The Unfairness of Risk-Based Possession Offences

This is a study of possession offences, with the focus on those intended to penalise the risk of a serious harm. Offences of this kind are examined in the light of basic doctrines of the criminal law, and in the light of the proper limits of endangerment offences. They are found wanting in both respects, and are also found to pose particular sentencing problems. The conclusion is that many risk-based possession offences are unfair, save those that require proof of a further intent or those aimed at a failure properly to safeguard a dangerous object.     

The status of women police officers: An international review

This paper reports on a survey of English-language police department websites, annual reports and other reports in order to identify key aspects of the status of women police internationally. Findings are reported for England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Eire, the United States, Canada, Australia (eight departments), New Zealand, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji. Data on the proportion of female officers were available from 18 of 23 locations, with a range between 5.1% and 28.8%. Recruit numbers were available for six locations, and ranged between 26.6% and 37.0%. Limited data on rank and deployment indicated overall improvements. Available longer-term trend data suggested that growth in female officers was slowing or levelling out. Overall, the study showed an urgent need to improve gender-based statistics in order to better inform strategies aimed at maximising the participation of women in policing.     

The Role of the Maternal in Diasporic Cultural Reproduction−Australia,Canada and Greece

Cultural reproduction is examined in this paper, not in the sense of replication, but as the creation of something new. Women's work in such cultural reproduction is explored through the experiences of Greek-identified women who live in Canada and Australia, or who have lived in these countries and now reside in Greece. These women are the daughters of immigrants who are now rearing the so-called third generation. Of particular interest is the way these women contrast their role in cultural reproduction to that of their own mothers. The argument is made that these women play a key role in the staging of Greek origin through the family and that, in the diaspora, this is a complex, dynamic and critical process that lies at the heart of new understandings of cultural identifications.     

Party manifestos and local accountability: A content analysis of local election pledges in Wales

Party manifestos are seen as an important instrument for measuring levels of accountability at central government level. In order to establish whether manifestos contribute to local accountability, a content analysis is applied to party manifestos produced for the 1995 Welsh local elections. Evidence demonstrates that during this election campaign local parties in Wales chose to focus upon policies relating to the environment and local government reorganisation, with mainly strategic pledges on social policy areas. Despite the perception of low levels of party politicisation in Wales, the majority of local pledges were found to be detailed and specific. Thus party manifestos provide a sound basis for local political accountability.     

Local Governance and Local Democracy: The Barcelona Model

Using Barcelona as a case study, this article examines the relationship between local governance and local democracy. It begins with the terms of the debate and continues by identifying the context in which a particular model of governance arose in Barcelona. The article then looks at the extent to which governance fosters democracy, by strengthening the role of civil society organisations in government and creating new spaces of deliberation between the state and the citizenry. The final section examines the limitations of Barcelona's model of local governance in enhancing local democracy. The key finding is that the predominant role of the local council in facilitating citizen participation has as many strengths as it has weaknesses. In short, when participation becomes public policy it becomes a double-edged sword.     

Digging up Spain's past: consequences of truth and reconciliation

Over the last decade the issue of transitional justice has attracted considerable media and academic attention. Diverse countries including such high profile cases as Chile, South Africa and the former East Germany have attempted to grapple with the complex question of how to respond to human rights abuses committed under a previous regime. Transitional justice generally surfaces as an issue during democratic transition. It is less common for this issue of past human rights abuses to be raised when democratic transition has been completed and democracy is fully consolidated. The subject of this article, however, is Spain, where the human rights abuses committed during the 1936–39 civil war, and the long Francoist dictatorship that followed, have only recently come to the fore, a full quarter of a century after the transition to democracy. The article argues that the current struggle to recover the bodies of the disappeared, and their historical memory, represents a significant case which not only provides new insights into the particular democratization process in Spain but also provides more general lessons for other countries grappling with similar problems.     

Evaluating Spain's Reparation Law

The Reparation Law1 This article follows Aguilar, Balcells, and Cebolla in referring to the Law of Historical Memory as the Reparation Law. Although Aguilar et al. do not specify why they choose this terminology, the term is used here as it better denotes the law's content. Aguilar, Balcells, and Cebolla, ‘Determinants of Attitudes Towards Transitional Justice’, 3. View all notes approved on 26 December 2007 is the latest link in a chain of reparatory measures from the earliest days of Spain's transition to democracy to deal with the legacy of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship. Numerous articles have analysed the historical memory movement2 See Encarnación, ‘Reconciliation After Democratization’; and Gálvez Biesca, ‘El proceso’. View all notes and the reasons behind the timing and scope of Spain's reckoning with the past.3 See Encarnación, ‘Reconciliation After Democratization’; Aguilar, ‘Justice, Politics and Memory’, Barahona de Brito, Gonzaléz-Enríquez, and Aguilar, The Politics of Memory; and Blakeley, ‘Digging Up Spain's Past’. View all notes This literature presents the case of Spain as a counterpoint to the received wisdom of the transitional justice literature that successful democratization requires reconciliation. This article contributes to the specific literature on Spain, and the wider transitional justice literature, by focusing on an area which has not yet been analysed: the ‘co-construction’ and content of the Law. Through a comparison of the draft bill and the final Law, this article fills this gap.