Inaction and public policy: understanding why policymakers ‘do nothing’

Policy Sciences - In recent decades, the policy sciences have struggled to come to terms with the significance of inaction in public policy. Inaction refers to instances when policymakers ‘do...     

Parenting Coordination: The Risks of a Hybrid Conflict Resolution Process

Parenting coordination is a conflict resolution process that blends the roles of mediator, decision maker, monitor, assessor, educator, counselor, and enforcer for families involved in high‐conflict divorces. This article explores the potential benefits and risks of blending roles in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, trust, posturing, dual roles, self‐determination, and allegations of bias.     

Donor conception, secrecy and the search for information

Donor conception has historically been shrouded in secrecy. Such secrecy has been underpinned by social views and legal issues concemrning the adults involved in the process--the donor, the recipient parent(s), and, at times, the doctor. However, there is increasing recognition of the need to focus upon donor-conceived people's interests and rights to have identifying and non-identifying information about their donors. This editorial examines issues raised in relation to information release, while also introducing some of the arguments presented by other authors in this Special Issue of the JLM. It also considers recent Australian federal and State government inquiries that have favoured information release and the former Victorian Infertility Treatment Authority's service model to support people in the process of information access and release. While there has been a clear shift to favouring openness and honesty, legislative action is still required to ensure the balancing and realisation of people's interests.     

Scottish Legal History Group Report 2012

The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter. H. N. Hirsch New York, 1981. Basic Books Inc. x + 253pp (incl. index). £11.25.

Jogtörteneti Tanulmanyok (Studies in Legal History) Edited by A. Adam. F. Benedek and J. Szita. Legal Studies of Pecs University no. 95. Pecs. 1980. 432 pp.     

DNA fingerprints and rape: A feminist assessment

Can the use of DNA fingerprinting reduce the frequency of rape? Feminist technology assessment is used here to evaluate this new forensic technique, which distinguishes between persons by differences in DNA sequences in variable regions of their chromosomes. Although everyone's DNA pattern is unique, the statistical degrees of difference among sub-populations within ethnic and racial groups are not fully known. The technique is beset by laboratory errors, difficulties in interpretation, and lack of quality control. Policy analysts may also be troubled by the politics behind the harassment of expert witnesses, the rejection by journals of critical articles, the influence of the FBI on federal assessment reports, and the inequitable distribution of costs and benefits. The cases of British rapist-murderer Colin Pitchfork, San Diego rape victim Alicia Wade, and eight exonerated convicts demonstrate how the technique can clear probably innocent rape suspects, but they illustrate little rape-prevention capacity. If DNA testing accurately exonerates a suspect, then the police may continue searching; yet, a test with greater power to exonerate may let criminals escape and may lower the credibility of rape victims' eyewitness testimony. Furthermore, any accurate DNA typing might foster behavior to avoid apprehension or the reduction of sentences through plea-bargaining, thus having a negative effect on deterrence. Despite clear benefit to individual women in specific circumstances, this technique is likely, overall, to be disadvantageous to women. The rape victim identifies her assailant in a police line-up again before the jury in court. He is convicted and put behind bars. Some years later he hears about DNA testing and convinces his lawyer to get tests on the semen that was fund on the victim's clothes. when results show that he could not have been the rapist, he is released from prison. Yet the victim remains convinced that he was the man who attacked her and lives in fear that will find her and rape her again.¹