New Perspectives from the Oldest Profession: Abuse and the Legal Consciousness of Sex Workers in China

Although prostitution is illegal, millions of women sell sex in China. In the process, they experience significant abuse and harm at the hands of clients, madams, pimps, the police, and health officials. This article examines the legal consciousness of Chinese sex workers through their interpretations of these abusive experiences. It reveals how they think and talk about them, and how their reactions sometimes translate into concrete actions. My evidence shows that sex workers name abuse as harmful, blame others for it, and occasionally make claims. They also have strong opinions about prostitution policies, and the relationship between these regulations and their experiences of abuse. These findings place scope conditions on previous theories of marginalized people and the law, which suggest that powerless individuals perceive a more peripheral role of the law in their lives. In addition, this evidence enriches our understanding of legal consciousness in China by showing how debates around the concept apply more broadly than previously recognized.     

Forensic Identification of Seal Oils Using Lipid Profiles and Statistical Models

Seal blubber oils are used as a source of omega‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in Canada but prohibited in the United States and (FA) European Union. Thus, a reliable method is needed to identify oils originating from seals versus fish. Two lipid profiling methods, fatty acid analysis using gas chromatography and triacylglycerol (TAG) analysis using liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, were applied with statistical models to discriminate commercial oils and blubber samples harvested from marine fish and seals. Significant differences were observed among FA profiles, and seal samples differed from each of the fish oils (p ≤ 0.001). FA and TAG profiles were used to discriminate sample groups using a random forest classifier; all samples were classified correctly as seals versus fish using both methods. We propose a two‐step method for the accurate identification of seal oils, with preliminary identification based on FA profile analysis and confirmation with TAG profiles.     

Systemic Self-Regulation: A Framework for Trauma-Informed Services in Residential Juvenile Justice Programs

Most youth detained in juvenile justice facilities have extensive histories of exposure to psychological trauma. Traumatic stress plays a key role in their mental health and behavioral problems and needs, and in their safety and rehabilitation and the security and effectiveness of detention facilities. We provide an overview of the barriers to successful provision of mental health services for youths in juvenile justice facilities, including those involving youth, parents, and juvenile justice residential facility staff and administrators. Next, we discuss the relevance and potential utility of approaching mental health needs using posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and more broadly posttraumatic dysregulation, as an organizing framework. Examples of how a posttraumatic dysregulation perspective can enhance juvenile justice residential facility milieus and services are presented, with an overview of traumatic stress intervention models that have shown promise, or potentially could be deployed, in developing and sustaining trauma-informed juvenile justice facilities.     

Commercial speech and off-label drug uses: what role for wide acceptance, general recognition and research incentives?

This article provides an overview of how the constitutional protections for commercial speech affect the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulation of drugs, and the emerging issues about the scope of these protections. A federal district court has already found that commercial speech allows manufacturers to distribute reprints of medical articles about a new off-label use of a drug as long as it contains disclosures to prevent deception and to inform readers about the lack of FDA review. This paper summarizes the current agency guidance that accepts the manufacturer's distribution of reprints with disclosures. Allergan, the maker of Botox, recently maintained in a lawsuit that the First Amendment permits drug companies to provide "truthful information" to doctors about "widely accepted" off-label uses of a drug. While the case was settled as part of a fraud and abuse case on other grounds, extending constitutional protections generally to "widely accepted" uses is not warranted, especially if it covers the use of a drug for a new purpose that needs more proof of efficacy, and that can involve substantial risks. A health law academic pointed out in an article examining a fraud and abuse case that off-label use of drugs is common, and that practitioners may lack adequate dosage information about the off-label uses. Drug companies may obtain approval of a drug for a narrow use, such as for a specific type of pain, but practitioners use the drug for similar uses based on their experience. The writer maintained that a controlled study may not be necessary to establish efficacy for an expanded use of a drug for pain. Even if this is the case, as discussed below in this paper, added safety risks may exist if the expansion covers a longer period of time and use by a wider number of patients. The protections for commercial speech should not be extended to allow manufacturers to distribute information about practitioner use with a disclosure about the lack of FDA approval. Distributions of information about unapproved uses should not be acceptable unless experts consider the expanded use to be generally recognized as safe and effective based on adequate studies. The last part of this paper considers the need to develop better research incentives to encourage more testing and post-market risk surveillance by drug makers on off-label uses of their drugs. Violations of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) can be considered violations of the False Claims Act, which opens the way to fraud and abuse suits. The scale of penalties involved in these suits may lead to more examination of the scope of FDA regulation and commercial speech protections. Thus this symposium's consideration of these issues is timely and important.     

Competing Ontologies: A Primer for Public Administration

A growing number of public administration theorists are taking up the question of ontology—the nature of existence. This primer on the topic provides a basic explanation of ontology, describes the fundamental debates in the competing ontologies of Western philosophy, and discusses why ontology is important to social and political theory, as well as to public administration theory and practice. Using an ideal‐type approach, the author analyzes how different ontologies imply particular political forms that undergird public administration theories and practices. This ideal‐type model can be used to identify the ontological assumptions in these theories and practices. The article concludes with an invitation for personal reflection on the part of scholars and practitioners in regard to which ontology best fits their experience and beliefs and the alternatives that we might pursue for a better future.     

Detecting Spillover Effects: Design and Analysis of Multilevel Experiments

Interpersonal communication presents a methodological challenge and a research opportunity for researchers involved in field experiments. The challenge is that communication among subjects blurs the line between treatment and control conditions. When treatment effects are transmitted from subject to subject, the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA) is violated, and comparison of treatment and control outcomes may provide a biased assessment of the treatment’s causal influence. Social scientists are increasingly interested in the substantive phenomena that lead to SUTVA violations, such as communication in advance of an election. Experimental designs that gauge SUTVA violations provide useful insights into the extent and influence of interpersonal communication. This article illustrates the value of one such design, a multilevel experiment in which treatments are randomly assigned to individuals and varying proportions of their neighbors. After describing the theoretical and statistical underpinnings of this design, we apply it to a large‐scale voter‐mobilization experiment conducted in Chicago during a special election in 2009 using social‐pressure mailings that highlight individual electoral participation. We find some evidence of within‐household spillovers but no evidence of spillovers across households. We conclude by discussing how multilevel designs might be employed in other substantive domains, such as the study of deterrence and policy diffusion.