New voices from the ship of fools

Conventional left accounts of Thatcherism have stressed the authoritarian nature of its political rhetoric. This paper suggests that convergences between the new conservatism and more fundamentalist moral positions, meeting on the ground of obscenity and violence in the media, are a relatively recent development, associated with renewed strategic concentration on the question of law and order. Indeed, the libertarian right, in adhering to a utilitarian laissez-faire understanding of private pleasures, has presided over a positive proliferation of erotic and other gratifications. We argue that in the United Kingdom the authentic constituency of the moral right is an increasingly socially marginal one, rendered progressively more so by the rapid development of technologies of communication and entertainment.     

Paternity testing in a kidnapping case

A case of kidnapping involving the concept of paternity testing is described. The couple arrested and charged with kidnapping stated the child in their possession was their biological daughter. Serological tests were performed on liquid blood samples in an effort to determine if the couple could have been the biological parents of the child. Two genetic inconsistencies were discovered in the 15 blood marker systems analyzed.     

Using recidivism data to evaluate project 12-ways: An ecobehavioral approach to the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect

Many programs and projects have been remiss at looking at outcome variables such as recidivistic child abuse and neglect. Presented here are program evaluation data which examine recidivism data over 5 years across more than 700 families. Families receiving services from Project 12-Ways, a multifaceted in-home ecobehavioral approach, were compared with families indicated in the same region who received child protective services other than those offered by Project 12-Ways. Families who receive services from Project 12-Ways are less likely to reinjure or neglect their children again.     

Compliance with the law

The effectiveness of law as an instrument of social control depends on the assumptions lawmakers and implementers have about human behavior. The tax laws offer a good example of the difficulties in trying to anticipate what people will do in response to various legal requirements. This paper proposes a new approach to understanding tax compliance drawn from behavioral decision theory. The paper discusses the issue of rationality, explores the strategies people use to make taxpaying decisions, focuses on the distinction between norm-processing and outcome-processing strategies, and presents some implications of this approach for research and for legal policy making.     

Australia: court reduces prison sentence of person with HIV

In August 2002, the Court of Appeals of the state of Victoria, Australia, reduced the non-parole portion of a man's prison sentence from two years to 18 months because imprisonment would be a greater burden on someone with HIV than on a healthy person.     

Knocking at the wrong door: insured workers' inadequate psychiatric care and workers' compensation claims

ObjectiveTo describe the prevalence of inadequately evaluated and treated psychopathology among insured workers making workers' compensation claims for psychiatric disability whose cases were reviewed by one forensic psychiatrist. To assess the relationship of inadequate evaluation and treatment to the outcomes of these workers' compensation claims.MethodsRecords of a series of 185 workers' compensation cases reviewed in 1998 and 1999 by a California forensic psychiatrist were abstracted. Patient factors (gender, Axis II pathology, psychosocial circumstances, substance abuse), case factors (psychiatric injury secondary to physical injury, or secondary to psychological stresses), type of provider (mental health, or other), adequacy of evaluation and treatment, forensic psychiatrist's recommendation, and claim outcome were categorized. The relationships between case characteristics, adequacy of care, and claim outcome were described.Results22% of cases had adequate evaluation, 48% superficial, and 30% had no evaluation. 11% had adequate treatment, 67% superficial, and 22% had no treatment. Compared to claims for psychiatric disability related to a physical injury, claims related to psychosocial stresses more often had superficial diagnostic evaluations and treatments. Those with superficial treatment were less likely to have their claim granted (19.3%) than those with no treatment (47.5%) or those with adequate treatment (36.8%). Success of claim was not related to provider type.ConclusionsThe majority of the studied workers with employer-provided health insurance who sought workers' compensation for disability due to mental illness did so inappropriately, in that the workplace did not cause the psychopathology. Their seeking workers' compensation was plausibly due to the observed inadequate evaluation and treatment available through their employer-provided health insurance. The adequacy of their care influenced the likelihood their claim would be granted. The relations observed here merit further research to establish their generality and to determine their causes.     

The Effect of a Standard to Improve Person Descriptions by Children

This study examines whether or not using a person as a standard/comparison improves the ability of a child witness to provide more accurate detail about a previously observed person. Study participants included 135 children who observed a male stranger and were then later asked to describe and answer various questions about that person using a third-person standard/comparison. Despite the fact that one-half of participants were exposed to a standard/comparison, neither participants’ gender or exposure to the standard/comparison improved recollection outcomes. However, the gender of the standard/comparisons - especially where female - did have a significant effect on the recall ability of male participants.     

Family-owned,limited close corporations and protection of ownership

Protected ownership and freedom of contracts are two basic parts of the institutional framework of successful countries according to Douglass North, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1993. The incentives to make long-term investments are strengthened if ownership rights are protected and freedom of contracts is a basic element in the process of efficient allocation of scarce resources. An important engine in prosperous societies is the family firm. Most companies in these societies can be classified as family firms and a major part of GDP is produced by family businesses. Consequently, how ownership is protected in family firms is an important issue.Three important factors of private ownership of property are the rights to determine use of owned assets, the return generated from them and to transfer the assets at mutually agreeable terms to a new owner(s).The incentives of a founder entrepreneur to put efforts into the establishment of a firm are determined by all the three factors. We will here pay special attention to the third factor, transfer of the ownership of the firm. The founder often places contractual restrictions on such transfers to ensure that the structure of ownership is stable and that the firm stays in the family. The possibility to do so is part of the freedom of contracts and is associated with the extent of ownership held as well as the incentives to invest in new businesses.This paper is primarily about how protection of family ownership can be achieved from a legal point of view and discusses the reasons to enforce these legal relationships in the future for second, third, fourth etc. generations of family owners.     

Strafrecht im Wandel

Der Beitrag analysiert die Entwicklung der Strafrechtswissenschaft und der Kriminalpolitik und gibt eine Standortbestimmung des materiellen und formellen Strafrechts sowie des kriminalpolitischen Diskurses heute. Die kritische Bewertung zeigt zugleich Entwicklungslinien für zukünftige Herausforderungen auf.