Is less better?: Boot camp, regular probation and rearrest in North Carolina

Using official data, 331 boot camp participants and a stratified random sample of 369 regular probationers were tracked for rearrests over a threeyear period. Chisquare tests and logistic regression analysis indicate that participation in boot camp was significantly associated with rearrest for drug offenses, offenses categorized as “other,” and all types of offenses combined. Contrary to most prior research, which suggests that boot camp participation has no effect on subsequent criminal behavior, the results in this study indicate that participation in the boot camp program had a detrimental effect on its participants.     

Sickness Absence and the Court of Justice: Examining the Role of Fundamental Rights in EU Employment Law

Being absent from work due to sickness is a critical issue for individuals and their employers, but it has traditionally fallen outside the scope of EU employment legislation. This article argues that this is changing; it examines case‐law under the Working Time and Employment Equality Directives. The article considers the justifications that the Court of Justice has advanced to explain this expansion in EU employment law. It finds that the Court has, at times, invoked fundamental social rights as a basis for interpreting employment legislation in a manner favourable to workers. Yet the way in which the Court deploys rights‐based reasoning can be difficult to anticipate, not least the countervailing weight attached to the interests of employers. The case studies indicate that fundamental rights discourse offers a possible foundation for more extensive readings of employment legislation, but it is not a simple ‘trump card’ for advocates of stronger worker protection.     

Self‐Determination in the Constitutional Future of the EU

This article analyses three prominent proposals for the functional and political transformation of the EU from a constitutional perspective. It argues that existing EU reform proposals, to varying degrees, entrench rather than reverse the challenges to individual and political self‐determination brought about by the EU's response to its Euro crisis. As the article will conclude, challenging ‘authoritarian liberalism' in an EU context may require the development of a constitutional structure for the Union able to contest, rather than set in stone, the EU's existing economic and political goals.     

Voluntary and involuntary resettlement in China: a false dichotomy?

The success of involuntary resettlement is contingent on recasting the involuntary as voluntary. To explore this proposition, this article presents two projects in China – one “voluntary” (Poverty Alleviation Resettlement or PAR) and relatively “successful” and one “involuntary” (Three Gorges Project Resettlement or TGPR) and less so. The research finds the voluntary–involuntary dichotomy a false one. It is not volition that leads to better outcomes, but people-centred practices that are embedded in policy, planning, and implementation of PAR. Perhaps the most important lesson drawn is that all resettlements should be based on a commitment to settlement and not just resettlement.     

Lawyers' Perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court: Is the Court a “Political” Institution?

Do legal elites—lawyers admitted to federal appellate bars—perceive the Supreme Court as a “political” institution? Legal elites differentiate themselves from the mass public in the amount and sources of information about the Court. They also hold near‐universal perceptions of Court legitimacy, a result we use to derive competing theoretical expectations regarding the impact of ideological disagreement on various Court perceptions. Survey data show that many legal elites perceive the Court as political in its decision making, while a minority perceive the Court as activist and influenced by external political forces. Ideological disagreement with the Court's outputs significantly elevates political perceptions of decision making, while it exhibits a null and moderate impact on perceptions of activism and external political influence, respectively. To justify negative affect derived from ideological disagreement, elites highlight the political aspects of the Court's decision making rather than engage in “global delegitimization” of the institution itself.     

TrueAllele® Genotype Identification on DNA Mixtures Containing up to Five Unknown Contributors

Computer methods have been developed for mathematically interpreting mixed and low‐template DNA. The genotype modeling approach computationally separates out the contributors to a mixture, with uncertainty represented through probability. Comparison of inferred genotypes calculates a likelihood ratio (LR), which measures identification information. This study statistically examined the genotype modeling performance of Cybergenetics TrueAllele^® computer system. High‐ and low‐template DNA mixtures of known randomized composition containing 2, 3, 4, and 5 contributors were tested. Sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility were established through LR quantification in each of these eight groups. Covariance analysis found LR behavior to be relatively invariant to DNA amount or contributor number. Analysis of variance found that consistent solutions were produced, once a sufficient number of contributors were considered. This study demonstrates the reliability of TrueAllele interpretation on complex DNA mixtures of representative casework composition. The results can help predict an information outcome for a DNA mixture analysis.