Litigation and the timing of settlement: evidence from commercial disputes

Although an overwhelming proportion of all legal disputes end in settlement, the determinants of the timing of settlement remain empirically underexplored. We draw on a novel dataset on the duration of commercial disputes in Slovenia to study how the timing of settlement is shaped by the stages and features of the litigation process. Using competing risk regression analysis, we find that events such as court-annexed mediation and the first court session, which enable the disputing parties to refine their respective expectations about the case outcome, in general reduce case duration to settlement. The magnitude of the respective effects, however, varies with time. Completion of subsequent court sessions, in contrast, does not affect the time to settlement. Judicial workload affects the timing of settlement indirectly, via the effect on the timing of the first court session. We also examine the effect of other case and party characteristics.     

Aggression, psychopathy and brain imaging — Review and future recommendations

Violent behavior appears to result from a complex web of interacting genetic as well as environmental factors. Psychopathy is a strong predictor for relapse in violent acts. The current review shed light on rapidly expanding knowledge in brain imaging related to violent behavior and psychopathy. A literature search was performed in PubMed, Cochrane and PsycInfo combining the key words: mentally disordered offender/aggression/violence/ crime/forensic psychiatry/brain imaging neuroimaging/fMRI/MRI/PET/SPECT/lack of empathy/psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. The reviewed material, which consisted of 48 articles, indicates a rather strong consensus on the connection between dysfunctional parts of the frontal and temporal lobes and violent antisocial behavior and psychopathy. In future studies, it would be useful to focus on the limbic system and to investigate which parts of the frontal lobes and cerebral networks that are of interest in the psychopathic personality. Moreover, the reviewed material highlights some of the methodological difficulties in this area of research such as selection bias in the recruitment of patients, inadequate matching of control subjects, and sometimes incongruous results. In the future we hope that brain imaging can be used to map biological deviations in different offenders in order to try to learn more about the different mechanisms behind violent behaviors.     

Paradoxes of Gender in Elderly Care: The Case of Men as Care Workers in Sweden

The Swedish public system of elderly care is highly relevant for studying gender relations, specifically when male care workers are more frequently seen within this female-coded field of practice. In this article, qualitative interviews with male and female care workers, elderly women and men, and care managers are analysed to discover how they talk about care work and how gender is expressed, both implicitly and explicitly, in the materialization of care. By illuminating the dynamics of how gender is constructed and negotiated in the intersection of the different actors' perspectives, the paradoxes of gender appeared. The care workers' moral responsibility seemed to undermine equality between male and female care workers, and the elderly clients' gendered expectations and representations created inequality in care work. Furthermore, the gender-neutral assessments made by the care managers came to favour elderly men. Thus, the results suggest the importance of capturing the different perspectives in society's institutions, such as elderly care, in order to understand the complexities of gendered processes.     

Crowning Miss Sweden—National Constructions of White Femininity

Beauty pageants clearly construct gendered ideals and norms of femininity. In this article, we analyse how the Miss Sweden pageant constructs intertwined gendered and racialized symbolism of nationhood during the 1950s. This article covers the period between 1949 and 1960, the first 12 years of the competition's existence, when the competition and its institutional practices took shape. We conclude that the Miss Sweden pageant constructs a particular Swedish femininity of the 1950s, denoted by ideals of modernization founded within the development of the Swedish welfare state. The pageant articulates the ethos of the times, with its conflicting discourses on both gathering the nation within and looking outward internationally. In this way, we understand Miss Sweden as a medium to convey a set of stories directed both inwardly, towards a Swedish audience, and outwardly to other nations and an international audience.     

The Body a ‘Double-Edged Sword’? A Qualitative Study on Swedish Female Prisoners' Relationship toward Their Bodies

Our aim was to explore female prisoners' relationship toward their bodies by means of qualitative interviews. We interviewed 14 female prisoners aged 22–53 years. Four were convicted for violent crimes, seven for drug crimes, and three for more than one crime. All of them had been addicted to drugs and the most frequently used drug was amphetamine. To analyse the participants' relationship toward their bodies we used a thematic analysis. The main result encompasses three phenomena: worries about weight, negative emotions toward the body, and negative thoughts about the body. Analyses revealed that the female prisoners' relationship toward their bodies is a changeable process. Our analyses also showed that experience of physical and sexual abuse was a very important factor for understanding these women's relationship toward their bodies.     

The Persistence of Sperm and the Development of Time Since Intercourse (TSI) Guidelines in Sexual Assault Cases at Forensic Science Ireland,Dublin, Ireland

The persistence of sperm using confirmatory microscopic analysis, the persistence of sperm with tails, time since intercourse (TSI) analysis, and results from the acid phosphatase (AP) reaction from approximately 5581 swabs taken from circa 1450 sexual assault cases are presented. The observed proportions of sperm in the vagina and anus declines significantly after 48 h TSI, and sperm on oral swabs were observed up to 15 h TSI. The AP reaction as a predictor of sperm on intimate swabs is questioned. All AP reaction times gave a low true positive rate; 23% of sperm‐positive swabs gave a negative AP reaction time. We show the AP reaction is an unsafe and an unreliable predictor of sperm on intimate swabs. We propose that TSI not AP informs precase assessment and the evaluative approach for sexual assault cases. To help inform an evaluative approach, TSI guidelines are presented.