Is the general data protection regulation the solution?

Never has a text been received with so many requests for amendments; never has the debate around it been so huge. Some see it as a simple duplicate of the Directive 95/46; others present the GDPR, as a monster. In the context of this birthday, it cannot be a question of analyzing this text or of launching new ideas, but simply of raising two questions. I state the first as follows: "In the end, what are the major features that cross and justify this regulation? In addition, the second: "Is the regulation adequate for today's digital challenges to our societies and freedoms? The answers given in the following lines express the opinion of their author. It is just an invitation for a dialogue to go forth in this journal where so many excellent reflections have been published on Digital Law, thanks to our common friend: Steve.     

The prosecutor and human rights – from the general to the particular

It is not unusual that one or all parties commit a genuine mistake when making contracts. While there is the strict general duty under the law to respect agreements, there equally exists the duty for courts and tribunals to be fair and to render commercial justice in the factual matrix of cases before them. In national legal systems and transnational law regimes, rescission for mistake on economically efficient and just terms is embedded in contractual obligations. The Solle v Butcher (1950) doctrine, which represented the English law approach, was rejected in The Great Peace (2002). Potential conflicts and crises now exist in commercial relations and international dispute resolution when ‘English law’ is the applicable law. This extends to jurisdictions where English decisions are highly persuasive. This article examines the correctness and effect of The Great Peace decision on the doctrine of equitable rescission for genuine mistake as propounded in Solle v Butcher, and possible clarifications needed after the complications brought by The Great Peace. It analyses the conceptual importance of the remedy of equitable rescission for mistake in commercial transactions, and identifies serious substantive errors of law by The Great Peace court. Finally, it provides other effective, fair and efficient legal methods that remain available to avoid the weaknesses of the decisions.     

A general test of self-control theory: has its importance been exaggerated?

Self-control theory has been tested for 2 decades. However, mixed results and measurement problems have made it difficult to ascertain its true utility. This study addresses recent concerns and includes variables such as risk, consequences, criminal opportunity, an interaction term, and bond controls in one complete test. It also addresses self-control's ability to explain different forms of crime and whether the support that it has garnered has been exaggerated. Results of both cross-sectional and semilongitudinal tests indicate that self-control significantly predicts a higher probability of involvement in property and drug crime but is virtually silent in its ability to explain violence. Furthermore, it can be tentatively stated that support for the theory wanes over time. Finally, neglected concepts such as opportunity, risk, consequences, and bond controls may be important to the theory's ability to explain crime, and further negligence of these concepts may hamper a true understanding of its impact.     

Can general strain theory be used to explain recidivism among registered sex offenders?

Purpose

The purpose of the current study was to assess sex offender recidivism in the context of General Strain Theory (GST).

Methods

Surveys were mailed to 3,506 sex offenders with (N = 939) in Nebraska, (N = 1,850) in Kansas and (N = 717) in Montana. Questions related to strain associated with registration and community notification, anger, depression, and criminal behavior were asked. OLS Regression was utilized to predict overall recidivism, as well as sex, violent, drug, and property recidivism.

Results

Findings suggest that GST is supported when analyzing recidivism.

Conclusions

In the context of these findings, policymakers would do well to reexamine the broad use of registration and community notification laws.     

Assessing the nature of nanotechnology: can we uncover an emerging general purpose technology?

Attention has increasingly shifted towards the long-run perspective on technological innovation, which suggests that progress comes in waves, each one originating with a major breakthrough or general purpose technology (GPT). This paper seeks to assess whether nanotechnology is likely to be (or become) a GPT, a characteristic that other researchers have sometimes assumed though not necessarily documented. Based on a survey of existing literature, this paper will explore the extent to which nanotechnology addresses three primary characteristics of a GPT: pervasiveness, innovation spawning, and scope for improvement. The paper draws on patent and patent citation databases to highlight the types of quantitative and qualitative information that would be necessary, and in some instances is still lacking, to characterize fully the nature of nanotechnology.

Candidate gender and voting in the 1997 British general election: Did labour Quotas Matter?

The proportion of women MPs elected in the 1997 British general election reached an historic high of 18.2 per cent, the vast majority from the victorious Labour Party. The large increase in the proportion of women Labour MPs was partly due to the policy of establishing women‐only shortlists for winnable seats. This paper examines the distribution of women candidates in the election and analyses the factors that affected the votes they attracted. The results show that Labour women selected on the women‐only shortlists attracted significantly more votes than women nominated on open shortlists. This was mainly a consequence of their selection for marginal seats, but the greater organisational effort that was concentrated on those seats was also an important factor. Overall, there was no evidence that voters discriminated against women candidates in the election, regardless of party and regardless of how they were selected. The large number of women MPs raises issues concerning the formulation and articulation of a distinctive women's policy agenda at Westminster.     

Does providing a written version of the police caution improve comprehension in the general population?

Abstract

Comprehension of the police caution is extremely poor across a variety of populations and jurisdictions and is particularly impaired in vulnerable populations. This has significant consequences for the admissibility of evidence in court. We investigated whether providing individuals with a written version of the caution would improve comprehension in the general population. Sixty participants (30 with low educational attainment and 30 with high educational attainment) were randomly allocated to one of three groups (Verbal presentation; Written presentation; Verbal and Written presentation). Comprehension in the three groups was evaluated using Cooke and Philip's (1998) Scottish Comprehension of Caution Instrument. Results showed that despite 95% of participants claiming to fully understand the sample caution, only 5% of individuals in the verbal presentation group demonstrated full understanding, compared to 40% and 35% in the written and combined verbal and written groups respectively. This highlights both that individuals' self-reports of understanding are higher than actual comprehension and that providing a written version of the caution may improve comprehension in the general population.     

Redressing the imbalanced political market for health policy: a role for the state attorney general?

In current discussions of "procompetitive" approaches to health policy, the enforcement of antitrust laws in health care markets is a strategy that has attracted increasing attention: the filing of consumer-oriented health suits provides a means to "redress" the typically imbalanced "political market" in health policy. This study examines an important aspect of the antitrust enforcement process, the decision by a state attorney general to undertake an aggressive antitrust enforcement program in the health area. Three variables were found to explain this decision: the political needs of a "politician-supplier," the organizational resources of a strategic institutional position, and the availability of a relatively favorable policy arena. An assessment of the future role of state attorneys general in this area suggests that their health antitrust initiatives will increase, but that various political and resource constraints are likely to inhibit their aggressiveness in pursuing these actions.     

Does prison strain lead to prison misbehavior? An application of general strain theory to inmate misconduct

Purpose

This paper applies macro-micro General Strain Theory (GST) to predict prisoner misconduct. It is hypothesized that prison-based strain will adversely affect inmates and increase their misconduct.

Methods

Data from a large southern state are used to examine how environmental strain measured at the prison level influence inmates’ violent misconduct. Analyses will include a group-based trajectory model on monthly counts of violent misconduct for the first three years of incarceration and assess whether the strain of the environment (using a latent measure of prison deprivation as a proxy for environmental strain) distinguishes between trajectories. The analysis will employ finite multilevel mixture modeling with environmental strain as both a within- and between-class predictor, but at the prison level.

Results

Findings suggest that prison strain is positively associated with prison misconduct; however, the magnitude of the effect varies across distinct inmate trajectories.

Conclusions

Theoretical and practical implications are highlighted as are directions for future research.     

Differential effects of general versus cued invitations on children’s reports of a repeated event episode

The ability to describe individual episodes of repeated events (such as ongoing abuse) can enhance children’s testimony and assist the progression of their cases through the legal system. Open-ended prompts have been advocated as a means to assist children in accurately retrieving information about individual episodes. In the current study, two subtypes of open-ended prompts (cued and general invitations) were compared for their effects on five- to nine-year-olds’ (n?=?203) reports about individual episodes of a repeated event. Interviews occurred 1–2 weeks after the last of 4 event sessions. Cued invitations assisted children to provide specific details about individual episodes of a repeated event, while general invitations were useful to elicit more broad happenings of the episodes. The accuracy of responses to general invitations was similar for children of all ages up to one week after the event, but at a longer interview delay younger children were less accurate than older children. There were no differences in the accuracy of responses to cued invitations as a function of age or interview delay. Results suggest that interviewers tasked with eliciting accounts of individual episodes from a repeated event, such as ongoing abuse, should consider the differential efficacy of each prompt-type on children’s reports.     

Are facial image analysis experts any better than the general public at identifying individuals from CCTV images?

The aim of this study was to examine the accuracy and reliability of a small group of facial imagery experts, and compare their abilities with members of the general public, to ascertain whether or not training and experience will affect the ability to identify faces from CCTV footage.A number of clips from CCTV footage were utilised alongside face pools. The participants were asked to identify the actor in each CCTV clip and provide a level of confidence in the decision.The experts tested in this study were consistently better at identification than the public, with almost double the identification rates and half the errors. These results suggest that training and experience in facial analysis will produce more reliable and accurate facial identification.     

Commercial speech and off-label drug uses: what role for wide acceptance, general recognition and research incentives?

This article provides an overview of how the constitutional protections for commercial speech affect the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulation of drugs, and the emerging issues about the scope of these protections. A federal district court has already found that commercial speech allows manufacturers to distribute reprints of medical articles about a new off-label use of a drug as long as it contains disclosures to prevent deception and to inform readers about the lack of FDA review. This paper summarizes the current agency guidance that accepts the manufacturer's distribution of reprints with disclosures. Allergan, the maker of Botox, recently maintained in a lawsuit that the First Amendment permits drug companies to provide "truthful information" to doctors about "widely accepted" off-label uses of a drug. While the case was settled as part of a fraud and abuse case on other grounds, extending constitutional protections generally to "widely accepted" uses is not warranted, especially if it covers the use of a drug for a new purpose that needs more proof of efficacy, and that can involve substantial risks. A health law academic pointed out in an article examining a fraud and abuse case that off-label use of drugs is common, and that practitioners may lack adequate dosage information about the off-label uses. Drug companies may obtain approval of a drug for a narrow use, such as for a specific type of pain, but practitioners use the drug for similar uses based on their experience. The writer maintained that a controlled study may not be necessary to establish efficacy for an expanded use of a drug for pain. Even if this is the case, as discussed below in this paper, added safety risks may exist if the expansion covers a longer period of time and use by a wider number of patients. The protections for commercial speech should not be extended to allow manufacturers to distribute information about practitioner use with a disclosure about the lack of FDA approval. Distributions of information about unapproved uses should not be acceptable unless experts consider the expanded use to be generally recognized as safe and effective based on adequate studies. The last part of this paper considers the need to develop better research incentives to encourage more testing and post-market risk surveillance by drug makers on off-label uses of their drugs. Violations of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) can be considered violations of the False Claims Act, which opens the way to fraud and abuse suits. The scale of penalties involved in these suits may lead to more examination of the scope of FDA regulation and commercial speech protections. Thus this symposium's consideration of these issues is timely and important.     

Does resting heart rate at age 18 distinguish general and violent offending up to age 50? Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Purpose

There is a sizable literature documenting the relationship between resting heart rate and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Absent from the literature is the extent to which heart rate has long-term prediction into late middle adulthood and the extent to which such effects are specific to certain crime types, such as violence, or whether heart rate effects are more general.

Methods

This study uses data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal study of 411 South London males followed through age 50 in order to examine these two research questions.

Results

Results suggest that lower heart rates are significantly associated with total conviction frequency and involvement in violence. This pattern of relationships is not altered by the inclusion of additional risk factors such as early childhood risk factors, adolescent involvement in smoking, body mass index, participation in team sports, binge drinking, or a measure of impulsivity.

Conclusions

Heart rate was found to be a significant correlate of criminal offending. Study limitations and implications are discussed.     

Can order of general and specific memory prompts help children to recall an instance of a repeated event that was different from the others?

Does asking about the general event before asking about a specific instance help children to report details of a particular instance of a repeated event that was different from the others? Six- to eight-year-old children either experienced or heard stories about a magic show. An equal number of children had one, four, or six similar experiences. One week later, half of the children were asked to describe what happens during the magic shows and then what happened during the target experience and half were asked what happened followed by what happens. Following free recall, all children were asked cued recall questions about the target instance. Memory reports were more complete when the general prompt was administered first than when it was administered second. Implications for the forensic interviewing of children who allege repeated abuse are discussed.     

Banking on reform in 2010: is regulatory change ever enough and will the general election hold the answers for the financial services industry?

Over the past three years the financial service industry within the United Kingdom has undergone a major crisis. No part of the industry has gone untouched and even the regulators and the Government have come under fire for their part in promulgating the financial crisis, along with the financial service providers themselves. What has developed has been a plethora of policy documents issued and this has culminated in four major new legal updates for the financial services industry occurring during just one year. The Banking Act 2009, the Turner Review, the Walker Review, the White Paper on Reforming Financial Services and the Financial Services Bill 2009 have all increased the burden on financial services firms in light of the financial crisis sweeping not only the UK but the globe. This paper provides an oversight of these four important papers and pieces of legislation so as to shed light on what the new requirements for financial services firms are. Given the fast pace of the financial crisis, its respective regulation is also just as quick and as such it has been hard for practitioners and academics alike to keep pace with the evolving saga of the crisis. This paper therefore provides an overview of what happened and how the regulation has responded to the challenges it now faces.