Mandate,Discretion, and Professionalisation in an Employment Standards Enforcement Agency: An Antipodean Experience

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of scholarly interest in the operation and effect of labour inspectorates around the world. This article aims to contribute to this mounting comparative and socio‐legal literature by considering the emergence of an active and high‐profile enforcement agency in Australia—the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO). Drawing on the experiences of inspectors and senior managers at the FWO, we examine the structure and mandate of the agency, as well as the discretion afforded to, and the professionalisation of, individual inspectors. While some have sought to draw a distinction between a rule‐bound, specialised approach characteristic of certain Anglo‐American countries and the so‐called Franco‐Iberian model, which places a greater emphasis on flexibility and pragmatism, we found that the FWO does not necessarily fit neatly within this dichotomy. Rather, we observe that as the FWO is a new institution, its mode of operation is in the process of evolution. At present it is pluralistic, in the sense that it exhibits a hierarchical, procedural approach in a drive to address concerns of consistency and accountability, while at the same time allowing, and sometimes encouraging, individuals to be experimental and adaptive.     

The US military's social media civil war: technology as antagonism in discourses of information-age conflict

This article uses the controversy within the United States (US) military over the use of social media by individual military professionals as a window into larger debates about the nature of information-age conflict. Information and associated technologies are now central to the US military imaginary. But the controversy over social media is one indicator that the dominant discourse of information-age conflict is neither stable nor total. The introduction of a new technology can serve as an antagonism that turns latent, potential contradictions into substantive differences for policymaking. Thus, though the US military generally has embraced information and communication technologies (ICTs), the introduction of a particular ICT can still be a source of controversy. Military imaginaries, technologies and the relationships between them remain dynamic, contingent and sometimes contentious.     

Exception to Excess: Tactical Use of the Law by Outgroups in Bias Crime Legislation

US bias crime jurisprudence follows the discrimination model and ejects “hate” from scrutiny. It is suggestive of improvements that should be made to Canadian law insofar as it also better tracks the enactment of discrimination against difference occasioned in the everyday. Criminal law, however, remains weak at preventing crime. And where the law requires evidence of discrimination, it iterates the stereotypes and social backdrop of hate crime. But this view on law and culture underestimates how outgroups may produce countermeanings and influence the law. Turning to the more material basis of identity, neoconservatism has given the law a broad ambit whereby coercion as opposed to investment in human capacities is promoted as the means to social order. Where scholars argue that discursive collaboration with retributionist policy requires outgroups to pursue cultural revalorization, given the decreasing freedom under the contemporary authoritarian paradigm, I argue that they must also pursue distributional justice.     

GeneMarker® HID: A reliable software tool for the analysis of forensic STR data

Abstract: GeneMarker^® HID was assessed as a software tool for the analysis of forensic short tandem repeat (STR) data and as a resource for analysis of custom STR multiplexes. The software is easy to learn and use, and includes design features that have the potential to reduce user fatigue. To illustrate reliability and accuracy, STR data from both single‐source and mixture profiles were analyzed and compared to profiles interpreted with another software package. A total of 1898 STR profiles representing 28,470 loci and more than 42,000 alleles were analyzed with 100% concordance. GeneMarker HID was also used to successfully analyze data generated from a custom STR multiplex, with simplified and rapid implementation. Finally, the impact of the user‐friendly design features of the software was assessed through a time scale study. The results suggest that laboratories can reduce the time required for data analysis by at least 25% when using GeneMarker HID.