A 24-Year Follow-up Study on Recidivism in Male Mentally Disordered Sexual Offenders With and Without Psychotic Disorders

There is a lack of knowledge on mentally disordered sex offenders (MDSOs) targeting adult victims, especially regarding recidivism patterns and the specific subgroup with psychiatric disorders. This paper presents index offense data, clinical data, and recidivism patterns over up to 24 years in a cohort of 146 MDSOs, with and without psychotic disorders, sentenced in Sweden between 1993 and 1997. At the time of the offense, all offenders were affected by clinical, developmental, and criminal history factors. MDSOs with psychotic disorders only marginally differed from those without, the former being less likely to have been institutionalized during childhood, intoxicated during the index offense, or diagnosed with a personality disorder, substance use disorder, or paraphilic disorder. In the cohort, 3.4% of the MDSOs were reconvicted for a new sex offense over 2 years, 9.6% over 5 years, 13.0% over 10 years, and 17.1% over the entire follow-up period of 24 years. In MDSOs with psychotic disorders, no subjects were reconvicted during the first 2 years, while 2.6% were reconvicted over 5 years, 5.3% over 10 years, and 7.9% over 24 years. Recidivism rates for violent and general reoffenses were 39.0% and 37.7%, respectively, for the cohort of MDSOs, and subjects with psychotic disorders reoffended significantly later in general offenses. In conclusion, MDSOs with psychotic disorders showed the same recidivism pattern as MDSOs without psychotic disorders. Furthermore, recidivism research may preferably focus on follow-up periods of 5–10 years since most offenders appear to recidivate within this timeframe.     

Democratization without enlargement? The European Neighbourhood Policy on post-communist transitions

This article explores the concept of normative power in Europe by assessing the democratic impact of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in Eastern Europe. By focusing on democratization as a normative objective of the ENP, the authors argued that the European Union (EU) should not be assumed to be a normative power in international politics. It is argued that the EU vision of creating a ring of friends through the ENP has failed. Although the number of EU member states has significantly increased, and the Western European norms and values have become consolidated in most of Europe, Europe remains divided between EU member states and the others. The democratic decline in Russia, the conflict in Georgia in 2008, and the growing authoritarianism in Belarus and Ukraine have had negative effects on the notion of a whole, free, and democratized Europe.     

Kurdish women in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict – perceptions,experiences, and strategies

This study analyzes how Kurdish women experience the violence and other consequences of the armed conflict raging between the PKK and the Turkish state. Interviews conducted in Istanbul, Ankara, and Diyarbakir suggest that Kurdish women experience the conflict both as members of an oppressed minority and as women. The study first focuses on identifying sources of conflict related stress that are specific to women, such as the need to be silent to protect their families, and then analyzes the strategies that Kurdish women use to deal with this stress as women, including networking and education.     

EU Enlargement and the Emboldening of Institutional Integrity in Central and Eastern Europe: The ‘Tough Test’ of Public Procurement

EU enlargement and the incorporation of the acquis communautaire are widely seen as successful and emboldening the integrity of political, administrative and legal institutions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The analysis reported here describes the specific problems associated with affirming institutional integrity in the field of public procurement, which constitutes a ‘tough test’. Public procurement is namely an area where the acquis swiftly gained pre‐eminence in accession states, but whose complex regulations depend on a well‐functioning judiciary, effective administrative supervision and limited corruption. The experience in Poland and Bulgaria, countries that represent different stages of institution building in this area, is compared. The results suggest that an EU‐compatible public procurement regime is being consolidated throughout the CEE region. At the same time, that regime may only work well when boundaries between institutional subjects, as well as between the spheres of law, politics and economics, are upheld in post‐communist countries.     

Mode of Accomplishing Positive and Negative Outcomes: Its Effect on Fairness Evaluations

In their interactions, people exchange or distribute things that are considered valuable. The distribution of a particular resource can be accomplished in a number of ways and may result in either a positive or a negative outcome. The purpose of this study was to find out if and under what conditions people's conceptions of justice are similar or different in the contexts of positive and negative outcome allocations. The research is based on Törnblom's (1988) model for positive and negative outcome allocation. Subjects responded to one of eight questionnaires after reading a vignette that described a nuclear test that was conducted in either the United States or Russia. Each questionnaire version differed with respect to whom information about the possible dangers of radiation exposure following the tests should be made available, and whether information or misinformation were delivered or withheld. Findings from this study suggests that positive and negative outcome allocations sometimes follow different and sometimes the same justice principles, all depending on the mode in which the outcome allocation is accomplished. Implications from the design of this study for the interpretation of existing distributive justice and equity studies are also discussed.     

The Council of Europe Laundering Convention: A recent example of a developing international criminal law

Conclusion With the Laundering Convention, the Council of Europe has contributed once again to the development of the international criminal law and to the promotion of international criminal law cooperation. The Council has shown that it is possible to elaborate a complex, highly technical convention within a period of less than a year so long as the political will exists. It is now a matter for the individual member states and other states to sign, if they have not done so, or to ratify, if they have already signed the convention. The future of the Laundering Convention lies in the hands of those states that have responsibility for its application. An efficient tool for international criminal law cooperation has been created-it must now be used.This is a revised version of a paper presented at an international workshop on Principles and Procedures for a New Transnational Criminal Law, organized jointly by the Society for the Reform of Criminal Law and the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg, Germany, May 21–25, 1991. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Council of Europe.Juris kandidat, Uppsala University 1979. The author was Secretary to the Council of Europe expert committee that elaborated the Laundering Convention.     

Forensic casework analysis using the HVI/HVII mtDNA linear array assay

The mitochondrial hypervariable regions I and II have proven to be a useful target for analysis of forensic materials, in which the amount of DNA is limited or highly degraded. Conventional mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing can be time-consuming and expensive, limitations that can be minimized using a faster and less expensive typing assay. We have evaluated the exclusion capacity of the linear array mtDNA HVI/HVII region-sequence typing assay (Roche Applied Science) in 16 forensic cases comprising 90 samples. Using the HVI/HVII mtDNA linear array, 56% of the samples were excluded and thus less than half of the samples require further sequencing due to a match or inconclusive results. Of all the samples that were excluded by sequence analysis, 79% could be excluded using the HVI/HVII linear array alone. Using the HVI/HVII mtDNA linear array assay, we demonstrate the potential to decrease sequencing efforts substantially and thereby reduce the cost and the turn-around time in casework analysis.     

Challenges and Outcomes at the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

From 1 to 12 December 2003, the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention took place in Milan, Italy. This conference continued the laborious effort of developing an international climate regime by preparing for the Kyoto Protocol’s entry into force. Some two dozen decisions were adopted on a wide range of options for responding to climate change. This paper assesses the progress achieved at the conference on a number of issues. Among these were operational details for implementing forestry projects under the Convention’s Clean Development Mechanism, and guidelines for reporting on greenhouse gas emissions and removals from agriculture, forestry and land-use change. Parties also decided on rules with respect to two funds, the Special Climate Change Fund and the Least Developed Country Fund. With respect to developing countries, Parties continued discussions on rules for building response capacity in light of the expected adverse effects of climate change and transferring environmentally sound technology. They also discussed how to incorporate scientific advice from the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into the negotiations. Although Russia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol prior to the conference, Milan demonstrated momentum and interest among Parties to support the climate regime. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether the detailed discussions were able to contribute to preparing for the long term. To this end, this paper concludes that more discussion and leadership is required to bridge the North/South gap if a post-2012 climate regime is to stand.