Prevalence and correlates of elder mistreatment in South Carolina: the South Carolina elder mistreatment study

The purposes of this study were to (a) derive prevalence estimates for elder mistreatment (emotional, physical, sexual, neglectful, and financial mistreatment of older adults [age 60 +]) in a randomly selected sample of South Carolinians; (b) examine correlates (i.e., potential risk factors) of mistreatment; and (c) examine incident characteristics of mistreatment events. Random Digit Dialing (RDD) was used to derive a representative sample in terms of age and gender; computer-assisted telephone interviewing was used to standardize collection of demographic, correlate, and mistreatment data. Prevalence estimates and mistreatment correlates were obtained and subjected to logistic regression. A total of 902 participants provided data. Prevalence for mistreatment types (since age 60) were 12.9% emotional, 2.1% physical, 0.3% sexual, 5.4% potential neglect, and 6.6% financial exploitation by family member. The most consistent correlates of mistreatment across abuse types were low social support and needing assistance with daily living activities. One in 10 participants reported either emotional, physical, sexual, or neglectful mistreatment within the past year, and 2 in 10 reported mistreatment since age 60. Across categories, the most consistent correlate of mistreatment was low social support, representing an area toward which preventive intervention may be directed with significant public health implications.     

The Defense Lawyer in the Scales of Chinese Criminal Justice

Western critics are keenly interested in the defense lawyer as an advocate within the human rights movement in China and fear that under the impact of state persecution the defense lawyer is becoming an ‘endangered species’. This article argues that, while there are significant problems, there has also been progress in Chinese lawyering reform that ties together greater professionalism with a new emphasis on due process. The revised Lawyers’ Law of 2007 is an important new benchmark in lawyer reform. This law has challenged the limited dimensions of earlier reform. This law, itself, has been challenged in bureaucratic resistance that is deploying outdated criminal procedural law to negate the reforms supporting the new process and protected lawyer–client relations. The National People's Congress has supported the latter, arguing that it represents the latest in reform and is, therefore, superior to the more restrictive provisions of the 1996 Criminal Procedural Law and supporting public security regulation.     

A Model for Dealing with the Past in the Israeli Palestinian Context

This article explores the potential applicability of transitionaljustice ideas to the Israeli–Palestinian context. I arguethat given the particularities of the Israeli–Palestiniansetting, truth and reconciliation would be an essential componentof peacemaking even though this is an inter-societal conflictwhich will likely be resolved only through separation into twostates. Nevertheless, the interstate nature creates challengesto the application of common transitional justice mechanisms.In response to these challenges I offer a model based on anincremental process of narrow mechanisms throughout a long processof transition, rather than one high-profile all-encompassingmechanism in the post-conflict stage. I also suggest that inaddition to issues to be explored jointly by the two societies,such as refugees, prisoner release and compensation for victimsof violence, there could also be internal truth and reconciliationprocesses within each society. Finally, this model is premisedon an important role for civil society initiatives.     

American sociologists on Indonesia - A comment

“Liberalism manifests itself in various ways. To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms.”

Mao Tse-tung, Combat Liberalism, September 7th, 1937.

     

Gated Communities in Law's Gaze: Material Forms and the Production of a Social Body in Legal Adjudication

This article focuses on the legal geography of gated communities. Sociolegal research has paid comparatively little attention to how specific material forms fare within legal contexts. Drawing on work in legal geography and in science and technology studies, this article isolates judicial decisions that deal with the borders of gated communities from other cases involving private homeowner associations. By focusing on these boundary disputes in which outsiders are excluded from the area, this article finds that courts are resisting the localism presented by gated communities and are instead articulating a social imaginary in which the landscape flows uninterrupted by the exclusionary presence of gates. In contrast to the privatopia literature, this article finds that courts are not complicit in promoting neoliberal visions of community. The social imaginary being developed by courts resists the spatial differentiation of gated communities, producing in its place a thoroughly modern polity in which legal, economic, and political relations flow easily between those inside and outside the gate.     

Knowledge on Tap: Police Science and Common Knowledge in the Legal Regulation of Drunkenness

Although scholars have devoted considerable attention to the formation, modification, and dissemination of knowledges in and around the legal complex, few systematic inquiries have been made into the sociology of legal knowledges. In this paper, we focus on two areas of law–liquor licensing and drunk driving–and contextualize their development from the perspective of police science. We document the ways in which contemporary police science authorizes a "common knowledge," which is not to be confused with lay knowledge, or even trade knowledge. Rather, the "common knowledge" that is authorized is what legal authorities believe everyone should know, despite any lay or trade knowledge individuals may have. This analysis demonstrates the need for further work on the ways in which knowledges are formed and authorized within law, with particular emphasis on documenting how a "responsibility to know" comes to be deployed beyond the state.