Citizenship, mental illness, and the criminal justice system

The concept of citizenship in regard to persons with mental illness has gained increasing attention in recent years, but little empirical research has been conducted on this topic. In addition, little research or conceptual writing has been done on the topic of criminal justice in regard to citizenship for people with mental illness, in spite of the high incidence of criminal charges and incarceration among this group. We review our work on an applied theoretical framework of citizenship, including its origins in mental health outreach work to people who are homeless and in a jail diversion program. We then suggest the contribution the framework can make to the intersecting issues of mental illness, its criminalization in the U.S., and the goal of community integration for people with mental illness.     

Critical justice consciousness: Social injustice and the criminal justice system

In this essay I examine the importance of social justice to my identity and the changing interpretation of my “justice consciousness” resulting from changes in my work life. Drawing on my academic experience as well as my experience as an attorney, I describe the meaning that social justice has for me. I also examine the connections that I see between social injustice and the operation of the critical justice system.     

Civil Society,Environmental Security and Knowledge: Forest Governance in Thailand and the Philippines in the Context of ASEAN

In the domain of environmental security, it appears that a strong civil society, one with strong social ingenuity and social capital, is a necessary condition not only for environmental security, but also for regional security in general. This paper will argue that in the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), much can be learned from the empirical experiences of Thailand and the Philippines that have established records of accomplishment in civil society participation in forest governance. Also discussed is the possible role of epistemic communities both within these countries as well as across countries in the ASEAN in harnessing institutions of knowledge to influence domestic and regional governance of forest resources.     

Civil and criminal sanctions against blackmail: an economic analysis

The rationale behind the legal prohibition of blackmail and its effects have worried lawyers, economists and philosophers. The paper tries to offer a new perspective on the issue by introducing a simple game-theoretic model of the blackmail interaction under three alternative legal regimes: blackmail as a legally enforceable contract, blackmail as a voidable contract, and criminal blackmail. We show that the first two are substantially equivalent, and are unable to prevent a successful blackmail equilibrium outcome. Making blackmail a crime can instead alter this result for some parameters of the model.We also explore the justification for criminalizing blackmail and find it, in line with previous Law and Economics literature on blackmail (Ginsburg and Shechtman (1993), Coase (1988)), in the correction (albeit incomplete) of misaligned incentives to acquire information and the revelation and no revelation outcomes involved in the blackmail transaction. This justification could be undermined by the advantages of what seems to be a superior legal regime in terms of efficiency: no legal regulation of blackmail. This hands-off system can also destabilize, in a one-shot interaction, the successful blackmail outcome. In plausible dynamic interactions, however, it fails to do so and, in fact, its effects actually resemble those of blackmail as an enforceable contract. This result might explain why most legal systems stick to the criminalization of blackmail.     

Controlling violence: criminal justice, society, and lessons from the US

Based on a lecture to policy makers in Brazil, this essay explores lessons that developing nations can learn from US experiences in the fight against violence and crime. A brief summary of trends in crime, criminal justice policy, and criminal punishment in the US over the past four decades is followed by an evaluation of the dominant imprisonment strategy of the 1970s through 1990s. It is argued that benefits of the massive increase in criminal punishment have been few and that costs have been excessive in terms of material, human, and social capital. Nonetheless, the American experience provides inspiration when we consider the broader societal potential for social organization: values and norms; self-interest and involvement in legitimate exchange networks; mobilization of social capital; and diverse mechanisms of social control. These concepts are explained, and specific institutions and mechanisms to control violence and crime are explored under each of them. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ambient Intelligence, Criminal Liability and Democracy

In this contribution we will explore some of the implications of the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) for law and legal philosophy. AmI creates an environment that monitors and anticipates human behaviour with the aim of customised adaptation of the environment to a person’s inferred preferences. Such an environment depends on distributed human and non-human intelligence that raises a host of unsettling questions around causality, subjectivity, agency and (criminal) liability. After discussing the vision of AmI we will present relevant research in the field of philosophy of technology, inspired by the post-phenomenological position taken by Don Ihde and the constructivist realism of Bruno Latour. We will posit the need to conceptualise technological normativity in comparison with legal normativity, claiming that this is necessary to develop democratic accountability for the implications of emerging technologies like AmI. Lastly we will investigate to what extent technological devices and infrastructures can and should be used to achieve compliance with the criminal law, and we will discuss some of the implications of non-human distributed intelligence for criminal liability.

Defending the Criminal Law: Reflections on the Changing Character of Crime, Procedure, and Sanctions

Recent years have seen mounting challenge to the model of the criminal trial on the grounds it is not cost-effective, not preventive, not necessary, not appropriate, or not effective. These challenges have led to changes in the scope of the criminal law, in criminal procedure, and in the nature and use of criminal trials. These changes include greater use of diversion, of fixed penalties, of summary trials, of hybrid civil–criminal processes, of strict liability, of incentives to plead guilty, and of preventive orders. The paper will assess the implications of these changes for the function of the criminal law, assessing the reasons behind them, and examining whether or not they are to be welcomed. Identifying the larger import of these changes draws attention to the changing relationship between state and citizen as well as changes in the nature of the state itself. These can in turn be attributed to a jostling among the different manifestations of the authoritarian state, the preventive state, and the regulatory state. These changes have profound normative implications for a liberal theory of the criminal law that require its re-articulation and its defence. A modest start may be to insist that where the conduct is criminal and the consequences are punitive the protections of criminal procedure and trial must be upheld.

Difficulties in the criminal prosecution of insider trading—A clinical study of the Bekaert case

If the enforcement of insider trading prohibition is of crucial importance to ensure the integrity of financial markets, then the current criminal prosecution in Europe fails in reaching this goal. This article illustrates several difficulties in prohibiting and prosecuting insider trading by using a clinical study of the Belgian industrial company Bekaert, NV. It is shown that courts currently seem to lack knowledge of the functioning of financial markets to assess an insider trading case. Therefore their decisions give little guidance to future litigants. Using, a law and economics framework, this clinical study is clarifying in several aspects compared to a traditional legal analysis. The analysis focuses on two aspects of an insider trading case. First, the price-sensitive character of the information is examined. Second, the standard of proof is examined. JEL classification G14 · K22 · K42     

习近平法治思想中的刑事法要义

有关刑事法治的丰富论述是习近平法治思想的重要组成部分,可以将习近平法治思想中的刑事法要义概括为“宽严相济,以发展眼光看问题”的刑事政策论、“完善对违法犯罪行为的惩治和矫正法律”的刑事立法论、“守住防范冤错案件的底线”的刑事司法论、“综合施策、标本兼治”的犯罪治理论。习近平法治思想中的刑事法要义在吸收国际社会刑事法治文明成果的同时,较为集中地体现了对中华法治文明的传承与弘扬。刑事法治建设与刑事法研究必须以习近平刑事法治思想为根本遵循,深刻领悟和把握习近平刑事法治思想的博大精深,避免做西方刑事法治经验与理论的“搬运工”。     

西部大开发与社会治安趋势

西部大开发的主要项目是环境保护、道路交通等基础设施建设和高科技开发 ,它将带动城市、城镇和农村的经济发展 ,减少贫困 ,降低犯罪率。西部开发过程中既有负面效应引发犯罪的一面 ,也有在法律的震慑下 ,通过公安机关有效的治安管理和社会各职能部门共同施行的社会治安综合治理 ,遏制和惩治犯罪的一面 ,两者互动 ,影响社会治安的总体状况。西部开发必然吸纳大量闲置劳动力 ,还会将“东流”的西部人口再吸引回来 ,对流动人口犯罪起到釜底抽薪的作用。在这些因素的综合作用下 ,可使西部开发后西部乃至全国的治安状况呈现平稳可控的态势。     

Organized Crime and Trust:: On the conceptualization and empirical relevance of trust in the context of criminal networks

Organised crime networks are often characterised as being held together by bonds of trust, but the conventional wisdom regarding the relation between trust and organised crime lacks a comprehensive theoretical and empirical underpinning. The purpose of this paper is to explore where deeper research on this issue may lead and how it can potentially contribute to a better understanding of organised crime in general. Drawing on the general sociological literature, it provides a preliminary conceptualisation of trust in the context of organised crime centred around a fourfold typology along the micro-macro dimension. The authors use anecdotal evidence from their research on illegal markets for highly taxed goods in Norway and Germany to illustrate that there are different types of trust, that there are different consequences of the violation of trust, and, finally, that there are criminal relations not based on trust at all.     

Human capital and social capital in criminal networks: introduction to the special issue on the 7th Blankensee Colloquium

This essay and review on criminal network analysis provides an introduction to the special issue “Human Capital and Social Capital in Criminal Networks”. It traces the history of the application of network analysis in the study of organized crime since the early 1970s. It argues that while criminal network analysis has brought a new level of methodological rigor to the study of organized crime, a number of limitations have become apparent. These include the problem of missing data and the challenges encountered in adequately capturing latent structures, individual characteristics of network members and socio-ecological conditions.     

国家侵权、国家责任与权利救济——以刑事侦查为视角

国家侵权与国家责任相连，国家责任与权利救济相决。刑事诉讼中侦查机关与刑事被追诉人所处地位不对等，使得刑事被追诉人权利容易受到侦查权的非法侵犯。刑事被追诉人享有救济权能够促成侦查权与被追诉人权利的相对平衡，保证被追诉人享有救济权是侦查机关的一种责任。     

Emergent authority and expert knowledge: Psychiatry and criminal responsibility in the UK

In the UK context, the rise of the discipline and practice of forensic psychiatry is intimately connected with the concurrent development of principles and practices relating to criminal responsibility. In this article, we seek to chart the relationship between psychiatry and the principles and practices of criminal responsibility in the UK over the early modern, modern and late modern periods. With a focus on claims about authority and expert knowledge around criminal responsibility, we suggest that these claims have been in a state of perpetual negotiation and that, as a result, claims to authority over and knowledge about criminal non-responsibility on the part of psychiatrists and psychiatry are most accurately understood as emergent and contingent. The apparent formalism of legal discourse has tended to conceal the extent to which legal policy has been preoccupied with maintaining the primacy of lay judgments in criminal processes of evaluation and adjudication. While this policy has been somewhat successful in the context of the trial – particularly the murder trial – it has been undermined by administrative procedures surrounding the trial, including those that substitute treatment for punishment without, or in spite of, a formal determination of criminal responsibility.     

Humans forget,machines remember: Artificial intelligence and the Right to Be Forgotten

This article examines the problem of AI memory and the Right to Be Forgotten. First, this article analyzes the legal background behind the Right to Be Forgotten, in order to understand its potential applicability to AI, including a discussion on the antagonism between the values of privacy and transparency under current E.U. privacy law. Next, the authors explore whether the Right to Be Forgotten is practicable or beneficial in an AI/machine learning context, in order to understand whether and how the law should address the Right to Be Forgotten in a post-AI world. The authors discuss the technical problems faced when adhering to strict interpretation of data deletion requirements under the Right to Be Forgotten, ultimately concluding that it may be impossible to fulfill the legal aims of the Right to Be Forgotten in artificial intelligence environments. Finally, this article addresses the core issue at the heart of the AI and Right to Be Forgotten problem: the unfortunate dearth of interdisciplinary scholarship supporting privacy law and regulation.     

Big Stick,Little Stick: Strategies for Controlling and Combating Environmental Crime

Environmental offences often have rather obscure victims. At the same time, we know that those crimes commonly regarded as the most serious have clearly visible victims. It is difficult for people to relate to environmental offences in the same way as many traditional crimes, and this makes it easier to commit breaches of the environmental regulations. One element in a control strategy ought therefore to be continuous attempts to discover really serious environmental crimes that are easily communicated to the public. Regulations are followed if we believe that others also do so. If we have a sense that cheating is widespread then group solidarity is weakened, and with it the inclination to abide by the rules. How then do individuals and businessmen develop the perception that control measures are working? This happens primarily by means of a perception that observance of the regulations is being monitored. Broadly based control measures and contacts are therefore of considerable importance. By means of risk assessment procedures, interventions can then be concentrated where they are judged to be most necessary. A broad arsenal of measures is needed to persuade companies to observe the regulations; an arsenal from big stick to little stick, from self-regulation and service to administrative sanction charges and criminal offences.     

Security,privacy and freedom and the EU legal and policy framework for biometrics

The adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon and the granting to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the same legal force as the Treaty has lent a new impulse to the consideration of fundamental human rights by the European Union (EU). The question remains, however, as to how this legal discourse, centred upon human rights, is actually shaping the EU regulatory framework in specific policy domains. The aim of this paper is to critically appraise the ways that the fundamental rights of security, privacy and freedom guaranteed by the Charter are being construed in the context of EU law and policy on biometrics, an ethically and morally sensitive security technology whose development and use are being actively promoted by the EU. We conclude that the interpretation of the pertinent rights, as well as their balancing, owes a great deal to the goals of EU policies for research and development, and under the auspices of Freedom, Security and Justice, shaped largely by political and economic considerations. These considerations then tend to prevail over ethically or morally-based legal claims.     

Psychopathy,intelligence and emotional responding in a non-forensic sample: an experimental investigation

This study examined the relationships between psychopathy (primary and secondary), intelligence and emotional responding in a sample of 50 university students, using a task measuring autonomic responses to 40 pictorial stimuli (20 neutral and 20 emotionally provoking). Results indicated no significant direct relationship between primary or secondary psychopathy and emotional response, or primary or secondary psychopathy and intelligence. However, a significant moderating effect of intelligence on the association between both psychopathy factors and emotional response was observed, indicating those scoring higher on psychopathy but with lower intelligence portray the expected emotional responses to the affective stimuli (primary: β?=??.56, p?β?=?.80, p?<?.001). These findings indicate abnormal reactivity to emotional stimuli in lower intelligence, higher psychopathic individuals, and suggest differing roles for the two facets of psychopathy in affective responsiveness deviations.     

Types of organised crime in Italy. The multifaceted spectrum of Italian criminal associations and their different attitudes in the financial crisis and in the use of Internet technologies

This paper discusses the opportunity to differentiate four different criminological types of organised crime in Italy by drawing on a subset of case studies and interviews to law enforcement officers and experts collected for two on-going research projects. We hypothesise that, since these types exploit different social opportunity structures for their criminal activities, they have different capacities of adaptation and react differently when confronted with different kinds of innovations and changes. We test these four types against two significant phenomena that have been deeply impacting Italian society, among others, recently: the commercialization of the Internet and the economic and financial crisis that has hit Europe since late 2008. We conclude that these types offer a valid help to guide our understanding of what organised crime is today in Italy, as well as to assess the capacity of the existing legal framework to properly face all them. These criminological types could also serve as lenses to filter the different experiences of organised crime in other European countries, thus facilitating comparative research.     

精神分裂症患者的智力状况和刑事责任能力的关系

目的探讨在进行法医精神病学鉴定中精神分裂症患者的智力状况及刑事责任能力的关系。方法采用韦氏成人智力量表中国版(WAIS-RC)对138例精神分裂症患者进行测试,并与其相应的刑事责任能力进行Pearson相关分析。结果精神分裂症患者的全量表智商为±s=74.59±14.716;言语智商为±s=80.89±14.077;操作智商为±s=70.27±15.427。经统计分析发现:言语智商和操作智商(F=26.786,P=0.000)有显著性差异;各项智力结果与刑事责任能力相关性均不存在统计学意义(P>0.05)。结论精神分裂症患者平均智力水平在正常范围之下,边缘状态与轻度损害之间,但在法医精神病学鉴定中,其刑事责任能力与智力状况不存在相关性。