Redressing supremacy: challenging traditional notions of standing in the Commonwealth Caribbean Bills of Rights

The standing requirements under the Constitutions of the Commonwealth Caribbean require an applicant to allege a contravention of the Bills of Rights ‘in relation to him’, so he must be personally affected. This would exclude lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex organisations from initiating constitutional challenges for which legal challenge by personally affected individuals are unlikely. This article will explore the scope of the supreme law clause in these constitutions, which provide that the constitution is the supreme law and any law inconsistent with it is void to the extent of its inconsistency, as an interpretative tool for the standing requirement and as a standalone redress clause.     

Eastern Finnish families on the borderland of historical family forms

This article deals with the discussion of the Eastern European family and forms of patriarchalism as an ideological base for families. Changes in the patriarchal families in Eastern Finland will be examined as a process from the pre-Christian period until the 19th century. Eastern Finnish families were situated on the classical European/non-European family forms border area. By comparing families of Eastern Finland with those of the Balkans and Russia, strict principles of patriarchalism, patrilineality, and patrilocality common over a wide area can be discovered. The demography and economy influenced the existence and rate of joint families, but did not necessarily change the patriarchal principles of the family until major transformations in family organization began in the late 18th century. Housing and inheritance practices, folklore, wedding customs, ancestor worship, and blood vengeance reflected the importance of kin, seniority, patrilineality, and patrilocality in social organization.     

Emergence of the battered woman syndrome: The impact upon the legal system

The purpose of this review article is to analyze the emergence of the battered woman syndrome and how it currently impacts the legal system. The battered woman syndrome is compared with other syndromes used in the courts and then unresolved issues surrounding the usage of the battered woman syndrome are discussed.     

Legal aid reform: its impact on family law

This paper seeks to give an overview of the Legal Aid reform leading to the enactment of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (“LASPO”). It provides a context for the reforms heralded by consultation in 2010, and discusses the interplay with the simultaneous Family Justice Review. The paper goes on to look at the structural and constitutional changes brought about by the LASPO Act 2012, the impact on the Courts, and the removal of many cases from the 'scope' of public funding leading to the increase in the numbers of Litigants in Person. The paper discusses the ‘exceptional’ cases, the cases in which children are joined as parties, and mediation. The article looks briefly at the impact on the legal profession brought about by the legal aid reforms together with the reduction in fees under the Family Advocacy Scheme (also introduced in 2011).     

Mafia markers: assessing organized crime and its impact upon societies

This study develops a causal model of the independent effect of organized crime, rule of law, and corruption on national wealth. To measure the level of organized crime a Composite Organized Crime Index (COCI) is constructed combining data on the perceived prevalence of organized crime, unsolved homicides, grand corruption, money-laundering and the extent of the black economy, drawing on the World Economic Forum’s annual surveys among CEOs of larger companies, the Merchant International Group’s assessments of investment risks in 150 countries, studies by the World Bank Institute, and official crime statistics. The findings of the explorative analysis show that a political strategy of tolerating activities of local criminal groups in the hope of beneficial effects on the wealth of a nation is unlikely to bring the expected results. Although some types of organized crime may bring in significant revenues, tolerating Mafia-type activities implies letting the Trojan horse of racketeering and grand corruption into the walls of government.

Long-term impact of family group conferences on re-offending: the Indianapolis restorative justice experiment

Objectives

The purpose of the current study is to test the long-term effect of Family Group Conferences (FGCs) on recidivism prevalence and time to first re-offense for first-time youthful offenders.

Methods

The current study builds on an experiment with a reasonably large sample (n?=?782) conducted in Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana, USA. The current study extends this work by following the cases for an additional 10?years. To examine the empirical relationships among the variables, this study employs a two-step approach. The initial analysis, employing logistic regression, measures prevalence of re-offending based on whether the youth ever was re-arrested during the follow-up period. The second step employs Cox Proportional-Hazards Regression to examine time until first re-offense.

Results

The findings revealed that when extended to a 12-year follow-up period, there were no significant differences between the FGC and control groups in re-offending prevalence or time to re-offense.

Conclusions

An earlier study suggests that treatment group youths experienced reduced risk in the short-term and there is no evidence in the present study to suggest that youths participating in FGCs were placed at greater risk for re-offending. Given these findings and the body of research suggesting improved outcomes for victims, continued experimentation with FGCs and related restorative processes seems warranted. Future studies would benefit from blocking procedures in the experimental design in order to examine whether treatment effects are moderated by gender, race, and initial type of offense. The lack of such blocking procedures represents a limitation of the current study.     

Minors,gender, and family: The discourses in the court system of traditional Buenos Aires

The article deals with public attitudes toward family responsibility in early-nineteenth-century Bienos Aires, particularly as revealed in lawsuits occasioned by disputes over the custody of minors. The care and education of minors was ordinarily entrusted to parents, but death, incapacity, licentious conduct, poverty or abandonment often resulted in the minor being removed from parents and taken by others into custody of guardians or institutions of public welfare. The majority of the analyzed lawsuits resulted from an attempt by parents to recover their authority over their children. The lawsuits indicate that the racial, gender, social, and generational “disadvantages” of plaintiffs did not a priori determine the judgement, but rather that arguments for family stability frequently were decisive when heard by sympathetic judges. Disadvantages persons thus frequently argued sucessfully about the meaning of the family, as protagonists in the legal system that otherwise often marginalized them.     

Sustaining families, dissuading crime: The effectiveness of a family preservation program with male delinquents

Purpose

Family factors have long been considered an important contributor to the criminogenic process. Family Preservation (FP) programs attempt to improve family functioning and, thereby, dissuade future delinquency. Despite years of delivery, the limited research concerning the influence of FP programs on juvenile delinquency remains inconclusive.

Methods

This study examined the effectiveness of an FP program implemented in a metropolitan county of a large Southern state. Subjects were adjudicated male juveniles referred to the program by the courts. Recidivism outcomes for FP participants were compared against those of a simple random sample of non-participants.

Results

Findings suggest that FP does not impact recidivism among study participants. Issues with treatment fidelity may be responsible for the lack of results for this program.

Conclusion

These findings fail to lend support to the FP program. However, they do demonstrate the importance of treatment fidelity in juvenile justice programming.     

Breaking up is hard to do: the economic impact of provisional funding contingent upon evidence development

Funding contingent upon evidence development (FED) has recently been the subject of some considerable debate in the literature but relatively little has been made of its economic impact. We argue that FED has the potential to shorten the lag between innovation and access but may also (i) crowd-out more valuable interventions in situations in which there is a fixed dedicated budget; or (ii) lead to a de facto increase in the funding threshold and increased expenditure growth in situations in which the programme budget is open-ended. Although FED would typically entail periodic review of provisional or interim listings, it may prove difficult to withdraw funding even at cost/QALY ratios well in excess of current listing thresholds. Further consideration of the design and implementation of FED processes is therefore required to ensure that its introduction yields net benefits over existing processes.     

Contact,welfare and children in care: revisiting the significance of birth family relationships after finding significant harm

The focus of this paper is the issue of continuing birth family involvement in the child’s life once the child is living in care. Drawing on a psychosocial study and free association narrative interviews with care leavers it focuses on the harm to a young woman called Frances, caused by direct contact with her birth family and the cessation of such contact. The paper addresses the tension between these two types of harm, in particular the role of contact in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in care. It presents an argument for the child’s care plan to emphasise the need for ongoing review of the role and impact of the child’s close relationships and contact with their birth family once the child is in care. This includes ongoing consideration of the child’s changing relationship with the birth mother and siblings with a view to reconciliation in young adulthood.     

The conflict between notions of fairness and the Pareto principle

Most legal academics and policy makers believe that notionsof fairness should be accorded positive weight in evaluatinglegal policies. We explain, however, that ascribing importanceto any notion of fairness (other than one concerned solely withthe distribution of income) will sometimes lead to a conflictwith the Pareto principle. That is, to endorse a notion of fairnessis to endorse the view that it can be desirable to adopt a legalrule that will reduce the well-being of every person in society.