Recognising Family Diversity: the ‘Boundaries’ of <Emphasis Type="Italic">RE G</Emphasis>

In Re G, the Court of Appeal awarded a joint residence order to the appellant, who was the lesbian ex-partner of the child’s full biological mother. The award also indirectly vested the appellant, a social parent, with parental responsibility and extended a body of case law to same-sex couples, which had until now only been applied to heterosexual couples. The initial purpose of this note is to outline the legal issues of the case in the context of the framework of parental responsibility set out in the Children Act 1989, putting forward a test of ‘parental fitness’ (which focuses on active ‘care’ as its central consideration) for social parents who must appeal to the court’s discretion to obtain parental responsibility. Secondly, the note offers at once a positive reading of Re G while highlighting a number of reservations centring upon continued legal preference for the ‘sexual family’. It is argued that while the legal recognition of ‘family diversity’ and parenthood remains modelled on this ‘sexual family’, the relaxation of family ‘boundaries’ (despite legal victories such as Re G) will remain limited. Re G (Children) [2005] E.W.C.A. (Civ.) 462     

Death at high altitude in the hypobaric chamber

A small number of accidental and suicidal deaths have occurred in the hypobaric, or high altitude, chamber. A case of an unusual suicide in a hypobaric chamber is presented. The changes that resulted from decompression and hypoxia are discussed.     

Street children in North and Latin America: Preliminary data fromproyecto alternativos in Tegucigalpa and some comparisons with the U.S. case

The decade of the 1980s witnessed a dramatic transformation in the character of homelessness in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world. Whereas in previous decades the U.S. homeless were predominantly older, largely white, brokendown alcoholic men (or at least were stereotypified as such), today a sizable fraction are women and children. Indeed, women, children, and youth now comprise more than three-eighths of the total homeless population of the United States (Wright 1989). As the U.S. homeless have come to be comprised of proportionally more women and children, so have they come more and more to resemble the street populations of the Third World, where homelessness, family disorganization, exploitation, and abandonment of children have become increasingly important problems during the past decade.     

The theoretical aspects of the time dependent Z equation as a means of postmortem interval estimation using body temperature data only

It has been clearly demonstrated that the rectal cooling curve does not obey Newton's Law, which is exponential. The first success in modelling rectal cooling mathematically was achieved by Marshall and Hoare [1]. An amendment was made to the simple exponential curve which led to a good mathematical model, exhibiting the three main sections of rectal cooling, i.e. lag, linear and quasi-exponential. The resultant method of postmortem interval estimation required a knowledge of the body mass and height. The present study has led to a totally different amendment to Newton's Law, which provides a means of postmortem interval estimation from body temperature data only. The derivation of the method, with a background on Newton's Law follows.     

Southeast Asian Refugee Youth: Implications for Juvenile Justice

Abstract Southeast Asian refugees have been arriving in the U.S. in significant numbers since 1975. While they have had a history of a seemingly smooth resettlement and acculturation to this country, the number of Southeast Asian youthful offenders has increased dramatically since 1984. Factors common among refugee youth which have contributed to this rise include: problems of acculturation; role reversal with parents; lack of shared values, parental guidance and school success; and mental health problems often stemming from their history of war, traumatization, and loss before coming to this country. This article will discuss these factors and the implications for the juvenile justice system. The discussion will also highlight culturally appropriate intervention strategies for personnel working with these youth and their families.