The Needs of the Judiciary and Misapplications of Social Research The Case of Female Guards in Men's Prisons

Social scientists have a unique opportunity to generate empirical data to assist legal arguments in a court of law. Unfortunately, most researchers seldom take the initiative to research specific issues that may guide a legal question. Instead, they research issues that may interest them but have no real-world application. This study demonstrates this problem using the example of female guards in male prism. Several suggestions are made that can put the social sciences in a leadership role.     

ADVOCACY AND REHABILITATION IN WOMEN'S PRISONS

The effect of legal aid on disadvantaged groups and particularly on prison inmates has rarely been investigated. The few existing studies suggest it has a more systematically positive effect than other prison services. This paper examines this effect on women inmates and finds that the provision of legal services seems to promote rehabilitation.     

THE FULTON COMMITTEE AND THE'PREFERENCE FOR RELEVANCE ISSUE

Early access to the papers of the Fulton committee of 1966-8, and to the still unpublished oral evidence that the committee received, which has been officially granted to the author, enables the issue of 'preferences for relevance' in the directentry recruitment of administrators, which divided the committee, to be studied fully for the first time. This study is complemented by interviews with the surviving members of the committee and with members of its secretariat. It demonstrates that the evidence and the debate about 'preference for relevance' had a different balance from that which the previously published material suggested. The bulk of the evidence was anti-pathetic to 'preference for relevance' with many ministers being among the conservatives. The majority of the committee was radical but a substantial minority favoured 'traditional' arraqgements with professionalized post-entry training. Ironically, what eventually emerged was traditionalism without substantial training which nobody on the committee, and only a small number of those giving evidence, favoured.     

Screening the Past: Reflexivity,Repetition and the Spectator in Lola Arias' Minefield/Campo minado (2016)

This article examines the role performed by the autobiographical body in Lola Arias' documentary play Minefield (2016). Through a ‘hypermedial’ representation of the cultural memory archive, Arias challenges dominant perspectives towards the Malvinas/Falklands conflict by repeatedly using screens, recording devices and documentary footage to highlight the mediation and subjectivity inherent in both individual and collective memories of the past. By engaging with recent work on documentary theatre and live performance, this article reflects on how Minefield's narrative repetition and formal reflexivity demand, though ultimately confound, an empathetic connection between performer and audience.     

Differing Effects of the Global Financial Crisis: Why Mexico Has Been Harder Hit than Other Large Latin American Countries

In this article, we argue that the economic and financial crisis that began in Mexico in 2008 has not been primarily caused by the US crisis that began in 2007, as many have argued. As we will show, years of misguided economic policies at the national level have been at the heart of the Mexican crisis. On the one hand, the dominance of foreign banks in the country's financial system and the minimal presence of the public banks have greatly limited the range of counter‐cyclical policy options available to authorities. On the other hand, in the face of the crisis, Mexico has continuously applied deflationary Washington Consensus policies that have deepened the economic contraction. This article will focus on Mexico's individual problems, which offer important lessons for other Latin American countries with a shared recent history of Washington Consensus policies.