Sex offender legislation in the United States: what do we know?

In the United States there has been increased public pressure to create legislation to monitor and confine sex offenders. However, to date, there has been very little empirical evidence suggesting that these laws are effective in preventing future recidivism. This article reviews the current trends in sex offender legislation, including mandatory sentencing, civil commitment, community notification, monitoring, and supervision and the impact these policies may have on sex offender recidivism and treatment.     

Attributions in a Hypothetical Child Sexual Abuse Case: Roles of Abuse Type,Family Response and Respondent Gender

The present study examines the impact abuse type, family response, and respondent gender have on attributions of blame in a hypothetical child sexual abuse (CSA) case. Three hundred and ninety three respondents read a hypothetical CSA scenario describing the sexual assault of a 14 year old girl by a 25-year-old man and completed 14 attribution items. Overall, the assault was deemed more serious, the perpetrator more culpable, and the family less culpable when CSA involved (vaginal) penetration. Contrary to expectations, respondents were more negative towards a family who denied the abuse took place versus one which blamed or supported the victim. Finally, male respondents deemed the abuse to be less serious, were more negative towards the victim and their families, and more positive towards perpetrators than were female respondents. The role these factors play in CSA attributions, together with ideas for future research, are discussed.

Whose life is it anyway?

In this article, I discuss the way in which I am using reflection as an integral part of my research into the experiences of Jewish women teachers of European descent in non-denominational secondary schools in England. I acknowledge that through reflection on my role as a researcher I am learning and developing as the research proceeds and I use adaptations of the Johari Window (The Open University, 1995) to analyse the nature of the interviews for myself and the participants both in terms of our personal engagement in the process and the process itself. The second half of the article considers ways in which the interview process could be seen to be affecting both my own life and that of the participants. I deal with several issues which are concerning me as indicated by the title. I explore whose life is being researched—mine or my informants—and the issues concerning the implications for me as a feminist insider-researcher making use of (some would say exploiting) other people's lives, words and experiences.     

No-Fault for Motor Vehicles: An Economic Analysis

This article compares incentives and efficiency under the puretort system (the comparative negligence rule) to those underpure and mixed no-fault systems. Under no-fault systems, driversare allowed to opt out of no-fault and file lawsuits if theirdamages exceed a certain threshold. We find that no single liabilitysystem always dominates on efficiency grounds, but the puretort system does best when costs of care are low, and pure no-faultdoes best when costs of care are high. Choice systems, in whichdrivers choose between no-fault or pure tort systems, lead toless efficient results because drivers choose the pure tortrule too often.     

Enhancing accurate data collection in mass fatality kinship identifications: Lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina

A mass fatality DNA identification effort is a complex process in which direct matching and kinship analysis is used for identifying human remains. Kinship DNA identification is an important tool in the identification process in which victim's DNA profiles are compared to the profiles of “known” biologically related reference samples. Experience from the 9/11 World Trade Center DNA identification efforts showed that forms used to record biological relationships are important and that inaccurately documented information may hamper the kinship analysis and DNA identification process. In the identification efforts following Hurricane Katrina, a Family and/or Donor Reference Collection (FDRC) form was used as a means to document the reported relationship between the reference DNA donor and the purported missing individual. This FDRC form was developed based upon lessons learned from 9/11 and the Tsunami identification efforts. This paper analyses the effectiveness of the FDRC form used in the Hurricane Katrina kinship DNA identification efforts and proposes an improved sample collection form for kinship and other donor reference samples. The data presented can be used to enhance the accuracy of the data collection process through an improved sample collection form, streamlining the DNA kinship identification process and decreasing the burden on valuable resources.     

Norm shifting from EMP to ENP: the EU as a norm entrepreneur in the south?

This article focuses on the normative dimensions of European Union (EU) policy on the Mediterranean which, it is argued, give rise to a number of dilemmas and challenges. First, it scrutinizes the core raison d'être behind the EU's regionalist strategy within the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) context. Second, since it purportedly supplements the EMP, the article examines the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and its associated normative bilateral basis. In doing so, the article attempts to raise a number of broad questions about the nature, purpose and underlying logic of regional integration, the role of norms in international relations, and the changing nature of foreign policy. It is argued that EU endeavours at enhanced relations with southern partners point to the pursuit of a dual strategy: the identification of the EU as a ‘normative power’, on the one hand, and the attainment of political and economic interests, on the other. The challenges of this pursuit may in turn explain some of the main dilemmas facing EU–Mediterranean relations.     

Adjudicating the Market

The true governance challenge within Europe remains the resolution of conflict within the Internal Market and the identification of efficacious solutions, to its regulatory and redistributive problems. Absent the legitimising sovereign power once furnished by the national constitutional settlement and without recourse to a pre-political principle of pluralist self-limitation, Europe's law must supply a pluralist and contested internal market polity with authoritative adjudication on the meaning and content of institutions of market governance, including 'law' itself. In the endeavour to 'socialise the market', or to re-establish the determinative links between society, politics, and the market place caste asunder by a rationalising process of European economic integration, Europe's law is seemingly returning—via judicial dialogue between national and European courtrooms—to the ancient legal grammar and semantics of 'reasonableness' and 'equity'. Such an adjudicative return serves: (i) the processing of reasonable pluralism within the market in the light of deliberative values: and (ii), the re-establishment and maintenance of the law's factual (non-natural), logical (internally coherent and impartial) and moral (real-world) legitimacy.     

Drug testing sworn law enforcement officers: One agency's experience

The use of drug testing to detect drug use and to screen prospective employees has become commonplace in many occupations, both in the public and private sector. Due to the sensitive nature of their duties, drug testing in law enforcement agencies has become nearly universal, especially as a tool to screen applicants. Despite the fact that many large agencies routinely use drug testing, relatively little is known about the rate at which officers test positive for drug use, characteristics of officers who test positive, nor the drug of choice among currently employed sworn law enforcement personnel. The purpose of this article is to discuss various issues related to drug testing in the workplace and to explore one agency's experience with randomized drug testing of its sworn officers.