Prosecuting Juveniles as Adults

In Minnesota, the 1980 legislature statutorily defined a class of juvenile offenders presumed on the basis of age, alleged offense, and record of prior felony offenses to be unfit for treatment in the juvenile court. In this article we evaluate the effect of Minnesota's revised waiver statute by comparing cases in which waiver proceedings were initiated and in which transfer occurred for two time periods, before and after adoption of the legislatively defined presumptive criteria. Our findings suggest that the objective criteria adopted by the Minnesota legislature are not, in themselves, an adequate means for selecting juveniles for transfer to adult court. The criteria identify many juveniles whose records on close examination do not appear to be very serious and fail to identify many juveniles whose records are characterized by violent, frequent, and persistent delinquent activity.     

Unravelling Equality: The Impact of the United Kingdom's Spending Cuts on Women

This article examines a report on the likely impact of the spending cuts on women. The report, Unravelling Equality: A Human Rights and Equality Impact Assessment of the Spending Cuts on Women in Coventry, concludes that the public spending cuts will increase inequality between women and men. For some women the cuts may have serious negative effects on their human rights. The article argues that this report provides a blueprint for the kind of analysis which should be carried out all over the country to ensure that the impact of spending cuts on women is better understood and acted upon.     

Misrepresentation and Omission—An Analysis of the Review of the Public Sector Equality Duty

Many of the claims made in the Independent Review of the Public Sector Equality Duty are not supported by the evidence submitted to the review. In addition the report fails to reflect key barriers to the successful implementation of the PSED which are raised in the same submissions. This raises questions about the legitimacy of the review process, which has resulted in recommendations which may damage the working of the PSED.     

Interpreting the U.S. Human Trafficking Debate Through the Lens of Symbolic Politics

By enacting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, U.S. policymakers acknowledged trafficking in persons as criminal behavior, punishable under federal law. The legislation was developed through the congressional policy-making process, usually studied from the perspective of who gets what, when, and how. To expand our understanding of criminal justice policymaking, this article analyzes the act from an alternative perspective—symbolic politics. It examines how the act performs symbolic functions identified in the criminal justice literature—reassuring the law abiding/threatening the lawbreaker, communicating a moral message, providing a model for the states, and educating about a problem.