Islamo-Arabic Culture and Women’s Law: An Introduction to the Sociology of Women’s Law in Islam

The present paper addresses the mutual relationship between society and law in shaping women’s law in Islam from the perspective of the sociology of law. It analyzes the role of pre-Islamic social, political, and economic structures in the Arabian Peninsula in modeling women’s law and highlights some customary laws which were rejected or revived and integrated in Islamic jurisprudence. In this regard, the paper reviews issues such as polygyny, rights to inheritance, marriage, the process of testimony and acceptable forms of evidence in legal matters, diyya (blood money), the exclusion of women from the judiciary and the system of issuing fatwa (legal opinion), natural right of guardianship (wilāya) of underage children after divorce, and regulations related to the veil. Finally, referring to the manner of the Prophet of Islam, the paper suggests that ?urf (custom) can be considered as a source of Islamic legislation alongside other commonly known sources of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).     

Lawyers’ economics versus economic analysis of law: a critique of professor Posner’s “economic” approach to law by reference to a case concerning damages for loss of earning capacity

We provide a comparative overview of the process of implementation, harmonization and stabilization of public oversight systems for statutory auditors across the European Union (EU) after Directive 2006/43/EC. We build on institutional change theory to identify potential determinants as to why some countries still lag in this harmonization process. Oversight systems are a key institutional factor to guarantee the quality of financial information, essential to maintain investors’ confidence and deep and stable capital markets. Thus, the harmonization of these systems has long been an objective of the EU. Our analyses serve to identify, analyse and compare how EU countries have incorporated European-wide requirements into their national legal systems. Particularly, we study: (1) basic characteristics of the system and bodies for public oversight, (2) organizational structure, (3) financing (4) transparency, (5) supervisory, and (6) disciplinary mechanisms. We show that significant diversity still exists across systems and that both the incentives for institutional change and the distance between pre-existing systems and the Directive are important explanatory factors of the achieved level of harmonization.     

‘If it’s not worth doing half-assed,then it’s not worth doing at all’: Police views as to why new strategy implementation fails

ABSTRACT

Strategy implementation is the most challenging aspect of strategic management. In the case of police organizations, failure to effectively carry out a strategy results in loss of organizational resources and employee commitment. The present study is an attempt to explore the reasons behind failure of new strategies by drawing upon qualitative survey responses from 353 police officers and civilian employees from seven agencies across Canada. The results reflect mostly negative sentiments towards strategy implementation efforts, with failure attributed to issues ranging from leadership incompetence to lack of organizational resources. These concerns must be taken into account by police leaders in order to address challenges associated with strategy implementation in their organizations.     

Police students’ perceptions of professional competences: a comparative study of Catalonia and Sweden

This study is part of the European cooperation project, Recruitment, Education, and Career in the Police. The overall aim of this study is to compare how Swedish and Catalan police students perceive different competence dimensions in relation to their future profession, and how the perceptions of these competence dimensions change from the beginning to the end of the training program. The empirical data is based on identical questionnaires that were distributed to police students in Sweden and Catalonia. The results show different patterns in how Catalan and Swedish police students perceive the importance of the different competences at the beginning and at the end of their basic training programs. The implications of this study show that more knowledge is needed about the next step; that is, how the police students use these competencies in their professional work.     

Digital Analysis of Crime Statistics: Does Crime Conform to Benford’s Law?

Benford’s law suggests that the distribution of leading (leftmost) digits in data of an anomalous nature (i.e., without relationship) will conform to a formula of logarithmic intervals known as the Benford distribution. Forensic auditors have successfully used digital analysis vis-à-vis the Benford distribution to detect financial fraud, while government investigators have used a corollary of the distribution (focused on trailing digits) to detect scientific fraud in medical research. This study explored whether crime statistics are Benford distributed. We examined crime statistics at the National, State, and local level in order to test for conformity to the Benford distribution, and found that National- and State-level summary UCR data conform to Benford’s law. When National data were disaggregated by offense type we found varying degrees of conformity, with murder, rape, and robbery indicating less conformity than other offense types. Some tentative implications of these findings are discussed, as are areas for further research.     

Distorting Fundamental Norms of International Law to Resurrect the Soviet Union: The International Law Context of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Netherlands International Law Review - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which commenced on 24 February 2022 represented just the latest, albeit most devastating, intervention in a neighbouring...     

Law’s Cultural Project and the Claim to Universality or the Equivocalities of a Familiar Debate

Do our present circumstances allow us to defend a specific connection (that specific connection) between ?legal rules?, ?moral claims? and ?democratic principles? which we may say is granted by an unproblematic presupposition of universality or by an ?acultural? experience of modernity? In order to discuss this question, this paper invokes the challenge-visée of a plausible reinvention of Law??s autonomous project (a reinvention which may be capable of critically re-thinking and re-experiencing Law??s constitutive cultural-civilizational originarium in a ?limit-situation? such as our own). The discussion is developed by recognising that the claim to universality is not only incompatible with a substantive conception of juridicalness as validity but also sustained with difficulty by a procedural representation of discourse and rationality (a representation which, against its own conclusion-claims, could also be said to be culturally and civilizationally bounded). Not forgetting some specific features of contemporary juridical pluralism??namely that which emerges from the counterpoint between semiotic groups or interpretative communities (and their differently assumed claims of intersemioticity concerning the signifier law)??this train of reflection diagnoses briefly a sequence of complementary main difficulties (as ?obstacles? to recognising Law??s demand as an unmistakable cultural project), namely those arising from the formalistic normativistic inheritance (confounding legal autonomy with isolationism), from the challenges and seductions of practical holism (justifying a continuum in which Law??s project loses its sense and autonomy), and also from the familiar debate between exclusive and inclusive versions of positivism and non-positivism (a debate which establishes-consecrates an equivocal counterpoint between Law and Morality).     

Predictions put into practice: a quasi-experimental evaluation of Chicago’s predictive policing pilot

Objectives

In 2013, the Chicago Police Department conducted a pilot of a predictive policing program designed to reduce gun violence. The program included development of a Strategic Subjects List (SSL) of people estimated to be at highest risk of gun violence who were then referred to local police commanders for a preventive intervention. The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of the pilot on individual- and city-level gun violence, and to test possible drivers of results.

Methods

The SSL consisted of 426 people estimated to be at highest risk of gun violence. We used ARIMA models to estimate impacts on city-level homicide trends, and propensity score matching to estimate the effects of being placed on the list on five measures related to gun violence. A mediation analysis and interviews with police leadership and COMPSTAT meeting observations help understand what is driving results.

Results

Individuals on the SSL are not more or less likely to become a victim of a homicide or shooting than the comparison group, and this is further supported by city-level analysis. The treated group is more likely to be arrested for a shooting.

Conclusions

It is not clear how the predictions should be used in the field. One potential reason why being placed on the list resulted in an increased chance of being arrested for a shooting is that some officers may have used the list as leads to closing shooting cases. The results provide for a discussion about the future of individual-based predictive policing programs.

     

‘I'm a photographer,not a terrorist’: the use of photography to detect deception

When planning large-scale incidents or bombing campaigns, terrorists often conduct reconnaissance research to identify key targets. This may include taking photographs of potential target locations. Identifying an effective real-time method to distinguish between genuine photographers and those with more sinister intent may be beneficial for law enforcement and security agencies. Participants took photographs in a public place with a genuine intent (truth tellers) or sinister intent (liars). After taking these photographs, the participants were approached by an undercover interviewer (a mime artist) who asked them whether he could see the photographs. Later, the participants discussed their photographs in a formal interview. First, liars were less cooperative in their interaction with the undercover interviewer than truth tellers. Second, in the formal interview, liars mentioned some security features that appeared in the photographs more than truth tellers. The findings suggest that ‘using photographs to detect deception’ is a subject that could prove important to explore to benefit forensic and counter-terrorist practice.     

Nanotechnology’s triple helix: a case study of the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

In 2001, New York State teamed with IBM to create a research center for nanoelectronics at the University at Albany. Since then, the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) has been expanded with over $6 billion in investment, attracted over 250 industrial collaborators, and awarded 72 graduate degrees. This paper discusses the formation of the triple helix center in Albany, NY. It then examines the impact of the CNSE on the regional economy and compares it with three other nanotechnology triple helix centers. The analysis finds that the CNSE is more successful at generating nanoknowledge as measured by publications and patents. Much of the research conducted at CNSE has been collaborative effort between university and industrial partners and often resulted in patents assigned to industrial partners. Since 2001, there has been qualitative and quantitative evidence of the emergence of a nanotechnology cluster in the Capital Region of NY. Upstate NY has become home to multiple nanotechnology firms and experienced growth in the employment in nanotechnology related industries. Potential explanations for the success of the CNSE are explored including the anchor tenant hypothesis and the entrepreneurial university.     

The Ambivalent Notion of ‘Fundamental Breach’ in Indian Law of Contract: Towards a New Paradigm

Liverpool Law Review - This paper analyses the concept of fundamental breach under Indian law of contract. In doing so, it provides a comparative assessment with English law. It examines some...     

Transformation of Macau policing: from a Portuguese colony to China’s SAR

This study examines policing in Macau and identifies major forces that have shaped its transformation over past decades. Prior to 1999, Macau was a Portuguese colony. Its criminal justice system inherited key features of the Continental system, including two independent law enforcement agencies: the Judiciary Police and the Public Security Police. In the colonial era, expatriate commanders drawn from the military or legal professions headed both departments, while the rank-and-file was composed mainly of local Chinese. This policing mechanism, together with the ‘laissez-faire’ policing philosophy adopted by colonial leaders, created segregation between policing agencies and the community. Citizens preferred minimal interaction with police, since they were skeptical about their professionalism, capability, and reliability. Macau became part of the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1999. The de-monopolization of the gaming industries in 2002 brought huge GDP growth, but generated internal social conflict. Growing public demand for accountable governance motivated a series of governmental reforms, some of which have extended to policing. These reforms have improved the transparency of policing, but it remains to be seen if they will ultimately succeed in generating public trust in the police forces.     

From Safety to Danger: Constructions of Crime in a Women’s Magazine

This study examines how the print media constructs signifiers of safety and danger for women. We analyze 155 news articles regarding crime and criminal justice from 1970 to 1990 in Chatelaine magazine, a Canadian women’s periodical. Both content and textual analyses are deployed to evaluate the media representations of crime and their role in facilitating images of fear and safety. We show that the meanings associated with women’s danger and safety in news narratives are socially constructed through claims, sources, content and culture. We find that news reporting did not initially incorporate signifiers of fear. However, crime messages increasingly included images of fear in the later reporting period. We argue that the transformations surrounding these images and texts are influenced by the rise in neoliberal thought in the 1980s. Our results indicate that ideological struggles external to the media are crucial to the representation of crime, which ultimately influence signifiers of danger and safety for women.     

Reviewer’s Comments to “The Measurement of Legitimacy: a Rush to Judgment?”

Asian Journal of Criminology -     

Preventing juvenile sexual offending through parental monitoring: a comparison study of youth’s experiences of supervision

ABSTRACT

The parental monitoring literature has long observed a link between parental monitoring and juvenile antisocial behaviour. This study extends this line of research to juveniles who commit sexual abuse. The present study investigates whether juvenile reports of parental monitoring differ between juvenile sexual offenders (n?=?338), juvenile delinquents (n?=?346), and non-incarcerated juvenile controls (n?=?256). Results indicate that both incarcerated groups reported significantly less parental knowledge compared to juvenile controls. Further, both juvenile sexual offenders and juvenile controls reported significantly more parental control compared to juvenile delinquents. With regard to parental solicitation, the results were mixed for sexual offenders. They reported high levels of solicitation for some items (e.g. what the youth was doing, who they were with), and lower levels for other items (e.g. where the youth was, whether an adult would be present). When repeating these analyses with the exclusion of non-parent caregivers, a similar pattern of results emerged; however, item-level analyses revealed that parents of juvenile delinquents reported certain types of solicitation and control behaviours more frequently (e.g. asked where the youth was going, made sure the rules were followed) compared to findings from the main sample. Potential explanations for these findings as well as practical implications for prevention are discussed.     

Defining the limits: the clash between a doctor’s duty to preserve life and enforcement of a patient’s religious belief

This article examines the question whether, under Nigerian law, a doctor has a duty to save the life of a patient whose refusal of medical treatment will inevitably lead to death. An affirmative answer is suggested after an examination of relevant Nigerian laws on the subject matter. Mindful of developments in this area of law in some other jurisdictions, this article concludes that there is scope for the amendment of relevant Nigerian laws to institutionalise a patient’s unqualified prerogative to give informed consent. It however cautions that, in the light of complex social challenges, Nigeria does not appear ready for such a change.     

Legal responses to child sexual abuse cases in the Children’s Court of Victoria: study findings on a case-management approach

Child sexual abuse cases present Children’s Courts with distinctive challenges. The highly conflictual nature of child sexual abuse cases means they do not lend themselves to the usual adversarial court processes that characterise the conduct of Magistrate Court matters in Australia. With this in mind, the Children’s Court in Victoria established for 12 months in 2013 a pilot specialised judicial list (known as the ‘D’ List) which offered an intensive Magistrate-led case management approach to child sexual abuse cases in the Family (child protection) Division of the Court. The operation of the List was evaluated to assess the suitability and effectiveness of this approach, and to investigate the challenges associated with managing and deciding this class of cases. The findings confirmed that the List provided better management of cases and reduced delay. Given this, the Court is continuing the judicially proactive intensive case management approach and dedicated list for child sexual abuse matters and extending it to regional courts; believing it to be a more effective approach to managing and deciding this complex class of cases.