Criticizing the image of the student as consumer: examining legal trends and administrative responses in the US and UK1

There is widespread concern that higher education is being compromised by being turned into a ‘commodity’ to be ‘consumed’. This article represents an initial attempt to explore the trends in both the UK and US, and considers how the law has responded to them. It argues, however, that there is an important distinction to be drawn between ‘commodification’ and ‘consumerism’. Education has always been a commodity to be bought and sold; the true danger lies in the move to a ‘rights-based’ culture where students (and politicians) see education merely as something to be ‘consumed’ rather than as an activity in which to participate. Whilst the law seems thus far to have been something of a bulwark against this movement, it remains an open question as to whether this will continue to be the case if HEIs do not themselves act more proactively in challenging this damaging view of higher education.     

Police chiefs’ and students’ attitudes about the Miranda warnings

Several studies had concluded that the police subculture holds values and attitudes that are distinct from the rest of the population. Among these values is a focus on law and order. While researchers agree that police tend to hold different values, they disagree on the source of the attitudes. Some had argued that the attitudes reflected differences regarding who was recruited for law enforcement careers while others said that the differences reflected changes that occurred to individuals after becoming officers. This study examined whether police officers and students enrolled in criminal justice/sociology classes held similar or different attitudes towards the Miranda warnings. The findings suggested that in some ways, the two groups perceived the warnings in dramatically different ways, while in other ways their differences were simply a matter of degree. Implications are provided.     

轻型颅脑损伤ABR的纵向研究

目的　探索轻型颅脑损伤的电生理学指标 ,为早期临床诊断和预后判断以及法医学活体伤害鉴定提供依据。　方法　对相关病例进行脑干诱发电位 (ABR)的动态观察 ,并对结果进行统计学分析。　结果　6 0例轻型颅脑损伤患者伤后 48小时ABR的检测 ,显示主要异常表现为I-III峰间潜伏期的延长 ,说明此类损伤可造成脑干的功能紊乱。同时通过对其中 40例进行ABR追踪检测 ,结果显示大部分患者受伤三个月后脑功能状态恢复正常。　结论　轻型颅脑损伤ABR变化具有一定的特征 ,提示可作为早期临床诊断和预后判断以及法医学活体伤害鉴定的客观依据 ,应引起关注并展开进一步研究。     

The legislative recreation of RICO: Reinforcing the ``myth' of organized crime

This paper uses historical content analysis to examine the implementation ofthe Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). It is argued thatthe historical events leading to the definition of organized crime as an alienconspiracy still affect RICO's use some 30 years after its passage. This paper applies state-centered theory to the theoretical frameworks of sociology of knowledge and innovation diffusion. This approach is used to relate the current implementation and controversy of RICO to the alien conspiracy view. Thought of in this context, legal implementation is the result of a knowledge creation and diffusion process. This paper demonstrates how one knowledge diffusionprocess (the acceptance of organized crime as a national conspiracy in 1970) leads to a new knowledge diffusion process (the use of RICO).     

The Equal Chance To Have One's Vote Count

Law and Philosophy -     

INTRODUCING PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

This article provides an editorial introduction to the following three related articles on the growing use and influence of social science research in family law. It first considers why this has become problematic and identifies some common strategies used by advocates, sometimes under the guise of scholarship, to destroy the standing of research findings contrary to their ideological or political position. Then it discusses briefly the remedies proposed to mitigate these kinds of problems within the following three articles.     

CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES

From a conflict resolution perspective, it is clear why the child support guidelines are not going to reduce the adequacy and compliance gaps in child support payment conflicts between parents. As it stands, the conflict over equally sharing child support is destructive rather than positive. The guidelines do not reframe the conflict for the parents, enabling them to believe the interests of children are more important than their own interests to win the child support battle. To transform conflict from destructive to positive, the elements of conflict–expression of the conflict, scarce resources and rewards, and interdependency–must be transformed. It is argued that the guidelines do not transform the conflict but facilitate it. Courts and attorneys are also significant players in the child support conflict.     

High performance liquid chromatographic determination of alcohols with reference to body distribution of methanol

A method has been developed on reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography for simultaneous determination of methyl, ethyl and isopropyl alcohols under refractive index detection using pure water as the mobile phase. A good separation has been achieved between these alcohols. Detector response was linear with a detection limit of 5 mg/100 ml. Recovery studies were performed by adding known amounts of methyl and ethyl alcohols to blood, lung and liver within the range 80–90%. The reproducibility of the results was always >90%. The quantitative distribution of methyl alcohol in postmortem body tissues and fluids has been reported in three cases of poisoning.     

A CROSS‐NATIONAL TEST OF BONGER'S THEORY OF CRIMINALITY AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS*

Using international data for 100 countries, we test two hypotheses derived from Bonger's Marxian theory of crime. The analyses support the hypothesis that the degree of capitalism significantly predicts homicide rates, but they fail to confirm that the de‐moralization of the population (loss of moral feelings for others) mediates the relationship between capitalism and homicide. Although capitalism is not the best predictor among those considered, overall, the results underline the importance of Bonger's ideas because both capitalism and corruption (our indicator of de‐moralization) show reasonably strong relationships with homicide rates and compete with other variables commonly used as predictors of international homicide rates. The results confirm the usefulness of attempting to subject Marxian ideas to positivist, quantitative tests, with an eye to integrating Marxian theories with other mainstream theories, such as institutional anomie theory.