Text and terrain: mapping sexuality and law

This article is concerned with the intersections of law, texts and sexuality. Drawing on recent work in theoretical cartography, this article seeks to argue that a cartographical reading of law can be usefully brought to bear on the legal analysis of sexuality. This article considers how looking to contemporary theoretical and critical cartography can help to reveal law as a process of mapping; how sexuality is mapped both within and without the law through cultural texts, and how law’s encounters with the terrains mapped out by those texts might be enriched and diversified. This article seeks to consider how legal mappings of the terrains of sexuality might be sufficiently contextualised and located within a wider socio-political context, and how a specifically cartographical interpretation might reveal the potential for the law to accommodate the complexity of gendered and sexualised identities that do not easily conform to singular positionings. In order to navigate the texts and terrains of law and sexuality, we must first learn to become cartographers, and through this process, perhaps open up radical and alternative mappings.

Political Disagreement in Context: The Conditional Effect of Neighborhood Context, Disagreement and Political Talk on Electoral Participation

Despite scholarly interest in determining how exposure to disagreeable political ideas influences political participation, existing research supports few firm conclusions. This paper argues that these varied findings stem from an implicit model of contextual influence that fails to account for the indirect effect of aggregate social contexts. A model of contextual influence is outlined which implies that the neighborhood partisan context moderates the effect of political disagreement in social networks on campaign participation. The evidence shows that network disagreement demobilizes people who are the political minority in their neighborhood, but has no influence on people in the majority. When viewed together, these findings indicate that a person’s relationship to the broader political environment sets distinctive network processes in motion.

Linking the micro- and macro-level dimensions of lifestyle-routine activity and opportunity models of predatory victimization

This paper explores the importance of linking the micro- and macro-level dimensions of household and personal victimization. Specifically, we use the British Crime Survey, a nationally representative sample of 10,905 residents of England and Wales, to examine differences in victimization risk associated with demographic characteristics, lifestyle-routine activities, and community context. In general, victimization risk is highest for the young, the singles, and those who frequently go out at night or leave their homes empty. Independent of these individual-level effects, however, burglary victimization is directly related to community levels of primary (single)-individual households, family disruption, unemployment, and housing density, while personal theft is inversely related to community social cohesion (friendship networks, residential stability). Furthermore, personal theft is positively related to community street activity (i.e., rate at which residents go out at night on foot), regardless of individual-level lifestyle. The results thus support a multilevel opportunity model of predatory victimization.     

Neighborhood Characteristics, Peer Networks, and Adolescent Violence

Although ecological researchers consistently find high rates of crime and violence within socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods, there is little consensus as to why this pattern exists. To address this question, we use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n=12,747) to examine three related research questions. Are neighborhood characteristics associated with adolescent violence net of compositional and selection effects? Are neighborhood characteristics associated with adolescents’ exposure to violent and prosocial peers? Does peer exposure mediate the neighborhood characteristics–violence association? Results indicate that across a wide range of neighborhoods, socioeconomic disadvantage is positively related to adolescent violence net of compositional and selection effects. Additionally, neighborhood disadvantage is associated with exposure to violent peers, and peer exposure mediates part of the neighborhood disadvantage–violence association. Joining structural and cultural explanations for violence, our findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage influences adolescent violence indirectly by increasing opportunities for youth to become involved in violent peer networks.     

近代法律概念理论的语境分析——以奥斯丁和丘汉平为比较视点

通过以奥斯丁和丘汉平为个案的中西比较,对法律理论的周边语境进行分析,是新型知识社会学在法学中的一种探索,可以更为深入地理解近代法学理论的历史发动,进而深入理解发展至今的世界法学运作的内在隐蔽含义。     

The Prewar School Civic Education Policy in Hong Kong： A Historical Comparative Analysis

The civic education policy at the school level in Hong Kong had emerged before the Second World War, but the Hong Kong Education Department did not really implement this civic education policy. From the statist and colonial perspectives, this phenomenon was due to several factors, such as： （1） how the Hong Kong Government coped with the whole historical period and scenarios; （2） how it implemented the related policy; （3） whether civic education policy really became part of the government agendas; and （4） whether education did clarify some crucial historical questions. This paper wants to make certain about these questions. In fact, the Republic of China adopted modern schooling system which civic education was one of school subject. But it was not the education policy of the colonial Hong Kong Government. Historical reasons about this issue require reconstructive explanation. Under this study, the understanding of misinterpreted history can be amended correctly.     

溯因推理新论——法律论证的视角

溯因推理具有显著的特征：或然性（假设性）、逆向性、非单调性、语用性和创新性.溯因推理研究的新进路在于,其发生了语用学的转向以及语用论证（论辩）的转向.在法律方法（法律适用）和法律逻辑的视域,溯因推理的研究及其运用,长期困固于刑事侦查领域中,对于其在司法判决（审判阶段中）作为一种法律论证方法以解决疑难案件的论证则少有使用.以法律论证为视角,用一例只有被害人陈述为直接证据的强奸案件为例,通过对传统证据链模式的分析,提出印证式证据链模式和排除式证据链模式,建立溯因推理的正向溯因推理模式和反向溯因推理模式,并在案件证据所呈现的情境下建构法律语境,展现溯因推理在具体案件中的法律论证,以期能为我国司法判决实现合理性和正当性,提供一种新的论证模式或方法.     

Eye-closure improves memory for a witnessed event under naturalistic conditions

Eye-closure may help people remember live and videotaped mundane events and videotaped violent events. The present study extended this research by examining memory for a forensically relevant live event (a staged verbal altercation) and by interviewing witnesses under naturalistic conditions. Ninety-six witnesses were interviewed either inside in a quiet setting or outside on a busy street, with eyes open or closed. In free recall, eye-closure significantly increased the number of correct details reported, without harming testimonial accuracy. These benefits were significant for witnesses interviewed inside but not for witnesses interviewed outside. This finding highlights the potential role of spontaneous mental context reinstatement in the eye-closure effect. In cued recall, eye-closure improved fine-grain correct recall of visual details for both groups of witnesses. From an applied perspective, the findings suggest that police interviewers should instruct witnesses to close their eyes, both during initial statements taken on the street and during full interviews conducted at the police station.     

Councillors in Context: The Impact of Place upon Elected Representatives

Abstract

The time investment in council duties and the roles adopted by local councillors in Britain have been studied extensively but rarely has research incorporated information about the type of area represented. This article combines individual-level survey responses from councillors with aggregate-level data that describe characteristics of the wards that elect each councillor. The survey data report each councillor’s social and political characteristics, the average hours per week performing council duties and the range and frequency of activities undertaken. The ward-level data include a measure of relative social deprivation, electoral competitiveness and other features. The analysis shows that councillors representing relatively deprived areas spend more time on council activities than do councillors representing more affluent areas. The activities that councillors pursue, especially whether they are proactive or reactive towards constituents, relate to the ward context. Women and people that are retired from work also invest relatively more time in their work as councillors. These findings establish that assessments of what councillors do and the roles that they might adopt should take account of the types of ward being represented.     

Residential mortgage foreclosure and neighborhood change

Abstract

We use New Orleans as a case study to explore residential mortgage foreclosure as one mechanism linking prior black population and changes in employment levels with changes in aggregate income, housing tenure, vacancy rates, and black population size. Mortgage foreclosure data are merged with 1980 and 1990 census data aggregated at the block group level.

Structural equation modeling results indicate that both economic change and prior racial composition are associated with reductions in median block group incomes. Racial transition and loss of employment and income also increased foreclosure rates. Economic change and prior racial composition together impact neighborhoods through their effects on income and foreclosure rates, which in turn differentially affect vacancy rates, the change in black population, and the housing tenure status of residents. The differential effects of these variables point to the persistence of a dual housing market for blacks and whites in New Orleans.