A comment on racial discrimination in prisons in England and Wales

This paper revisits systematically some of the evidence regarding racial discrimination against ethnic minority groups in prisons in the British context. Police racism has been openly discussed after the death of Stephen Lawrence, and the time is ripe to extend the discussion to the Prison Service. Based on limited data from Home Office reports, and some research on race and crime, there is real evidence of direct and indirect racial discrimination in prisons. Although we may find it difficult to admit that many current practices lead to discriminatory outcomes, prima facie some of the black and Asian prisoners reported being treated unfairly in many respects such as racial stereotyping and biased allocation of jobs; they perceived their treatment subjectively as racism. Finally, recommendations on what can and should be done to eradicate racial discrimination and how to research this sensitive topic are discussed.     

Make Sense of Self in Prison Work: Stigma,Agency, and Temporality in a Chinese Women’s Prison

Asian Journal of Criminology - In this study, we highlight the temporality of agency as many choices made by incarcerated women are found to be based not only on their evaluation of the present...     

Spirituality and punitiveness: An exploration of Christian,Buddhist, and non-religious attitudes towards crime

Studies measuring religious views towards crime and punishment have mainly focused on Christianity and its denominations in a western setting. They have also used measures that are exclusive to the Christian faith. Other major religions have largely been ignored. This study attempts to rectify this by exploring the attitudes of Christians, Buddhists and those identifying themselves as non-religious towards crime. The results indicate some apparent contradictory findings as the more spiritual Buddhists are, the more they attribute crime to both individual and environmental causes as well as greater support for both coercive and social intervention measures. When compared to the Buddhists, Christians and the non-religious are more supportive of assistance towards the treatment of offenders in this study.     

以党的十七大精神为指导不断推进工会工作的创新与发展

工会组织要以党的十七大精神为指导,畅通职工诉求渠道,加强基层民主管理工作,积极履行维护职能,全面维护广大职工的经济、政治和文化权益.     

The importance of forensic evidence for decisions on criminal guilt

Recent studies have found that the general public perceives forensic evidence to be relatively inaccurate and to involve high levels of human judgement. This study examines how important the general public finds forensic evidence by comparing decisions on guilt and punishment in criminal cases that involve forensic versus eyewitness testimony evidence and examining whether a CSI effect exists. Specifically, this experimental survey study utilized a 2 (crime type: murder or rape) × 4 (evidence type: DNA, fingerprint, victim eyewitness testimony, or bystander eyewitness testimony) ? 1 (no victim testimony for murder scenario) design, yielding seven vignettes scenarios to which participants were randomly assigned. Results indicate that forensic evidence was associated with more guilty verdicts and higher confidence in a guilty verdict. Forensic evidence did not change the expected sentence length and did not generally affect the ideal sentence length. However, for rape, respondents believed that the defendant should receive a longer sentence when forensic evidence was presented but forensic evidence did not alter likely sentence that respondents expected the defendant to receive. The results of this study did not support a CSI effect. Overall, this study suggests that forensic evidence – particularly DNA – has a stronger influence during the verdict stage than the sentencing stage.     

做好新世纪公安教育培训工作需要把握的几个环节

公安工作要有发展后劲 ,必须大力加强教育培训工作。在新的世纪里 ,要做好公安教育培训工作 ,应当抓好以下环节 :一是以建立规范管理、培训与使用紧密结合的机制为突破口 ,实现公安教育培训健康、有序、高效发展 ;二是以突出实用性和特色性为重点 ,不断提高公安教育培训的质量和效益 ;三是以师资、教材、基地建设为保障 ,不断增强公安教育培训的后劲 ;四是以提高民警的政治素养、业务能力、实战技能、服务意识为根本目的 ,努力建设一支高素质的公安队伍。     

形成之诉独立存在吗?——对诉讼类型传统理论的质疑

形成之诉是一个缺乏实质内容并为了分类而设置的概念,就其本来意义而言,只存在实体法上的形成之诉,即形成诉权的形成之诉.诉讼类型"三分说"将诉讼类型与实体权利一一对应的分类方法是不合理的,权利保护请求权说的废弃则使与形成权相对应的形成之诉失去了存在的基础.而认为形成之诉由法院通过判决直接变更法律关系的观点,显然违背了审判权的本质和法院的任务.形成之诉与给付之诉、确认之诉相区别的形成判决的对世效力和形成力诸特征,实质上是其审判对象--形成权本身的特性,且趋于模糊.法院在形成之诉中的主要任务是确认原告主张的形成权是否存在,至于变更法律关系则是由形成权构成要件确认后当然发生的,只不过形式上是由法院判决宣告而已.因此,作为诉讼类型的形成之诉并不独立存在,而实体法上的形成之诉究其实质属于确认之诉,至多属于确认之诉的特殊情形.