Psychologising Jekyll,Demonising Hyde: The Strange Case of Criminal Responsibility

This paper puts the famous story of Jekyll and Hyde to work for a specific analytic purpose. The question of responsibility for crime, complicated by the divided subjectivity implicit in Mr. Hyde’s appearance, and illuminated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grasp of contemporary psychiatric, evolutionary and medical thought as promising new technologies for effecting a distinction between criminality and innocence, is key to the interest of the story. I argue that Jekyll and Hyde serves as a powerful metaphor both for specifically late Victorian perplexities about criminality and criminal responsibility, and for more persistently troubling questions about the legitimacy of and practical basis for criminalization. A close reading of the story illustrates the complex mix of elements bearing on criminal responsibility-attribution, and—incidentally—helps to explain what is wrong with the influential argument that, by the end of the nineteenth Century, attributions of responsibility in English criminal law already rested primarily and unambiguously on factual findings about the defendant’s state of mind. Far from representing the triumph of a practice of responsibility-attribution grounded in the assessment of whether the defendant’s capacities were fully engaged, I argue that the terrain of mental derangement defences in late nineteenth Century England helps us to understand that longer-standing patterns of moral evaluation of character remained central to the criminal process. And precisely because ‘character’ remained key to the institutional effort to distinguish criminality and innocence, the ‘terror’ of Stevenson’s story resides in its questioning of whether either scientific knowledge or moral evaluation of character can provide a stable basis for attributions of responsibility. In conclusion, I will also suggest that Stevenson’s tale can help us to make sense of the resurgence of overtly ‘character-based’ practices of responsibility attribution in contemporary Britain and the United States, which themselves reflect a renewed crisis of confidence in our ability to effect a ‘dissociation’ between criminality and innocence.     

“Tampering to Death”: A Fatal Codeine Intoxication Due to a Homemade Purification of a Medical Formulation

Many homemade tamper processes of medical codeine formulations are available on selected “forums” on the Internet, where recreational codeine users claim to be able to purify codeine by removing additives, such as acetaminophen, to avoid or limit adverse effects. In this work, it is reported and discussed a fatal case of codeine intoxication. The findings of objects such as jars, filters, and tablets, and amounts of unknown liquid material at the death scene investigation suggested a fatal codeine intoxication after the tampering procedure called “cold water extraction.” Toxicological results obtained from the analysis of both the nonbiological material and the body fluids of the decedent integrated with the information collected at the death scene investigation confirmed the above‐mentioned hypothesis. This report underlines the importance of a tight interconnection between criminalistics and legal medicine to strengthen the identification of the cause of death and the reconstruction of the event.     

Treatment and Intervention for Opiate Dependence in the United Kingdom: Lessons from Triumph and Failure

The history of opiate treatment in the United Kingdom (UK) since the early 1980s is a rich source of learning about the benefits and pitfalls of drug treatment policy. We present five possible lessons to be learnt about how factors outside the clinic, including government, charities and researchers can influence treatment and outcomes. First, do not let a crisis go to waste. The philosophical shift from abstinence to harm reduction in the 1980s, in response to an HIV outbreak in injecting users, facilitated expansion in addiction services and made a harm reduction approach more acceptable. Second, studies of drug-related deaths can lead to advances in care. By elucidating the pattern of mortality, and designing interventions to address the causes, researchers have improved patient safety in certain contexts, though significant investment in Scotland has not arrested rising mortality. Third, collection of longitudinal data and its use to inform clinical guidelines, as pursued from the mid-1990s, can form an enduring evidence base and shape policy, sometimes in unintended ways. Fourth, beware of the presentation of harm reduction and recovery as in conflict. At the least, this reduces patient choice, and at worst, it has caused some services to be redesigned in a manner that jeopardises patient safety. Fifth, the relationship between the third and state sectors must be carefully nurtured. In the UK, early collaboration has been replaced by competition, driven by changes in funding, to the detriment of service provision.     

The Irish Republic – A 'Showpiece of Globalisation'?

Once the 'sick man of Europe', the Irish Republic is now hailed as the 'Celtic Tiger'. Commentators and politicians, both within and outside Ireland, point to the Republic's supposedly dazzling economic success as evidence of how nations can flourish in a globalised world. I question this notion, suggesting that Ireland's improved economic performance is best explained by a combination of factors, which cannot simply be lumped under the term 'globalisation'. Indeed, they seem directly to contradict many of the arguments made in the name of globalisation. However, I also contend that ideas about globalisation may play an increasingly important role in Irish economic developments.     

Galton's Two Papers on Voting as Robust Estimation

The relationship between voting and robust estimation was discussed by Francis Galton in 1907. His two papers in Nature are discussed and reprinted.     

Pulmonary embolization by chorionic villi causing maternal death after a car crash

Throughout the last century, there has been a marked decline in obstetric maternal deaths, resulting in an increase in the proportion of nonobstetric deaths among pregnant women. Trauma, in particular, has become a leading cause of maternal death. We report the case of a 20-year-old primigravid woman who was involved in a motor vehicle crash at 36 weeks gestation. The woman developed abruptio placentae, followed by disseminated intravascular coagulation, adult respiratory distress syndrome, and shock, and died the day after the crash. Widespread pulmonary embolization by chorionic villi was identified at autopsy. This report discusses traumatic maternal deaths, with emphasis on the differences in injury pattern observed in pregnant trauma victims in comparison with other adults. It is important that the pathologist be aware of these problems so that an accurate cause of death can be identified in cases of maternal death after trauma. Also discussed is the relationship between trauma and placental abruption and the mechanism of death in the patient. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first reported case of extensive embolism of chorionic villi to the lungs after trauma.     

Urban commons and freedom of movement The housing struggles of recently arrived migrants in Rome

ABSTRACT

The arrival of migrants on Italian coasts following the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 has led to a multiplication of housing struggles. These struggles are widespread across the country and focus on the occupation of abandoned buildings and their transformation into collective housing spaces to provide an alternative to the formal reception system. This article will focus on the housing struggles in Rome, as the place with the highest number of occupations and the longest tradition of campaigns for the right to housing of migrants in the country. These struggles are the outcome of the encounter of recently arrived migrants with local solidarity movements and build on existing occupation movements and housing struggles. The article explores how the mobilizations over the right to housing intersect with issues such as the social appropriation of urban commons, the regeneration from below of unused areas, freedom of movement, and the contestation of Italian government policies on the relocation of migrants and refugees. The paper argues that housing struggles not only appropriate and regenerate urban commons, but also challenge the reception governance of migration and the policies of border control.