action rather than reasoning oneself. In this act of imagination, we project ourselves into the rule in ways that are similar to the way we grasp the sense of paintings, music, stories, or poems. Finally (Section 4 ) I will defend the position that my view solves the puzzles in the second section, by arguing (a) that it is a better account of what Wittgenstein wrote than two competing theories (intuitionism and conventionalism), and (b) that it provides a more satisfactory account of how lawyers deal with legal rules in actual practice.     

When second best is good enough: a comparison between a true experiment and a regression discontinuity quasi-experiment

In this paper, we compare the results from a randomized clinical trial to the results from a regression discontinuity quasi-experiment when both designs are implemented in the same setting. We find that the results from the two approaches are effectively identical. We attribute the comparability in part to recent statistical developments that make the model required for the analysis of data from a regression discontinuity design easier to determine. These developments make an already strong quasi-experimental design even stronger.     

在法律与事实之间——司法裁判中事实认定过程的法理分析

理论界和实务界通常认为司法裁判的过程是"先查清事实、后适用法律。"对此论断进行反思,指出两者的统一性,并从多个层面、正反两方面论证了法律与事实的不可分离性。从法理的视角对案件的事实认定过程进行分析,并开创性地提出案件事实具体应当划分为案件的证据事实和案件的法律事实,与之相对应案件的事实认定过程实际分为证据事实认定阶段和法律事实认定阶段,此两阶段分别受程序法、证据法和实体法所规范。     

Separated Children: A Comparison of the Treatment of Separated Child Refugees Entering Australia and Canada

Separated children are in a uniquely vulnerable situation. Notonly are they in fear of persecution but they have been separatedfrom their families. They are seeking multifaceted protections.Such children need a country to protect them from further persecution,a caregiver to nurture them and fulfil the family role and asociety that will foster their social and intellectual growth.This article analyses the treatment of separated child refugeesin the context of international human rights law as it relatesto children and from the viewpoint of domestic immigration law.The article bases this analysis on a comparison of the treatmentof separated child refugees in Australia and Canada. The fundamentalprinciple of the International Convention on the Rights of theChild is that member states should act in the child's best interests.This principle has two important aspects, firstly, that detentionof children should only be used as a last resort and, secondly,that child refugees should enjoy the right to seek asylum. Thearticle examines the domestic law of both Australia and Canadawith a view to determining how these two aspects are appliedto unaccompanied children.     

Individual and collective justice and injustice: Implications for intergroup conflict

This paper focuses on the combined impact of individual and collective justice and injustice on intergroup conflict. The basic premise is that an adequate understanding of the course of intergroup relations requires knowledge not only about relevant conditions on the intergroup level, but also about the intragroup conditions that might predispose each group to assume a particular type of social orientation. It is assumed that an individual is more dissatisfied when both s/he and her/his group are unjustly treated than when only either one is. The consequences of different combinations of justice and injustice for the individual and his/her group are specified for the intensity of conflict between two groups. Sixteen intergroup scenarios are first derived and rank-ordered, via three assumptions, in terms of how aversive they are likely to be from the perspective of one of two interacting groups. The viewpoints of both groups are then taken into account in an attempt to make predictions about the potential for and intensity of intergroup conflict.     

国际海事委员会和国际海事组织的立法工作比较研究

国际海事委员会和国际海事组织自成立起一直致力于统一各国海商法的工作。在简要介绍二者的组织结构和有关活动的基础上,对其相关领域的国际立法进行了详细的比较分析,指出具有“私法性”特征的国际海事委员会规则和具有“公法性”特征的国际海事组织公约的海事立法的国际趋同化特征将会进一步增强。     

Women murderers and victims of abuse in a southern state

We consider the hypothesis that abused women who kill their abusers are not socially different from other abused women. Comparing two groups of women from a Deep South state, one group incarcerated for killing their partners (n=21) and the other served by a shelter for battered women (n=273), we find mixed support for the conclusion that the two groups represent a homogeneous general population of abused women. The women incarcerated for killing their male partners appear to be more isolated from the social mainstream and in greater perceived danger than the women who used the shelter. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1990 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meetings. Invaluable comments on earlier versions of the paper were received from Judith Stitzel, Shirley Dowdy, Ann Paterson, Sally Maggard, Janet Curry, Jon Conte, Mary Jo Ullom, and Lorrie Hardy.     

Queers and Provocateurs: Hegemony, Ideology, and the "Homosexual Advance" Defense

This exploratory article relies upon a historical-interpretive approach to understanding the relationship between legal narrative and popular consciousness in particular historical moments, focusing especially on "troubled times," in which the legitimacy of a hegemonic worldview embodied in law comes under challenge from a newly ascendant ideology in the popular domain. To discern the nature of that relationship and its implications, I offer a three-pronged analysis, drawing on two original data sets. Initially, each data set is analyzed individually to elaborate the nature of, and changes in, (1) representations of homosexuals circulating in popular culture, and (2) constructions of homosexuals in defendants' narratives in "homosexual advance" homicide cases between 1946 and 2003. Findings from these two analyses are thereafter combined to explore the relationship between the two constructions of homosexuals across that time period. In combination, these three analyses provide empirical evidence that, rather than mirroring changes in popular discourse about homosexuality, the changes revealed in the defense narratives actually opposed them. I use these findings to argue that, in what Swidler (1986) has called "unsettled times," ideological pluralism is pronounced and may be discerned in the complex and sometimes counterintuitive relationships that exist within and between legal narrative and popular discourse.     

Japan's Research Whaling Is Not Unlawful and Does Not Violate CITES Trade Rules

This article is a critique of two reports of “independent legal experts” sponsored by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW); the “Paris Panel” and the “London Panel.” The article shows that the Paris Panel's conclusion that Japan's research whaling in the Antarctic is unlawful and an abuse of rights under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) is based on misuse of evidence and failure to properly interpret Article VIII of the Convention and the legal status of recommendatory non-binding resolutions. It also shows that the London Panel's conclusion that the import of humpback whales from Japan's research program in the Antarctic and sei whales from its research program in the North Pacific are a violation of trade rules under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is based on incorrect interpretation of that Convention's trade rules. It is concluded that the two independent legal experts panel reports are, from a legal perspective, seriously flawed, rendering their conclusions invalid and relegating the reports to the status of IFAW propaganda.     

举证责任的倒置与分割

在我国现实司法实践中,关于举证责任倒置问题存在着较大的理论分歧。从举证责任倒置规则的渊源的要义来看,在被告承担"总的举证责任"的情况下,被告只是承担其中的一个或两个要件事实的举证责任,相应地,原告仍然需要承担其他三个或者两个要件事实的举证责任做法,是基于司法公平的政策需要。但这可能引起一系列现有理论无法解决的难题。为此,作者提出了特殊诉讼中的举证责任分割理论。其要点是:第一,在法律规定的特殊案件(包括特殊民事案件和特殊刑事案件)中,整个案件的举证责任可以一分为二,即可分割为原告方的举证责任和被告方的举证责任。第二,分割后的两种举证责任是各自独立的。它们之间不可以互相转移。第三,举证责任的分割必须是在特殊的案件中,而且必须是法律或者司法解释明文规定了举证责任倒置的情形。第四,举证责任分割理论的目的是维护诉讼公平原则。     

Innovation capacity in the healthcare sector and historical anchors: examples from the UK,Switzerland and the US

Innovation is an integral part of economic development in developed economies. In the post 2008 period, a key policy agenda is that of sustainable development, which calls for innovation in all aspects of value-chains. In this paper, we focus on innovation from the biotech—pharma perspective to see whether or not this will lead to a sustainable future for the regions where there are clusters of firms in this sector. We examine data from a recently completed European Union study of innovation in the Healthcare sector from the UK and Switzerland, countries with an historical base in pharma, to understand how innovation pathways vary at the regional level in the broader life sciences, which incorporate biotech and more. Innovation in the healthcare sector in two regions, Oxfordshire in the UK and Zurich in Switzerland are compared. We contextualize our discussion by drawing on studies that focus on the sector in the US, specifically Boston. The analytical framework comprises three elements: innovation systems and national and regional economic development theories are the first two, followed by approaches which consider organizational or institutional activity. This framework is used to help explain and understand the complexity of how innovation is organized at the sub-national level. The overall context is that it is increasing becoming a condition for government financing of research that it has more immediate application in industry or have the possibility of commercialisation (e.g., translational research).