Punishing Cruelly: Punishment, Cruelty, and Mercy

What is cruelty? How and why does it matter? What do the legal rejection of cruelty and the requirements of mercy entail? This essay asks these questions of Lucius Seneca, who first articulated an agent-based conception of cruelty in the context of punishment. The hypothesis is submitted that the answers to these questions offered in Seneca’s De clementia constitute one of the turning points in the evolution of practical reason in law. I conclude, however, by arguing that even the mainstream punitive practices of contemporary western societies fail to meet the modest imperatives of the rejection of cruelty and the unconditionality of mercy propounded by Seneca.     

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.     

Genetic data on 12 STRs (F13A01, F13B,FESFPS, LPL,CSF1PO,TPOX, TH01, vWA,D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, D5S818) from four ethnic groups of São Paulo,Brazil

Allelic frequencies for 12 short tandem repeats (STRs) (F13A01, F13B, FESFPS, LPL, CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317 and D5S818) were estimated, also as forensic parameters, from a sample of 916 unrelated Brazilian subjects classified into four ethnic groups: European-derived, African-derived, Brazilian Mulattos and Asian-derived.     

Vertical transfers and the appropriation of resources by the bureaucracy: the case of Brazilian state governments

The purpose of this study is to explore whether the transfers received by state governments in Brazil are being appropriated by the bureaucracy as wages. The wage differential between the public and private sectors was used as a measure of this appropriation, following the technique for wage decomposition proposed by Oaxaca. Our results show that transfers stimulate appropriation by the bureaucracy, but that private groups existing within the states contend for these resources. The results also indicate that the resources appropriated are distributed uniformly between the various groups composing the bureaucracy.     

Private operation with public supervision: evidence of hybrid modes of governance in prisons

Received theories suggest a possible cost-quality tradeoff when private outsourcing arrangements are used in public services. Using data from Brazilian prisons, our study provides evidence that contradicts this prediction: the prisons not only run at a lower cost, but also show similar or improved performance on a range of quality indicators. The attenuation of the cost-quality dilemma in our context is due to the hybrid management, which allocates control rights to a state-appointed public supervisor. We also discuss conditions in which the public supervisor may refrain from colluding with the private agent, therefore guaranteeing an effective monitoring of service quality.     

Arts marketing framework: The arts organisation as a hub for participation

The proliferation of artistic content, increased mobility of people, ethnic diversification, and increased scarcity of time outside of work against a backdrop of austerity requires an integrated approach to marketing within the arts. This paper proposes a framework for the marketing of arts based on participation, cocreation, and social networks. Additionally, the framework considers the role of self-construal in the participation of arts.     

Counting Portuguese colonial populations, 1776–1875: a research note

In 1776 the Portuguese Crown decreed that statistical population tables were to be compiled in all its overseas possessions. Using a defined model, each governor was to send annually a population count for the area under his jurisdiction. In the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) in Lisbon there are over a thousand statistical population tables from Brazil to Macau. This documentary corpus opens up important horizons for demographic, social and colonial history, though it has been relatively ignored by historians and demographers. These sources enable us to study the demography and the administrative processes adopted in census-taking during the construction of the Portuguese Empire between 1776 and 1875. The following research note emphasizes the distinctive aspects of the sources, the data and its potential, and the research agenda.