The penology of racial innocence: the erasure of racism in the study and practice of punishment

In post–civil rights America, the ascendance of “law-and-order” politics and “postracial” ideology have given rise to what we call the penology of racial innocence. The penology of racial innocence is a framework for assessing the role of race in penal policies and institutions, one that begins with the presumption that criminal justice is innocent of racial power until proven otherwise. Countervailing sociolegal changes render this framework particularly problematic. On the one hand, the definition of racism has contracted in antidiscrimination law and in many social scientific studies of criminal justice, so that racism is defined narrowly as intentional and causally discrete harm. On the other hand, criminal justice institutions have expanded to affect historically unprecedented numbers of people of color, with penal policies broadening in ways that render the identification of racial intent and causation especially difficult. Analyses employing the penology of racial innocence examine the ever-expanding criminal justice system with limited definitions of racism, ultimately contributing to the erasure of racial power. Both racism and criminal justice operate in systemic and serpentine ways; our conceptual tools and methods, therefore, need to be equally systemic and capacious.     

The medical licensing examination debate

National licensing examinations are typically large‐scale examinations taken early in a career or near the point of graduation, and, importantly, success is required to subsequently be able to practice. They are becoming increasingly popular as a method of quality assurance in the medical workforce, but debate about their contribution to patient safety and the improvement of healthcare outcomes continues. A systematic review of the national licensing examination literature demonstrates that there is disagreement between assessment experts about the strengths and challenges of licensing examinations. This is characterized by a trans‐Atlantic divide between the dominance of psychometric reliability assurance in North America and the wider interpretations of validity, to include consequences, in Europe. We conclude that the debate might benefit from refocusing to what a national licensing examination should assess: to achieve a balance between assessing a breadth of skills and the capacity for such skills in practice, and focusing less on reproducibility.     

Why Develop and Support Women's Organizations in Providing Legal Aid in China? Women's rights,women's organizations and legal aid in China

This article argues that women's organizations are central to legal aid for women in China. Chinese women would benefit if more women's legal aid organizations were developed and supported. There are currently too few such organizations, especially in rural areas. Their work challenges the public legal aid programme to develop a rights-based legal aid agenda to achieve greater gender equality through the protection of women's rights. They bring diverse women's perspectives which counter prevailing traditional patriarchal attitudes and male dominance in Chinese society. The emergence of autonomous women's organizations is also important because it helped to break the monopoly of the All China Women's Federation over women's perspectives, identities and interests in China. The article concludes that the competitive yet collaborative relationship between autonomous women's legal aid organizations and the All China Women's Federation is producing a definite and positive impact on gender equality through legal reform.     

Moral economy in a global era: the politics of provisions during contemporary food price spikes

The wave of food riots since 2007 revived interest in why people protest in periods of dearth, yet research has to date failed to make sense of the political cultures of food protests. The concept of the moral economy in European history is explored here to make sense of contemporary political perspectives on how food markets should work in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya and Zambia. The concrete expressions of these moral economies are localized and politically contingent, yet there are broad areas of common ground across settings. As with the moral economies of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, there is strong popular feeling against speculation and collusion in food markets in times of dearth, and an emphasis on the responsibilities of public authorities to act. But whereas the moral economy in European histories focused on customary paternalistic obligations, the contemporary emphasis is on formal and electoral accountabilities as a means of triggering public action. The paper concludes with a discussion of a research agenda on the moral economy and the politics of provisions in globalised present-day food markets.     

Social Reconstruction as a Local Process

¹When it comes to post-armed conflict interventions aimed atrestructuring a shattered society, policy makers have largelytreated countries as an undifferentiated whole, ignoring localdynamics that reinforce or transform the power relations thatare often most relevant to peoples’ lives. Using the exampleof Guatemala, the authors argue that local-level, bottom-upmechanisms can reflect a country's diverse makeup and experienceof conflict, and provide crucial precursors or extensions forwider-scale national and international projects. Local-levelinitiatives also can involve more community members, promoteagency and perhaps be less prone to large-scale patronage andcorruption. In promoting truth-telling initiatives and confrontingthe past, memorializing the departed and burying the dead, andresolving ongoing or recent community conflicts, the authorshave found that local-level programs have distinct advantages.The article considers local ‘houses of memory,’community-sponsored psycho-social interventions and exhumations;and conflict resolution based on Mayan methods. It concludesthat such efforts should be more systematically identified andsupported in post-armed conflict settings. In transitional justice,as elsewhere, the authors find, all politics is local.     

Forensic isoscapes based on intra-individual temporal variation of δ18O and 206Pb/207Pb in human teeth

Isotopic signatures used in the georeferencing of human remains are largely fixed by spatially distinct geologic and environmental processes. However, location-dependent temporal changes in these isotope ratios should also be considered when determining an individual’s provenance and/or trajectory. Distributions of the relevant isotopes can be impacted by predictable external factors such as climate change, delocalisation of food and water sources and changes in sources and uses of metals. Using Multi-Collector Inductively-Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) analyses of ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb in tooth enamel and dentin from a population of 21 ± 1-year-old individuals born circa 1984 and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) of δ¹⁸O in their enamel, we examined the expected influence of some of these factors. The resulting adjustments to the geographic distribution of isotope ratios (isoscapes) found in tooth enamel and dentin may contain additional useful information for forensic identification, but the shifts in values can also impact the uncertainty and usefulness of identifications if they are not taken into account.

KEY POINTS

• Isoscapes of ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb and δ¹⁸O used for geolocation are not static.
• Within a few years, the enamel and dentin of a person may exhibit measurable differences in ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb even without changing locations.
• Changes in climatic patterns tied to rising temperatures are more significant than the direct effect of increasing temperature on δ¹⁸O fixed in tooth bioapatite.
• Third molar (M3) enamel mineralisation includes material incorporated from before formal amelogenesis takes place.