TOWARD THE DIFFERENTIATION OF HIGH‐CONFLICT FAMILIES: AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CANADIAN CASE LAW

Social science research and the courts have begun to recognize the special challenges posed by “high‐conflict” separations for children and the justice system. The use of “high conflict” terminology by social science researchers and the courts has increased dramatically over the past decade. This is an important development, but the term is often used vaguely and to characterize very different types of cases. An analysis of Canadian case law reveals that some judges are starting to differentiate between various degrees and types of high conflict. Often this judicial differentiation is implicit and occurs without full articulation of the factors that are taken into account in applying different remedies. There is a need for the development of more refined, explicit analytical concepts for the identification and differentiation of various types of high conflict cases. Empirically driven social science research can assist mental health professionals, lawyers and the courts in better understanding these cases and providing the most appropriate interventions. As a tentative scheme for differentiating cases, we propose distinguishing between high conflict cases where there is: (1) poor communication; (2) domestic violence; and (3) alienation. Further, there must be a differentiation between cases where one parent is a primary instigator for the conflict or abuse, and those where both parents bear significant responsibility.     

“Bending” Evidence for a Cause: Scholar‐Advocacy Bias in Family Law

There are a number of salient public policy issues in the family law field that have invoked impassioned policy debates on a recurrent basis. In the absence of a body of research to address these critical concerns, advocates under the guise of social science scholarship have exacerbated the confusion and controversy by construing the scant available research evidence to justify their own ends, without regard to the relevance, quality, utility, and limitations of the studies. This is one of two articles on this problem that we have named “scholar‐advocacy bias.” In this article, we discuss the difference between truth in social science and truth in law. We identify common ways in which social science researchers and reviewers of research—wittingly or unwittingly—can become advocates for ideological positions and social policies at the expense of being balanced reporters of research evidence as illustrated by recent debates about overnight parenting of infants and toddlers. We also consider how adherence to established scientific principles and methods prevents the misuse of research in this way.     

The impact of “empirical facts” on legal scholarship and legal research training

Lawyers have traditionally viewed law as a closed system, and doctrinal research has been the research methodology used most widely in the profession. This reflects traditional concepts of legal reasoning. There is a wealth of reliable and valid social science data available to lawyers and judges. Judges in fact often refer to general facts about the world, society, institutions and human behaviour (“empirical facts”). Legal education needs to prepare our students for this broader legal context. This paper examines how “empirical facts” are used in Australian and other common law courts. Specifically, the paper argues that there is a need for enhanced training in non-doctrinal research methodologies across the law school curriculum. This should encompass a broad introduction to social science methods, with more attention being paid to a cross-section of methodologies such as content analysis, comparative law and surveys that are best applied to law.     

You’re so Vain You Probably Think this Keynote is about You: Expanding Art and Music in Criminal Justice

Criminal justice has long been recognized as an interdisciplinary field of study. When cross disciplines are considered, attention is often given to closely related social science disciplines such as sociology and political science. A closer look, however, reveals that criminal justice overlaps with numerous arts-oriented disciplines including art and music. This article highlights the overlap between criminal justice and these disciplines and makes a case for greater collaboration between these disciplines. Barriers to cross-disciplinary work are addressed along with strategies to promote collaboration.     

ASSESSING AND COMMUNICATING SOCIAL SCIENCE INFORMATION IN FAMILY AND CHILD JUDICIAL SETTINGS: STANDARDS FOR JUDGES AND ALLIED PROFESSIONALS

Social science is increasingly important in judicial decision making and family law development. This increased use means that judges, lawyers, mental health professionals, and social scientists must assess the quality of social science information and communicate it in a multidisciplinary environment. This article provides tools for improving multidisciplinary communication by identifying logical, methodological, and community standards for assessment and communication that are fundamental both to the scientific method and to the inquiries the Daubert decision instructs judges to make in their gatekeeper evaluations of scientific information. Employing a common set of standards can result in a significant improvement in the quality of the social science knowledge used in judicial settings.     

Convenient and Inconvenient Truths in Family Law: Preventing Scholar‐Advocacy Bias in the Use of Social Science Research for Public Policy

This is the second of two articles on the risks of advocacy bias in the reporting of research findings when boundaries are blurred between social science research and advocacy in the pursuit of public policy. In the first article we identify common ways in which social science researchers and reviewers of research—wittingly or unwittingly—can become advocates for ideological positions and social policies at the expense of being balanced reporters of research evidence. The first article discusses the difference between truth in social science and truth in law and identifies a range of scholar‐advocacy strategies that bias research evidence, illustrated by recent debates about overnight parenting of infants and toddlers. In this second article we show how biased research evidence by scholar advocates results in increased confusion and controversy that diminishes the credibility of all parties and stalemates progress in the field, using a case illustration of intimate partner violence in family court. We also show how adherence to scientific methods prevents the misuse of research and suggest a number of collaborative, integrative measures that can help transcend the adversarial stalemate. In a look to the future we consider some unbiased, standardized ways of assessing the strength and generalizability of research evidence.     

From the Field to the Courthouse: Should Social Science Research Be Privileged?

Social scientists need clarification about the extent to which the confidential aspects of their research are protected from compulsory disclosure in legal proceedings, and the extent to which they ought to be. Investigating the nature of social science research with an emphasis on researcher-participant relationships in ethnographic practice, I conclude that a qualified privilege would confer three major benefits on social science researchers: confidence that the government will not unnecessarily interfere with research, facilitation of improved researcher-participant relationships, and increased accuracy, thoroughness, and reliability of research data. I also discuss the development of privilege and confidentiality issues in practical research contexts through an examination of two criminal cases in which social science researchers refused to divulge the confidential information obtained in the course of research. Finally, I discuss the possible formulations of a scholarly research privilege. This is especially important because courts have cast social scientists as members of the larger community of academic or scholarly researchers with respect to these issues. Potential sources of protection include state journalist protection laws, federal common law, and federal statutory law. Evaluation of these sources and the case law to which they correspond suggests that developing common law privileges in state and federal jurisprudence is the most promising means of affording the confidential aspects of social science research legal protection. As researchers continue to press privilege     

刑事诉讼法学研究的回顾与反思

由于研究方法和研究视角的限制,中国刑事诉讼法学研究正面临前所未有的挑战。要走出学术困境,迎来法学研究的繁荣,刑事诉讼法学研究者应当在对传统的法学方法加以完善的基础上,引入社会科学的研究方法,从经验事实中提炼出有生命力的法学理论。为此,应当从中国问题出发,提炼出一些对中国问题具有理论解释力的概念和范畴;应当放弃那种动辄赞美西方法制、批判中国法制的研究态度,从中国移植西方法制的经验和教训中找到一些规律性的东西;应当从中国自生自发的司法改革中发现制度形成和生长的规律,从而发现那些真正有生命力的制度,并提出中国的法学理论;应当纠正那种过于重视引进西方证据概念和证据理论的倾向,从中国的司法哲学、法律史和法律实践中发现证据规则,形成自己的证据理论。     

司法自由裁量权的现实分析

如果运用得当,自由裁量权能够很好地沟通形式正义和实体正义.但是,如果自由裁量权赖以存在的制度基础并未巩固,那么广泛赋予法官这种权力反而会削弱法律信仰并摧毁新理念.因此,在法官的职业素质、职业伦理和独立性尚存缺陷的环境里,应诉诸立法理性、奉行规则中心主义.     

A Multidisciplinary Perspective on the Role,Functions, and Effectiveness of Parenting Coordination

Based on a survey conducted in 2018 in collaboration with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts’ (AFCC) Task Force on Parenting Coordination, this paper explores issues related to the process and perceived outcomes of parenting coordination for families post separation and divorce. The views expressed emerge from a diverse and multidisciplinary sample (n = 289) from legal, mental health, and conflict resolution backgrounds. Almost half of all participants (46%) were mental health professionals (psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker), followed by attorneys (28%), family mediators (17%) and judges (5%). Over half of all participants identified as a parenting coordinator (PC) (53%). Based on the results, participants had the highest level of agreement that the goal of parenting coordination should be to assist in sheltering the children from parental conflict and to help the coparents reduce interparental conflict. Participants assigned greater success to parenting coordination when there was demonstration that coparenting conflict decreased. Several differences were noted among professional disciplines and specifically between legal and mental health professionals. Mental health professionals rated higher on the effectiveness of PCs to help children adjust and limit their involvement in the parental conflict, while legal professionals focused on PCs’ ability to help families resolve legal disputes. The implications of the results are discussed, including how best to measure the success of parenting coordination and to prioritize outcomes related to the success of parenting coordination across disciplines to create greater consistency in the field.     

THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE: THE COURT ASSIGNMENT AND JUDICIAL SATISFACTION

A survey of 355 judges examined the differences in judicial satisfaction between those assigned to problem-solving courts—such as drug treatment and unified family—and judges in other more traditional assignments such as family law and criminal courts. The unified family court systems, like drug treatment courts, have generally adopted the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence. Significant differences were found on each of the three survey scales: (1) helpfulness, (2) attitude toward litigants, and (3) positive effects of assignment. The judges who were in the problem-solving courts (drug treatment and unified family court) scored higher on all three scales than those who were not (traditional family and criminal court). The group of problem-solving court judges consistently scored higher than the other group of judges, with the drug treatment court judges scoring the highest. The group of traditional criminal court and family court judges scored less positively, with the criminal court judges having the lowest scores. The problem-solving court judges were more likely to report believing that the role of the court should include helping litigants address the problems that brought them there and were more likely to observe positive changes in the litigants. They were also more likely to believe that litigants are motivated to change and are able to do so. They felt more respected by the litigants and were more likely to think that the litigants were grateful for help they received. The problem-solving court judges were also more likely to report being happy in their assignments and to believe that these assignments have a positive emotional effect on them.     

The Need for a Positive Psychological Approach and Collaborative Effort for Improving Practice in the Interrogation Room

The White Paper suggests important reforms that will reduce the likelihood of false confessions resulting from police interrogation. The research underlying these suggested reforms has yielded significant advances in our understanding of factors associated with false confessions. As we move forward, we encourage the development of empirically based approaches that provide a viable alternative to current practice. In doing so, we suggest that researchers pursue a positive psychological approach that involves partnering with practitioners to systematically develop interrogative methods that are shown to be more diagnostic. By taking such an approach, we believe that the recommendations offered in the current White Paper can be supplemented by methods that carry the support of both scientific and law enforcement communities.     

Employment Discrimination Law and Industrial Psychology: Social Science as Social Authority and the Co‐Production of Law and Science

This article combines Monahan and Walker's classification of social facts, social authority, and social frameworks with political‐institutionalism's view of law and science as competing institutional logics to explain how, and with what consequences, employment discrimination law and industrial‐organizational (I‐O) psychology became co‐produced. When social science is incorporated into enforcement of legislative law as social authority—rationale for judicial rule making—law's institutional logic of relying on precedent and reasoning by analogy ensures that social science will have ongoing influence on law's development. By helping set research agendas and providing new professional opportunities, institutionalized legal doctrine shapes social science knowledge. But because of differences in institutional logic, wherein legal cumulation is backward looking whereas scientific cumulation is forward looking, co‐production of law and science may produce institutional mismatch between legal doctrine and scientific knowledge.     

民间法与裁判规范

裁判规范是法官在司法中援引或运用一定规则以直接适用于个案的规范。裁判规范分为两种：一种是法官援引一定规范所直接形成的裁判规范；另一种是法官运用一定规范而构造的裁判规范。民间法作为法律渊源，既可以被法官直接援引作为裁判规范，也可以被法官作为构造裁判规范的“原材料”加以运用。民间法作为法律渊源有一些制约性条件，需要法官识别民间法，也给法官增加了论证义务，以便使民间法作为裁判规范或者以民间法为据构造裁判规范时，获得当事人及其他社会主体的接受。     

中国传统司法思维模式的文化分析

中国古代法官在审判过程中,为追求实质正义-无讼与和谐,往往会舍法而取情理,依情理进行审判。这种法律思维模式与西方的严格形式主义相对,被称为实质性思维模式,它是中国古代审判文化的一个特质。其产生的文化根源是中国人对和谐、无讼理想社会的追求及越过事物的形式追求实质内容的思维模式,以实质性思维处理案件亦可达至息讼止争的社会目的,但这种思维模式也造成了中国人法治观念的淡漠,同时阻碍了中国法治社会的建立。然而,无论如何它作为中国传统法律文化的一部分又是无法抛弃的,只能期待我们现代人对其进行创造性的转化。     

Exception to Excess: Tactical Use of the Law by Outgroups in Bias Crime Legislation

US bias crime jurisprudence follows the discrimination model and ejects “hate” from scrutiny. It is suggestive of improvements that should be made to Canadian law insofar as it also better tracks the enactment of discrimination against difference occasioned in the everyday. Criminal law, however, remains weak at preventing crime. And where the law requires evidence of discrimination, it iterates the stereotypes and social backdrop of hate crime. But this view on law and culture underestimates how outgroups may produce countermeanings and influence the law. Turning to the more material basis of identity, neoconservatism has given the law a broad ambit whereby coercion as opposed to investment in human capacities is promoted as the means to social order. Where scholars argue that discursive collaboration with retributionist policy requires outgroups to pursue cultural revalorization, given the decreasing freedom under the contemporary authoritarian paradigm, I argue that they must also pursue distributional justice.     

我国环境冲突研究回顾及未来展望——基于CSSCI文献(1998-2020)的可视化分析

环境冲突是社会冲突的主要类型之一,环境冲突的有效治理是防范化解由环境问题引致的社会冲突的关键。本文借助Citespace软件,以1998-2020年间中文社会科学索引(CSSCI)数据库收录的135篇环境冲突相关文献为研究样本,综合采用文献计量和知识图谱分析两种方法对样本进行分析。研究发现,我国环境冲突文献发表数量各年份起伏较大,产生了高产学者和发文量较多的科研机构,关键词聚类分析确定了环境冲突的4个主题,邻避冲突是环境冲突领域研究的重点。未来应加强环境冲突研究领域研究者共同体、研究机构共同体建设以及多学科的融合,加强对大数据、区块链技术融入环境冲突治理等前沿问题的研究。     

Entrepreneurial universities in two European regions: a case study comparison

An entrepreneurial university is a natural incubator that tries to provide a supportive environment in which the university community can explore, evaluate and exploit ideas that could be transformed into social and economic entrepreneurial initiatives. Entrepreneurial universities are involved in partnerships, networks and other relationships to generate an umbrella for interaction, collaboration and co-operation. Rapid developments in science, the multidisciplinary nature of frontier research, legislative changes such as the Bayh–Dole Act and demands from business and society have shaped knowledge-based entrepreneurship within universities. Despite sharing similar historical backgrounds, economic conditions and cultural and social structures, entrepreneurial universities in most countries remain distinct from one another by their institutional arrangements, traditions and characteristics unique to each organization. Interestingly, no comparative research has been conducted to understand the similarities and differences of the conditioning factors and the outcomes/outputs of entrepreneurial universities in different regions that share similar social, economic and political conditions. This paper addresses this research deficit, adopting institutional economics and resource-based view. We compare entrepreneurial universities in two European regions (Spain and Ireland) using an in-depth qualitative approach based on multiple case studies (two Spanish universities and two Irish universities) between 2006 and 2010. The findings provide organizational practices and approaches relevant to the transformation process of other regional universities seeking to become entrepreneurial.     

INITIAL DEVELOPMENT OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL FOR JUDICIAL DECISION MAKING IN CONTINUING RESTRAINING ORDERS

Probate and family court judges are increasingly called upon to make rapid decisions regarding the continuance of restraining orders. These decisions are often made without the benefit of adequate background information or an awareness of which psychological and behavioral factors are most relevant. This action‐oriented research project develops a model that brings psychosocial factors to consideration for judges making decisions regarding the continuance of restraining orders. While further evaluation of the model is needed, the project's unique methodology highlights the value of interdisciplinary collaboration, multiple methods of inquiry, and the consideration of real‐world needs and constraints in developing decision‐making tools.