Judging capacity: paternalism and the risk-related standard

There is a strong academic and medical consensus on judging patients' decision-making capacity in accordance with the seriousness of consequent risks, and this is supported in certain areas of the law. Supporters of the risk-related standard perceive an asymmetry between the level of capacity required for consent to a treatment, and the level required to competently refuse the treatment, particularly if the probable outcome of refusal is death. Despite the intuitive appeal of the risk-related standard, its opponents propose that when the risks of treatment or treatment-refusal are high, we should not require a higher standard of capacity, but be scrupulous in ensuring that a procedural standard is observed. This article considers both standards, from the point of view of the persons, interests and principles which ethics and the law seek to protect. It argues that a risk-related standard is incoherent, that a rigorously applied procedural standard will minimise paternalistic medical interventions, and that this should be reflected in the law.     

Managing incidental findings in human subjects research: analysis and recommendations.

No consensus yet exists on how to handle incidental findings (IFs) in human subjects research. Yet empirical studies document IFs in a wide range of research studies, where IFs are findings beyond the aims of the study that are of potential health or reproductive importance to the individual research participant. This paper reports recommendations of a two-year project group funded by NIH to study how to manage IFs in genetic and genomic research, as well as imaging research. We conclude that researchers have an obligation to address the possibility of discovering IFs in their protocol and communications with the IRB, and in their consent forms and communications with research participants. Researchers should establish a pathway for handling IFs and communicate that to the IRB and research participants. We recommend a pathway and categorize IFs into those that must be disclosed to research participants, those that may be disclosed, and those that should not be disclosed.     

Opening the Mexican political system: Public opinion and the elections of 1994 and 1997

Over the past decade, the proliferation of election surveys has worked to undergird the electoral system in Mexico and to make electoral fraud more difficult. In the presidential elections of 1994, significant controversies arose as to survey methodologies, but by the congressional elections of 1997 the fierce debates over methodologies had subsided. Substantively, the surveys confirm the accuracy of the vote count in 1998, allow profiles of voters to be constructed for the three most important parties and mark declines in the support of the once dominant Partido Revolucionario Institucional.     

'Failed Sociologists' in the Market Place: Law Schools in Australia

This paper traces the stunted evolution of Australian law faculties from 'trade schools' to liberal law schools. Higher education funding cuts and increased accountability to a government that is throwing the universities onto the competition of the market now combine with the traditional influence of a conservative profession to put Australian law schools in a precarious position. We argue that Australian law schools should transform themselves by embracing the contradictory position they inhabit, and using it to develop a broader concept of the legal knowledge they pass on and the legal practice for which they prepare their students.     

Does Perceived Injury Explain the Effects of Gender on Attributions of Blame for Intimate Partner Violence? A Factorial Vignette Analysis

Perpetrator and victim gender influence how blame is assigned in intimate partner violence (IPV) scenarios. Although men’s differential capacity to inflict and sustain harm is posited as the reason male perpetrators and victims receive more blame for IPV, it is possible that other aspects of the construct of gender, such as gender role beliefs, underscore these effects. Using a sample of 323 college students and a factorial vignette design that varied body sizes and genders of victims and perpetrators, we examined the extent to which perceptions of physical injury accounted for the effects of perpetrator and victim gender on blame attributions, and whether adherence to traditional gender roles moderated any influences of gender unassociated with perceived injury. For female perpetrators, participants estimated lower levels of perceived injury and greater victim blame, with the former effect predominantly accounting for the latter. Male victims were viewed as less injured and more blameworthy, but the latter finding was not predominantly driven by injury perceptions. Perceived physical injury also did not account for why females perpetrating against males were blamed least. Controlling for differences in perceived injury, those holding more traditional gender views blamed victims of female violence more than victims of male-perpetrated violence. Notably, variations in body physical size were not associated with injury perceptions or blame attributions. These findings overall suggest that gender does influence blame attributions by way of perceived physical injury, but other aspects of the construct of gender are also relevant to these evaluations.

     

Understanding Green Card Marriage Fraud by Malgorzata Zuber

Crime, Law and Social Change -     

Reducing Crime Through Environmental Design: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Street Lighting in New York City

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - This paper offers novel experimental evidence that violent crimes can be successfully reduced by changing the situational environment that potential victims...