Abortion laws and medical developments: a medico-legal anomaly in Queensland

In October 2010 the District Court sitting in Cairns, Queensland, found Tegan Leach not guilty of attempting to procure her own abortion and Sergie Brennan not guilty of supplying Leach with the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol to procure an abortion. Brennan obtained the drugs from his sister in the Ukraine through the regular postal system. R v Brennan and Leach was the first case in Queensland's history where a woman was charged with procuring her own abortion. The drugs are accepted by the medical profession worldwide for medical abortions. A prosecution witness gave evidence that Mifepristone is not harmful or injurious to the health of a woman and it is listed as an essential medicine by the World Health Organisation and approved for use by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration. The jury found the defendants not guilty because they were not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the combination of the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol was a "noxious" substance under the Criminal Code (Old). This article concludes that there is no regulatory miracle which will stop the traffic of Mifepristone and Misoprostol into Australia and therefore an intelligent regulatory response is required which would make it unnecessary for women to seek Mifepristone and Misoprostol from overseas networks and the internet. Among other things, this would include the repeal of confusing, inappropriate and ineffective abortion laws.     

Network Structures: Working Differently and Changing Expectations

There is a growing need for innovative methods of dealing with complex, social problems. New types of collaborative efforts have emerged as a result of the inability of more traditional bureaucratic hierarchical arrangements such as departmental programs to resolve these problems. Network structures are one such arrangement that is at the forefront of this movement. Although collaboration through network structures establishes an innovative response to dealing with social issues, there remains an expectation that outcomes and processes are based on traditional ways of working. It is necessary for practitioners and policy makers alike to begin to understand the realities of what can be expected from network structures in order to maximize the benefits of these unique mechanisms.     

United States Public Response to Terrorism: Fault Lines or Bedrock?1

We test traditional assumptions about the volatility of mass opinion in times of national crises using data about views of terrorism from national surveys of the United States general public in 1995 and 1997, findings from a national survey immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), and panel data from a follow‐up survey in 2002. We compare public assessments of the threat of terrorism, willingness to restrict speech to prevent terrorism, support for employing conventional military force against countries that support terrorism, and levels of certainty about culpability required prior to using military force. Results show stable and measured public views prior to 9/11, immediately following the events of that date, and in the subsequent year. Our findings support democratic and modernist theories of public capacities while challenging long‐standing traditional precepts about widespread volatility of mass public opinion.     

Evaluation and quantification of nuclear DNA from human telogen hairs

Nuclear DNA was extracted from human telogen hairs from 60 individuals. Six to nine hairs from each individual were individually extracted. The amount of DNA recovered from each individual varied greatly, and most samples yielded a quantity of 550 pg or less per hair. A selective extraction buffer was used to remove epithelial cell DNA and the amount of exogenous DNA was determined. DNA was also quantified by real time PCR using three different sized amplicons targeting an Alu sequence. The results were used to determine the state of degradation of the extracted DNA. Different quantities of sample (<100 pg, 100-500 pg, >500 pg) were amplified with the Miniplex kits to determine the minimum DNA template required for successful amplification. DNA recovered from hair showed degradation; however, partial profiles were obtained for those samples containing at least 60 pg using MiniSTRs.     

Deconstructing Criminology’s Origin Stories

The global production of knowledge is grossly skewed to the northern Anglophone world (Hogg et al. in International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 6(1), 1–7, 2017; Connell 2007). It should be no surprise therefore that criminology’s origin stories are derivative of northern experiences, yet generalised as universal theories of crime causation. In this article, we argue that the origin stories of criminological theory translated the ‘darker’, ‘hairier’ and ‘muscular’ masculinities of the global south into prototypes of dangerousness. These prototypes were first articulated as scientific claims in the nineteenth century works of Lombroso, but have been refined and embedded in mainstream criminological discourses well into the present, mainly through the quantitative study of social disorganisation, ‘race’ and racialised masculinities as variables in crime causation. The paper concedes that while deeply troubling expressions of violent masculinity exist now and in the past in the global south, it is mistaken to conceive this violence simply as expressions of atavism or social disorganisation associated with a less civilised world. On the contrary, this paper argues that the violence of colonality itself has had, and continues to have, a criminogenic impact on the present.