Views from the Top and Bottom: Lawmakers and Practitioners Discuss Sex Offender Laws

The perceptions and attitudes that policymakers and criminal justice practitioners have about sexual offending and sexual victimization affects how state lawmakers respond to sex crimes, and how practitioners implement sex offender legislation. Policymakers continue to create new sex offender laws and, as such, the number of convicted sex offenders continues to rise. Thus, policymakers and criminal justice practitioners are increasingly important players in the public policy response to sexual criminals. To better understand the motivation, rationale, content, and purpose of statewide sex offender laws, and their role in the day-to-day management of convicted sex offenders, a non-probability sample of policymakers (n?=?61) and criminal justice practitioners (n?=?25) from across the country were interviewed. Results indicated that nearly all respondents from both groups were familiar/very familiar with their state-level sex offender laws. Policymakers and practitioners also mentioned the influential role that specific victimizations play in creating a perceived need for more sex offender legislation. The politicians and the practitioners view the laws as effective public safety mechanisms. Still, both groups noted serious problems with the laws. Furthermore, policymakers had a more negative attitude about the efficacy of sex offender therapy than criminal justice respondents. Suggestions for future research and policy implications are offered.     

On ‘Organized Crime’ in the illicit antiquities trade: moving beyond the definitional debate

The extent to which ‘organized crime’ is involved in illicit antiquities trafficking is unknown and frequently debated. This paper explores the significance and scale of the illicit antiquities trade as a unique transnational criminal phenomenon that is often said to be perpetrated by and exhibit traits of so-called ‘organized crime.’ The definitional debate behind the term ‘organized crime’ is considered as a potential problem impeding our understanding of its existence or extent in illicit antiquities trafficking, and a basic progression-based model is then suggested as a new tool to move beyond the definitional debate for future research that may help to elucidate the actors, processes and criminal dynamics taking place within the illicit antiquities trade from source to market. The paper concludes that researchers should focus not on the question of whether organized criminals- particularly in a traditionally conceived, mafia-type stereotypical sense- are involved in the illicit antiquities trade, but instead on the structure and progression of antiquities trafficking itself that embody both organized and criminal dynamics.     

A randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of multisystemic therapy in the Netherlands: post-treatment changes and moderator effects

Objective

In the present randomized controlled trial, the effectiveness of multisystemic therapy (MST) in The Netherlands was examined. Moderator tests were conducted for ethnicity, age and gender.

Methods

The sample consisted of N?=?256 adolescents, referred because of conduct problems, and randomized to MST or treatment as usual (TAU). Assessments (questionnaires and observational ratings) took place before and immediately after the treatment.

Results

MST was more effective than TAU in decreasing externalizing behavior, ODD, CD and property offences, but not for violence. Findings were mixed for adolescents’ and parental cognitions: the MST group, compared to TAU, showed an improvement in parental sense of competence, and a decrease in adolescents’ hostility, but no change in self-esteem and an increase in personal failure. MST was effective for positive dimensions of parenting and associations with prosocial peers, but not for relationships with deviant peers. MST was equally effective for adolescents of different ages and with different ethnicities. However, MST showed larger (and more positive) effects for adolescent cognitions for boys than for girls.

Conclusions

Effects of MST in The Netherlands are generally comparable to the positive findings reported in American and Norwegian trials. MST seems equally effective across age and ethnic minority groups, but some gender moderator effects were found for adolescent cognitions.     

Grassroots Bureaucracy: Intergovernmental Relations and Popular Mobilization in Brazil's AIDS Policy Sector

How does the state ensure the implementation of national policies in a context of decentralized political authority? This article identifies a new strategy utilized by national bureaucrats to regulate the behavior of subnational politicians: mobilizing civil society as government watchdog and political advocate. In the context of decentralized governance, in which local politicians administer most social sector programs, reform‐minded bureaucrats often find that they have little control over the implementation of their progressive policies. In Brazil's AIDS policy sector, however, bureaucrats have ensured the successful implementation of their policies by developing allies outside government. These state actors—here called activist bureaucrats—have been largely overlooked in the English‐language literature, yet they form a new layer of politics in Latin America.     

Implementing randomized experiments in criminal justice settings: An evaluation of multi-systemic therapy in the Netherlands

This paper addresses several issues that we encountered when implementing a randomized experiment to evaluate a promising intervention for serious juvenile delinquents, multi-systemic therapy (MST). The issues overlap with issues others experienced when trying to conduct randomized experiments in clinical practice, but are complicated because MST takes place in a legal context. The complex juvenile justice system makes it difficult to come up with a simple system of randomization. Problems encountered are the complexity of the referral process in this type of intervention, legal issues and the ethical concerns raised by clinicians. Our experiences might be useful to others planning to carry out a randomized efficacy study within the juvenile justice system. Firstly, other researchers might feel supported if they realize that others experience similar problems, and, secondly, we provide some concrete suggestions concerning the following: selecting the procedures and determining the moment of randomization, dealing with and overcoming the resistance of institutions involved, maintaining the cooperation of both the institution and the sample, and keeping turnover of research staff to a minimum.     

Einwegkunststoff im Fokus des Gesetzgebers

Natur und Recht - Im Lichte der Richtlinie (EU) 2019/904 über die Verringerung der Auswirkungen bestimmter Kunststoffprodukte auf die Umwelt hat der nationale Gesetzgeber eine neue...     

Land Reform and the Social Origins of Private Farmers in Russia and Ukraine

This article examines land privatization in two administrative regions of Russia and Ukraine. In both regions, members of two distinct social groups were the beneficiaries of land distribution for private commercial cultivation: rural elites, and people on the margins of rural society. This double-ended distribution led to the recapitulation of Soviet forms of production. Traditional analysis of agrarian economies emphasizes actual productive capacities, while literature on property rights centres on the presumed legal categories of production. This article integrates these two theoretical concerns to understand how private property regimes affected cultivation practices and thus, participation in markets.     

Domestic politics,news media and humanitarian intervention: why France and Germany diverged over Libya

The European Union member states split over the military intervention in Libya with France, Germany and the UK voting differently in the United Nations Security Council. This article compares news media in France and Germany to better understand the foreign policy decisions of these key actors. Using a newspaper analysis of 334 articles, it shows that the German domestic debate started very late and was much less stable than the French debate. This supports arguments that Germany's decision-making was erratic. The analysis, however, also shows that the German debate was comprehensive and included an extensive discussion of the legitimacy of intervention. This fits in well with the traditional reluctance of German foreign policy elites to support military action.     

Biting the Fishhook

Abstract

For a long time after his abdication from the throne in 1955 and his subsequent rise to power as Chief of State, Norodom Sihanouk's main problem in governing Cambodia was how to deflect political breezes from the sails of the internal leftist-Communist opposition. In the last year and a half, that problem changed to one of how to upstage his political rivals on the right. His defeat in the latter enterprise signals the demise of peace in the only Indochinese nation successful in the last fifteen years in preventing war and strife from sweeping across its borders.