Moral authority in law and criminal justice: Some reflections on Wilson's The Moral Sense

William H. Simon, The Practice of Justice: A Theory of Lawyers’ Ethics Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, viii + 253 pp.     

The Many Faces of Accountability: Comparing Reforms in Welfare,Hospitals and Migration

Welfare reforms involve trade‐off between different accountability types, such as political, administrative, legal and social accountability. This variety of accountability types is used to investigate consequences of reforms in three different welfare services in Norway; social services, hospitals and immigration. The study finds that more complex, dynamic and layered accountability forms are emerging, but that there are some differences across reform areas. The reforms in immigration seem to change accountability relations the most in hospitals, administrative and political accountability is up against professional accountability, and we see that politicians lack overall capacity and have to rely on administrative accountability in social services. In order to analyze how reforms affect accountability relations one has to study both the formal and informal changes, as well as the relationship between politics and professionalism.     

The Marine Bill: An Overview and Some Thoughts

This paper examines the Marine and Coastal Access Bill as it was tabled on 8th December 2008. It explores the failure of the Bill to include marine protection of over 3,000,000 km² of the waters associated with overseas territories and Crown dependencies. It explains the necessity for close liaison with the European Commission and with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, where responsibility for marine governance is not clear cut. It expresses some disappointment in the failure of the Bill to cover questions of ownership of marine resources in particular the right to fish, which remains held under ancient and flawed common law rules. The paper then investigates the content of the Bill, looking at the role and functions of the Marine Management Organisation including licensing of fishing vessels, wind farm consenting/creation of safety zones, consents under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, research, advice, assistance, training, and prosecutions. The Bill also establishes a framework for marine planning with potential for the creation of marine plans and marine policy statements covering the waters of England and Wales to the edge of the UK Exclusive Economic Zone. Such plans and statements will have persuasive effects on the organisations involved in marine management, but will not be completely binding. The Bill creates powers to licence numerous activities and if necessary delegate licensing function to the bodies such as the Marine Management Organisation. It also established new powers for the creation of Marine Conservation Zones. The paper explores the narrow purposes for which these Marine Conservation Zones and created, and contrasts these unfavourably with the draft Scottish Marine Bill, which permits Marine Conservation Zones for such purposes as community interest. The paper also acknowledges that no target has been set for the creation of Marine Conservation Zones, and raises some concerns over whether Marine Conservation Zones contain severe enough penalties, particularly in respect of commercial fishing where there is a specific exemption for fisheries damage. The paper explores the function of the new Inshore Fisheries Authorities which will replace existing Sea Fisheries Committees, but raises concerns that the new organisations will still remain vulnerable to conflicts of interests because of their membership.     

Rejoinder

Abstract

Many of Mr. van Walt's criticisms are based solely on fabrications of his own making. For example, I am accused, twice, of referring to myself as a “scholar” and to my article as “scholarly.” I could find no trace of either. I am further accused of considering all Tibetan refugee accounts as “unreliable.” To be sure, I believe that one cannot base the study of historical events solely on refugee accounts, but that does not make all of these stories “unreliable.” After all, Dawa Norbu, a refugee himself, wrote in Red Star Over Tibet, “I never saw or heard of any case of misconduct by a Red soldier.” I would never argue that this statement was unreliable. We are further told that I refer to Tibetans as Chinese when in the second paragraph of my review I wrote, “… Tibetans [are] only one of 56 minority nationalities.” Chinese citizens yes, ethnic Hans no. A final example, although there are many more, is Mr. van Walt's attempt to attribute to me the opinion that

… the only importance to the Western academic world is that the situation in Tibet can teach us how to eliminate a “mystical religion” and that “it gives clues as to how Peking will integrate a capitalist Taiwan into a Communist China in the future”. (emphasis added)     

Offending the One Percent: Seven Arguments Against Distributive Desert

The belief that people morally deserve the income they acquire in the market is both powerful and deep-rooted. Nevertheless, most political philosophers are skeptical of the idea that market income is morally deserved. There is thus a large and uncomfortable chasm between the philosophical mainstream and the actual public. The purpose of this article was to inject new intellectual effort in closing this gap. The goal is the ambitious one of a comprehensive demolition of the notion of distributive desert. To this end, I put forward seven critical arguments. Four of them are common in the literature. Since these have been adequately discussed elsewhere, I mention them here briefly and only for completeness. The core of the article focuses on three original arguments. Overall, my aim is to show that, taking these arguments together, the case against distributive desert is conclusive.     

Low recidivism rates of child sex offenders in a Finnish 7-year follow-up

ABSTRACT

This study examines the recidivism rates of Finnish child sex offenders convicted in 2010 (n = 361) over a follow-up period of seven years. The results indicate that while reoffending for other types of offences was common (34%), offenders had very low sexual crime recidivism rates (1%). In terms of more persistent criminal careers, less than a quarter of the offenders had both a previous criminal history and at least one subsequent offence during the follow-up period. Offenders with child sexual abuse material-related crimes reoffended more rarely than did others. Study limitations and implications for policymaking, media and rehabilitation are discussed.