Corporate crime: A critique of the clinard report

Crime, Law and Social Change -     

Losing the Feminist Voice? Debates on The Legal Recognition of Same Sex Partnerships in Canada

Over the last decade, legal recognition of same-sex relationships in Canada has accelerated. By and large, same-sex cohabitants are now recognised in the same manner as opposite-sex cohabitants, and same-sex marriage was legalised in 2005. Without diminishing the struggle that lesbians and gay men have endured to secure this somewhat revolutionary legal recognition, this article troubles its narrative of progress. In particular, we investigate the terms on which recent legal struggles have advanced, as well as the ways in which resistance to the legal recognition has been expressed and dealt with. We argue that to the extent that feminist critiques of marriage, familial ideology, and the privatisation of economic responsibility are marginalised, conservative and heteronormative discourses on marriage and family are reinforced. Our case studies include two pivotal moments in the quest for legislative recognition of same-sex relationships: the Hearings of the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Bill C-23, The Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act, in 2000 and the hearings on Same-Sex Marriage in 2003. We find that the debates operated within a narrow paradigm that bolstered many existing hierarchies and exacerbated conditions for those who are economically disadvantaged.     

Scavenger Species-typical Alteration to Bone: Using Bite Mark Dimensions to Identify Scavengers

Scavenger-induced alteration to bone occurs while scavengers access soft tissue and during the scattering and re-scavenging of skeletal remains. Using bite mark, dimensional data to assist in the more accurate identification of a scavenger can improve interpretations of trauma and enhance search and recovery methods. This study analyzed bite marks produced on both dry and fresh surface deposited remains by wild and captive red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and Eurasian badger (Meles meles), as well as domestic dog (Canis familiaris). The bite marks produced by foxes were distinguishable from those made by badgers and dogs based on ranges of mean length and breadth of pits. The dimensional data of bite marks produced by badgers and dogs were less discernible. Bone modifications vary due to a variety of factors which must be considered, such as scavenger species-typical scavenging behavior, scavenger species' dentition, condition and deposition of remains, and environmental factors.     

Resistance to Privatization: Why Protest Movements Succeed and Fail in Latin America

Why do some protest movements in Latin America succeed in rolling back privatizations while others fail? This article argues that protests against privatizations have tended to succeed under two conditions. First, privatization's opponents form linkages (or “brokerage”) across multiple sectors of society. Broad coalitions are more likely to achieve their goals, while groups acting alone, such as labor unions, are more easily defeated or ignored by governments. Second, civil rights are protected but political representation is weak. In that case, opponents have the legal right to protest, but are unlikely to have opportunities for communicating their concerns through formal institutions, which prompts them to channel their demands outside of existing political institutions. Using case examples and logistic regression, this study confirms these arguments and discusses the implications for democracy in the region.     

More Combatant Groups,More Terror?: Empirical Tests of an Outbidding Logic

We examine and test the logic that outbidding among insurgent groups results in more suicide terrorism specifically and more terrorism of any type, which has become a popular argument in recent years. A global analysis of terrorism from 1970–2004 provides scant support for the notion that outbidding increases suicide terrorism. An extension of the argument to all types of terrorist attacks provides even less support. The logic of outbidding has received considerable attention in academic and policy circles in recent years. ¹ Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security 31 (2006): 49–80. Similar to the argument that democratic occupation increases suicide terror, ² Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terror (New York: Random House, 2005). our lack of empirical support suggests that considerable cross-national work is still needed to understand suicide terror adequately. We suggest some reasons why this may be the case, drawing particular attention to the problem of overgeneralizing from a limited set of cases.     

Ill-Treatment of Pain in the DSM-5

The just-published psychiatric diagnostic manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), American Psychiatric Association (2013), has been lauded by its organizers (e.g., Regier, Kuhl, and Kupfer in World Psychiatry 12, pp. 92–98, 2013), but has been criticized on multiple grounds, as well. Several of its major diagnostic categories concern the area of psychological injury and law (e.g., tort cases involving posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury (TBI)). The one for chronic pain seems the one most greatly changed. The approach to chronic pain in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, text revision (American Psychiatric Association 2000) and the DSM-5 are compared, leading to an alternative diagnostic criteria list partly based on the changes in the DSM-5. The DSM-5 should be used with caution in forensic assessments. This applies especially to the psychological injury patient, including the pain one, given the high stakes involved and the need for accuracy in assessment based on a reliable and valid diagnostic system. Future iterations of the manual should be improved in both these regards.     

A Soviet Eye on France from the rue de Grenelle in Paris, 1924–1940

The present article is about Soviet perceptions of French politics and society as reported by the five Soviet ambassadors in Paris between 1924 and 1940, and about how their reports influenced Soviet policy making in Moscow. This article is based largely upon unpublished documents from the Soviet foreign policy archives in Moscow (AVPRF), specifically opened to researchers in the 1990s. It contends that these Soviet ambassadors established effective relationships with French counterparts and that they were pragmatic, non-ideological realists trying unsuccessfully to improve Soviet relations with France. The narrative is about the failure of these efforts over a period of sixteen years and ultimately about the failure of the Soviet Union and France to form anti-Nazi alliance during the 1930s.     

Herbert’s Herbivore: One-Dimensional Society and the Possibility of Radical Vegetarianism

Abstract

Careful reading of Herbert Marcuse’s texts, including Counterrevolution and Revolt, One-Dimensional Man, An Essay on Liberation, and Eros and Civilization, reveals his subtle attention to the human–animal dialectic and its role in human liberation. More specifically, animals mark the irrationality of advanced industrialized society for Marcuse, and his subtle but keen treatment of the animal question in politics provides an opening to radically rethink politics for animals and humans. Working from Marcuse’s critical theory, I explore the contemporary one-dimensional animal, which I argue imbricates both animals and humans in the violence and destruction that characterizes advanced industrial society. Using Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional society and his discussion of animals as my theoretical framework, I specifically consider vegetarianism in its capacity to militate against the contemporary political economy of meat. I conclude that Marcuse’s insights point to a radical vegetarianism aligned with anti-capitalist politics that offers the development of sensuous, pleasurable, life-affirming sensibilities that support true liberation for both animals and humans.