The Organisation of Drug Supply: South Asian Criminal Enterprise in the UK

This paper examines the structure and modus operandi of South Asian criminal organisations operating in the UK. It is based on empirical research conducted between 2005 and 2006 among prisoners sentenced for drug offences, a number of drug distributors operating in the market, and observers with a knowledge of the drugs business working for the police force or for rehabilitation services. First, the paper offers an overview of the debate on organised crime, and after a methodological note, the research findings are utilised to propose a typology. Hypotheses are formulated around the illicit drug enterprises involved in British markets. Finally, the implications for law enforcement with respect to these enterprises are discussed.

ALIENATING AUDIENCES FROM INNOVATION: THE PERILS OF POLEMICS, IDEOLOGY, AND INNUENDO

When judging innovative programs like Family Bridges™, it is important to balance careful scrutiny with openness to new ideas. Judicial responses to children who reject a parent are best governed by a multifactor individualized approach. A presumption that allows children and one parent to regulate the other parent's access to the children is unsupported by research. A custody decision based solely on the severity of alienation leaves children vulnerable to intensification of efforts to poison their affections toward a parent. Concern with possible short-term distress for some children who are required to repair a damaged relationship should not blind us to the long-term trauma of doing nothing. Professionals are urged to minimize the infusion of polemics, rigid ideology, and rumors when offering opinions with inadequate information, particularly public statements that risk harming children.     

FAMILY BRIDGES: USING INSIGHTS FROM SOCIAL SCIENCE TO RECONNECT PARENTS AND ALIENATED CHILDREN*

This article describes an innovative educational and experiential program, Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent‐Child Relationships^TM, that draws on social science research to help severely and unreasonably alienated children and adolescents adjust to court orders that place them with a parent they claim to hate or fear. The article examines the benefits and drawbacks of available options for helping alienated children and controversies and ethical issues regarding coercion of children by parents and courts. The program's goals, principles, structure, procedures, syllabus, limitations, and preliminary outcomes are presented. At the workshop's conclusion, 22 of 23 children, all of whom had failed experiences with counseling prior to enrollment, restored a positive relationship with the rejected parent. At follow‐up, 18 of the 22 children maintained their gains; those who relapsed had premature contact with the alienating parent.     

Reproduction and family building strategies in early modern Japan: Evidence from two northeastern farming villages

Drawing data from the local population registers called “ninbetsu-aratame-cho," this study examines the patterns and covariates of reproduction and family building in two farming villages in northeastern Japan in 1716–1870. Marriages in these villages were very early and universal for both sexes, but reproduction within marriage was very low, due in part to curtailment of reproduction at relatively young ages, but also to long intervals between recorded births. Stopping and spacing of family building were achieved primarily by an extensive use of sex- and parity-specific infanticide, which enabled peasant couples to control the size and gender-sequence of their progeny. Women's positions within their household and in the village also influenced their family building processes. Peasant couples in these preindustrial Japanese farming villages were active planners of their reproductive life.     

Family succession through adoption in the Chosun Dynasty

Using a unique data source of genealogies of upper-status families, called Bulcheonwye families, we assess how the extent of family succession through adoption changed over five centuries from 1450 to 1949 in Korea. Our analysis shows the continued increase in the share of adopted sons among total family successors up to the end of the 19th century when three out of ten family successors were adopted. The trend of the increasing role of adoption is closely related to the declining number of sons per family, suggesting that not only the rising influence of Confucian culture but also demographic changes increased the demand for adoption. Finally, our comparison provides evidence that the likelihood of achieving high social status was significantly higher among adopted sons than biological ones, suggesting that the socioeconomic potential of adopted sons could be an important factor for adoption decision.     

陕甘宁边区民事法律创制的主要方式探析

边区政府创制民事法律的活动,是边区法制建设中的重要环节。在创制民事法律的过程中,边区政府采用了单行法为主的法律创制方式,同时,又以自主创制民事法律与有条件地援引国民政府法令相结合,自立创制与有条件地援引国民政府法令相结合,成文法与习惯法互补,法的实施与司法解释,重点创制与逐步完善相结合,以及采取概括式与列举式和划分总则与分则的立法技术。这些方式,使边区的民事立法与边区的实际紧密结合,其所坚持的实事求是的精神和重视调查研究,注重法律创制和边区的社会发展阶段相适应的做法,为当代中国的法律建设,提供了有益的历史经验。     

Horizons of long-distance intimacies: Reciprocity, contribution and disjuncture in Cape Verde

This article employs the renewed anthropology of kinship to revisit historical approaches to the study of social relations taking place in transnational social fields. Based on multi-sited qualitative anthropological fieldwork with a strong historical perspective centred on biographical interviews and social network analysis, the author examines a particular Cape Verdean household that comprises four generations and extends its contacts between several Cape Verdean islands, Portugal, São Tomé/Príncipe as well as the United States. The contextualization of the individual life courses of its members and their changing relatedness in the course of time brings to surface a complex design of factors that contribute to the sense of belonging or detachment in this Creole transnational island society. These are different levels of mobility, the challenges and limits of diverse levels of technical connectivity between several localities, the dynamics between approved relatedness and family-based migration regimes as well as the normative aspects resulting in a gendered perspective on the demands of reciprocity. The author introduces the notion of a “contributive family model” in order to capture the individual choice of keeping in touch and the meaning of social practices, which transform ideas of relatedness into reconfirmed transnational solidarities.     

DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND THE POSTDIVORCE FAMILY: IMPLICATIONS OF A PARADIGM SHIFT1

Over the past two decades, there has been a paradigm shift in the way the legal system handles most family disputes—particularly disputes involving children. This paradigm shift has replaced the conventional model of adjudication with a more collaborative, interdisciplinary, and forward‐looking family dispute resolution regime. It has also transformed the practice of family law and fundamentally altered the way in which disputing families interact with the legal system. This essay examines the elements of this paradigm shift in family dispute resolution and explores the opportunities and challenges it offers for families, children, and the legal system.