Localizing Global Rules: Public Participation in Lawmaking in Vietnam

As the pace of legal harmonization in developing East Asian states increases to comply with international trading treaties, a disjunction is forming between legislative expectations and everyday business practices. Evidence considered in this article suggests that Vietnam is no exception. State control over public discourse favors the interests of business elites, while small-scale entrepreneurs struggle to make their views known. Lawmakers exposed to this asymmetric discourse rarely adjust global legal rules to suit the transactional requirements of small-scale entrepreneurs. As a consequence, the largely imported commercial legislative framework is increasingly reflecting the interests of business elites. The article concludes that for the state to develop a more inclusive regulatory regime, it needs to relax its control over public deliberation and give small-scale entrepreneurs more opportunities to convey local precepts and practices to lawmakers.     

Tackling Voyeurism: Is The Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019 A Wasted Opportunity?

The Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019 amended the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to introduce a new offence that would seek to tackle so‐called ‘upskirting’. Whilst it originated as a Private Members Bill, it was quickly taken over by the Government following a backbench blocking manoeuvre. The Act ostensibly seeks to fill a loophole that exists within the law and to protect the sexual autonomy and inherent dignity of women. Instead, I will argue, the legislation deals with a niche area and is a wasted opportunity. Parliament chose to kick the issue into the long grass, from where it will be difficult to recover, with parliamentary time likely to be scarce over the coming years.     

An analysis of the allocation of judicial resources: The Illinois experience

A qualitative analysis of the annual quantity demanded and quantity supplied of judicial services in each of the 21 circuit courts comprising the court system of the State of Illinois is presented, and resource allocations problems relating to the provision of court services are considered.     

Heroin addiction, crime and economic cost: A critical analysis

The conceptual framework for measuring the economic cost of crime is reviewed. Although this framework is generally accepted, specific applications are shown to contain conceptual errors. In the drug abuse area, where the greatest number of applications have been made, serious misapplications are documented. Because of these conceptual flaws and careless extrapolation of estimates that are hardly more than guesses, the total economic cost of drug-related crime has been greatly overestimated. The result has been to reinforce the policy emphasis on law enforcement and to mislead the public as to the important sources and magnitude of the total economic cost of drug abuse.     

An examination of the role of neuropsychological deficits in mentally disordered sex offenders

Abstract

The present study examines the neuropsychological model of sexual offending proposed by Flor-Henry (1987) in relation to a group of mentally disordered sex offenders and a control group of mentally disordered non-sex offenders. The model predicts that the sex offender group would show specific left fronto-temporal dysfunction as compared with the control group. The results, while in the predicted direction, failed to reach statistical significance. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.