The perceived employability of ex-prisoners and offenders

A large-scale study was conducted to examine the perceived employability of ex-prisoners and offenders. Four participant groups comprising 596 (50.4%) employers, 234 (19.8%) employment service workers, 176 (14.9%) corrections workers, and 175 (14.8%) prisoners and offenders completed a questionnaire assessing the likelihood of a hypothetical job seeker's both obtaining and maintaining employment; the importance of specific skills and characteristics to employability; and the likelihood that ex-prisoners, offenders, and the general workforce exhibit these skills and characteristics. Apart from people with an intellectual or psychiatric disability, those with a criminal background were rated as being less likely than other disadvantaged groups to obtain and maintain employment. In addition, ex-prisoners were rated as being less likely than offenders and the general workforce to exhibit the skills and characteristics relevant to employability. Implications for the preparation and support of ex-prisoners and offenders into employment are discussed, together with broader community-wide initiatives to promote reintegration.     

The importance of ethics in the law curriculum: essential or incidental?

Recently, the debate as to whether ethics should be a compulsory requirement of a law degree was refuelled when the English and Welsh Legal Education Training Review (LETR) recommended that professional ethics should be primarily addressed in vocational Legal Services and Education Training programmes and that learning outcomes in the academic curriculum should include reference to morality and the law, the values supporting the legal system and their connection to the role of lawyers. This debate is also occurring in other jurisdictions. In Australia the debate is focused on the proposal that ethics be removed as a compulsory subject in the law degree. This proposal has raised a concern that law students will be denied the opportunity to develop as ethically competent lawyers. This paper argues for the continuation of ethics as a core component of a law degree and evidences the model used for the teaching of ethics in the law degree at the University of Technology Sydney in support of our argument. The background to the model is examined to highlight the significance of student feedback and ongoing curriculum review, including the alignment of parallel pedagogical factors. This model serves as an example of not only why ethics should be core to a law degree but, in order to provide graduates who are ethical and reflective practitioners, why ethics should be pervasively taught throughout the degree and supported by an introductory and capstone presence.     

Lessons learned from inter-laboratory studies of carbon isotope analysis of honey

Forensic application of carbon isotope ratio measurements of honey and honey protein to investigate the degree of adulteration with high fructose corn syrup or other C₄ plant sugars is well established. These measurements must use methods that exhibit suitable performance criteria, particularly with regard to measurement uncertainty and traceability – low levels of adulteration can only be detected by methods that result in suitably small measurement uncertainties such that differences of 1‰ or less can be reliably detected. Inter-laboratory exercises are invaluable to assess the state-of-the art of measurement capabilities of laboratories necessary to achieve such performance criteria. National and designated metrology institutes from a number of countries recently participated in an inter-laboratory assessment (CCQM-K140) of stable carbon isotope ratio determination of bulk honey. The same sample material was distributed to a number of forensic isotope analysis laboratories that could not participate directly in the metrological comparison. The results from these studies have demonstrated that the majority of participants provided isotope delta values with acceptable performance metrics; that all participants ensured traceability of their results; and that where measurement uncertainties were reported; these were fit-for-purpose. A number of the forensic laboratories only reported precision rather than full estimates of measurement uncertainty and this was the major cause of the few instances of questionable performance metrics. Reporting of standard deviations in place of measurement uncertainties is common practice outside metrology institutes and the implications for interpretations of small differences in isotopic compositions are discussed. The results have also highlighted a number of considerations that are useful for organisers of similar inter-laboratory studies in the future.