Domestic violence case processing: a matter of local legal culture

As one enters a courthouse, its culture is communicated to its listening visitors. The manner in which the security guards speak; the length of time victims are kept waiting; the amount of bail a defendant is assessed; communicate messages to those who are paying attention. Domestic violence cases have long suffered from lenient treatment and dismissals in our criminal courts. This paper examines a unique explanation for this problem: the court’s local legal culture. The elements of two courts’ local legal culture that most profoundly impacted their processing of domestic violence cases are examined. Over a six month period, 23 in depth interviews were conducted with court workgroup members in two courts, one with a specialized domestic violence session and one without. Court room observations were used to supplement these interviews. The results were insightful and telling about how a court’s culture can, at times, be more influential on case processing than the law itself.     

The meaning of “the public interest” in communications policy,part I: Its origins in state and federal regulation

In the United Kingdom, a super-injunction is an interim action that prevents those against whom it is issued and any third parties who have notice of the injunction – including members of the media – from communicating about the subject in question. The media are not allowed to even reference the fact that there is an injunction in place. Often, the proceedings are anonymised, meaning the identities of the applicant and respondent are unknown, with initials replacing names. Super-injunctions and anonymised orders create tension between freedom of the press and privacy and deviate from fundamental principles of open justice. This article examines the role of super-injunctions in English media law, the tension between individual privacy and the need for an open justice system, and the implications of social media sites such as Twitter in the super-injunction process.     

Privacy Remedies and Costs in the UK: Uncertainties in Access and Relief

Due to the global and pervasive nature of the Internet, the increasingly intrusive nature of reporting by tabloids, the high cost of bringing privacy actions, and the difficulty and complexity involved in removing private information from the World Wide Web, privacy costs and remedies are under scrutiny in the United Kingdom. This article examines some of the proposed changes in this area including the availability of injunctions, pre-publication notification, levels of damage awards, opportunities for alternative dispute resolution, conditional fee agreements/success fees, and potential global solutions that may have an impact on the United States. The article argues that due to the nature of privacy claims initiated from information on the Internet, damage fee levels should be increased as well as the use of mediation and conditional fee agreements.     

The Impact of Adult Mortality and Parental Deaths on Primary Schooling in North-Western Tanzania

Mortality of parents and other adults due to the African AIDS epidemic could reduce children's primary schooling by reducing households' ability to pay fees, raising the opportunity cost of children's time, and leaving orphaned children with guardians who care less about their education than would their parents. This study measures the impact of adult deaths and orphan status on primary school attendance and hours spent at school using a panel household survey from north-western Tanzania, an area hard-hit by the AIDS epidemic. Attendance was delayed for maternal orphans and children in poor households with a recent adult death; there was no evidence that children 7-14 dropped out of primary school due to orphan status or adult deaths. However, among children already attending, school hours were significantly lower in the months prior to an adult death in the household and seemed to recover following the death. In addition, girls sharply reduced their hours in school immediately after losing a parent. Improvements in school quality and better access to secondary education would improve outcomes for all children, including those affected by adult AIDS mortality. Beyond that, public policy needs to focus on the special schooling constraints faced by children affected by adult deaths, both in terms of increased opportunity costs of their time and the psychological impacts, with an eye to how they might be mitigated and at what cost.     

Book Notes

Domestic and Foreign Finance in Modern Peru, 1850–1950. By Alfonso W. Quiroz. Oxford: Macmillan in association with St Anthony's College, 1993. Pp.xiv + 297. £45. ISBN 0 333 56565 7.

Out of the Shadows: Women, Resistance and Politics in South America. By Jo Fisher. London: Latin American Bureau, 1993. Pp.228. £17.99 and £7.99. ISBN 0 906156 78 5 and 77 7.

When the Grass is Gone: Development Intervention in African Arid Lands (Seminar Proceedings 25). Edited by P.T.W. Baxter. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1991. Pp.214. SEK 170 (hardback). ISBN 91 71 06318.     

Women and Organized Racial Terrorism in the United States

Racial terrorism—violence perpetrated by organized groups against racial minorities in pursuit of white and Aryan supremacist agendas—has played a significant role in U.S. society and politics. Women have been important actors in much of this violence. This article examines women's involvement in racial terrorism from the immediate post-Civil War period to the present. Although organized racial violence by women has increased over time, this trend may not continue. The strategic directions and tactical choices of Aryan and white supremacist groups are likely to alter the extent and nature of women's involvement in racial terrorism in the future.     

The South Asian revolutionary potential

Abstract

When India, Pakistan and Ceylon gained home rule more than two decades ago, their leaders set forth certain goals for their futures. Among them were control of their own political and economic destinies, increased productivity and improvements in livelihood, education and health, mixed private and state-planned economies, some cooperative institutions of production and distribution, and movement toward socio-economic equality. Land reform and industrial development were central to these goals. All three nations were to be western-style party democracies with progressively broadening franchise in elections at national, provincial and local levels.     

Actor Fragmentation and Civil War Bargaining: How Internal Divisions Generate Civil Conflict

Wars within states have become much more common than wars between them. A dominant approach to understanding civil war assumes that opposition movements are unitary, when empirically, most of them are not. I develop a theory for how internal divisions within opposition movements affect their ability to bargain with the state and avoid conflict. I argue that more divided movements generate greater commitment and information problems, thus making civil war more likely. I test this expectation using new annual data on the internal structure of opposition movements seeking self‐determination. I find that more divided movements are much more likely to experience civil war onset and incidence. This analysis suggests that the assumption that these movements are unitary has severely limited our understanding of when these disputes degenerate into civil wars.