Bill of Sale Lending: Reforming a ‘Toxic’ Form of Credit

The Bills of Sale Acts were enacted in Victorian times as a form of secured credit whereby ‘goods’ owned by a borrower could be assigned under the bill of sale to a lender who would have title to the goods transferred to him. The lender would then allow the borrower to retain possession of the goods in exchange for instalment payments with interest. In the twenty‐first century these bills are most commonly used as ‘logbook loans’ for vehicles with extortionate interest rates and very little protection for individual consumers. This article examines the operational background to the Bill of Sale Acts. It focuses upon particular concerns for consumers and businesses and provides critique of the registration process before examining the proposals and consultations for reform currently before the Law Commission.     

Disparate reports of stress and family relations between youth who commit sexual crimes and their caregivers

Certain family factors, including dynamics, interactions and communication patterns, experiences of intra-familial victimisation, overall functioning and attachment can increase propensities for the commission of a sexual crime and may even be linked to recidivism. However, there is an absence of research that examines factors that contribute to problematic family relationships and how youth and caregivers vary in perceptions of family relationships. The current cross-sectional research study delivered the same validated instruments to youth (n?=?46) and their caregivers (n?=?46) to determine relative perceptions of family relationships and stress. Two multiple regression models were conducted to determine factors that contribute to problematic family relationships. Youth reported greater stress scores and more problems in family relationships relative to caregivers. Stress contributed to family relationship problems for youth and caregivers, but protective factors were associated with less family relationship problems for caregivers. Treatment and research implications are discussed.     

Systemic error: measuring gender in criminological research

This study examines how sex and gender are measured and operationalized in studies on criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) through content analysis of peer-reviewed journals. Despite that they are distinct and not always parallel, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably in CCJ research. Moreover, despite increasing recognition that gender-responsive practices are important at every stage of the criminal justice process, gender is almost exclusively measured as a male-female binary, miscategorizing and failing to properly account for those who do not fit in one of those gender identities. There are important implications for the safety of such individuals, as both victims and offenders throughout the criminal justice process, therefore it is essential that we more accurately measure gender in this field. Recommendations for improvement are addressed.     

Schools,discipline and community: diary-writing and schoolgirl culture in late nineteenth-century France

Abstract

This article uses the case-study of one French boarding school in the nineteenth century to explore the characteristics of schoolgirl culture. Beginning with an analysis of the multiple effects of constant discipline within the school, the author argues for the existence of rules that sought to develop a sense of moral community among students. The teachers used the ideal of community to transmit feminine but not necessarily domestic values, particularly the virtues of obedience, selflessness and interdependence. But students did not passively absorb these institutional messages. The existence of a student diary, written from 1875 to 1881, allows the author to explore how students absorbed, transformed and challenged both the implicit and explicit messages within schools. The very act of writing her daily life allowed the diary writer, Eugénie Servant, to structure her sense of feminine identity. While Eugénie posed no radical challenge to the prevailing domestic ideology communicated within her school, through her writing, she reworked cultural messages to highlight her own special gifts. This case-study offers an insight, then, into how individuals could refashion the parameters of school life, allowing forms of autonomy that raise questions about the realities of French bourgeois domestic life     

WHAT ROLE FOR GOVERNMENT? THE PROMOTION OF CIVIL SOCIETY THROUGH FORESTRY‐RELATED CLIMATE CHANGE INTERVENTIONS IN POST‐CONFLICT NEPAL

This study examines rationales behind the choice of local interlocutors by forestry‐related climate change projects in post‐conflict Nepal. In their stated objectives, all projects claim to involve the government, and most project decision makers are in favor of government involvement, yet project resources overwhelmingly favor civil society institutions. Project decision makers' choices are shaped by a combination of donor conditionalities, contextual constraints, and beliefs about which institutional attributes matter and how to address historical marginalization. The projects' empowerment of civil society sidesteps opportunities to strengthen the local government, which is described as weak, disinterested, and lacking legitimacy owing to the absence of elections due to the unsettled post‐conflict situation. Through the choices made and their justifications, projects and donors further marginalize the local government materially and discursively and thereby entrench its perceived deficiencies. We argue that this privileging of civil society may have implications for government legitimacy and post‐conflict reconstruction and call for donors and the intervening institutions they fund to critically and collectively reassess the role of forestry‐related climate change projects in the larger process of post‐conflict reconstruction in Nepal. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.