Socio‐legal Studies in France: Beyond the Law Faculty

This article is the third in an occasional series dealing with the development, current status, and future of socio‐legal studies in selected countries. It follows articles by Kim Economides (Aotearoa/New Zealand) and Harry Arthurs and Annie Bunting (Canada). In this article we argue that in France one can identify work that corresponds to the key strands of socio‐legal research in Anglo‐American societies but that ‘socio‐legal’ as a category of research and scholarship does not have the presence it has in the United Kingdom. French law faculties continue to be strongly shaped by a traditional disciplinary orthodoxy rooted in a highly and distinctively structured form of doctrinal analysis. In the first part, we explain the relatively limited presence of socio‐legal studies in French law faculties in terms of the historical and institutional mechanisms by which disciplinary closure has been created and maintained around traditional orthodoxies. But in the second part we will trace the presence – predominantly outside law faculties – of significant fragments of socio‐legal practice in the scholarship of law and allied disciplines.     

Ensuring safety, implementation and scientific integrity of clinical trials: lessons from the Criminal Justice–Drug Abuse Treatment Studies Data and Safety Monitoring Board

Data and safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) provide independent oversight to bio-medical clinical trials, ensuring safe and ethical treatment of research participants, data quality, and credibility of study findings. Recently, the type of research monitored by DSMBs has been expanded to include randomized clinical trials of behavioral and psychosocial interventions in community and justice based settings. This paper focuses on the development and role of a DSMB created by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to monitor six multi-site clinical trials conducted within the Criminal Justice–Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS). We believe this is one of the first such applications of formal DSMBs in justice settings. Special attention is given to developing processes for measuring and monitoring a range of implementation issues for research conducted within criminal justice settings. Lessons learned and recommendations to enhance future DSMB work within this area are discussed.     

Intimate partner violence in the U.S. general population: progress and future directions

This article reviews survey research on intimate partner violence (IPV) in the U.S. general population. Results from survey research conducted over the past quarter century are briefly summarized. Three additional national studies related to injuries, crime victimization, and homicide among intimate partners in the United States are also considered. The article emphasizes the progress that has been made in general population survey research related to IPV. It concludes with a discussion of the current controversies and future directions for survey research of IPV in the U.S. general population.     

Highway Security and Terrorism

This article presents an overview of highway transportation security before and after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in the context of hazardous materials (hazmat) transportation. It is primarily focused on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulation of motor carrier transportation of hazmat and post-9/11 efforts to prevent acquisition by terrorists of certain classes of hazmat. In the context of homeland security, motor carrier transportation of hazmat is receiving heightened attention. It should be cautioned, the article highlights a limited number of activities at the federal level only to provide the reader with a sense of ongoing government and industry activities to improve transportation security.     

The belated autopsy and identification of an eighteenth century naval hero--the saga of John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones, the "Father of the American Navy," is known for the battletime assertion that he had "not yet begun to fight." His central role in a triumph of scientific forensic identification more than a century after his death is less known. John Paul Jones died in 1792 and was buried in Paris, France. The location of his grave was lost over time and a search for his corpse began in 1899. Remains matching his physical characteristics and circumstance of burial were discovered in 1905 and returned to the United States for a hero's burial. Some questioned the identification at the time and the major source of identifying information has since been shown to contain false information. The published forensic literature fails to address existing critiques of the identification. We provide a substantive analysis and conclude that the available evidence supports the identification of the unknown remains as those of John Paul Jones.     

Agreement on reporting of physical, psychological, and sexual violence among white, black, and Hispanic couples in the United States

This article examines agreement on reports of male-to-female and female-to-male psychological, physical, and sexual violence among White, Black, and Hispanic couples in the United States. Using a probability sample, separate face-to-face interviews were conducted in respondents' homes with both members of 1,025 intact couples living in the 48 contiguous states. The overall survey response rate was 72%. Results indicate that agreement on each of the three types of violence is low, independent of perpetrator's gender and ethnicity. Kappa coefficients of agreement range from .07 to .48. Higher agreement is obtained for psychological violence, followed by physical and sexual violence. Depending on the type of violence, between 30% (psychological aggression) and 90% (sexual coercion) of events would not have been identified if identification required agreement between partners. Logistic analysis shows that the severity of violence is the only variable that increases the likelihood of agreement across the three types of violence.