Online collaboration as a pedagogical approach to learning and teaching undergraduate legal education

Legal education is in a period of rapid development driven by changing industry demands and developing technologies. This paper will describe an innovative pilot study which utilises new technologies to provide an alternative mode of teaching and learning to meet growing industry demands for graduates who are technologically savvy and have strong communication and collaboration skills. The pilot study redesigns a law unit combining a more traditional approach with an approach in which online collaboration is critical to student learning as a teaching and assessment tool. After completing an online collaborative activity as part of their assessment for the unit, students completed an online survey to identify their perspectives of the online collaborative experience. The online survey data was analysed to identify common themes and the experiences of students are shared in this paper. The paper provides an example of how instructors might take advantage of a learning design process, online tools and infrastructure to develop educational experiences which promote communication and collaboration within the law discipline. It will also include five recommendations to consider when including online collaboration in unit design for law students.     

The Process is the Punishment: Criminal Libel and Political Speech in Canada

The number of U.S. states with criminal libel laws has been steadily declining since the 1960s, and the offense has been struck down in the United Kingdom and several former British colonies. In Canada, however, criminal libel not only continues to exist, but appears to be enjoying a resurgence, albeit one that has flown beneath the radar of Canadian lawyers, judges, and journalists, who frequently assert that criminal libel prosecutions are rare. The research reported in this article found more than 400 prosecutions since the beginning of the twenty-first century. While many of these cases were brought against people who disseminated sexual slurs against former romantic partners, in a substantial number of cases criminal libel law was used to punish citizens’ political speech, particularly speech critical of police or other justice system officials, a use wholly inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.     

A prospective study of pathways to hospital readmission in Canadian forensic psychiatric patients

Individuals admitted to secure care often experience lengthy hospitalizations and are likely to be admitted on more than one occasion. In the context of growing demand and costs associated with secure care, the current study investigates the frequency and reasons for readmission among 87 forensic patients recently discharged into the community. We identify risk factors that are associated with the likelihood of readmission and describe areas of overlap and discordance with the existing literature in civil and forensic samples. Using a prospective design that included patient follow-up interviews and records review, we found that 28% of patients were readmitted on one or more occasions over a 12-month period. Psychiatric decompensation, substance use, and treatment non-adherence were the central reasons prompting readmission. Patients with one or more readmissions were found to have spent significantly more time in the forensic mental health system as compared to patients not readmitted. They were more likely to have a substance use disorder and were estimated to be at higher risk for violence. Results replicate the finding of low rates of serious violence and reoffending among discharged forensic patients, and substantiate the centrality of substance use as a growing and clinically important treatment issue.     

Social capital in Scottish and Danish neighbourhoods: paradoxes of a police–community nexus at the front line

Community-oriented social capital strategies and punitive-oriented policing approaches conflict. Establishing local networking initiatives with community-oriented policing at the centre lends itself to an assets-based policing approach, based on honouring, mobilizing and extending the assets of community members. Scholars argue about the need for comparative research on convergences and divergencies across subcultures on the streets and communities. Based on qualitative data gathered from working class communities in Scotland and Denmark in 2014, the article draws inspiration from community-generated theory of social capital to explore the micro-sociology of experiences and understandings about community–police integration policy initiatives. We use this perspective to argue that the building of positive inter-generational and police–community relationships is the result of social exchanges and officers’ use of what we call ‘constructive investment strategies’. Ironically, our insights from Scotland to Denmark also suggest what appear as positive achievements of community policing may instead intensify residents’ negative perceptions of police officers and organizations. In this way, the article illuminates the tangled and conflicted nature of these embedded symbolic interactions, social capital formations and the latter’s form as a potential positional and ‘tribal’ commodity.