THE EGGHEAD, THE FLATFOOT, AND THE SCREW

The growth of the American Society of Criminology has strengthened it not only in numbers but by the active participation of leading criminologists. Practitioners entering the ranks of the organization offer an opportunity for collegial interaction of social scientists with police, correctional, and other personnel. This association may be mutually beneficial, but it may also result in faction-ridden organizations whose facades of dialogue conceal dissatisfaction. The author envisages a scientific organization true to a mission that is neither elitist, exclusionary, nor isolated from the administration of justice or penology.     

THE FIRST MAN AND THE COMPANY MAN: THE COMMON GOOD, TRANSCENDENCE, AND MEDIATING INSTITUTIONS

An enormous oblivion spread over them, and actually that was what this land gave out, what fell from the sky with the night over the three men returning to the village, their hearts made anxious by the approach of night, filled with that dread that seizes all men in Africa when the sudden evening descends on the sea, on the rough mountains and the high plateaus, the same holy dread that has the same effect on the slopes of Delphi's mountain, where it makes temples and altars emerge. But on the land of Africa the temples have been destroyed, and all that is leR is this soft unbearable burden of the heart.     

CHILDREN,THE UNCRC,AND FAMILY LAW IN ENGLAND AND WALES

There is no doubt that, overall, there has been a great deal of activity in relation to children's rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since it was ratified by the UK government in 1991. Of particular significance in the context of family law, however, are the provisions of Article 12, which have in many ways proved to be more problematic than other provisions, not least because, in the context of family law, children's participation rights are necessarily juxtaposed with the long‐standing and hitherto unchallenged rights of parents to make important decisions about family life. The reorganisation in 2001 of the family court welfare services in England and Wales with the creation of the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), generated a new impetus for the consideration of children's participation rights and, at an organizational level, considerable progress has been made in embracing the provisions of the UNCRC. More problematic, however, is the acceptance of children's participation in making decisions about their futures by adults using and working in the family justice system. At the level of the courts, judicial attitudes are slow to change and in England, as court judgments often demonstrate, these are firmly rooted in a view of children as being incompetent in such issues; at the level of parents using the system, it is arguable that new discourses about the best interests of the child serve as a proxy for continuing discourses about parents’ rights that have become evident, most recently, in the context of an increasingly influential fathers’ rights lobby; and at the level of welfare practitioners, recent research also demonstrates that, although the rhetoric of children's rights is widely accepted, the willingness and ability to make these real in the context of family proceedings is, for a variety of reasons, less in evidence.     

FAMILIES,COURTS, AND THE END OF LIFE: SCHIAVO AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FAMILY JUSTICE SYSTEM

The article discusses a proposed universal adoption of comprehensive family law subject matter jurisdiction, inclusive of end‐of‐life (EOL) cases, as articulated in the unified family court (UFC) concept. It posits, using the Schiavo matter to illustrate the difficulties inherent in EOL disputes, that contested EOL cases are unlike other civil court cases in that they involve intimate facts and emotionally laden family dynamics. As such, these cases pose a distinctive challenge for the courts. The article suggests that contested EOL cases should be heard in a UFC because UFCs include alternative dispute resolution (ADR) protocols to deescalate family strife with the goal of facilitating out‐of‐court settlements and that litigation is an imperfect solution for an EOL dispute. It is also noted that judges presiding in UFCs are more experienced in handling fractious family matters and thus they are more likely to avert protracted litigation if the matter is not settled via ADR.