Intimate partner violence against women. Does violence decrease after the entry of the alleged offender into the criminal justice system?

Intimate partner violence(IPV)is simultaneously assumed as a serious crime and a major public health issue,having recurrences as one of its main characteristics and,consequently,re-entries of some alleged offenders in the criminal justice system(CJS).The main goal of this study is to assess if in cases of female victims of IPV,violence decreases after the first entry of the alleged offender in the CJS.A retrospective study was performed based on the analysis of police reports of alleged cases of IPV during a 4-year period.The final sample(n=1488)was divided into two groups according to the number of entries in the CJS(single or multiple)followed by a comparative approach.Results suggest that violence decreases after the first entry of alleged offenders in the CJS.Re-entries were found in only 15.5%of the cases but they were accountable for 3.3 times more crimes on average.Besides,victims of recidivism presented more injuries and required more medical care.Thus,a small group of alleged offenders seems to be more violent and accountable for most of the IPV crimes registered in the CJS suggesting that regardless of legal sanctions aiming to deter violence,these measures may not be enough for a certain group of offenders.This study sustains the need for a predictive model to quantify the risk of repeated IPV cases within the Portuguese population.     

The Empirical Analysis of Merger Remedies＇ Influence on Prices in Russia

One of the most important instruments of antitrust regulation in Russia becomes behavioral merger remedies. At the same time, price requirements account for an essential part of such remedies. The issuance of remedies is expected to restrict price increase and, simultaneously, protect consumers from the welfare decrease. On the other hand, however, price remedies may produce a negative effect at the price level. This article explores how behavioral merger remedies of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation affect the price level. The main assumption implies that issuance of price remedies by antimonopoly authority may cause downward price rigidity as a result of ratchet effect or tacit collusion. The article includes analysis of 11 mergers with behavioral remedies during the period of 2006-2010 and price dynamics for 14 products. In the course of the research the hypothesis that the issuance of price remedies brought about downward price rigidity was not confirmed.     

Homicides involving Black victims are less likely to be cleared in the United States

Does a victim's race explain variation in the likelihood of homicide clearance? Attempts to address this issue date back to the 1970s. Yet, despite its theoretical and policy relevance, we lack a comprehensive and clear empirical answer to this critical question. Here, I causally focus on this problem by investigating racial disparity in homicide clearance in the United States, exploiting two sources covering the 1991–2020 period: the Murder Accountability Project data set (N = 522,278) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System data set (N = 98,677). I primarily analyze these sources by employing exact matching to achieve perfect covariate balance and subsequently isolate the effect of race on the probability of clearance. For comparative purposes, I also use regression adjustment without matching obtaining complementary estimates. I demonstrate that the likelihood of clearance is 3.4 to 4.8 percent lower for homicides involving Black victims, depending on the sampling and estimation approach. In addition, I empirically show that this race effect is slightly higher for males and that racial disparity has moderately but significantly increased over time. These findings contribute to the extensive amount of evidence on discrimination affecting Black individuals in the administration of justice in the United States, calling for structural efforts to reduce this divide.     

The post-Lisbon high representatives: an introduction

ABSTRACT

The Lisbon Treaty recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. The 2009 legal text was an attempt to enhance the unity, consistency and effectiveness of the EU’s action in an increasingly volatile world. And yet, the post-Lisbon time period has been characterised by multiple crises coming from the West, the East, the South, and even from within the EU. Against this backdrop, our Special Issue makes a systematic assessment of the EU's foreign policy post-Lisbon and of its evolution by focusing on the role of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP). Assessing the post-Lisbon HR/VPs provides important insights on EU foreign policy processes over the past decade. In this introduction, we discuss the three research questions that guide our collection of articles, as well as our theoretical and empirical contribution to existing scholarly literature.     

The dynamics of federalism,subnational markets and trade policy-making in Canada and the US

Preferential trade agreements are now the dominant trend in the international trading regime. Unlike earlier ‘first generation’ agreements, the new agreements became more comprehensive in their coverage, impinging on areas that are subject to subnational jurisdiction of federal systems. Given constitutionally-prescribed competences allocated to subnational governments, the diversity of interests and sensitivities of subnational entities bring deeply entrenched regulatory practices under scrutiny. Few studies have focused on whether the combination of economic liberalization and political fragmentation will push federal and sub-federal entities to address domestic market fragmentation. We examine whether international market liberalization fosters domestic regulatory and structural reforms to cross-border barriers to trade in Canada and the United States. We show that while the political incentives and functional pressures generated by free trade agreements have fostered attempts at addressing internal market restrictions in Canada, the US has not followed the same path due to weaker mechanisms of intergovernmental coordination.     

Forensic age estimation on digital X-ray images: Medial epiphyses of the clavicle and first rib ossification in relation to chronological age

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in forensic sciences about forensic age estimation in living subjects by means of radiological methods. This research was conducted on digital thorax X-rays to test the usefulness of some radiological changes in the clavicle and first rib. The sample consisted in a total of 123 subjects of Spanish origin (61 men and 62 women; age range: 5-75 years). From all subjects, a thorax posterior-anterior radiograph was obtained in digital format. Scoring for fusion of medial epiphyses of the clavicle was carried out by Schmeling's system and ossification of the costal cartilage of the first rib by Michelson's system. Degree of ossification and epiphyseal fusion were analyzed in relation with known age and sex of these subjects. The results give a minimum age of >20 years for full fusion of the medial epiphysis of the clavicle (Stages 4 and 5). Concerning the first rib, all subjects with the final Stage 3 of ossification were above 25 years of age. These results suggest that the first rib ossification might become an additional method to the ones so far recommended for forensic age estimation in subjects around 21. New research would be desirable to confirm this suggestion.     

Entomotoxicology, experimental set-up and interpretation for forensic toxicologists

Forensic entomotoxicology studies the usefulness of insects as alternative toxicological samples. Use of insects as alternative matrix for drug detection is well documented and recommended when conventional matrices such as blood, urine or internal organs are no longer available. However, several limitations of entomotoxicology have been highlighted, especially concerning interpretation of the drug concentrations in insects on human forensic cases. In addition, the lack of knowledge in pharmacokinetic of drugs in insects, large variability of experimental set-up and toxicological analysis compromise the utility of this science. This review focuses on the current knowledge of factors influencing drug detection in insects. Reasons for the current limitations, but also recommendations for future research are discussed and proposed in this paper.     

Unmarried mothers in Ireland, 1880-1973

This article explores the changing experiences and representation of Ireland's unmarried mothers from 1880 to 1973. It focuses on the stigma of illegitimacy in political and cultural discourse and the representation of unmarried mothers as immoral and their children as a drain on resources. These remained constant themes within the discourse of unmarried motherhood in Ireland throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article uses the records of philanthropic, government and religious organisations to chart the rising interest in the moral reformation of unmarried mothers at the end of the nineteenth century and rising tolerance towards them by the end of the twentieth century.     

Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: a systematic and meta-analytic review

This article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs in schools. Studies were included if they evaluated the effects of an anti-bullying program by comparing an intervention group who received the program with a control group who did not. Four types of research design were included: a) randomized experiments, b) intervention-control comparisons with before-and-after measures of bullying, c) other intervention-control comparisons, and d) age-cohort designs. Both published and unpublished reports were included. All volumes of 35 journals from 1983 up to the end of May 2009 were hand-searched, as were 18 electronic databases. Reports in languages other than English were also included. A total of 622 reports concerned with bullying prevention were found, and 89 of these reports (describing 53 different program evaluations) were included in our review. Of the 53 different program evaluations, 44 provided data that permitted the calculation of an effect size for bullying or victimization. The meta-analysis of these 44 evaluations showed that, overall, school-based anti-bullying programs are effective: on average, bullying decreased by 20–23% and victimization decreased by 17–20%. Program elements and intervention components that were associated with a decrease in bullying and victimization were identified, based on feedback from researchers about the coding of 40 out of 44 programs. More intensive programs were more effective, as were programs including parent meetings, firm disciplinary methods, and improved playground supervision. Work with peers was associated with an increase in victimization. It is concluded that the time is ripe to mount a new program of research on the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs based on these findings.