The time frame problem: the law, social construction, and the sciences

Among our official noblest virtues are truth and justice. In the sciences, officially, truth overrides every other virtue. In the law, officially, justice likewise overrides. That is neither to deny that justice should be tempered by mercy, nor that truth should be qualified by wisdom. Any discussion of law and the sciences is potentially high philosophy, the meeting ground of truth and justice. But there are also more practical concerns. How should scientific information and advice be used in the law courts? There is now a rather staid but thoroughly solid assessment of the current state of play in the United States Federal Court systems, Foster and Huber’s(1997) Judging Science: Scientific Knowledge and the Federal Courts. Far more challenging to the philosopher, the scientist and the student of jurisprudence is Sheila Jasanoff’s(1995) Science at the Bar because she enters current debates as a professed social constructionist, with a distinguished career of investigating science and public policy (Jasanoff and Jasanoff).     

Implementing a social norms approach to reduce alcohol abuse on campus: Lessons learned in the shadow of ‘The World's Largest Six-Pack’

Many institutions of higher education are struggling with the problem of excessive alcohol consumption by students. Colleges and universities want to be ‘good neighbors’ in their communities and must limit legal and social risks that result from excessive alcohol consumption by students. At the same time, colleges and universities operate in an increasingly challenging marketplace where many prospective students seek out institutions with a ‘party school’ reputation. Thus, higher education institutions are finding it difficult to define and carry out alcohol reduction measures that satisfy all constituents. This article discusses the approach taken at the University of Wisconsin—La Crosse. UW-L is an institution that identified a serious alcohol consumption problem and had to address the problem in a community where high levels of alcohol consumption are socially and culturally condoned. The article profiles the UW-L community and discusses the campaign model and strategy chosen. Quantitative and qualitative measures of success are discussed, along with lingering issues of resistance. The article ends with a summary of current issues and future directions being taken by the campaign.     

Criminal defendants’ family and the death penalty in China - a case analysis

ABSTRACT

The restorative justice movement has increased the rights of consciousness for crime victims and their families globally. Though the practice of family group conferences in Australia and New Zealand and the court-ordered mediation programmes in China have increasingly involved defendants and their families, their roles in the criminal justice system have not been the main focus of academic inquiries. Citing a high-profile capital case in China, the Nian Bin case, this study examines the defendant family’s strategies in seeking legal redress, managing physical, emotional and financial tolls as well as coping with the victim families, throughout their eight-year pursuit of Nian’s exoneration. Given Confucian teachings on the importance of family to the individual and the society at large, this study provides a microscopic view into various precipitating factors for a capital defendant’s family activism. It also draws broader implications for China’s criminal justice reforms and the restorative justice movement.     

Realism and antirealism in social science

Up until recently social scientists took it for granted that their task was to account for the social world as objectively as possible: they were realists in practice if not always in their methodological sermons. This situation started to change in the 1960s, when a number of antirealist philosophies made inroads into social studies.This paper examines critically the following kinds of antirealism: subjectivism, conventionalism, fictionism, social constructivism, relativism, and hermeneutics. An attempt is made to show that these philosophies are false and are causing serious damage to social studies.Next the subjective interpretation of probability is analyzed as a case of subjectivism. An approach to the subjective perception of justice is sketched as an example of the objective study of subjective experience.Finally, the three main varieties of realism — naive, critical, and scientific — are outlined. It is argued that the scientific attitude involves scientific realism, which is put in practice even by scholars who, like Weber and Simmel, called themselves antirealists.     

国外毒品相关犯罪防控的社会政策及评价

毒品引发的犯罪问题已经引起国际社会广泛关注,各国出台了各种措施防控毒品引发的犯罪,基本形成了一套普遍性和针对性相结合的社会政策体系。本文总结区分3个层次:针对社会整体状况及一般公民的普遍性预防政策、针对极有可能成为毒品相关犯罪的受害者或犯罪者的特定防控政策以及针对参与过毒品相关犯罪人群的专项防控政策;并以此为线索系统梳理评价政策实施效果的相关理论和实证研究成果,为我国制定相关政策提供相关启示和借鉴。     

The smell of distance: Wallace Stegner’s definition of western non-fiction

Wallace Stegner has argued that land, scale, and aridness are defining characteristics of both the American West and writings about the West. Stegner’s definition is analyzed using his own works and Mark Twain’s Roughing It.     

Individual perceptions and the social construction of hate crimes: A factorial survey

Although the rapid diffusion of hate crime legislation since the 1980s indicates widespread success of the antiviolence movement at the policy level, effective responses to hate crimes – such as reporting incidents to authorities – are partly contingent on how individuals initially interpret potential incidents. This paper investigates the degree to which individuals’ perceptions of concrete events of harassment and violence mirror the interpretive frameworks offered by proponents of hate crime legislation. Specifically, the study examines the determinants of definitions of hate crime and perceptions of seriousness, focusing on both incident-level and respondent-level variables. Using data from a multilevel factorial survey gathered from a sample of undergraduates, I find a general alignment between the political construction of hate crimes and college student perceptions of incidents of harassment and violence, although sensitivity to hate crimes varies by witness demographic and attitudinal characteristic.     

Dealing in Toxins on the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Lessons from a Hazardous Waste Controversy in Phoenix*

Objective. The controversial expansion of a hazardous waste facility in a poor, minority neighborhood in Phoenix illustrates the unanticipated consequences of siting hazardous facilities in vulnerable communities, and the need to recognize neighborhood health/safety issues such as drug‐related crime as environmental justice struggles. Methods. Qualitative methods include participant observation, document analysis, Census data, GIS mapping, and interviews. Results. South Central Phoenix's history reveals a disproportionate share of poverty, pollution, and drug crimes. Most commercial hazardous waste facilities in Phoenix were sited in minority areas. Residents contended that the siting, permitting process, and expansion of the facility and the drug crimes that later occurred there were all due to environmental racism. Conclusions. The expansion of the facility exacerbated environmental injustice in Phoenix through distributional and participative injustice, and was criminogenic. The dual impact on the community of hazardous waste and drug crime argues for a more holistic understanding of environmental justice.     

Engaging Indigenous Communities: Towards a Policy Framework for Indigenous Community Justice Programmes

Community engagement has come to the fore as a policy and programme approach that seeks to connect citizens both with each other and with government in order to deliver improved social and economic opportunities and outcomes. This model has become a key aspect of the intervention approach within Indigenous communities and is seen to have particular application in addressing community justice issues. This article examines a suite of community justice initiatives being used in Indigenous communities in Australia with a view to ascertaining how the principles of community engagement are operationalized. The article draws on this information and argues that community engagement is only one aspect of a number of community‐oriented justice initiatives currently being applied. These initiatives range from concepts of community as a location, community as an interest group, and the leveraging of community capital so as to tap into and build better and stronger relationships. In so doing, the latter attempts to increase the social infrastructure, resources and capacity of communities. However, despite government attention in this area, there is a lack of a policy and programmatic framework to guide a coherent and apposite approach to issues of community in specific policy settings. The article contributes to the development of a framework that begins the process of differentiating and assessing justice administration interventions.     

Situational Crime Prevention and its Discontents: Rational Choice Theory versus the 'Culture of Now'

The rational choice theory of crime and its cognate field of study, situational crime prevention, have exerted a considerable influence in criminal justice policy and criminology. This article argues that, while undeniably useful as a means of reducing property or acquisitive crime, rational choice‐inspired situational crime prevention initiatives are limited when it comes to offering protection against a growing number of so‐called ‘expressive crimes’. Developing this critique, the article will criticize the sociologically hollow narrative associated with rational choice theories of crime by drawing on recent research in social theory and consumer studies. It argues that the growing tendency among many young individuals to engage in certain forms of criminal decision‐making ‘strategies’ may simply be the by‐product of a series of subjectivities and emotions that reflect the material values and cultural logic associated with late modern consumerism.     

Stakeholder behavior and legislative influence: A case study of recreational water rights in Colorado

Colorado water law is based on 150 years of legal, constitutional, and administrative precedent. Much of this precedent encourages traditional consumptive uses of water and impedes non-consumptive uses. Throughout Colorado’s history, the water law system has evolved to include new codified uses of water. This paper analyzes the behavior of stakeholder groups that drove legislative changes in the Colorado General Assembly in the most recent example of this evolution—the inclusion of non-consumptive recreational in-channel water rights as a codified use of water. Using a qualitative case study research method, this study finds that collaboration among formerly disenfranchised stakeholders explains their legislative success despite the lesser degree of influence these groups have over water rights in Colorado.     

What accounts for China''s trade balance dynamics?

This paper proposes a structural VAR model which extends the frameworks of Hoffmaister and Roldós [Hoffmaister, A. W., & Roldós, J. E. (2001). The sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in developing countries: Brazil and Korea. Journal of Macroeconomics, 23, 213–239] and Prasad [Prasad, E. S. (1999). International trade and the business cycle. Economic Journal, 109, 588–606]. The model is then used to analyse the sources of China's trade balance fluctuations in the period of 1985–2000. Efforts are made to distinguish the forces which underlie the long-run trend in trade balance from those with transitory impacts. The effects of four types of shock are examined—the foreign supply shock, the domestic supply shock, the relative demand shock and the nominal shock. Among other findings, two emerge as important. First, the movements in China's trade balance are largely the result of real shocks. Second, the Renminbi is undervalued, yet changes in the exchange rate bear little on the trade balance. Therefore, monetary measures would not suffice to redress China's trade ‘imbalance’.     

The people or the place? An analysis of the protective factors of hate crime in multiethnic neighbourhoods in Australia

Hate crime creates significant problems for individual victims and the social fabric of a community more broadly. Victimisation is most likely to occur around the victim's own neighbourhood, yet few studies examine how the neighbourhood context influences hate crime. This study uses data from the Australian Community Capacity Study involving 4,400 participants in 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane. It examines whether it is characteristics of place (such as attitudes toward diversity, place attachment and social cohesion) that reduce hate crime, or whether it is interactions with fellow residents (such as frequency of neighbourly exchanges, number of friends, and number of acquaintances in the neighbourhood) that shelter residents from hate crime. Results demonstrate that characteristics of a place provide important protective factors against hate crime in the neighbourhood, rather than the number of social‐interactions between residents.     

The Panchshil Buddha Vihar Group: Dalit migrant life and group solidarity during the pandemic

ABSTRACT

This narrative is based on my previous experience and telephonic discussions with Dalit (Dalits are an ex-untouchable caste of India, who have been subject to discrimination and exclusion historically and placed at the bottom on the Indian social system) migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative aims to highlight the life and trajectory of Dalit migrants pre- and during the pandemic. In addition, the narrative illustrates their everyday strategy as a group in response to the pandemic. Further, the narrative describes various means and methods of Dalit migrants to advance community solidarity, which has helped them to survive and escape the city, to return to their villages.     

Logic, liberty, and anarchy: Mill and Feyerabend on scientific method

On the surface, J. S. Mill and Paul Feyerabend appear to hold differing views of scientific method. Mill attempts to frame a set of rules or canons for testing evidence based on rationality and inference, whereas Feyerabend, in his so-called “epistemological anarchism”, calls for abandoning any attempt to separate the good from the bad in science according to a fixed view of rationality. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, Feryerabend cites Mill as the originator of what he (Feyerabend) has to say in defense of epistemological anarchy. First, I argue that those aspects of Mill’s On Liberty that are suggestive of an anti-rationalist philosophy are entirely compatible with the theory of scientific method Mill offers in A System of Logic. Second, in the process of reconciling these two works of Mill, I hope to shed light on how we are to understand Feyerabend’s critique of methodological dogmatism.     

Crime,capital punishment,and knowledge: are criminal justice majors better informed than other majors about crime and capital punishment?

Criminal justice agencies increasingly seek better educated employees, who should have greater knowledge of criminal justice issues. This has lead to an increase in the number of students majoring in criminal justice. This study employed a non-random, convenience sampling design of 730 college students of various ranks and majors at a mid-sized, 4-year public university in Michigan to determine what impact a criminal justice education had on knowledge of the death penalty and other criminal justice facts compared to students in other majors. It was found that there was a difference between criminal justice majors and other majors in knowledge about crime and capital punishment; however, the difference was neither widespread nor striking as the authors had hoped.     

Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability

Although it has been claimed that people care more about identifiable than statistical victims, demonstrating this identifiable victim effect has proven difficult because identification usually provides information about a victim, and people may respond to the information rather than to identification per se. We show that a very weak form of identifiability—determining the victim without providing any personalizing information—increases caring. In the first, laboratory study, subjects were more willing to compensate others who lost money when the losers had already been determined than when they were about to be. In the second, field study, people contributed more to a charity when their contributions would benefit a family that had already been selected from a list than when told that the family would be selected from the same list.     

Women's participation in self‐help groups as a pathway to women's empowerment: A case of Nepal

Non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) and the government of Nepal have made some effort to reduce poverty in Nepal by creating women's affiliation groups, some of which are micro‐credit organizations. Using capabilities as defined by Amartya Sen (Development as freedom, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000), which includes employment opportunities, women's ownership in productive resources such as land and/or homes, educational opportunities, and women's participation in decision‐making in the family, this study evaluated the extent to which women's ethnic group or caste affiliation affected a woman's likelihood of being empowered by participation in these groups. We analyzed a sample of 8,973 women which was taken from the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. Previous research has demonstrated that participation in gender‐based groups is correlated with higher economic status. This study adds to the literature on women's affiliation groups by investigating the impact of structural factors, such as caste and ethnicity, on women's self‐help group participation (women's groups and credit groups).     

A theory of justice?

This is a critical analysis of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. Rawls offers a theoretical justification of social democratic principles of justice. He argues that they are the principles which rational men would choose, under defined constraints, in an original position of social contract. The author criticises Rawls's assumption that men of any background, of any socialisation, would choose these principles in the original position. He argues that the choice which Rawls imputes to his contractors reflects a specific socialisation — one dominant in Western democracies. The theory is useful because it systematises a particular sense of justice; it is in no sense however a universal theory.My warm thanks go to Jimmy Altham, Harry Bracken, Stefan Collini, Martin Hollis, Steven Lukes, Quentin Skinner and Denys Turner. Without their comments this paper would certainly have been a poorer effort. I am also grateful to Professor Rawls for a useful correspondence about his position.     

Rethinking melas as subaltern spaces: Pardhan blacksmiths and some aspects of ‘caste-passing’ in fairs, 1872–1931

Nineteenth-century melas (fairs) were evanescent public spaces that facilitated anonymity and unplanned encounters between castes, classes, men and women. By recognizing caste-passing in various mela clusters, historians gain insights into a range of subaltern debates about caste. Caste-passing involved lower caste adoption of the accouterments of upper castes and threatened social hierarchy. Opaque to police, associational life within fairs signified a society undergoing transformation. The figure of the Pardhan blacksmith embodied the unknowable fair-going crowd. Hailing from an adivasi (indigenous) community in the Central Provinces of India, these blacksmiths attracted police notice. Pardhan blacksmiths deployed their skills towards manufacturing imitation gold; at the fair they passed off as members of upper castes. For the police, Pardhan caste-passing within fairs threatened to unravel taxonomies of tribe and caste, region and religion. It was at the fair that hounded and persecuted Pardhan blacksmiths found some respite from the theft of their lands and labour. Through an analysis of caste-passing, a social history emerges of nineteenth-century fairs in colonial India that foregrounds experiences of those fairgoers who were members of ‘criminal tribes’ persecuted by colonial police, and the plebeian multitude that mingled in melas and participated in anti-caste debates.