Navigating Today's Remediation Cost Cap Market

The Remediation Cost Cap (RCC) market has experienced the boom-bust cycle common to many industries. This article discusses the current market conditions and insurance providers offering the product. The article asks you to determine whether you really need a RCC policy, and if so, provides helpful hints for managing the submission process. Finally, the article discusses the effects of contraction of RCC providers have had on the liability transfer industry.     

This is a man’s world ... or least that’s how it looks in the journals

Mainstream criminology still tends to focus on gender as a control variable, ignoring the different pathways to crime followed by males and females. This leaves us with knowledge that we already have—males commit more criminal and delinquent acts than do females, but little information about the similarities and differences between men and women who commit crimes. On the other hand, feminist approaches tend to do one of two things: deal with girls and women only or deal with women and men separately to illuminate the differences. In this paper, we examine articles in three major journals, Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, to explore the ways that gender is treated in mainstream criminology journals. Then, we will discuss the implications this has for feminist criminology.     

Role of Culture and Context: Ethical Issues in Research with Asian Americans and Immigrants in Intimate Violence

Ethical principles are often presented as universal, immutable rules. However, when conducting research with ethnic minority groups, such as Asian Americans and immigrants, ethical issues need to be placed within a sociocultural context as ethical responses are filtered through the specific value orientations and belief systems of the ethnic group under study. Further, when the group is a marginalized population, power dynamics complicate ethical principles of autonomy. The complexities are further accentuated with sensitive topics such as intimate violence or domestic violence. Consequently, ethical questions about autonomy, informed consent, confidentiality, limits to confidentiality, and protecting participants’ safety and reducing distress need to be at the forefront when planning intimate violence research. An overview of sociocultural context of Western biomedical ethics is presented and specific ethical issues that emerge when conducting intimate violence are discussed.     

“What Are You Going to Do with the Village's Knowledge?” Talking Tradition,Talking Law in Hopi Tribal Court

Though the details of face-to-face talk and interaction have been studied in Anglo American and British courtrooms, few attempts have been made to extend similar analyses to the study of contemporary indigenous and (post)colonial legal institutions that continue to employ legal processes informed by both Anglo-style adversarial notions of law and "local" notions of law, culture, and tradition. Using methods of legal discourse analysis and language ideology studies, this article investigates how interlocutors in a hearing before the courts of the Hopi Indian Nation construct discourses of tradition and Anglo American jurisprudence in multiple and competing ways, and for significant sociopolitical effect. An argument is thus made for attending to the microdetails of sociolegal interactions as an important site for exploring the complex articulations between the contemporary lives of indigenous peoples and the laws with which they are imbricated.     

Barack Obama Meets Celebrity Metaphor

Common knowledge suggests that elections are won or lost based on demographics, finances, and other structural elements. Whether candidates win or lose, however, is a matter of action. Symbolic identification, metaphor, and an unfolding narrative—and how they are managed and interpreted in the flow of events—determine who will emerge victorious from the democratic struggle for power. The McCain campaign’s effort to cast Obama as a celebrity, with the hollow trivialities and self-aggrandizement of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, proves to be one of the most dangerous episodes for the Obama campaign. In response, the Democrats must adjust the staging of Obama’s Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver as a performance of purpose and gravitas, rather than glitz and adoration.     

Student Success and Failure in a Graduate Criminology/Criminal Justice Program

Despite the burdens that students and institutions assume when underwriting educational careers, very little is known about completion rates, risk factors, and successful strategies of criminology/criminal justice (CCJ) graduate programs. Consequently, the present study tracks 287 master’s and 70 doctoral students who entered the Florida State University CCJ program during the 1991–2000 academic years. Almost two-thirds of this cohort earned an advanced degree. Younger students with higher GRE scores were more likely to complete the master’s program. Successful doctoral degree recipients tended to have lower GRE scores, be non-White, and earn their master’s degrees in-house. In terms of time-to-degree, it took over two years to earn an M.A. and slightly more than six years to negotiate the Ph.D. Implications are explored for the program, the university, and the discipline.     

State Legislative Solutions to Silica/Mixed-Dust Claims

Ohio has enacted comprehensive silica and mixed-dust legislation in an effort to prevent these claims from becoming the latest mass tort. The legislation attempts to eliminate the use of experts who spend the majority of their professional time providing medical and exposure consulting services to the plaintiffs' bar. By avoiding the worst abuses of the asbestos tort system and requiring individuals to establish certain minimum medical criteria before pursuing a personal injury claim, the Ohio legislation serves as a model for comprehensive state and federal tort reform legislation.