Secret seducers

At the end of the 1990s, a moral panic erupted in the Netherlands about the phenomenon of what came to be known as ‘loverboys’. The suspicion was that a growing number of Dutch girls were being groomed by handsome young men who employed all sorts of devious methods to prepare their girlfriends for life as a prostitute. Stories about a new generation of pimps, often of Moroccan origin, regularly appeared in the Dutch media. In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork on pimps operating in the red-light district of Amsterdam, we describe the ways in which these young men operate and how they justify their behaviour. On the basis of empirical research we intend to present a more realistic picture of what goes on in the prostitution industry and highlight the discrepancy between what is reported in the media and what is actually happening in the prostitution sector. We also examine the background to the moral panic about loverboys and the ways in which these young men were supposedly able to induce many young girls into becoming prostitutes.     

After the sunset: the residual effect of temporary legislation

The difference between permanent legislation and temporary legislation is the default rule of termination: permanent legislation governs perpetually, while temporary legislation governs for a limited time. Recent literature on legislative timing rules considers the effect of temporary legislation to stop at the moment of expiration. When the law expires, so does its regulatory effect. This article extends that literature by examining the effect of temporary legislation beyond its expiration. We show that in addition to affecting compliance behavior which depends on statutory enforcement, temporary legislation also affects compliance behavior which does not depend on statutory enforcement, and more generally, organizational behavior after a sunset. When temporary legislation expires therefore, it can continue to administer regulatory and other effects. We specify the conditions for this process and give the optimal legislative response.     

The quality of written expert testimony in alleged child sexual abuse: An empirical study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate written expert testimonies in cases of suspected child sexual abuse in Sweden. A total of 121 expert testimonies were rated with an instrument developed for the study, the SQX-12 (Gumpert et al., 2001) which is a 12-item checklist aimed to reflect consensus-established concepts of quality. Reports from different professional groups were compared, as were reports produced before and after the 1991 publication of national guidelines. The results suggested that the reports produced by professionals using statement analysis generally were of higher quality than reports written by professionals from child- and adolescent psychiatry. There was a slight increase in report quality, as measured by the SQX total score, over the studied years. However, it is concluded that the overall quality of written expert testimony on child credibility still does not reach the recommended level in Sweden.     

Early prevention of life-course personal and property violence: a 19-year follow-up of the Montreal Longitudinal-Experimental Study (MLES)

Objectives

This study assessed the impact of a multi-component prevention program on personal and property violence across three developmental periods (early adolescence, mid-adolescence and late adolescence/early adulthood).

Methods

The preventive intervention targeted disruptive kindergarten boys from low socioeconomic status families when they were 7 through 9 years of age. A randomized control trial was conducted to assess the impact of the preventive intervention relative to a control group.

Results

Two different approaches to data analysis were adopted: an intention-to-treat (ITT) approach and an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Results from the ITT analysis showed that the level of property violence for the intervention group was persistently lower across the three developmental periods compared to the control group. However, the intervention group did not differ from the control group on personal violence throughout adolescence and early adulthood. Results from the IV analysis generally confirmed these findings.

Conclusions

The discussion focuses on the differential effects of the prevention program on personal versus property violence.     

The Evolving “Nature” of Environmental Risk: A Responsible Approach for Residential and Commercial Real Estate

Environmental losses suffered by commercial and residential real estate owners are becoming more frequent and severe due to evolving regulatory regimes and the changing global climate. This article reviews the nature of environmental risk, specifically within the context of a changing climate, and proposes the large-scale installation of green infrastructure as both a business opportunity for insurers and a responsible approach.     

“He did everything he possibly could for me”: medical malpractice claimants’ experiences of lawyer–client relations

Lawyers are obliged to act in the interests of their clients, however, it is not clear how lawyers should do this in practice. Should lawyers follow their clients' instructions without deviation, should they actively manage their clients' expectations, or as many studies suggest, do lawyers place their own interests first? This paper examines how lawyers interact with medical malpractice claimants. It reveals that lawyers take a client-aligned approach, where lawyers acknowledge their client's goals, but do not necessarily do what the client says. We argue that this approach is made necessary by legal and organisational constraints which limit the ability of lawyers to produce the types of outcomes that their clients want.     

The Impact of Exchange Rate on the Growth of Nigerian Economy From 1960 to 2010

This paper examined the impact of exchange rate on the growth of Nigerian economy using time series data from 1960 to 2010. The paper utilized secondary data and explored various econometrics and/or statistical analytical （E-view 7.0） method to examine the relationship between exchange rate and economic growth. The paper tested the stationarity--through unit root test （ADF）, Vector Autoregressive Estimates （VARs）, cointegration test, Granger-Causality test of Nigeria＇s time series data, and used an error correction model through over-parameterization and parsimonious model to determine the long-run relationship among the variables examined. It was discovered from the findings that the growth rate of national income was directly related to domestic investment and economic growth. The paper recommended based on the econometric results among others that the government should ensure that prevailing economic situation in Nigeria is tolerable in order to reap the full benefit/advantage of exchange rate policy, encourage domestic production of goods and services to enable the domestic economy to benefit from the exchange rate policy, ensure the stability of macroeconomics variables, and ensure the exchange rate policy which is to encourage exports and discourage imports in order to avoid cash drain （or flight） in the economy.     

Application of the hexagon-OBTI test and the RSID blood test for the determination of the post-mortem interval of bone samples

In this serial experiment, five human bones with known post-mortem intervals (PMI) in a soil environment from five different epochs (0.2 to approximately 2000 years) were tested in a blind setup with two established rapid tests for the identification of human blood traces (Hexagon-OBTI test and RSID blood test). Based on previous study results concerning the usability of the Luminol test for the first assessment of the PMI of osseous remains, the question arising was whether those test procedures, which are highly sensitive for the detection of human blood components, could also be used to narrow down the post-mortem interval. Five test series were conducted applying modified standard protocols of the manufactures. The aim was to find out whether with prior reaction steps or a prolonged time of incubation hemoglobin or its metabolites can be dissolved from the bone and positive test results can be achieved dependent on the PMI. Four test series yielded negative results for all bone samples and one test series a uniformly weak positive result. The results indicate that rapid tests based on the detection of blood are not suitable for the determination of the PMI of bone samples despite the modification of the standard protocols. Further thorough research is required to clarify the postmortem degradation of hemoglobin in bones.     

The value of skull-photo superimpositions in identifying corpses found in domestic settings

The identification of decomposed corpses found in domestic settings is frequently problematic because comparative material for methods such as forensic odontostomatology, comparative X-ray analysis, or DNA analysis, is not available. In the case presented here, a photograph from an old, expired passport could be used to successfully identify a "domestic setting" corpse in a skull-photo superimposition. In an additional DNA analysis, 13 STR-loci could be amplified from tissue samples taken from the corpse. DNA comparison with the presumed brother of the deceased yielded a probability of 97.09% for siblingship. Y-STR-analysis was, therefore, performed. The results showed that all of the systems for the presumed brother and the corpse conformed, with the exception of the DYS390 locus, in which allele 21 was found for the corpse and allele 22 for the brother. Despite the rapid development of other identification procedures, skull-photo superimpositions remain an important means of identification. Last not least this is due to the increasing ubiquity of personal photo documents in the age of digital photography. The validity of the results from a DNA analysis in an identification process depends largely on the authenticity of the samples available for comparison and the degree to which the DNA from the corpse is preserved. In the case presented by the authors, positive identification of the corpse solely on the basis of the DNA analysis would not have been possible. Numerous constellations can be imagined for decomposed corpses found in domestic settings for which skull-photo superimpositions may be the only possible option for identifying the corpse.