Cuba: heading for a new development and political model – an introduction

Cuba, this iconic revolutionary island which has brought so much hope to the Third World and, at one point, worry for a nuclear World War III, is going through a process of change never seen since Fidel Castro led his revolutionary forces to triumph around New Year’s of 1959. Yet, 10 years into the change process, led by the younger Castro Raúl (now 85), nobody can really forecast where the country will end up in socio-economic and political terms. In this TWQ subsection, two economists and three political scientists – two Cubans and three European Cuba watchers – analyse the reforms and their possible outcome.     

What the Hack: Reconsidering Responses to Hacking

Like most criminological research, much of the research on hacking has predominantly focused upon the Northern Metropolis. As a result, there is a lack of focus on cybercrime within the Global South, particularly on illegal intrusions into computer systems, more colloquially known as hacking. This article provides a critical overview of hacking in the Global South, highlighting the role of strain in this offending behaviour. In particular, the authors note the role of Australian, American, and Taiwanese immigration policies that act to block offenders’ transitions from illicit hacking to legitimate employment in technological hubs outside of the Global South. To address these blocked opportunities, this article suggests the use of innovative justice paradigms, particularly restorative justice and regulatory self-enforcement, that respond to innovation-based cybercrime while also facilitating offender movement into “white hat” employment, even in cases of technology-facilitated sexual violence.

     

Restructuring NOMS and reducing cultural divides between prisons and probation: a cautionary note

Abstract

When probation emerged a century ago it was grafted onto a criminal justice system with well-established prisons. Nevertheless for the first time in British penal history it was possible to impose a Probation Order as an alternative to Victorian punishments. By the 1960s, a time of change for probation (Whitehead and Statham, 2006), the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders published its report on after-care that had a significant impact on the relationship between probation and prisons (Home Office, 1963). By 1967 an expanding probation organisation became the Probation and After-Care Service which began to fill social work posts in remand, detention, and borstal allocation centres, thus drawing probation closer into the custodial orbit.     

Patents and enantiomers: Generics v Lundbeck

Legal context: This article examines a decision of the English Patents Courtin relation to the validity of a patent claiming a single enantiomer(a particular molecular form) of a known pharmaceutical compound. Key points: The court held that while it would have been obvious to theskilled person at the priority date to prepare the single enantiomerof the drug claimed in the patent, the actual method of preparationtaught by the patent was not obvious. The attack on groundsof lack of inventive step therefore failed. However, the factthat the patent taught only one method of preparation, but soughtto claim the single enantiomer however prepared meant that theclaims (other than the method claim) were invalid on the groundsof insufficiency. Practical significance: This case demonstrates the formidable difficulties in obtaininga valid patent for a single enantiomer of a known pharmaceutical.While claims to a method of preparation can be valid, providedthe usual requirements of novelty, inventive step, etc. aremet, a patent claiming a single enantiomer of a known compoundper se will be likely to be invalid on the grounds of obviousnessor insufficiency.     

Women Educators and Transnational Networking in the Twentieth-Century Nursery School Movement

In this article I argue that women educators' personal and professional networks underpinned the growth of nursery school education into a transnational movement in the interwar years. Edna Noble White, Lillian de Lissa, Mary Gutteridge and Gwendolyn Watkins' interlocking networks facilitated and connected the nursery school movements in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Australia. Although these women educators were at the centre of a feminised domain, I also show that their work and the movement were impacted by gender relations in the broader fields of education and child development research. Just as nursery school education transcended national boundaries and was reconfigured in each national context, so too the priorities and tensions in education and developmental psychology.     

The sexing of bloodstains by testosterone: total protein ratio determination

A simple method for the extraction of testosterone from bloodstains followed by its measurement by radioimmunoassay is described. Complete discrimination of males and females was achieved with measured bloodstains as small as 40 microliters. With stains of unknown volume the total protein content of the stain was determined as an internal reference level. Using the testosterone/protein ratio unequivocal identification was possible for 75% of the stains from males and 50% from females.     

Contributors to this issue

Contributors to this issue     

Aboriginal organized crime in Canada: Developing a typology for understanding and strategizing responses

The present study explores the theory and, to the greatest degree possible given the limitations of the data, the reality of aboriginal participation in what may be defined as ‘organized crime’ in Canada, engaging the possibility of a definition of ‘aboriginal organized crime’ and the proposal of a ‘typology’ of participants. In the development of both the definition and typology, the researchers build upon Beare's definition of organized crime to include the dimension of motivations—whether social, political or economic—which theorists agree are crucial in understanding organized crime activities, but which do not appear in current definitions of the term, as well as important contextual factors informing participation in aboriginal organized crime networks.