‘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.     

Predicting charges and convictions for rape suspects in Denmark: characteristics associated with the notion of the ‘credible criminal’

In recent years, focus on the high attrition rates and low conviction rates in sexual assault cases in Scandinavia has increased. Attrition refers to the dropout of cases through the criminal justice system. However, only limited research exists on the importance of suspect characteristics for the legal outcomes in these cases. The present study is the first in Scandinavia to investigate legal and extralegal suspect variables relating to charges and convictions in the criminal justice system regarding suspected offenders in rape and attempted rape cases. All reported cases of rape and attempted rape in the Eastern Jutland Police District from 2008 to 2010 with an identified rape suspect (N = 175) were analysed through binary logistic regression analyses to examine which variables might increase the likelihood of charges or convictions. Results show that suspects with one or more prior sexual assault charges were more likely to be charged and convicted of a rape offence. The results of the present study help improve the understanding of the judicial processing of cases of rape from a different perspective than the victims’ and partially lend support to the hypothesis of ‘the credible criminal’ in terms of investigative and prosecutorial decision-making in rape cases.     

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.     

Me,myself and I: the sociology of policing male rape,the gaze of the ‘Other’

In this paper, the bodies of male rape victims as the ‘other’ are problematized. The social and cultural constructions of male rape within a policing context are examined since the police play a major role in impeding the progress of male rape cases. The author draws on police data, generated from interviews and qualitative questionnaires with the police, to illustrate the problems with policing male rape in England, UK. While the author provides empirical data, sociological, cultural, and post-structural theoretical frameworks largely inform it. It is argued that the bodies of male rape victims are positioned in inferior positions, whereby their bodies are metaphorically and symbolically marked as ‘abnormal’, ‘deviant’, and the ‘other’. Through social and power relations, their bodies are tainted, which reinforces gender and social norms.     

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...     

Between the ‘Home’ and ‘Institutional’ Worlds: Tensions and Contradictions in the Practice of House Arrest

In this paper we argue that the theoretical work of Goffman (1961) on “total institutions,” Foucault’s (1977) insights into the workings of disciplinary power, and an account of contemporary forms of punishment and social control in postmodern society (Staples 2000) help us better understand the experiences of those individuals sentenced to house arrest. Based on face-to-face interviews with twenty-three people being electronically monitored in a Midwestern metropolitan area, our analysis identifies three themes that illustrate the ways in which electronic monitoring is experienced as a complex amalgam of what Goffman (1961, p. 13) saw as the distinct “home world” and the “institutional world”. These themes include (1) “Home is Where the Machine Is,” (2) “Producing Docile Bodies,” and (3) “Threat of Sanctions”. We reassert our claim (Staples 1994, 2000) that contemporary forms of social control such as electronic monitoring reflect an ongoing struggle to deal with problems and issues set in motion with the birth of modernity.     

‘Endemic to the species’: ordering the ‘other’ via organised crime

The United States has been the prime mover in the establishment of both the concept of organised crime and the use of the concept in its attempt to establish global hegemony, in which law enforcement became a little more than a front for a government-backed central casting agency, stereotyping both heroes and villains. This article offers an account of how the ‘Other’ has been used as prism for the construction of organised crime primarily in the United States and how this construction, as a franchise, has been exported on the international level and on heterogeneous criminal landscapes.     

Regulating internet platforms in the EU - The emergence of the ‘Level playing Field’

This paper analyses the European Union's regulatory policy on platforms. The first part of the paper looks at the how the EU formulates platform policy while the second analyses the proposed and existing laws that already cover them. The final part looks at the consequences of the level playing field as the guiding regulatory principle. The main argument is that EU regulatory intervention concerning platforms seeks to bring linear providers in line with platforms through the "level playing field" or, in other words, that the EU seeks to protect the incumbents and minimise disruption rather than enhance the value-creating potential of platforms.     

‘I Can’t’: Capacity to Marry and the Question of Sex

To some extent the nature of the marriage contract has always been ‘about’ sex. Yet it is only in recent years that sex has become an explicit aspect of the legal test of capacity to marry. This paper explores how that test has been developed by the courts since the late 19th century. Through an examination of the case law it traces the nature of the relationship between sex and the capacity to marry; explores how capacity to consent to sexual relations has become a prominent strand within capacity to marry; and asks whether one effect of that prominence has been to marginalise the necessity for an individual to understand certain other important aspects of the marriage contract when assessing his or her capacity to marry.     

Natural Law and the ‘Resistance’: A Normative Approach to the Skywalker Narrative in The Last Jedi

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - The motion picture The Last Jedi involves important decisions and actions taken by the...     

Asterix and Obelix in Drugland: an introduction to the special issue on ‘drug markets’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles bringing forward empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on drug markets, raising questions about the nature of the relationship between the organization of drug markets and the official frameworks surrounding them, and, importantly, about the complexity of this relationship.     

The NHS Information Revolution: ‘Choice of Control’ to ‘Choice’ and ‘Control’

This paper provides a novel and critical analysis of the necessary and important balance between ‘individual privacy’ and ‘collective transparency’. We suggest that the onset of the Information Revolution has created a dilemma for the National Health Service (NHS) in terms of how it addresses its obligation to use information to improve best practice in healthcare for society (‘collective transparency’) whilst also keeping sensitive personal information confidential (‘individual privacy’). There is clearly a need to consider both whether the NHS is balancing this critically important informational relationship and whether its approach is fit for purpose. We argue that the NHS's ‘proxy-individual’ information guardian role could inadvertently mask individuals' intended roles, effectively circumventing autonomy-based laws by limiting the power of individuals to be autonomous. In this article we have identified three issues – first the prevailing ‘Mindset’ (the ‘M’) of ‘privacy’, which is viewed as individualistic, resulting in an overpowering concept of confidentiality; second, the quality and control of Information (the first ‘I’); and third, the concept of innovation (the second ‘i’), which is being used as a ‘solution’ rather than a vehicle for transparency. Indeed, transparency is our target of ‘best practice,’ and we suggest that individual privacy and collective transparency are best embedded within a complementary privacy framework that offers a better fit than the current split of control between the roles of the NHS and the roles of the individual. It is suggested that when facilitated by transparency, ‘control’ and ‘privacy’ form a continuum, aligning through the desire for choice. Therefore, the choice of control could facilitate control and choice. Together, they could replace the concept of privacy by empowering ‘informed patients’ to support the NHS's ‘No decision about me, without me’ pledge.     

An introduction to the special issue on ‘Organised crime and illegal markets in the UK and Ireland’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles and report excerpt submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime on ‘Organised crime and illegal markets in the UK and Ireland’. The aim of the special issue is to draw together empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on various manifestations of organised crime in the particular geographic context(s), the evolution of organised crime, the links between organised crime, the legal sphere and paramilitary groups, as well as an account of the demographic profile and attitudes of citizens in areas in which organised crime groups thrive.     

‘Standing’ by: disability hate crime and the police in England

This article discusses the Don't Stand By: Hate Crime Research Report (DSB) (Mencap, 2011), which documents failings in policing practices related to reporting and responding to disability hate crime. Such failings, we argue, constitute not so much direct discrimination but acts of ‘normalcy’. Normalcy is the process whereby taken for granted ideas about what is normal become naturalised; in this respect being non-disabled is seen as normal. Acts of normalcy, whilst less tangible, are by no means less violent or harmful than acts of ‘real discrimination’ or ‘real violence’ (Goodley and Rumswick-Cole, 2011). Systemic and cultural normalcy within the police is not new, as can be seen in the case of Stephen Lawrence.     

‘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.     

Structuration Theory and Wrongful Imprisonment: From ‘Victimhood’ to ‘Survivorship’?

Building on existing research from a zemiological approach, this article seeks to contribute to a more ontological understanding of the production and reproduction of harms associated with wrongful imprisonment in England and Wales. Drawing from Anthony Giddens’s theory of structuration, it is argued that whilst the harms of wrongful imprisonment are both complex and devastating, victims need not be perceived as entirely passive. Rather, victims of wrongful imprisonment can be viewed as knowledgeable agents with the intrinsic capacity and agency to strategically cope with and even survive the harms that they experience. The article concludes with personal accounts by victims of wrongful imprisonment that form an identifiable ‘survivor’ discourse to highlight some of the key critical factors that are vital in helping victims of wrongful imprisonment to re-structure their lives after release.     

Applying the Responsibility to Protect to the ‘Arab Spring’

The doctrine of the responsibility to protect, since its inception in the ICISS report of 2001, has been the subject of considerable discussion. Arguably its most publicised component is the principle that the international community has the responsibility to protect civilian populations against severe suffering where the relevant national authorities are unable or unwilling to do so. Consequently, the main focus of discourse upon the responsibility to protect has centred on its impact upon the approach of the international community to intervention in respect of situations posing considerable humanitarian crises. The events of the Arab Spring, in which full blown conflict in some states gave rise to serious human suffering, provided a real opportunity for the international community to evaluate the role of the responsibility to protect in decision-making over responding to such instances, and potentially to develop it into a practical and meaningfully implementable concept. However, due to political flaws inherent in the doctrine, and its arguably overstated significance, the doctrine at best played a minimal role in guiding the international response to developments in the Arab World. Nonetheless, responses to the Arab Spring do allow certain conclusions to be drawn in respect of the future relevance of the doctrine.     

Prospective lawyers’ rape stereotypes and schematic decision making about rape cases

Abstract

Two studies explored stereotypic information processing in rape cases by prospective lawyers in Germany. In Study 1, 451 undergraduate law students rated rape scenarios varying with respect to defendant–complainant relationship and coercive strategy (force versus exploitation of the complainant's alcohol-induced defencelessness). Acceptance of rape myths was also measured. Likelihood of defendant liability was rated to be lower when there was a prior relationship between the parties and when the defendant exploited the complainant's defencelessness as compared to when he used force (except in the ex-partner rapes where blame was higher in the alcohol-related than in the force-related cases). Complainant blame was higher when there was a prior relationship between the parties and was higher in the alcohol-related cases than in the force-related cases, except in the ex-partner rape where the pattern was reversed. Participants with high rape myth acceptance held the defendant less liable and blamed the complainant more, especially when the two had known each other. Study 2 largely replicated these findings with 129 postgraduate trainee lawyers and showed that sentencing recommendations also varied as a function of defendant–complainant relationship and coercive strategy. Providing participants with the legal definition of rape did not reduce reliance on rape stereotypes.