Child Support Policy in Australia and the United Kingdom: Changing Priorities But A Similar Tough Deal for Children?

This article examines shifts in child support law and policyin Australia and the UK since the establishment of child supportschemes in both jurisdictions from the late 1980s. Our analysissuggests that while original policy goals in Australia and theUK were broadly similar, they also diverged in important respects.Further, legislative and operational elements of the respectiveschemes as originally enacted have played a key role in influencingsubsequent shifts in the substance and policy of the regimes.Yet the practical implications of currently diverging law andpolicy approaches are likely to be similar, in that most fatherswill pay less child support in the future.     

Australian post-separation parenting on the smartphone: What’s ‘App-ening?

In recent years Australia has seen increasing use of digital technology including smartphones and with that, increasing development and availability of online family law resources including digital applications (‘apps’). However, the extent to which online resources are being used – and are considered useful – by those experiencing relationship separation has not so far been the focus of Australian empirical research. After first briefly examining digital developments in Australia more broadly, we draw on recent data from 35 separated parents across four states to explore use and utility of family law resources available on smartphones from a ‘consumer’ perspective, focusing on apps. Our analysis suggests a gap between what is available, and what is known about and used by separating parents.     

Ambiguity and conflict in sentencing research: Partial resolution through crime-specific analysis

Prior research on factors influencing sentence severity has produced ambiguous findings. To resolve some of this ambiguity, a crime-specific approach to data analysis is proposed and tested. The research sample consists of 468 convictions resulting from 619 indictments for the crimes of murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. Independent variables examined include seven offender and case-processing characteristics. The dependent variable, sentence severity, is measured first as a dichotomous variable (probation or prison) and then as an interval variable (prison-sentence length). After determining that crime type explains a significant proportion of the total variance in sentence severity, the dependent variables are then regressed on the variable list. Four regressions are performed for each dependent variable; the first analysis uses all cases in the sample, while the remaining analyses focus separately on the crimes of murder, assault, and robbery. The research indicates that the aggregate and crime-specific analyses produce substantively different results, both in terms of the factors found to influence sentence severity and the total amount of variance explained. Findings demonstrate the utility of crime-specific analysis.     

Sex Trafficking and Moral Harm: Politicised Understandings and Depictions of the Trafficked Experience

This paper explores notions of harm in sex work discourse, highlighting the extent to which essentialist ideas of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ sex have pervaded trafficking policy. In a comparative examination of Australian Parliamentary Inquiries and United States congressional hearings leading to the establishment of anti-trafficking policy, we identify the stories that have influenced legislators, and established a narrative of trafficking heavily dependent upon assumptions of the inherent harm of sex work. This narrative constructs a hierarchy of victimisation, which denies alternative discourses of why women migrate for sex work. We argue that it is not sexual commerce that is harmful, but pathological, systemic inequalities and entrenched disadvantage that are harmful. A narrow narrative of trafficking fails to adequately depict this complexity of the trafficked experience.     

When functionality is not fatal

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that, under both UK and EuropeanCommunity law, functional designs can be protected by unregistereddesign right provided that there exist other means of achievingthe same purpose.     

A growing field

Ten years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find a legaltextbook, even in the IP field, specifically referring to brands,branding, or brand protection. Today, however, the shelves ofspecialist legal booksellers contain a wide variety of booksrelating to branding covering the spectrum, from academic analysisof the differences between brands and trade marks to so-calledpractitioner guides on strategic protection issues. The growthin this field reflects the spread of IP rights generally inthe commercial arena and its strategic importance to businesseslarge and small. Like      

Money and Marriage: Sexually Transmitted Debt in England

In recent years of economic recession, the problems faced byspouses and partners (especially wives) who provide third partyloan security (usually a second mortgage over the family home)for the business debts of their spouse or partner has emergedas an increasing evidence social and legal problem, especiallyin the United Kingdom, and also Australia (where the problemhas become know as ‘sexually transmitted debt’).In this article, the central findings of the first major empiricalstudy of ‘sexually transmitted debt’ are discussed,after first placing the problem in its legal and social context.     

The association between investigative interviewers' knowledge of question type and adherence to best‐practice interviewing

It is well established that not all investigative interviewers adhere to ‘best‐practice’ interview guidelines (i.e., the use of open‐ended questions) when interviewing child witnesses about abuse. However, little research has examined the sub skills associated with open question usage. In this article, we examined the association between investigative interviewers' ability to identify various types of questions and adherence to open‐ended questions in a standardized mock interview. Study 1 , incorporating 27 trainee police interviewers, revealed positive associations between open‐ended question usage and two tasks; a recognition task where trainees used a structured protocol to guide their response and a recall task where they generated examples of open‐ended questions from memory. In Study 2 , incorporating a more heterogeneous sample of 40 professionals and a different training format and range of tests, positive relationships between interviewers' identification of questions and adherence to best‐practice interviewing was consistently revealed. A measure of interviewer knowledge about what constitutes best‐practice investigative (as opposed to knowledge of question types) showed no association with interviewer performance. The implications of these findings for interviewer training programs are discussed.