Juvenile Criminality And Semi-Criminality: Learning From Victorian Perceptions And Responses

This article focuses on media reportage of offensive juveniles, past and present, to elicit lessons that the twenty-first century can learn from the Victorian past in terms of diversionary responses. How to prevent vulnerable juveniles sliding into dangerous criminality is a continuing preoccupation: the issue explored in this article relates to the creation of the identity of the criminal juvenile. In utilising the concept of semi-criminality to label certain types of juvenile anti-social behaviour the Victorians avoided actual criminalisation of socially offensive but, in legal terms, minor behaviours. The reasons for and negative consequences of the abandonment of this concept by the modern age are explored, including the reconceptualisation of where responsibility for juvenile offending lies in the modern era.     

Miscarriage of Justice? Postcolonial Reflections on the ‘Trial’ of the Maharajah of Baroda, 1875

This article revisits the Baroda Incident 1875, providing a detailed examination of the Enquiry or ‹trial’ for the first time, and locating that examination in the wider socio-cultural context of the nineteenth century British Empire (especially the Raj) and the exporting of the ‹British’/English legal culture to the Empire. The implications of the establishing of British principles of justice, including the value placed upon Indian-generated evidence and testimony by the courts, are explored, in order to establish the Baroda Incident as a significant miscarriage of justice. Using historical methodologies as well as postcolonial insights, it demonstrates that the concepts of justice on which the British prided themselves were intrinsincally racialised as well as gendered, with profound modern resonances. Dr. Judith Rowbotham is a Reader, School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University.     

Competitive Liberalization,Competitive Imperialism,and Intellectual Property

Aggressive pursuit of free trade agreements (FTAs) and customs unions (CUs) by major and minor trading powers alike challenges the conventional wisdom in favor of such pursuit – competitive liberalization. An equally plausible explanation for an active bilateral and regional trade agreement policy, one which effectively de-emphasizes multilateralism, may be competitive imperialism. The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights is one area in which new provisions, going beyond multilateral rules, are being negotiated and written into FTAs and CUs. Such provisions may yield insights into which characterization of bilateralism and regionalism – competitive liberalization or competitive imperialism – is more apt. Rice Distinguished Professor, The University of Kansas, School of Law, Green Hall, 1535 West 15th Street, Lawrence, KS 66045-7577, USA. Tel. +1-785-8649224. Fax. +1-785-8645054. www.law.ku.edu. J.D., Harvard (1989); M.Sc., Oxford (1986); M.Sc., London School of Economics (1985); A.B., Duke (1984). Marshall Scholar (1984-86). Member, Council on Foreign Relations, Royal Society for Asian Affairs, and Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Author, Modern GATT Law (Sweet & Maxwell 2005), International Trade Law: Theory and Practice (2nd ed. 2000, 3rd ed. forthcoming 2007-08), and Trade, Development, and Social Justice (Carolina Academic Press 2003). I am thankful to my Research Assistant, Mr. David R. Jackson (B.A., George Mason University, 1992; J.D. Class of 2007, University of Kansas), for his indispensable help on this work. I also am grateful to Dr. Mohammed El Said, University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), for his consistent support and friendship, and for what he has taught and continues to teach me about international trade and intellectual property.     

Isolation of the DNA minisatellite probe MZ 1.3 and its application to DNA 'fingerprinting' analysis

A minisatellite probe, MZ 1.3, detecting hypervariable fragment patterns was isolated from a human genomic library. A repetitive sequence of 27 bp length was identified which is contained in the probe approx. 40 times. The MZ 1.3 repeat shows variable homology of 53-73% to the repetitive sequence of the protein III gene of the bacteriophage M13 genome. Polymorphic restriction fragment patterns were found with MZ 1.3 using the enzymes Hinf I, BstN I, Hae III, Mbo I, PstI/Pvu II, and Rsa I. An average of 18 polymorphic fragments was observed using Hinf I as enzyme. The band sharing frequency after Hinf I digestion among unrelated individuals was determined to be 23.8 +/- 7.2%. An example for the application of MZ 1.3 to paternity testing in an incest case is given. The probe can be used with radioactive or non-radioactive detection systems. An approach is presented to compare polymorphic fragment patterns from individuals obtained by independent gel runs on the basis of relative band positions (RBP) and calculated in a computerized analysis.     

Thirty Years of Social Science in Supreme Court Criminal Cases*

The Supreme Court early took note of extralegal, “social science” materials in Muller v. Oregon (1908), and a half-century later made specific reference to social science authorities in the famous footnote 11 of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Since Brown, much has been written about the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence, but there has been little systematic study of that use. Those writing on the subject commonly focus on areas of law such as jury size, where social science has been used, and have generally assumed that social science information has been utilized in Supreme Court decisions with increasing regularity. Surprisingly little is known, however, about either the justices' baseline use of social science authorities, or many other aspects of their uses of social science information. The focus here is on the citation of social science research evidence in a sample of 240 criminal cases decided during the 30 years between the Supreme Court's 1958 and 1987 Terms. The resulting portrait contributes to a fuller understanding of the justices' use of social science materials, and may ultimately help promote more effective utilization of social science research evidence in Supreme Court decisions.     

CRIME IN EMERGING ADULTHOOD*

The extent to which local life circumstances influence criminal activity has been the focus of much theoretical debate. Although empirical research has been initiated, it remains limited. Herein, we use data on 524 serious offenders from the California Youth Authority for a seven‐year post‐parole period to examine the relationship between changes in local life circumstances and criminal activity. We extend previous research by employing a statistical model that accounts for the joint distribution of violent and nonviolent crime during the late teens and twenties in order to present information on patterns of criminal activity during a newly recognized developmental period of the life course, “emerging adulthood.”