‘No,buddy, I will not speak to the press – I am working!’: criminal justice and the interprofessional dynamics of communication production in the Chilean Public Prosecutorial Office

This article analyses the interprofessional dynamics of communication production in the criminal justice system. Through 26 in-depth interviews, we investigate the production of media information on prosecutorial work in Chile, tracking the relationships between internal communication agents, prosecutors, and external legal journalists. Previous scholarship has shown the success of police organizations in defining the content of crime communication based on asymmetrical power relations with the media. By contrast, our study reveals that legal journalists can bypass attempts to control the flow of information from the prosecutorial office and impose extra-organizational goals. Lawyers regularly dismiss the work of journalists, particularly those working as strategic communication advisors with prosecutors, but the asymmetrical relationship between the criminal justice agency and the media plays in favour of external legal journalists. Our article considers several explanations for this configuration, including interprofessional values, transactional relationships between journalists and prosecutors, and local legal culture.     

“It makes it legit”: local semiotic perceptions of the linguistic landscape in a market in Soshanguve,South Africa

This article explores the linguistic landscape (LL) of a semi-informal market in a South African township called Soshanguve. The fieldsite is situated in an area that is characterized by diversity and longstanding multilingualism. An ethnographic approach draws on the semiotic reading of the LL by a participant whose analysis of the multilingual commercial signage provides insight into local perceptions on language use and materiality. The study focuses on the participant’s analysis of the indexicality of African languages and traders’ names used in the LL that is in general dominated by English. Furthermore, the use of Sepitori (mixed language) in the signage will be explored for the first time. Findings contribute to disentangle and expand the notion of luxury and necessity. More specifically, we suggest that these concepts can be extended to include the notions of sponsorship and mediation, which can potentially involve reinterpreting the process of production, use and perception of the materials in signage.     

More Europe,Less Nationalism

Because they have failed to address the fundamental economic imbalances within Europe obscured by the single currency, each effort by European leaders so far to resolve the euro crisis has only deepened it. Without a decisive move toward fiscal and political union, accompanied by policies that push productivity and competitiveness toward convergence while closing the democratic deficit, the Eurozone will disintegrate. To discuss the way forward, the Nicolas Berggruen Institute's Council on the Future of Europe met in Rome on May 28 with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. In this section we publish the contributions from that meeting by the former European leaders, scholars and Nobel laureates who are members of the Council.     

Testing the input-process-output model of public participation

The characteristics of participatory institutions can be articulated in three main dimensions: input, process and output. The common assumption is that a dependency relationship exists, with process serving as a mediator between input and output. This paper puts the model to a rare empirical test drawing on a unique dataset of 70 Spanish advisory councils. Through a combination of exploratory factor and path analyses, we analyse the dimensionality of input, process and output and investigate the direct and indirect impact of inputs on process and outputs. Our analysis provides evidence that input factors have a direct impact on the output factor transparency, but their impact on effects on policy and participant satisfaction is mediated by the process factor deliberation. Further, the capacity of the public administration to steer the advisory council (wardship) mediates negatively the impact of input variables on transparency. The analysis provides a nuanced account of how different input and process design characteristics of participatory institutions have profound direct and indirect effects on their outputs.     

Mineralization of mandibular third molars can estimate chronological age--Brazilian indices

Forensic age estimation is an important element of anthropological research, as it produces one of the primary sources of data that researchers use to establish the identity of a person living or the identity of unknown bodily remains. The aim of this study was to determine if the chronology of third molar mineralization could be an accurate indicator of estimated age in a sample Brazilian population. If so, mineralization could determine the probability of an individual being 18 years or older. The study evaluated 407 panoramic radiographs of males and females from the past 5 years in order to assess the mineralization status of the mandibular third molars. The evaluation was carried out using an adaptation of Demirjian's system. The results indicated a strong correlation between chronological age and the mineralization of the mandibular third molars. The results indicated that modern Brazilian generation tends to demonstrate an earlier mandibular third molar mineralization than older Brazilian generation and people of other nationalities. Males reached developmental stages slightly earlier than females, but statistically significant differences between the sex were not found. The probability that an individual with third molar mineralization stage H had reached an age of 18 years or older was 96.8-98.6% for males and females, respectively.     

Experimental forensic scenes for the characterization of ground-penetrating radar wave response

Over the last few decades, the use of non-intrusive geophysical techniques, which allows for coverage of an entire crime scene in a reasonable amount of time, in forensic investigation has increased. In this study, we analyze the effectiveness of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in forensics. Experimental scenes were simulated and some of the most commonly buried items in actual crime scenes were introduced, such as bone remains, guns and drug caches. Later, a GPR survey was conducted on the experimental grids with a 500 MHz antenna. The final purpose was to characterize the radar wave response expected for each set of remains to assist with its identification in later actual investigations. The results collected provided promising information that can be used when surveying real cases. Nevertheless, there were some interpretational difficulties regarding the sizes of the items and the electromagnetic properties of the materials. For these cases, finite-difference time-domain modeling was employed to achieve an advanced interpretation of the field data. The simulated models used were built from accurate geometric data provided by photogrammetric methods, which replicate the experimental scenes in fine detail. Furthermore, this approach allowed for the simulation of more realistic models, and the synthetic data obtained provided valuable information for assisting in the interpretation of field data. As a result of this work, it was concluded that GPR can be an effective tool when searching for a variety of materials during a crime scene investigation.     

Freedom of Opinion and Freedom of Expression: Some Reflections on General Comment No. 34 of the Un Human Rights Committee

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a body of 18 independent experts (including a member from the Netherlands, Professor Cees Flinterman) who are tasked with monitoring compliance with the provisions of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in force 23 March 1976). The Committee deploys four principal activities — periodic examination of State Party reports, interpretation and progressive development of the provisions of the Covenant in the form of General Comments, and adjudication of individual complaints under the Optional Protocol, as well as follow-up procedures. This article analyzes the Committee’s second General Comment on Article 19 of the Covenant, which stipulates freedom of opinion and freedom of expression. In 52 paragraphs the General Comment systematically examines, defines and delimits the concepts contained in the three subparagraphs of Article 19, basing itself primarily on the Committee’s concluding observations upon examination of State Party reports and on the case-law in response to petitions under the Optional Protocol. The Committee highlights the primacy of freedom of opinion, recognizing that it is crucial for a democratic society that persons have access to truthful, reliable and pluralistic information, including through the internet, in order to develop a personal opinion whose expression must then be protected by law. The Committee notes, however, that whereas it is inadmissible to impose any restrictions on freedom of opinion, there are certain responsibilities that attach to the exercise of freedom of expression, namely the respect of the reputation of others as well as considerations of health, morals and national security. The Committee holds that so-called ‘memory laws’ as well as blasphemy laws are incompatible with Article 19 and that defamation laws must strike a balance between competing rights and interests. Paragraph 49 of the General Comment clearly affirms the right to hold non-conformist historical views and the right to be wrong. While it is not the function of lawyers or judges to establish what historical truth is, Article 20 of the Covenant imposes an obligation on governments to prohibit incitement to racial hatred or violence, the criminalization of which requires narrow definition of the elements of the crime.

     

Electoral reforms,entry barriers and the structure of political markets: A comparative analysis

This article investigates the impact of electoral reforms on entry barriers in political markets. The discussion starts by delineating the theoretical boundaries of various political markets, such as those for participation, parties and government. By taking a cue from industrial organisation theory, the article offers an analysis of entry barriers, both hard and soft, along with their operationalisation for empirical research. Based on this theoretical framework, a single hypothesis is investigated. It posits that the modification of the entry barriers in the market for parties leads to changes in the concentration of the popular vote for party lists. An observable implication of this relationship would be if an electoral reform that raises entry barriers led to subsequent increases in the Herfindahl index (a measure of market concentration), and vice versa. This proposition is empirically tested by a comparative analysis of a new database covering Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The analysis offers support for the following proposition: in most cases the changes in the entry barriers led to a corresponding change of concentration in the market for parties.