Enrollment in Mental Health Courts: Voluntariness,Knowingness, and Adjudicative Competence

Mental health courts (MHCs) are rapidly expanding as a form of diversion from jails and prisons for persons with mental illness charged with crimes. Although intended to be voluntary, little is known about this aspect of the courts. We examined perceptions of voluntariness, and levels of knowingness and legal competence among 200 newly enrolled clients of MHCs at two courts. Although most clients claimed to have chosen to enroll, at the same time, most claimed not to have been told the court was voluntary or told of the requirements prior to entering. The majority knew the “basics” of the courts, but fewer knew more nuanced information. A minority also were found to have impairments in legal competence. Implications are discussed.     

Trace DNA Sampling Success from Evidence Items Commonly Encountered in Forensic Casework

Trace DNA analysis is a significant part of a forensic laboratory's workload. Knowing optimal sampling strategies and item success rates for particular item types can assist in evidence selection and examination processes and shorten turnaround times. In this study, forensic short tandem repeat (STR) casework results were reviewed to determine how often STR profiles suitable for comparison were obtained from “handler” and “wearer” areas of 764 items commonly submitted for examination. One hundred and fifty‐five (155) items obtained from volunteers were also sampled. Items were analyzed for best sampling location and strategy. For casework items, headwear and gloves provided the highest success rates. Experimentally, eyeglasses and earphones, T‐shirts, fabric gloves and watches provided the highest success rates. Eyeglasses and latex gloves provided optimal results if the entire surfaces were swabbed. In general, at least 10%, and up to 88% of all trace DNA analyses resulted in suitable STR profiles for comparison.     

Environmental Considerations for Trauma‐Responsive Juvenile and Family Courts: A Review of the Literature with Recommendations for Practice

Juvenile and family courts serve some of our most vulnerable populations, many of whom have experienced some traumatic event. People suffering with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are known to be more sensitive to environmental stimuli, and many of the environmental conditions within courts can be challenging for those suffering traumatic stress. Trauma‐responsive practices help foster conditions of healing, which can benefit both the court user and those who work within the court. Research reviewed in this article demonstrates the likelihood of negative behavioral and emotional responses to specific environmental factors for people suffering PTSD and other stress reactions, and offers recommendations to minimize environmental stressors.     

Opting Out: The Role of Identity,Capital, and Agency in Prison Visitation

An emerging body of research suggests that prison visitation has implications for better understanding inmate institutional and post-release behavior, but not all inmates receive visits. The goal of the current study is to document barriers to visitation from the inmate perspective and describe the perspectives of those who receive very few or no visits. We also describe how inmate perceptions of visits impacts the way one does time and negotiates subsequent visitation. Using data from qualitative interviews, we find evidence that inmates make willful decisions when negotiating prison visits that are guided by one’s sense of self and further colored by the perceived social and economic strain on families. Our results challenge the perception of a universally positive visitation experience, and introduce the role of inmate choice in selecting into and out of prison visits.     

One Family,One Judge,No Continuances

Continuances are a source of delay in juvenile dependency cases that may increase the length of time a child is in care. The current study builds upon an emerging body of research examining the effectiveness of the one family, one judge model in improving case efficiency. The study first examines the expectation that continuances delay case processing, then examines whether the implementation of a one family, one judge model of judicial oversight reduces continuances. Results reveal that continuances delay case events up to the adjudication hearing, but do not delay time to permanency. Although implementation of the one family, one judge model did not reduce continuances, there was a relationship between the number of judicial officers per case and number of continuances. When there is only one judicial officer per case, the majority of cases have no or only one continuance. Every two judicial officers added to the case result in one additional continuance. These findings indicate that judicial continuity can be an effective way to improve case efficiency.     

A New Method of Assessing Judicial Workload in Juvenile Dependency Cases

This article describes a new method for calculating judicial workload in dependency or child abuse and neglect cases. In contrast to traditional judicial workload methods, the method described herein produces estimates of judicial workload that take into account the complex role of the juvenile dependency court judge—a role that includes both on‐ and off‐the‐bench activities. The method provides workload estimates that give guidance to courts not only about the minimally sufficient judicial resources needed to accommodate current caseload needs, but also what level of judicial resources would be required to hold substantive dependency court hearings that comport with nationally recognized practice recommendations. The article reviews commonly used judicial workload methods, outlines the new method, and uses a pilot of the method as an example of how the method works in practice. Broader implications of this workload method are also discussed.     

The Place of Form in the Fundamentals of Law

The author explains that there is scope for a general theory about the nature and place of form in the fundamentals of law. Form organizes the institutions, rules and other varieties of law, and the system as a whole. All such constructs have non‐formal elements, too, but form unifies each construct and provides its criteria of identity. Appropriate form makes a system of law possible. It also tends to beget good content in the law. It is indispensable to the basic needs of a legal system, and when such an end is organizational, as with democracy, liberty, and the rule of law, form is end as well as means.     

In Matters of war and socialism,Anthony Barnett would shame and honor Kampuchea too much

Abstract

In an article on “Inter-Communist Conflicts and Vietnam” published in the current issue of Marxism Today, Anthony Barnett attempts to put the wars in Southeast Asia into historical and socialist perspective. He begins by stressing the already existing pattern of conflict in the socialist world. He notes in particular, the history of differences between neighboring communist states, the division of Marxist-Leninist movements resulting from the Sino-Soviet split and the sustained efforts of imperialist powers to exploit and to deepen these conflicts. The same conflicts, he argues, now find expression in Southeast Asia. In fact, the recent successful completion of the Vietnamese revolutionary war and the rise of other communist governments in China's hinterland might be promoting a trilateral conflict situation of a type already observed elsewhere. After the second World War, the indigenous, self-sustaining communist revolution in Yugoslavia successfully resisted efforts made by the older, larger communist power, the USSR, to force it to join its Eastern European bloc. Part of the Soviet pressure took the form of aggravating difficult bilateral relations between Yugoslavia and its neighbor Albania. The pattern of aspirations and hostilities in today's Southeast Asia is not, Anthony asserts, appreciably different: