Prevalence and predictors of dating violence among adolescent female victims of child sexual abuse

The purpose of this study was to advance knowledge of dating violence behaviors among adolescent victims of child sexual abuse (CSA), first, by determining the prevalence of psychological and physical dating violence and the reciprocity of violence, and second, by investigating the influence of certain CSA characteristics to dating violence. Respondents included 126 females ages 13 to 17 years. More than 45% reported experiencing some sort of physical violence in their dating relationships. Psychological violence was reciprocal in more than 90% of the cases. Multiple regression analysis revealed a significant contribution of CSA characteristics. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the duration of the sexual abuse and the presence of violence or completed intercourse during the abuse could significantly contribute to dating violence above and beyond other known risk factors. Discussion underscores the need to gain a better understanding of CSA and other risk factors that might influence violent dating behaviors.     

Changing the Culture of Health: One Public Health Misstep at a Time

In this article, I argue that public health regulations are a necessary component of changing the culture of health in the US. After considering libertarian critiques of public health interventions, I maintain that many of the interventions critiqued are not in fact coercive. Looking forward, I do not envision an either/or between the nanny state vs. a libertarian polity. Instead, a middle ground will emerge that respects individual choice and personal responsibility while accepting that government has a legitimate interest in securing the population’s health. Better health helps people make better choices and enjoy freedom; being free from poor health status is as important to liberty as free choice.     

Data protection by design and technology neutral law

This article argues that to achieve a technology neutral law, technology specific law is sometimes required. To explain this we discriminate between three objectives, often implied in the literature on technological neutrality of law. The first we call the compensation objective, which refers to the need to have technology specific law in place whenever specific technological designs threated the substance of human rights. The second we call the innovation objective, referring to the need to prevent legal rules from privileging or discriminating specific technological designs in ways that would stifle innovation. The third we call the sustainability objective, which refers to the need to enact legislation at the right level of abstraction, to prevent the law from becoming out of date all too soon. The argument that technology neutral law requires compensation in the form of technology specific law is built on a relational conception of technology, and we explain that though technology in itself is neither good nor bad, it is never neutral. We illustrate the relevance of the three objectives with a discussion of the EU cookie Directive of 2009. Finally we explain the salience of the legal obligation of Data Protection by Design in the proposed General Data Protection Regulation and test this against the compensation, innovation and sustainability objectives.     

Promoting Social and Emotional Learning in Middle School: Intervention Effects of Facing History and Ourselves

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - There are fewer evidence-based social and emotional learning programs for middle school students compared to younger grades. This randomized controlled trial...     

European criminal law and European identity

This contribution aims to explain how European Criminal Law can be understood as constitutive of European identity. Instead of starting from European identity as a given, it provides a philosophical analysis of the construction of self-identity in relation to criminal law and legal tradition. The argument will be that the self-identity of those that share jurisdiction depends on and nourishes the legal tradition they adhere to and develop, while criminal jurisdiction is of crucial importance in this process of mutual constitution. This analysis will be complemented with a discussion of the integration of the first and the third pillar as aimed for by the Constitutional Treaty (TE), which would bring criminal law under majority rule and European democratic control. Attention will be paid to two ground breaking judgements of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that seem to boil down to the fact that the Court actually manages to achieve some of the objectives of the CT even if this is not in force. This gives rise to a discussion of how the CT (and related judgements of the ECJ) may transform European criminal law in the Union to EU criminal law of the Union, thus producing an identity of the Union next to the identities prevalent in the Union. The contribution concludes with some normative questions about the kind of European identity we should aim to establish, given the fact that such identity will arise with further integration of criminal law into the first pillar.

Belgian population data for 15 STR loci (AmpFlSTR SGM Plus and AmpFlSTR profiler PCR amplification kit)

The allele and genotype distributions for 15 STR loci included in the AmpFlSTR SGM Plus and AmpFlSTR Profiler kits (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, USA) were determined in a sample of 222 unrelated individuals of Belgian origin.