Teaching professional ethics through popular culture

The LETR urged UK law schools to consider how they might do more to encourage the development of professional ethics. This article engages with that call and reflects on the experience of teaching professional ethics through popular culture. It begins by outlining some of the theoretical work that has been undertaken in establishing law and popular culture as a discipline more generally, before focusing on professional ethics in particular. The course itself is designed to encourage students to understand the changes to professional ethics over the past 100 years and how these changes have pushed law away from a model of professionalism towards one of commercialism. These changes are mirrored by a subsequent downturn in cultural representations of the lawyer. The module encourages students to see professional ethics as a possible reason for these negative portrayals. The paper then considers student evaluations of the first two years that the course has run, highlighting its positives and also looking at how it may be improved for the future.     

The prevalence of sexual violence in prison: the state of the knowledge base and implications for evidence-based correctional policy making

The issue of prison violence and misconduct has been the subject of considerable academic attention, yet particularized areas of violent victimization within prisons have gone relatively unnoticed. One such area involves sexual violence in prisons. Scholars have argued that sexual violence contributes to a host of institutional and individual-level problems, yet the primary limitation of this body of literature is that it has been largely confined to methodologically questionable studies of prison rape prevalence. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to critically take stock of what is and what is not currently known about the prevalence of prison sexual violence. In doing so, it highlights the direction that future research should take so that evidence-based policies concerning prison sexual violence may be developed.     

What is “prison culture”? Developing a theoretical and methodological foundation for understanding cultural schema in prison

What does it mean to say that a prison has a “culture?” Scholars have long emphasized the presence of a “prison code” and, more recently, a “racial code” as salient cultural domains in men's prisons. Yet, even though most people intuitively understand what is meant by “prison culture,” little progress has been made regarding the conceptualization and operationalization of culture as an analytical construct in prison scholarship. The current study makes two primary contributions to this literature. First, drawing on advances in anthropology, cultural sociology, and cognitive science, we incorporate the concept of cultural schema to provide a concrete analytical construct. Second, we test varying conceptualizations of cultural schema as either characterized by consensus or as overlapping relational structures. Using cultural consensus and correlational class analyses among a sample of 266 incarcerated men, we find little evidence of a culture of consensus for either the prison code or the racial code. Furthermore, we show evidence of heterogenous schema among these cultural domains. Our study is relevant to wider disciplinary work on culture as the problem of analytical precision we address is characteristic of much of the work in criminology and criminal justice that evokes culture as an explanatory device.     

“The United States Stands Ready to Be of Assistance”: On the Politics and Humanitarianism of Natural Disaster

This article asks how American understandings of foreign natural disaster have evolved over time. Are the political and humanitarian concerns surrounding disaster and disaster aid radically different now from what they were a century ago? Through an analysis of presidential statements and major newspaper editorials following foreign natural disaster, I find that there has indeed been significant change. Notions of post-disaster humanitarianism have broadened significantly, with, among other things, disaster aid going from being discussed as an act of charity to an understood responsibility. Furthermore, the political side of foreign natural disaster has moved beyond the political effects of disaster itself to include the political causes of “natural” disaster and the political causes and effects of disaster aid. These and other patterns are used to consider the relationship between politics and humanitarianism more generally.     

Accommodating Intersexuality in European Union Anti‐Discrimination Law

This article considers the relationship between EU anti‐discrimination law and intersexuality. Recent changes in German legislation that recognise intersexuality have prompted consideration of sex and gender throughout Europe. This article considers some of the disadvantages in the way the German legislation has been adopted and attempts to remedy them through the existent Recast Directive. The article rejects the current binary approach to sex and gender and recommends a broader interpretation that understands sex as a spectrum or continuum. It concludes that anti‐discrimination law may be a more suitable realm for questions of intersex to be raised than mandatory state documentation. Anti‐discrimination law is preferable, it is submitted, because it offers individuals an opt‐in model, which does not require any medical ‘proof’. Similarly, anti‐discrimination law offers activists a fluid site of resistance that is not based on medicine or the potential fixity of the birth certificate.     

Sex offender notification: An exploratory assessment of state variation in notification processes

Prior research suggested that when community members are notified that a sex offender is residing in their neighborhood they are likely to engage in precautionary behavior to prevent potential victimization. Since states employ different processes in notifying community members of the presence of a sex offender, it is important to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the various notification processes. The current exploratory study compared the proactive sex offender notification process in Hamilton County, Ohio, with the passive notification process in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Not surprisingly, study findings indicated that the proactive sex offender notification process used in Ohio resulted in better community dissemination of information.     

Cynicism and job satisfaction in policing: Muddying the waters

Since Niederhoffer’s (1969) pioneering work, police cynicism has been a staple in research on police officers and police work, various typologies of police officers and definitions of the police subculture or police personality rely to a greater or lesser degree on conceptions of cynicism and suspicion. More recent research has questioned both the validity of measures of cynicism and typologies of police officers. The present study examines the link between cynicism and job satisfaction which is implicit in the literature. Findings indicate not only that these two factors are correlated, but also that relationships reported between cynicism and other factors in policing are mirrored by correlations between those factors and a measure of job satisfaction. The question which arises is, to what degree are correlations reported in the literature spurious, resulting not from cynicism, as was thought, but from a more generic measure of job satisfaction?     

“Can’t Stop,Won’t Stop”: Self-Control,Risky Lifestyles,and Repeat Victimization

Objectives

Drawing from lifestyle-routine activity and self-control perspectives, the causal mechanisms responsible for repeat victimization are explored. Specifically, the present study investigates: (1) the extent to which self-control influences the changes victims make to their risky lifestyles following victimization, and (2) whether the failure to make such changes predicts repeat victimization.

Methods

Two waves of panel data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training program are used (N = 1,370) and direct measures of change to various risky lifestyles are included. Two-stage maximum likelihood models are estimated to explore the effects of self-control and changes in risky lifestyles on repeat victimization for a subsample of victims (n = 521).

Results

Self-control significantly influences whether victims make changes to their risky lifestyles post-victimization, and these changes in risky lifestyles determine whether victims are repeatedly victimized. These changes in risky lifestyles are also found to fully mediate the effects of self-control on repeat victimization.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that future research should continue to measure directly the intervening mechanisms between self-control and negative life outcomes, and to conceptualize lifestyles-routine activities as dynamic processes.