Why is it a Crime to be Poor?

This article considers the historical development of certain aspects of poor relief in England and Wales and their connection with the treatment of vagrants. It will argue that it is the historical link between early statutes controlling both the movement of labourers and the destitute in the fourteenth century and the later parochial responsibility for the relief of poverty which led both to the inclusion of vagrancy provisions within the 1601 Poor Relief Act, and the continuing quasi-legal connection between vagrancy provisions and the relief of poverty. A nexus of punishment was created within the operation of the poor law by the two-fold role of justices of the peace; these officials not only adjudicated the settlement laws, but were also responsible for the legal control of vagrancy. The article will argue that this contributed to the harshness of the 1834 poor law reforms, and continues with contemporary approaches to the relief of poverty via Social Security legislation which prioritises the control of claimant fraud above the rights of the individual to relief from want. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The human right to marry: a refugee’s perspective

In the European Court of Human Rights cases of Muñoz Díaz v Spain in 2009 (Muñoz Díaz v Spain [2009], Application No. 49151/07) and Serife Yigit v Turkey in 2010 (Serife Yegit [2010], Application No. 3976/05), involving unregistered/informal ‘marriages’ of a Roma couple and a Muslim couple, respectively, the Grand Chamber took the position that civil marriages are available to all people in the state without distinction and therefore no breach of Article 12’s right to marry (nor Article 14’s prohibition of discrimination) had occurred when the respective states failed to recognise the informal marriages of the applicants. This article considers these two cases, and asks whether the court’s position is challenged by migrants/refugees, whose access to formal marriages maybe impeded due to a lack of identity and status documentation.     

Abusive contract terms: Is unenforceability a deterrent sanction?

European Journal of Law and Economics - We investigate the impact of sanctions in the presence of abusive contract terms in a litigation model under asymmetric information on consumers’...     

What Could a New Crime Commission Accomplish?

Even though the crime rate in the United States has dropped since the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under President Johnson issued its report in 1967, the total number of serious crimes in the nation has increased, and public concern about the subject remains high. The 1960s Commission did not fully consider several major subjects that have emerged after it reported, including mental illness, immigration, cybercrime and other white collar crimes, indigent defense, crime victims, and evidence‐based crime policy. Many observers believe that the need to deal with these subjects in addition to those discussed by other researchers in this volume warrants an examination of crime and justice by a new commission. Congress has considered proposals for such a study for nearly a decade, but they are yet to be acted on amid ideological disputes over other criminal justice issues. If Congress fails to establish a new commission, it is still possible that one could be formed with the support of state, county, and local governments, as well as with the support of private foundations.     

“Ought to” as a Chinese Legal Performative?

The article discusses the legal performatives as used in Chinese legislative language consisting of bixu (shall), yingdang (should or ought to), keyi (may) and bude (shall not) with the illocutionary force of imposing obligations, conferring rights and permission, and prohibition (bude). It postulates that the use of bixu and yingdang is traceable to the influence of the ancient Chinese cultural and legal philosophy of li and fa. It argues that Chinese language is a carrier of messages with built-in Chinese cultural codes and to be able to understand Chinese law, the wider cultural and linguistic contexts must be considered. It also proposes that speech act theory needs to address the interlingual and intercultural variables in the construction of meaning.     

What Can We do to Engender a More Rational and Less Punitive Crime Policy?

This paper examines the question of what can we do, at a practical level, to respond to penal populism. It is argued that a comprehensive understanding of the nature of penal populism provides the best base for considering a range of responses across the full spectrum of precipitating factors. The paper begins with a sketch of the main understanding of penal populism articulated in earlier works, principally Roberts et al. (2003), then the putative causes of penal populism are expanded considering the contributions of precipitating factors at six levels. A number of suggestions and strategies at each of the six levels is then provided. Rather than being competing these strategies at different levels are seen as complementary although some will be more realizable than others. The paper finishes with a focus on the topic of public inclusion into the development of policy. A democratization of policy, it is argued, is crucial and, ultimately, the most profound way of addressing the challenge of penal populism.     

Is There a Crime Drop in Western Europe?

Combining data from police statistics and crime victim surveys, this article analyses the evolution of crime in Western Europe from 1988 to 2007. The results show that there is no general drop in crime. Property offences and homicide have been decreasing since the mid 1990s, while violent and drug offences have increased during the period under study. These trends highlight the limits of the explanations to the crime drop in the United States, which are based on the premise of a correlation in the evolution of all offences. The drop in property offences seems related to changes in the socioeconomic situation in Europe as well as to increases in security measures in households, and the reinforcement of private security. The increase in violent offences can be explained by the combination of several factors, including changes in youth’s free time provoked by the development of the Internet, changing demographics, and the rise of episodic heavy alcohol consumption and street gangs.     

Crime Victims Serving as Jurors: Is There Bias Present?

This project examined the decisions of 2435 mock jurors of whom 984 reported being a victim of some type of crime and 982 reported knowing a close friend or relative who had been a victim. Participants watched a videotape of a trial of a burglary of a habitation and were asked to give individual verdicts. Results indicated that jurors who identified themselves as victims of the same crime convicted significantly more frequently than those who had not been victims. Victims of violent crimes (a type of crime dissimilar to that for which the defendant was on trial) were not more likely to convict than were non-victims. Implications of this research are discussed.     

The Dark Figure of Online Property Crime: Is Cyberspace Hiding a Crime Wave?

A pronounced drop in crime, since the early 1990s, has encompassed every crime category tracked by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, including property crime. However, over the same period, the rates of online property crime (OPC) have been on the rise according to available evidence. We delineate the extent of our knowledge and data concerning cybercrime and identity theft and, using data from several nationally representative victimization surveys, offer an alternative view of property crime trends while pointing out the glaring gap in crime reporting and accounting in relation to the growing category of property crimes perpetrated online. In addition, we compare estimated costs of traditional property crime vs. OPC. Finally, we identify the main challenges for obtaining reliable data on OPC and discuss their implications, especially when applying the traditional methods of compiling crime statistics.     

Is it Important to Examine Crime Trends at a Local “Micro” Level?: A Longitudinal Analysis of Street to Street Variability in Crime Trajectories

Over the last 40 years, the question of how crime varies across places has gotten greater attention. At the same time, as data and computing power have increased, the definition of a ‘place’ has shifted farther down the geographic cone of resolution. This has led many researchers to consider places as small as single addresses, group of addresses, face blocks or street blocks. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of the spatial distribution of crime have consistently found crime is strongly concentrated at a small group of ‘micro’ places. Recent longitudinal studies have also revealed crime concentration across micro places is relatively stable over time. A major question that has not been answered in prior research is the degree of block to block variability at this local ‘micro’ level for all crime. To answer this question, we examine both temporal and spatial variation in crime across street blocks in the city of Seattle Washington. This is accomplished by applying trajectory analysis to establish groups of places that follow similar crime trajectories over 16 years. Then, using quantitative spatial statistics, we establish whether streets having the same temporal trajectory are collocated spatially or whether there is street to street variation in the temporal patterns of crime. In a surprising number of cases we find that individual street segments have trajectories which are unrelated to their immediately adjacent streets. This finding of heterogeneity suggests it may be particularly important to examine crime trends at very local geographic levels. At a policy level, our research reinforces the importance of initiatives like ‘hot spots policing’ which address specific streets within relatively small areas.     

Crime in the 2016 Presidential Election: a new era?

Issues pertaining to crime and criminal justice have long been part of presidential campaigns. Voters want to know how candidates plan to solve the problem of crime and keep them safe. In turn, candidates respond to voters’ concerns and describe their crime control ideas in hopes of increasing voter support. In doing so, they often rely on symbolic statements that provide little detail but make people “feel good”. This study analyzes the criminal justice rhetoric used by the three major presidential candidates in the 2016 election cycle to determine what issues they discussed and how often. The analysis also examines if candidates relied on symbolic statements, and how the issues were debated between the candidates. The findings show that the issues discussed were somewhat different than in previous years, and that the candidates relied on symbolic statements about crime – a change from the previous election cycle. Additionally, the candidates used crime control as a way to reach out to voters in their own political party, suggesting an interesting shift in how issues of criminal justice are being approached within elections.     

Is Terrorism a Crime or an Aggravating Factor in Sentencing?

Common law systems, in criminal cases, distinguish between theguilt/innocence proceedings and the sentencing stage. This isnot the case in civil law systems where criminal trial consistsof a single phase, combining the inquiry into guilt with sentencing.Under common law practice many facts relevant for sentencingare considered irrelevant at the stage of finding guilt forthe commission of the crime. Aggravating elements, therefore,address a fundamental distinction of substantive criminal lawbetween guilt and dangerousness: guilt is a determination ofresponsibility for a prior wrongdoing; dangerousness is a speculativefuture determination. The intensification of terrorist activityin the past few years has made terrorism one of today's mostpressing problems. But is terrorism a crime or an aggravatingfactor in sentencing? In this article, the author challengesconventional wisdom regarding the meaning of ‘terroristcrimes’, by providing a conceptual understanding of ‘terrorism’,as well as articulating a theory of guilt. Terrorists seldomexpress ‘guilt’. The word ‘terrorism’describes, instead, an overriding motivation, a way of acting,rather than the objective circumstances of acting. Terrorismis nothing but common crimes although committed with an overridingmotivation of imposing extreme fear on the nation as such. Theauthor presents the conceptual grounds of the phenomenon ofterrorism as it has evolved through history, before enquiringinto the meaning of ‘terrorist crimes’: the overridingmotivation associated with the concept of terrorism constitutesthe degree of cognate dangerousness of terrorist crimes.     

Lak?a?�� as Inference

This paper questions a few assumptions of Ga?ge?a Up??dhy??ya??s theory of ordinary verbal cognition (laukika-???bdabodha). The meaning relation (v?tti) is of two kinds: ?akti (which gives us the primary referent of a word) and lak?a??? (which yields the secondary referent). For Ga?ge?a, the ground (b??ja) of lak?a??? is a sort of inexplicability (anupapatti) pertaining to the composition (anvaya) of word-meanings. In this connection, one notices that the case of lak?a??? is quite similar to that of one variety of postulation, namely, ?rut??rt??th??patti, where the subject hears only a part of a sentence and immediately grasps the words that are needed to render the sentential meaning complete. Unless he does that, sentential meaning, i.e., the composition (anvaya) of word-meanings shall suffer from the same inexplicability that characterizes instances of lak?a???. In fact, in the ???aktiv??da?? section of Tattvacint??ma?i, Ga?ge?a himself draws a parallel between the cognition of sentential meaning in a ?rut??rth??patti-like case and the cognition of sentential meaning in an instance of lak?a???. However, Ga?gesa himself treats ?rut??rth??patti as a piece of inferential cognition. If there is no fundamental difference between cases of ?rut??rth??patti and cases of lak?a???, then the cognition of sentential meaning in instances of lak?a??? must also be inferential in essence. In that case, we must admit, against Ga?ge?a??s view, that such cognition of sentential meaning cannot be accommodated within the framework of verbal cognition (???bdabodha). Therefore, I conclude that some revision is needed in Ga?ge?a??s theory of verbal cognition with respect to lak?a???.     

Embracing Wikipedia as a research tool for law: to Wikipedia or not to Wikipedia?

Useful aspects of Wikipedia should be embraced as a research tool. Arguments are based upon a consideration of Wikipedia's purpose; policies and controlling mechanisms; commentator views on and academic use of Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool; the fact that empirical research has found students will use Wikipedia. The results of a survey on the research preferences of a range of students engaged in various levels of legal study, from senior secondary school to second year law students, are presented and recommendations regarding educating students in the appropriate use of Wikipedia for research are made.     

Lak?a?ā as a Creative Function of Language

When somebody speaks metaphorically, the primary meanings of their words cannot get semantically connected. Still metaphorical uses succeed in conveying the message of the speaker, since lak?a?ā, a meaning-generating faculty of language, yields the suitable secondary meanings. Ga?ge?a claims that lak?a?ā is a faculty of words themselves. One may argue: “Words have no such faculty. In these cases, the hearer uses observation-based inference. They have observed that sometimes competent speakers use the word w in order to mean s, when p, the primary meaning of w does not make any semantic sense. In all such cases, s is actually related to p. After having observed this, when the hearer hears the utterance of w, and realizes that w’s primary meaning p is semantically unfit for the sentence-meaning, they infer on the basis of their prior observation that ‘the competent speaker must mean s by uttering w’. Thus lak?a?ā becomes a success.” This apparently well-argued reduction does not stand the critical examination; neither in Ga?ge?a’s framework, nor even in the general theory of language. For one can compose and interpret potentially infinite novel sentences based on lak?a?ā while the observational inferences one can make are finite. Ga?ge?a says very clearly that as far as the secondary meaning is concerned, no prior observation is required. This paper will argue that not only does language yield secondary meanings through lak?a?ā, but it also restricts the use of secondary meanings; for one cannot mean just anything by saying something. Lak?a?ā is a creative function with infinite potential within the limits set up by the language faculty.     

Do US City Crime Rates Follow a National Trend? The Influence of Nationwide Conditions on Local Crime Patterns

This study considers the degree to which the crime rates of US cities follow a uniform national trend. A nationwide trend has consequences for theories that explain aggregate changes in crime, but how closely subnational units hold to a common time path has received almost no research attention. Using annual panel data, the current study presents analyses that attempt to measure the correspondence between city-level and national-level crime rates. The results of each analysis are consistent with a clear single pattern that operates across the nation’s major urban areas. This supports the idea that a meaningful national trend exists, and it suggests the desirability of continuing efforts to explain it.

From Safety to Danger: Constructions of Crime in a Women’s Magazine

This study examines how the print media constructs signifiers of safety and danger for women. We analyze 155 news articles regarding crime and criminal justice from 1970 to 1990 in Chatelaine magazine, a Canadian women’s periodical. Both content and textual analyses are deployed to evaluate the media representations of crime and their role in facilitating images of fear and safety. We show that the meanings associated with women’s danger and safety in news narratives are socially constructed through claims, sources, content and culture. We find that news reporting did not initially incorporate signifiers of fear. However, crime messages increasingly included images of fear in the later reporting period. We argue that the transformations surrounding these images and texts are influenced by the rise in neoliberal thought in the 1980s. Our results indicate that ideological struggles external to the media are crucial to the representation of crime, which ultimately influence signifiers of danger and safety for women.     

Sexual Slavery: Do We Need This Crime in Addition to Enslavement?

The article focusses on the crime of sexual slavery in the ICC Statute. It examines the legal definition of enslavement in Article 7 (2) (c) ICC Statute and the Elements of Crimes (EOC) of enslavement and sexual slavery as well as the jurisprudence of the SCSL which was the first to deal with the application of the EOC of sexual slavery to a concrete situation (so-called ‘forced marriage’ phenomenon). The author questions whether there is a necessity to have two crimes against humanity of enslavement and sexual slavery but on the other hand, no war crime of enslavement. Further, she rejects the interpretation that human trafficking has become part of the definition of slavery/enslavement as the footnote in the EOC seems to suggest. The author argues vigorously that the phenomenon of ‘forced marriage’ should be prosecuted as sexual slavery and not under the residual offence of inhumane acts as a ‘new’ international crime.