Gacaca Courts: Between Fantasy and Reality

Faced with an overflowing caseload and imperatives of nationalreconciliation, Rwandan authorities have established a systemof justice, meted out through gacaca courts under the legalframework created by organic laws. The following contributionanalyses this framework, within the context of national andinternational legal systems, and pinpoints the shortcomingsof the proposed form of justice. These include legal issuessuch as the problem of retroactivity, as well as the definitionof crimes and concerns over due process and the right to a fairtrial for defendants. Practical and material obstacles arisein implementing the organic laws, alongside broader implicationsowing to the traditional nature of such courts and possibleinterference by political authorities. In this respect, thegacaca courts may be victims of their own ambitions, by seekingto respond to judicial, societal and philosophical concernsalike.     

Enemies Everywhere: Terrorism, Moral Panic, and US Civil Society

Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, terrorism has experienced a prominence in discourse across the U.S. The representations of terrorists and terrorism by the news media and politi have contributed to the edifice of terrorism as a moral panic. This treatise examines the social effects that have or may occur due to the social construction of a moral panic of terrorism. The thematic frame is situated within Cohens stages of a moral panic. We offer an analysis of the medias depiction and coverage of acts of terrorism, and legislative, political and legal responses in the form of social and cultural changes occurring from the creation of a moral panic. In addition, we offer an analysis of the states vested interest in the social construction of this panic, leading to increased levels of fear, targeted at the general publics consciousness. This article concludes that the presentation of terrorism and terrorists by the media and politi have contributed to unnecessary levels of panic and fear, misguided public consciousness, and the development of legislation creating negative social ramifications yet be seen.     

Mad Men,Meth Moms,Moral Panic: Gendering Meth Crimes in the Midwest

This research examines the content of a sample of newspaper articles from the Midwestern states. The analyses find highly gendered accounts of methamphetamine related crimes. Media depictions suggest women use meth for reasons drawn from conventional notions of motherhood, sexuality, and subordination. Alternately, motives of men appear constructed around dominant notions of male criminal virility and the viability of the drug trade. The findings offer a contextual framework to consider how this sort of mediated dichotomy emerges from and reinforces popular notions of gendered crime and drug users in non-urban spaces.     

The Black Hand: A Study in Moral Panic

This analysis reviews the history of Black Hand extortion in the City of Chicago and argues that the societal response to Black Hand activity constituted a moral panic. In addition, special emphasis is given to the institutional legacy of society's response to Black Hand crime. It is argued that the moral panic created by the Black Hand contributed to the social construction of the alien conspiracy theory, which has dominated beliefs about the Mafia and organised crime for almost a century     

Translation of the Language of the Common Law into Legal French: Myth or Reality

Translating (and so construinga specialized source text) means producing afunctional text in a linguaculture target textthat is needed for specific communicativepurposes by processing the information given ina previous text in a different linguaculturesource text. Consequently, the comparison oflegal texts and terms from English to Frenchinevitably involves a theory of equivalence –if ever possible. The aim of this article is toreview the various hindrances or pitfalls inlegal translation and also a possible theory ofhow to avoid misunderstandings between thesource and the target texts.     

主权:政治现实、道德理想与法治桥梁

准确把握主权概念是清晰理解国际法与国际关系的基础。只有消除一些误解和歧义才有可能树立正确的观念。就现实而言,主权是对内的命令、调控以及以此为基础的对外代表与参与,主要功能是政府对其行为与利益的辩护与防卫。其根源是社会分工形成的人群分层,并在此基础上形成的制度惯性以及人们对治理形式的路径依赖。其内核是无涉于道德和法律的。在认清主权的非社会契约性、非神圣绝对性之后,必须承认,主权在世界上仍会长期存在。因而有必要在人本主义的价值基点上塑造其理想,即要求主权发挥引领、代表、服务人民,在相互依赖、面临共同未来的人类处境中密切合作的职能。为此,有必要进一步完善权力—权利三角形,使主权的运作受国内宪政和国际法治的引导与制约,促进社会的健康和谐发展。     

Popular Culture and Social Control: The Moral Panic on Music Labeling

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Informed by a moral panic perspective, I analyze the music labeling debate in the United States from the mid 1980s until the early 1990s. Instigated by the...     

A False Sense of Security: Moral Panic Driven Sex Offender Legislation

Data collected from correctional files of sex offenders managed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation were analyzed to explore the degree to which sex offender behavior meets the assumptions of the legislation intended to regulate their behavior. The study asked where offenders commit their sex crimes and the likelihood of choosing a known vs. a stranger victim. The concept of moral panic is used as a framework to discuss possible motivations for current sex offender legislation.     

Incurable Sex Offenders, Lousy Judges & The Media: Moral Panic Sustenance in the Age of New Media

There is consensus that since the 1990s, we have experienced a spike in public concern over sexual offenders. Analyzing this concern as a moral panic, this paper argues that national television coverage, as it picks up local news, adds heat to the fire by re-naming the villain as an inadequate judicial system. This process helps to sustain a moral panic, while narrowing the available discourse about the nature of appropriate punishment. Drawing upon a well-publicized example of a media event in Vermont, this paper extends the theory of moral panics to add another stage to the process—a stage presented by the advent of cable news programming, the relationship between local and national media, and the explosion of blogs. In order for a panic to sustain over an extended time period, the rhetoric about it must transform. In particular, the claimsmaking about the nature of the problem must evolve. In particular, the panic has evolved from sex offenders as folk devils to an attack on judicial discretion. The development of the outcry over judicial discretion was due, in part, to media distortion of the case. I will thus trace the trajectory of this one case to demonstrate the role of the media in shaping and sustaining the panic.     

乔姆斯基语言心智理论中的计算主义思想:源头、实质与影响

计算主义是20世纪中期在理性主义哲学传统、图灵机模型以及计算机科学基础上形成的一股心智哲学思潮,其核心观点是把认知过程理解为图灵可计算函数的算法执行过程。受此影响,乔姆斯基在理性主义心智天赋论框架内吸收现代科学发展成果,创立了生成语言学理论用以刻画人类关键的认知能力——语言能力,有力推动了认知心理学乃至整个认知科学的发展。生成语言学究其本质而言,是一种有关人类语言心智的计算理论,强调语言计算的人类以及领域专属性,主张自然主义一元论,反对将语言心智还原为我们目前已知的物理、化学以及生物过程。这一思想虽不乏争议,但在计算主义背景下考察其来源、实质及影响,对于我们深入理解当下认知心理学、脑神经科学以及人工智能等领域的发展有着重要的意义。     

The Legitimacy of Judicial Responses to Moral Panic: Perceived vs. Normative Legitimacy

In some instances, the criminal justice system is affected by a moral panic; that is, by an exaggerated social reaction to an assumed threat to moral values. When influenced by moral panic, courts demonize defendants and aggravate punishments. Are such responses legitimate? This article argues that by contrast to legitimate condemnation of criminal conduct, demonizing defendants ought never be legitimate. The legitimacy of aggravating punishment requires distinguishing between the sociological concept of legitimacy (“perceived legitimacy”) and the moral concept (“normative legitimacy”). Aggravation of punishment in response to moral panic might be perceived as legitimate since it expresses public perceptions about the severity of the threat to a social value, even when these perceptions are exaggerated; however, punishments that are proportionate to such a perceived, exaggerated, threat to a social value are unjust and unfair, and therefore are normatively illegitimate. When the panic subsides, courts tend to return to lower levels of punishment. The subsidence of the panic enables one to realize that a gap between perceived and normative legitimacy has been created during the panic. Should and can the gap be bridged retroactively in order to gain full legitimacy? One way to bridge the gap is to grant clemency that will reduce the punishment of defendants whose sentences were exaggerated unduly during the panic. The article proposes a more radical mechanism that allows for sentence re-evaluation in cases of moral panic.     

Moral Panic at the English Bar: Paternal vs. Commercial Ideologies of Legal Practice in the 1860s

This article examines a period of profound crisis about the English bar. The metaphor of "moral panic" is invoked in assessing the impact of five notorious cases of barristers' misconduct which riveted public attention between 1859 and 1863. Four of the barristers involved were subjected to "professional discipline" in what was the first spate of disciplinary proceedings for breaches of bar "etiquette." Professional "ethics" were applied in remarkably selective ways and amounted to a "shutting down" of laissez-faire professional practices. This was a crucial turning point in the English legd profession, and the effect was to transform the bar from a relatively open, unregulated status group into something akin to a rule-bound disciplinary regime.     

Fantasy,Commitment and the Irish Peace Process

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

Traversing the Fantasy: Why Leftist Academics Must Abandon the Myth of Organic Resistance and Think Again About the Problems We Face

Critical Criminology - The concept of organic resistance has stood as a cornerstone of critical social science for decades. Countless authors have claimed that minor acts of...     

情感主义伦理学的心理学印证——道德情绪的表征及其对道德行为的影响机理

理性主义伦理学强调理性在道德行为中的作用,科尔伯格的道德认知理论为其提供了坚实的心理学依据。情感主义伦理学突出情感的动机力量,而当前的道德情绪研究能够对此充分证实。道德情绪指的是在对自己或他人进行道德评价时产生的一种复合情绪,能够影响道德行为的产生和改变。自豪、内疚、移情和钦佩等道德情绪不仅能够激发个体的亲社会行为,而且与反社会行为呈显著负相关。羞耻和愤怒等道德情绪容易引发个体的不良行为或反社会行为。今后的道德情绪研究应注重探究文化在道德情绪中的作用、道德情绪的认知神经机制、集体道德情绪、道德情绪的实践应用和哲学思考等。