A Conversation with Tibetans? Reconsidering the Relationship between Religious Beliefs and Secular Legal Discourse

Over cups of chai, a conversation between U.S. law professors and Tibetan exiles about the formation of a new democratic Tibetan government under the Dalai Lama goes awry. This article investigates why the misunderstandings occurred by presenting the context of the Tibetan and U. S. concepts of sacredness and secularity. The former Tibetan government and legal system are explained in some derail as well as the Tibetan wiew of the sacred and secular spheres in society. The deistic origins of the U.S. Constitution and the pervasive religious cosmology of the Framers are then described. These two similar positions are contrasted with the current modern and postmodern positions of an all-encompassing secular sphere that defines and contains religion. The author argues that "sacred" and "secular" have changed positions, with secularity now having an unmarked positive value and being viewed by U.S. law professors as a necessity for a democratic political and legal system. As the conversation with the Tibetans demonstrates, the richness and power of an integrated sacred perspective is difficult to comprehend from a hegemonic secular public space. Reformulating this "inarticulate debate" will be necessary for a coherent conversation to take place.     

Drug abuse, crime costs, and the economic benefits of treatment

Several studies have examined the social consequences and costs of criminal activity. The most popular approach for estimating the costs of crime focuses on easily measurable factors such as incarceration costs, victims' out-of-pocket expenses, medical costs, and lost earnings. However, the intangible losses incurred by victims of crime have rarely been considered. These losses include pain and suffering, as well as loss of the enjoyment of living. Based on recent developments by Cohen and colleagues, we adopt a more comprehensive method for estimating the dollar value of avoided criminal activity, taking into account these intangible losses. We demonstrate the feasibility of this method by estimating the pre- and posttreatment costs of criminal activity for a sample of 2420 drug abusers. The estimated crime-related costs incurred during the period prior to treatment admission and the period after treatment discharge are significantly higher when calculated using the proposed method compared to methods that only consider tangible costs. Furthermore, a simple benefit-cost comparison of criminal activity outcomes indicates that drug abuse treatment has the potential to return net benefits to society through crime reduction. Although the treatment outcomes are not based on an experimental design, this study presents quantitative evidence that including victims' intangible losses can substantially raise the estimated dollar benefits of avoided criminal activity due to drug abuse interventions.This paper was prepared while the authors were employed by Research Triangle Institute.     

Is In-Prison Treatment Enough? A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Prison-Based Treatment and Aftercare Services for Substance-Abusing Offenders

This study performed a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of the Amity in-prison Therapeutic Community (TC) and Vista aftercare programs for criminal offenders in California. For the average treatment participant, the cost of treatment was $4,112, which led to approximately fifty-one fewer days incarcerated (36% less) than the average individual in the control group. This implies that, for the average offender, treatment reduced recidivism at a cost of $80 per incarceration day. For participants who received both in-prison treatment and aftercare services, an additional day of incarceration was avoided at a cost of $51 per day relative to those that received in-prison treatment only.     

The impact of unification on German industrial relations

This paper analyses the stability of the German collective bargaining system by utilising a framework based on the concept of bargaining inclusiveness and exclusiveness. Examining collective bargaining developments in the metalworking industry, the adaptability of the west German bargaining system in the 1970s and 1980s is contrasted with the problems experienced in the new Lander, where institutional transfer and economic collapse, by substantially weakening IG Metall at establishment level and presenting employers with the opportunity to exit from the multi‐employer bargaining system, limited the prospects for organised decentralisation. The result has been the undermining of the inclusive German bargaining system in the east, as measured by collective bargaining coverage, which by creating labour market dualism, also threatens the stability of collective bargaining across Germany.     

Judgeships in the U.S. courts of appeals and in the U.S. district courts: Characteristics of democratic and republican presidential appointees from 1963–1990

The present study examined the characteristics of presidential appointees to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts from 1963–1990. An over‐representation of white, protestant men is noted, regardless of the political party of the appointing administration. Appointees of Democratic and Republican administrations did not differ significantly in terms of law school attended, occupation at nomination or appointment, or American Bar Association rating. The conclusion calls for a more diverse judiciary.     

Middle Range Powers in Global Governance

Abstract

This article compares and evaluates the contributions of middle range powers to global governance initiatives. Examining participation in terms of personnel, financial and ideational contributions, we test several hypotheses derived from neorealism, critical theory, liberalism, constructivism, and post-internationalism against six cases: Canada, Japan, China, Russia, India and Brazil. We find that material power has a negative impact on contributions, while a country’s leadership’s attitude towards the international order, the length of its membership in major international organisations and the strength of its civil society all seem to have positive effects on its participation in global governance. Trade dependence, however, does not seem to exhibit the expected impact. The article indicates that multiple theoretical approaches may prove useful for evaluating the behaviour of middle range powers, and that further research should be conducted on the relative importance of each of the factors mentioned above in explaining middle range power contributions to global governance.     

Adaptations of Aboriginal justice in the United States

Aboriginal justice in the United States is unique for two reasons. First, Aboriginal Natives subscribed to the Harmony Ethos, a system whereby Natives did not detach themselves from nature. Unlike Western cultures, they lived cooperatively with ‘Mother Earth’, ‘Father Sky’ and everything these two entities represented. Secondly, no other group in US history has been subjected to the magnitude of deliberate policies aimed at their destruction. Manifest physical genocide towards Native peoples was exercised and sanctioned by the US government until the 1890s while the more subtle practice of ‘cultural genocide’ continues to the present. Yet, in spite of these assaults on Native culture, attributes of their Aboriginal ways have not only survived but have experienced a resurgence within the past decade. Unfortunately, it appears that the more Native traditions survive, the more adamant are local, state, and federal efforts towards destroying any remnants of traditional values and customs including tribal autonomy.     

Victims' Responses to traumatic life events: An unjust world or an uncaring world?

Although the psychological literature has generally equated deservingness and justice, victims' responses suggest the need to disentangle the two concepts. Victims usually feel their traumatic experience was undeserved but typically do not consider the outcome in terms of justice or fairness. Rather, their feelings about not deserving the victimization derive from a second type of moral judgment involving caring rather than justice. These two orientations are discussed in light of recent developments in work on moral reasoning. A framework for understanding the trauma of victimization is presented; the shattering of assumptions related to a caring world—in which people are protected from harm—is highlighted in this model. The crucialrole of social support and specific cognitive strategies used by victims in the aftermath of their victimization are discussed in terms of survivors' efforts to rebuild their assumptions about a caring world. Although concerns about justice are less common among survivors, an effort is made to discuss when these isues are most apt to arise.