Problem-solving courts, therapeutic jurisprudence and the constitution : if two is company, is three a crowd?

Court costs, resource-intensive trials, booming prison populations and the obduracy of recidivism rates all present as ugly excesses of the criminal law adversarial paradigm. To combat these excesses, problem-solving courts have evolved with an edict to address the underlying issues that have caused an individual to commit a crime. When a judge seeks to help a problem-solving court participant deal with issues like addiction, mental health or poverty, they are performing a very different role to that of a judicial officer in the traditional court hierarchy. They are no longer the removed, independent arbiter — a problem-solving court judge steps into the ‘arena’ with the participant and makes active use of their judicial authority to assist in rehabilitation and positive behavioural change. Problem-solving court judges employing the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence appreciate that their interaction with participants can have therapeutic and anti-therapeutic consequences. This article will consider how the deployment of therapeutic measures (albeit with good intention) can lead to the behavioural manifestation of partiality and bias on the part of problem-solving court judges. Chapter III of the Commonwealth Constitution will then be analysed to highlight why the operation and functioning of problem solving courts may be deemed unconstitutional. Part IV of this article will explain how a problem-solving court judge who is not acting impartially or independently will potentially contravene the requirements of the Constitution. It will finally be suggested that judges who possess a high level of emotional intelligence will be the most successful in administering an independent and impartial problem solving court.

The Commonwealth law reports : cases determined in the High Court of Australia.

Vol. 4 issued in 2 parts.

Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature.

v. 1. 1628-1641.--v. 2. 1642-1649.--v. 3. 1644-1657.--v. 4, pt. 1. 1650-1660.--v. 4, pt. 2. 1661-1674.--v. 5. 1674-1686.

The American commonwealth,

Reprint of the 3d edition, 1893-95.

Wisconsin in three centuries, 1634-1905; narrative of three centuries in the making of an American commonwealth illustrated with numerous engravings of historic scenes and landmarks, portraits and facsimiles of rare prints, documents and old maps.

Mode of access: Internet.

Wealth against commonwealth.

A study of trusts, particularly of the Standard Oil Company.

The American commonwealth,

Mode of access: Internet.

Report [of] the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to consider and report upon a revision of the corporation and revenue laws ... pursuant to Joint resolution of May 13, 1909 ...

Cover title.

Report [of] the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to consider and report upon a revision of the corporation and revenue laws of the commonwealth to the legislature. Pursuant to Joint resolution of May 14 [i.e. 24] 1911 (Testimony not included)

"Second draft of a proposed 'Act to provide for the incorporation, regulation, and dissolution of certain business corporations' prepared by the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to consider and report upon a revision of the corporation and revenue laws of the commonwealth": 173 p. at end.

John Sevier as a commonwealth-builder.

Mode of access: Internet.

Developing within-company information and communication technologies (ICT) innovation diffusion networks : a study of three Australian major contractors

The innovation diffusion and knowledge management literature strongly supports the importance of communities of practice (COP) for enabling knowledge about how to use and adopt innovation initiatives. One of the most powerful tools for innovation diffusion is word-of-mouth wisdom from committed individuals who mentor and support each other. Close proximity for face-to-face interaction is highly effective, however, many organisations are geographically dispersed with projects being virtual linked sub-organisations using ICT to communicate. ICT has also introduced a useful facilitating technology for developing knowledge networks. This paper presents findings from a research program concentrating on ICT innovation diffusion in the Australian construction industry. One way in which ICT diffusion is taking place was found to be through within-company communities of practice. We undertook in-depth unstructured interviews with three of the major 10 to 15 contractors in Australia to discuss their ICT diffusion strategies. We discovered that in all three cases,within company networked communities of practice was a central strategy. Further, effective diffusion of ICT groupware tools can be critical in developing COP where they are geographically dispersed.

A study of Australian company responses to email complaints

As businesses and organisations move online, many question how to use Internet communication tools effectively, such as Web sites and electronic mail (Porter, 2001). Where and how should they invest their time and money in technology? This research explores a small part of this broad question, online complaining and electronic customer service. This paper extends prior US-based research of consumer complaints by email (Strauss and Hill, 2001) in several ways. First, it replicates their research in an Australian setting. Second, this research addresses several future research issues that Strauss and Hill (2001) raised. And third, this paper uses diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 1995) to explain some of the results. The results partially support the findings of Strauss and Hill (2001), take a small step towards further investigation of effective email responses and provide practical suggestions for better email customer service.