Gender,Sexuality and the Latin American Left: testing the transformation

This article examines the extent of change under Latin American left governments by assessing their actions on women's and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. To provide a historical context, it first offers an overview of the relationship between feminist movements and the left. It then employs a four-country comparison of Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela on women's socioeconomic status; feminist state–society relations; women's representation in national decision-making positions; legislation on violence against women; reproductive rights; and sexual rights. It concludes that standard political and economic divisions among the cases do not explain their response to the demands of feminists and LGBT activists. While governments have improved women's status and inclusion, the transformation of gender and sexual power relations remains unfinished.     

Judgments about the right to property from preschool to adulthood

Legal theorists argue that the constitutional right to property is defined, in part, by the property beliefs of the community, and how they change; yet little is known about these beliefs. In each of the three present studies, subjects aged 4 to 15 years, and adults, rated story characters who refused to return objects to their previous owners. Subjects under 10 did not clearly differentiate loss or destruction of one's own from another's property (study I), or the rights of persons who acquired possession by theft, loan, finding, or gift (study II). Creative labor was considered a more legitimate basis for possession by 15-year-olds than by 10-year-olds or adults (study III). These results support the idea that children understand “own” in the same way as adults understand “on loan”.     

An Examination of the Assumption that Adult Businesses Are Associated with Crime in Surrounding Areas: A Secondary Effects Study in Charlotte, North Carolina

Recent Supreme Court decisions have signaled the need for sound empirical studies of the secondary effects of adult businesses on the surrounding areas for use in conjunction with local zoning restrictions. This study seeks to determine whether a relationship exists between adult erotic dance clubs and negative secondary effects in the form of increased numbers of crimes reported in the areas surrounding the adult businesses, in Charlotte, North Carolina. For each of 20 businesses, a control site (matched on the basis of demographic characteristics related to crime risk) is compared for crime events over the period of three years (1998–2000) using data on crime incidents reported to the police. We find that the presence of an adult nightclub does not increase the number of crime incidents reported in localized areas surrounding the club (defined by circular areas of 500- and 1,000-foot radii) as compared to the number of crime incidents reported in comparable localized areas that do not contain such an adult business. Indeed, the analyses imply the opposite, namely, that the nearby areas surrounding the adult business sites have smaller numbers of reported crime incidents than do corresponding areas surrounding the three control sites studied. These findings are interpreted in terms of the business mandates of profitability and continuity of existence of the businesses.