Therapeutic response to assisted suicide request

The authors review the first publicly reported case of legal assisted suicide in the United States and discuss possible clinical responses other than assistance in suicide. Psychiatric observers have noted that acceptance of assisted suicide or euthanasia as a medical option has resulted in loss of knowledge about how to respond to suicidal ideation in the seriously ill. The authors discuss specific therapeutic interventions that may be appropriate for seriously ill patients requesting suicide.     

The inadequate legislative response to e-signatures

This article examines the two most influential international initiatives on electronic signatures (UNCITRAL’s 1996 Model Law on Electronic Commerce and the 1999 EU Electronic Signature Directive). It considers whether the legislative approaches in Australia and the United Kingdom based on these initiatives are helpful in deciding whether lower level signature methods such as simple email messages are likely to satisfy a legal requirement for a signature. The conclusion reached is that they are unhelpful. The article goes on to consider whether legislative amendments based on UNCITRAL’s 2001 Model Law on Electronic Signatures or the 2005 UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts would improve the identified weaknesses. It concludes that such an update would clarify some issues, but that overall it will not solve the difficulties. The article ends with a brief speculation on the likely attributes of a more helpful approach.     

Women's response to intimate partner violence

The responses of women to a situation of abuse by their partner has hardly been addressed in the literature. Using a self-administered, anonymous questionnaire, 400 women attending three practices in a primary health care center in Granada (Spain) were studied. The women's response to abuse was used as a dependent variable. Sociodemographics, intensity, duration, and combination of the types of abuse were used as independent variables. Lifetime prevalence of any type of partner abuse was 22.8%. Of abused women, 68% showed an active response, attempting to resolve the situation mainly through separation (58.2%). The factors independently associated with a woman's active response were being separated, widowed, or divorced; reporting a greater intensity of abuse; and being younger than age 35 years. The results of this study show that a large majority of abused women in Spain try to resolve their situation, and that they are not passive victims.     

The criminal justice response to wife assault

This paper reviews the criminal justice response to wife assault. By establishing a set of conditional probabilites for the reporting, detection, prosecution, and conviction for wife assault, the paper establishes that a “winnowing process” occurs that is not dissimilar to that reported for other crimes. The probability of wife assault being detected by the criminal justice system is about 6.5%. Given that it is detected, the probability of arrest is about 21.2% [comparable to a 20% arrest rate for a composite of 121 crimes reported by Hood and Sparks (1970)]. Subsequent conditional probabilities for conviction and punishment generate an aggregate probability that, given that an event of wife assault occurs, the perpetrator has a 0.38% chance of being punished by the courts. The policy implications of this review are that the greatest impact on wife assault recidivism reduction would be generated by police arrest rates regardless of court outcome. At present, however, it is not known whether this effect is produced by specific deterrence or by the didactic function of law. It is concluded that too little is known of the subjective states of wife assaulters to ascertain whether deterrence or some other mechanism accounts for the decreased recidivism reported after arrest.     

Broadcasters' response to the children's television act

The Children's Television Act of 1990 (CTA) represents the culmination of more than 25 years of controversy and debate about the public policies needed to insure that broadcasters provide adequate service to the child audience, consistent with their public interest obligations. In approving the Act, the Congress expected to accomplish significant increases in the educational and informational programming available to children on broadcast television. How well has this law worked to achieve that goal? This study seeks to answer that question by examining the children's programming reports contained in recent license renewal files submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).