Governance of the Amman water utility

In 1993 the World Bank assisted the Ministry of Water and Irrigation of Jordan in updating a review of the water sector, and thus began the process of Private Sector Participation (PSP) in service provision to improve the efficiency of the water sector and wastewater services. In this article, the privatisation of water and wastewater services is examined from the perspectives of stakeholders (input) and consumers (output). The goal is to assess the changes that have been taking place to date in relation to the principles of good governance. The results from interviews with stakeholders and from consumer questionnaires show that the privatisation process has to date shown only a few signs of ‘good’ governance. Despite the range of stakeholders involved, the state remains responsible for designing a good-governance approach that is responsive to the concerns and interests of all stakeholders.     

Beyond Confinement: The Regulation of Girl Offenders’ Bodies,Sexual Choices,and Behavior

Throughout transformations in juvenile justice, control over girls’ bodies, sexual behavior, and reproductive choices has remained a constant focal point among decision makers, with girls infrequently charged with serious law violations and commonly judged in terms of their moral welfare and chasteness. Using interview data with 62 court and correctional decision makers, this article examines how the contemporary juvenile justice system responds to girls’ sexual behavior and explores the policies and procedures used to restrain sexual agency and reproductive choices, both physically and cognitively. This article also investigates the penalties enforced when girls resist such controls as well as intentions toward change and reform in the system.     

Nitrate and Nitrite Determination in Gunshot Residue Samples by Capillary Electrophoresis in Acidic Run Buffer,

Simultaneous determination of nitrate and nitrite in gunshot residue has been conducted by capillary electrophoresis using an acidic run buffer (pH 3.5). In previously developed capillary electrophoretic methods, alkaline pH separation buffers were used where nitrite and nitrate possess similar electrophoretic mobility. In this study, the electroosmotic flow has been reversed by using low pH running buffer without any additives. As a result of reversing the electroosmotic flow, very fast analysis has been actualized, well‐defined and separated ion peaks emerge in less than 4 min. Besides, the limit of detection was improved by employing large volume sample stacking. Limit of detection values were 6.7 and 4.3 μM for nitrate and nitrite, respectively. In traditional procedure, mechanical agitation is employed for extraction, while in this work the extraction efficiency of ultrasound mixing for 30 min was found sufficient. The proposed method was successfully applied to authentic gunshot residue samples.     

Trichobezoar in Vagina: Assessment for Child Sexual Abuse and Diagnostic Result of Forensic Science

Vaginal discharge and bleeding in children require a through and thoughtful evaluation to diagnose the underlying problem including infections, sexual abuse, and vaginal foreign bodies. We report a 6‐year‐old girl presenting with bloody vaginal discharge, carefully evaluated for sexual abuse, and finally diagnosed as a vaginal foreign body after vaginoscopy. A rolling hair ball was extracted from the vagina and was diagnosed as trichobezoar pathologically without any endo–ecto‐mesodermal residual tissue. The hair ball was genetically detected and diagnosed to belong herself by containing no foreign structure. Child sexual abuse was ruled out by forensic interview at CAC and report of forensic science that reported genetic structure belonging to the child. Medicolegal assessment helped in final diagnosis to exclude child sexual abuse.     

Mitigation Evidence and the Ethical Role of a Defense Attorney in a Capital Case

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia. This landmark case changed the death penalty in the United States. In Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Supreme Court made it clear that mitigating factors were to be heard before sentencing to ensure individualized sentencing. Every defendant has a story, a family, a childhood, trauma, and celebration—a reason their life should be spared from execution. In a capital case, a defense attorney’s ethical role is to craft that story and articulate it in a way that enables the jury to have a complete picture of the defendant’s background and character as they decide his punishment. Mitigating factors are not an excuse for the defendant’s behavior, but rather an insight into who the defendant is and what has shaped his life. A defense attorney’s ethical duty in a capital case is to argue the case on all legal points and to present a thorough investigation of mitigating evidence. A thorough investigation of all such evidence is required by case law and explained by the standards set forth by the ABA guidelines.     

Routine Activities and Proactive Police Activity: A Macro-scale Analysis of Police Searches in London and New York City

This paper explored how city-level changes in routine activities were associated with changes in frequencies of police searches using six years of police records from the London Metropolitan Police Service and the New York City Police Department. Routine activities were operationalised through selecting events that potentially impacted on (a) the street population, (b) the frequency of crime or (c) the level of police activity. OLS regression results indicated that routine activity variables (e.g. day of the week, periods of high demand for police service) can explain a large proportion of the variance in search frequency throughout the year. A complex set of results emerged, revealing cross-national dissimilarities and the differential impact of certain activities (e.g. public holidays). Importantly, temporal frequencies in searches are not reducible to associations between searches and recorded street crime, nor changes in on-street population. Based on the routine activity approach, a theoretical police-action model is proposed.     

Living victims of strangulation: a 10-year review of cases in a metropolitan community

The prevalence of reported domestic violence or intimate partner violence has greatly increased, with approximately 1.5 million women violently assaulted annually in the United States by an intimate partner. Strangulation is often seen in violence against women, including domestic violence cases. Strangulation is defined as "a form of asphyxia characterized by closure of the blood vessels or air passages of the neck as a result of external pressure on the neck." This is a 10-year case review of 102 living victims of strangulation who underwent medicolegal evaluation at the Clinical Forensic Medicine Program at a State Medical Examiner's Office serving Southern Indiana and all of Kentucky. The majority of victims (79%) were strangled by an intimate partner, and manual strangulation was the most common method (83%). A total of 38 victims (38%) described a history of domestic violence, and the same number lost consciousness while being strangled. Nine (9%) women were pregnant at the time of the attack, while 13 (13%) had a history of being sexually abused in addition to being strangled. A paucity of cases involved only strangulation, as most of the victims were subjected to myriad forms of blunt force trauma which included not only the head and neck but also other bodily regions. This is a unique presentation of strangulation of living persons as most evidence of strangulation in the forensic literature has been derived from postmortem examinations of the victims. This comprehensive study discussing the examination of a living strangulation victim offers valuable insight into the mechanism and the physical findings involved in the strangulation process.     

Making the Case for Socio‐legal Research in Land Law: Renner and the Law of Mortgage

The aim of this article is to enhance knowledge of and to encourage further research into two areas not traditionally the subject of socio‐legal research, namely, the work of Karl Renner and the English law of mortgage, for three reasons. First, an account of them supports the proposition that a true understanding of law requires knowledge of its origins, content, and function. Second, Renner's theory can contribute significantly to our understanding of law by offering an alternative to the polarized debate between legal autopoiesis and other sociological conceptions of law. Third, it has much to tell us about the relationship between legal and social change. In particular, Renner's work suggests that those seeking legal reform should look not to the legislature, but to those capable of influencing its ‘social function’. Those frustrated by the lack of doctrinal reform within the law of mortgage can take heart, therefore, from the continual process of change evident in its social function. Ultimately, however, further socio‐legal research is required, for a more developed understanding of the law of mortgage.     

Do cities influence co-offending?

The nexus between urbanity and crime is interpreted as being congruent with either social breakdown or subculture theory. Each of these perspectives offers differing conceptualizations of the causal mechanisms responsible for this linkage, but adjudicating between them has proven exceedingly difficult because their respective predictions are similar. Each theory posits that an urban environment amplifies criminal activity. Using data derived from the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), this study contributes to the literature by investigating whether urbanization influences co-offending behavior. The determination of whether urbanity affects co-offending has theoretical relevance because social breakdown theory argues that urbanity produces interpersonal estrangement that impedes the development of friendship networks needed to facilitate group-based criminal offending. Conversely, subculture theory postulates that an urban environment propagates deviant subcultures that act to engender group-based rather than individualist criminality. Multivariate regression results furnish evidence supporting social breakdown theory by demonstrating that urbanity decreases co-offending behavior.     

EMPOWERMENT,INNOVATION, AND SERVICE: LAW SCHOOL PROGRAMS PROVIDE ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND INSTILL A COMMITMENT TO SERVE

Law schools around the country seek to fill the legal needs of their communities in ways that are both innovative and mutually beneficial to clients and students. This article describes five pro bono and clinical programs, at the University of Richmond School of Law, The Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, Catholic University Columbus School of Law, the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and Vermont Law School, where law students, under the supervision of law professors or community professionals, provide assistance or legal representation to underserved and often marginalized populations needing help with family law problems, including parents accused of abuse and neglect, youth aging out of foster care, homeless families, survivors of domestic violence, homeless veterans with addiction problems, and female prisoners. To develop their programs, the five law schools from the outset collaborated with partners in the community, and they continue to do so as their programs expand and evolve. In addition to helping and empowering clients, these law schools are providing experiential learning opportunities that are transformative for their students. The authors hope that these programs will be instructive for law schools, other academic institutions, the legal community, and community organizations in developing creative collaborations to ensure better access to justice.