Law talk: Juveniles' understanding of legal language

This article reports and discusses the findings of a study conducted at the pretrial stage in the Winnipeg juvenile court (Province of Manitoba, Canada) to determine: (1) what legal words or phrases commonly used in courtroom hearings juveniles understand; (2) whether there is a relationship between juveniles' understanding and sense of justice (fairness); (3) whether judges, lawyers, and probation officers believe that legal language affects a juvenile's understanding of the courtroom hearing; (4) what legal terms or phrases these key actors see as most important for the juvenile to understand; and (5) whether there is a relationship between what juveniles understand and what key actors see as the most important legal terms or phrases that a juvenile needs to understand. Juveniles' understanding is moderate and is confined to procedural terms. A strong relationship does not exist between what juveniles understand and the terms that key actors view as needing to be understood.     

MEDIATION IN THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUVENILE DEPENDENCY COURT

This article presents the results of a 9-month interdisciplinary task force convened to review the mediation process in the juvenile dependency court and to develop guidelines for its operation by the conciliation court, stemming from a grand jury recommendation.     

Reaching the marginalised? Gender value chains and ethical trade in African horticulture

Ethical trade, through codes of practice, forms an important part of the value chains for horticultural products sourced from Africa by major European buyers. This paper explores the relationship between value chains in the horticultural sector, the employment patterns of African producers, and the process of code implementation from a gender perspective. It asks whether, in the context of the gendered economy, codes alone can improve working conditions for all workers. Using case studies of Kenyan flowers, South African fruit, and Zambian flowers and vegetables, the article highlights the implications of flexible employment strategies for workers, and shows that social codes have not necessarily achieved better outcomes for women and informal workers, owing to the gendered economy. Ultimately, it is only by addressing the local gendered economy that the employment conditions of all workers, including those of marginal workers and women, are likely to improve.     

Corporate responsibility or core competence?

Although the concept that corporations are responsible not only to their shareholders but also for the social and environmental impacts of their activities has now entered the mainstream, pressure is still required to ensure that companies honour their public commitments. This article describes the work of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility in harnessing the power of individual shareholders and ethical investors in order to hold companies to account, with particular reference to the activities of Shell in Nigeria and the Republic of Ireland. It is argued that companies do not exist to carry out community development, and so should be judged not on these grounds but rather on the impact of how they conduct their core business.     

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN EVALUATING FAMILY COURT PROGRAMS

Although there has been in recent years a proliferation of court programs, especially divorced parent education programs, evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs lag dangerously behind their inception, perhaps because program developers and courts lack the expertise to perform these evaluations. The present article provides a primer of the methodological considerations for evaluations of court programs. The authors discuss the following topics: formative versus summative evaluations; how to discover program goals by identifying stakeholders; how these goals translate into measures to be assessed; the data sources for these measures (exit questionnaires, archival data, and follow-up surveys); answering the “compared with what?” question through the selection of an appropriate research design; budgeting the evaluation; and disseminating the findings through appropriate write-up(s).