Combating Violence against Women in India: Nari Adalats and Gender-Based Justice

Using qualitative methodology—field observations and in-depth interviews—the study examines the role of Mahila Samakhya (a group advocating women's equality) and Nari Adalats (informal women's courts) in India in combating violence against women. Interviews were conducted with members of a Mahila Samakhya in the southwest state of Karnataka and complainants who appeared before Nari Adalats. Nari Adalats in Karnataka are an innovation of Mahila Samakhya, a Government of India development program. The results indicate that Nari Adalats exercise broad authority to investigate and dispose of a wide range of domestic violence cases in India. The Mahila Samakhya serves as an advocacy group and provides shelter, legal assistance, and social help as well as education for victims of domestic violence.     

Assaults on prison officers: Interactional themes

Little is known of the circumstances surrounding prison inmates' assaults on correctional officers. To provide a foundation for understanding the meaning of these events, this exploratory study analyzes a sample of 694 official reports of assaultive incidents in a large state prison system over a one-year period. Results of a content analysis suggest that assaultive events occur in relation to a number of interactional themes—unexplained, officer's command, protest, search, inmates' fighting, movement, contraband, restraint, discipline, emotional instability, sexual, intoxication, and medical. The study's findings affirm that prisoners and officers must cooperate in order to negotiate each day with a minimum of disruption. When either party violates salient norms, mutually beneficial interaction patterns may break down and violent interactions may result. Officially reported assaults on staff members may be understood most clearly by considering the authority of officers, the autonomy of prisoners, and processes of social control enacted by prisoners and officers alike.     

The politics of race and juvenile justice: The “due process revolution” and the conservative reaction

Through the prism of race, this article analyzes the social structural and political context of juvenile justice law reforms over the past half century. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court imposed national legal and equality norms on recalcitrant southern states that still adhered to a segregated Jim Crow legal regime, and these norms provided the impetus for the Supreme Court's juvenile court “due process” decisions in the 1960s. The article then analyzes sociological, criminological, racial factors, media coverage, and political dynamics of the 1970s and 1980s that contributed to the “get tough” legislative reformulation of juvenile justice policies in the 1990s. During this period, conservative Republican politicians pursued a “southern strategy,” used crime as a code word for race for electoral advantage, and advocated “get tough” policies, which led to punitive changes in juvenile justice laws and practices and have had a disproportionate impact on racial minorities.     

Crime,youth gangs,and urban transition: The social dislocations of postindustrial economic development

On the basis of a multivariate analysis of quantitative data from all U.S. cities of 25,000 or more in 1970 and 1980, this paper investigates the impact of recent economic changes and population shifts on the levels of violent and property crime. Further investigation of a subset of cities yields information on the effect of these shifts for the development of youth gangs. The findings illustrate the criminogenic consequences of transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, where changes in technological conditions undermine the comparative locational advantages of cities as industrial centers and worsen economic opportunities for the unskilled urban poor. The results suggest that higher crime rates and more youth gangs are among the unintended consequences of the nation's patterns of postindustrial development.     

The Needs of Women Offenders

Abstract

Recent corrections research indicates that programs and community services providing assistance and training for women offenders are lacking. Using a sample of 402 female felony offenders, women's needs, including those thought to be criminogenic (i.e., characteristics and circumstances that heighten an individual's recidivism risk), are examined to determine whether certain groups of women possess similar sets of needs. Cluster analysis is used to identify combinations of needs shared within subgroups of female felons. Identification of common and co-occurring needs, particularly those associated with high risk for recidivism, can assist program staff, advocates for women offenders, and correctional administrators in determining what combination of program elements should be available to women, and the degree to which programming must address multiple domains.     

The Weak Reading of Authority in Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law

Authority qua empowerment is theweak reading of authority in Hans Kelsen's writings.On the one hand, this reading appears to beunresponsive to the problem of authority as we know itfrom the tradition. On the other hand, it squares withlegal positivism. Is Kelsen a legal positivist?Not without qualification. For he defends anormativity thesis along with the separation thesis,and it is at any rate arguable that the normativitythesis mandates a stronger reading of authority thanthat modelled on empowerment. I offer, in the paper,a prima facie case on behalf of a stronger reading ofauthority in Kelsen. I go on to argue, however, thatthe textual evidence weighs heavily in favour of theweak reading. Both nomostatics and nomodynamics arepervasive points of view in the Pure Theory of Law,and both reflect species of empowerment as theendpoint of Kelsen's reconstructions.

     

The Persistent Significance of Jurisdiction*

According to Joseph Raz's sources thesis, the existence and content of authoritative directives must be identifiable by resort to the social fact of their provenance from a de facto authority, without regard to any of the normative considerations that the authority in question is supposed to rely on in its judgment. This article argues that the sources thesis fails to account for the role of jurisdictional considerations (namely, considerations about the scope of a de facto authority's power) in the identification of valid law. It examines a legal system with a legislature and courts and a practice of constitutional review of legislation by the courts for its conformity with fundamental rights and argues that the special normative status of (at least some) authoritative directives in this legal system depends on respect for jurisdiction. An assessment of whether an authority has stayed intra vires involves recourse to the normative considerations that it is the authority's job to weigh up. This criticism of the sources thesis highlights the importance of incorporating jurisdiction into our philosophical accounts of legal authority.     

Parole survival and legislated change: A before/after study of parole revocation decision making

Past studies of juveniles' attitudes toward the police suggest a single-cause model that implicates personal interactions with the police. We propose that attitudes toward authority and agents of social control develop in a larger, sociocultural context. Specifically we hypothesize that juveniles' attitudes develop as a function of socialization in their communities' social environment, of their deviant subcultural “preferences,” and of the prior effect of these sociocultural factors on juveniles' contacts with the police. We conducted analyses addressing these hypotheses with a population of males sampled within stratified populations of known delinquents. We found that social background variables, particularly minority status, and subcultural preferences, particularly commitment to delinquent norms, affected juveniles' attitudes toward the police both directly and indirectly (through police-juvenile interactions). We consider directions for improving police relations with juveniles in the context of apparent sociocultural and experiential contingencies to attitude development.     

The Inevitability of Moral Evaluation*

According to contemporary legal positivism, law claims to create obligations. In order for law to be able to create obligations, it must be capable of having authority. Legal positivism claims that for law to be capable of having authority, it only has to meet non‐moral or non‐normative conditions of authority. In this paper it is argued that law can only be capable of having authority if it also meets certain normative conditions. But if something must meet certain normative conditions in order to be capable of having authority and if it must be capable of having authority in order to be law, then it is only law if it is conceivable that it meets these normative conditions and this can only be ascertained by means of an evaluation. Therefore, legal positivism's claim that determining what the law is does not necessarily, or conceptually, depend on moral or other evaluative considerations (the separation thesis) is incompatible with its claim that law must be able to create obligations. Further, an analysis of Hart's concept of law shows that it is not only possible that the identification of the law depends on moral evaluation, as Hart claims, but that it is conceptually necessary that it does.     

Recent developments

THE COMPANY EXECUTIVE AND THE LAW, by David Springfield, published by Heinemann. (1970) at £1. 15s. (£3. 3s., hardback). 296 pp.

CONTRACT, by F. R. Davies, published by Sweet and Maxwell (Concise College Texts series) (1970) at £1. 1s. (paperback), 233 pp.

LABOUR ORGANISATIONS: A MACRO AND MICRO SOCIOLOGICAL COMPARISON, by Mark Van de Vall, published by Cambridge University Press (1970) at £2. 15s. 257 pp.

THE LAW OF TORT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT, by Mary Bell Cairns, published by Shaw &; Sons (2nd. ed., 1970) at £4. 4s. 272 pp.

INDUSTRIAL LAW NOTEBOOK, by Norman M. Selwyn, published by Butterworths (1970) at 12s. 81 pp.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON THE LAW OF MEETINGS by R.S. Sim, published by Butterworths at 10s. 80 pp.

DECISION ON EUROPE, by Derek H. Hene, published by Jordan &; Sons (1970) at £2. 15s. 224 pp.     

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority of Bridewealth in a Post‐Apartheid South African Community

This article examines the persistent authority of lobola, the customary practice for forming marriages in many South African communities. South African marriage rates have sharply fallen, and many blame this on economic challenges completing lobola. Using in‐depth, qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu‐Natal, where lobola demands are the country's highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola's authority survives because lay actors have innovated new approaches for pursuing emerging desires for marriage via lobola. I argue that dyadic narratives of marriage increasingly circulate alongside “traditional” extended‐family narratives, especially among the young women who strongly support lobola while yearning for gender‐egalitarian marriages. My argument synthesizes actor‐oriented analyses of legal pluralism with Ewick and Silbey's theorization of lay actors’ role in producing legality to illuminate how lay actors contribute not only to the form and content of different legal systems, but also to the reach of their authority.     

Out on a Limb: Appointing a Parenting Coordinator with Decision‐Making Authority in the Absence of a Statute or Rule

This Article addresses the issue of whether a court may appoint a Parenting Coordinator (PC) with decision‐making authority in the absence of a statute or court rule. The Article identifies possible sources of authority for the appointment of a PC with decision‐making authority in a state with no authorizing statute or court rule. It also provides a paradigm for constructing an appointment that allows for the benefits of Parenting Coordination but does not delegate decision‐making authority to an extent that it would constitute an impermissible delegation of judicial authority.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Where a court seeks to appoint a PC with decision‐making authority in the absence of an authorizing statute or court rule, the court may find some authority allowing the appointment in (1) its equitable authority over child custody and visitation, (2) its authority to enforce its own orders, or (3) its authority to appoint other extrajudicial assistants such as a special master or mediator.
• Where a court seeks to appoint a PC with decision‐making authority in the absence of an authorizing statute or court rule, the court must craft an appointment that delegates enough decision‐making authority to the PC for parenting coordination to be effective yet, at the same time, not so much decision‐making authority as to render the appointment an impermissible delegation of a judicial function, specifically:
  • The PC's role should be limited to assisting the parties in implementing custody and visitation terms already decreed by the trial court.
  • A PC should be appointed only if the parties to the divorce consent to the appointment or if the trial court makes a finding that the case is a high‐conflict case.
  • The parties must have the opportunity for the trial court to meaningfully review any decision of the PC so that the trial court retains ultimate decision‐making authority.

     

The foster family in Poland,a custodial and educational environment (XX – the early XXI centuries)

ABSTRACT

A thorough study of the sources made it possible to conduct a retrospective analysis as well as outline normative and legal principles of the foster family in Poland as one of the main forms of child custody in the XX – early XXI centuries rooted in national traditions and social legacy. Foster family formation and early functioning indicate that its value depends on who is entrusted with a child to care for, what child is to be placed in foster care, what kind of support a foster family could expect, what control is exercised over it. The second half of the XX – the early XXI centuries mark the evolution of the legal and regulatory framework underlying foster care, one of the main institutional forms of child custody in Poland. It appears that the foster family provides a child with proper living conditions and a favourable environment for its education and socialisation, closest possible to those in a natural family. To this end, the state is to make sure that potential foster parents are properly trained. The development of foster care speeds up in the 1970’s and 1990’s. We have discovered that at the turn of the century, foster family functioning, provision of care and adequate conditions for a child’s development and upbringing etc. are defined by the social policy of the state. Of great significance for the international community is the Polish experience regarding the requirements for foster family candidates, children’s placement in such families, material assistance, foster parent salary calculations; the amount of money biological parents must pay for their child’s placement in a foster family. In modern Poland the foster family is an important social institution which promotes the development of a child deprived of parental care and is prioritized over other institutional forms of care.     

Coordination Cannot Establish Political Authority

One of the most common arguments in favour of the state's authority is that without the coordinating hand of political institutions, we could not achieve important moral benefits. I argue that if we understand authority correctly, then coordination cannot even in principle establish that coordinators have political authority.     

Marr v Collie: The Ballooning of the Common Intention Constructive Trust

The decision in Marr v Collie represents a significant expansion of the common intention constructive trust doctrine. Unsupported by authority, it relaxes the requirement that the property be acquired for a ‘domestic’ purpose, and widens the doctrine to encompass all property, whether real or personal. The decision's abrogation of the ‘purpose’ restriction redraws the line between the common intention constructive trust doctrine and the presumed resulting trust doctrine and expands the former to the greatest possible extent. This exacerbates a doctrine already apt to adversely affect both individual litigants and the justice system as a whole, and which creates incongruous theoretical divisions within the law of intentionally created trusts. As the doctrine is reliant on the proposition, unsupported by authority or legislation, that conveyance of a title to land into joint names necessarily gives rise to a trust, it is hoped that a future apex court will reconsider the doctrine's proper scope.     

凝聚共識的系列審判 2013年8月—10月大案匯總

近期一系列案件的開庭、審判、對社會關注的回應,在某種程度上凝聚了社會共識,讓國人看到中國在推進法治和推進司法改革上的決心,也為今年第四季度十八屆三中全會的召開打了前站。從這些案件的審判中我們可以看到,中國沒有回避問題,同時又在積極謀求解決問題。不論案件被告人是手握重權的高官,還是普通百姓,中國政府做近期一系列案件的開庭、審判、對社會關注的回應。在某種程度上凝聚了社會共識。     

Problem-oriented policing in public housing: The Jersey City evaluation

This paper examines the impact of a problem-oriented policing project on serious crime problems in six public housing sites in Jersey City, New Jersey. Representatives from the police department and the local housing authority, social service providers, and public housing tenants formed six problem-solving teams. Using systematic documentation of the teams' activities and calls for police service, we examine changes in serious crime both across and within the six sites over a 2 1/2-year period. We find that problem-oriented policing, as compared with traditional policing strategies used before the problem-oriented policing project, led to fewer serious crime calls for service over time and that two public housing sites in particular succeeded in reducing violent, property, and vehicle-related crimes.     

A review of the role of radical feminist theories in the understanding of rape myth acceptance

Abstract

Research into rape myth acceptance (RMA) first emerged in the 1970s, when authors such as Brownmiller (1975) and Burt (1980) proposed that rape was a mechanism that allowed men to exert power over women and that the endorsement of rape myths justified this sexual dominance. These influential theories have meant that subsequent definitions of rape myths have failed to acknowledge male victims of serious sexual assault, despite an increase in prevalence rates. More recent research has attempted to explore RMA in relation to male victims, with results suggesting that men are more likely than women to endorse rape myths regarding male victims when the victim is assumed to be homosexual, or when the victim is heterosexual and the perpetrator is female. Brownmiller's theory is challenged and a more holistic view of the importance of sex-role traditionality is explored, while acknowledging the contribution of individual factors relating to the development of RMA.     

Authority and Representation

The act of `setting the law' enjoysa central position in Kelsen's theory of authority.His analysis of this act criticizes, amongst others,the assumption of natural-law doctrines that norms areobjective when they duplicate a content given directlyto cognition and independently of the act whereby thenorm is enacted. Correctly, Kelsen attacks the conceptof representation underlying this assumption as anexample of metaphysical dualism and a copy theory ofknowledge. Does, then, an alternative understanding ofauthority require scrapping representation from atheory of positive law? Or does it requireinterpreting representation differently? Following thesecond path, this paper reconstructs the act ofsetting the law in terms of the critical concept ofrepresentation developed by Ernst Cassirer andsuggests how, thus reconstructed, the structure ofthis act can account for the law's authority and itscontingency.

     

Withdrawal of Parental Responsibility: Lost Authority and a Lost Opportunity

This comment examines Re D (Withdrawal of Parental Responsibility), the first reported Court of Appeal decision on withdrawal of parental responsibility pursuant to section 4(2A) of the Children Act 1989. It demonstrates that the Court overlooked earlier Court of Appeal authority, resulting in tension in the Court's guidance. The comment criticises the Court of Appeal's characterisation of parental responsibility as entirely child‐centred and its uncritical acceptance that the child's welfare is the paramount consideration in applications for withdrawal of parental responsibility. It argues that such an approach may not adequately respect the parent's interests in retaining parental responsibility, especially in the context of an order which is more draconian in effect than a care order. The impact upon applications for removal of parental responsibility of the new presumption of parental involvement, which was implemented shortly after the decision in Re D, is also considered.