Law Enforcement and the Rights of the Accused: Are the Police Getting a Bad Rap?

Nationwide, law enforcement professionals have endured increasing scrutiny regarding their treatment of custodial suspects and their alleged abridgement of suspects’ Constitutional rights. At the same time, in the interests of community safety, many members of the public fully expect police officers to function efficiently in arresting and facilitating the prosecution of likely perpetrators. These perspectives reflect due-process and crime-control models respectively. Very little is known, however, about how law enforcement professionals actually view the rights of the accused when not acutely immersed in the cross-currents of public opinion. Using an anonymous survey, the current investigation addresses both Miranda rights as well as the European Union’s (EU) much more comprehensive approach to the rights of the accused. In general, this sample of 209 urban police officers favored protections of criminal suspects that went considerably beyond Miranda safeguards.     

Space,scale and jurisdiction in health service provision for drug users: the legal geography of a supervised injecting facility

Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre delivers the significant benefits of harm reduction, but has been controversial regards the law. Its contested history is examined here through the lens of legal geography. Narrative analysis reveals that the arguments for and against the centre's establishment referenced matters ranging from international treaties through to municipal governance. These arguments and their outcome were variously shaped by the different spaces and scales of jurisdiction but not simply in a zero sum game of law played out through the hierarchically ordered nesting of container-like territories. The implications for legal geography and for public health are discussed.