Justifications and limits in the politically motivated lawbreaking of environmental activist groups

In recent events, notions of political protest, civil disobedience, extremism, and criminal action have become increasingly blurred. The London Riots, the Occupy movement, and the actions of hacking group Anonymous have all sparked heated debate about the limits of legitimate protest, and the distinction between an acceptable action and a criminal offence. Long before these events, environmental activists were challenging convention in protest actions, with several groups engaging in politically motivated law-breaking. The emergence of the term ‘eco-tage’ (the sabotage of equipment in order to protect the environment) signifies the important place environmental activists hold in challenging the traditional boundaries between illegal action and legitimate protest. Many of these groups establish their own boundaries of legitimacy, with some justifying their actions on the basis of civil disobedience or extensional self-defence. This paper examines the statements of environmental activist organisations that have engaged in politically motivated law breaking. It identifies the parameters that these groups set on their illegal actions, as well as the justifications that they provide, with a view to determining where these actions fit in the vast grey area between legal protest and violent extremism.

Royal Commissions and Criminal Justice : Behind the Ideal

Royal commissions are approached not as exercises in legitimation and closure but as sites of struggle that are heavily traversed by power holders yet are open to the voices of alternative and unofficial social groups, social movements, and individuals. Three case studies are discussed that highlight the hegemony of the legal methodology and discourse that dominate many inquiries. The first case, involving a single-case miscarriage inquiry, involves a man who was accused, convicted, and served a prison sentence for the murder of his wife. Nineteen years following the murder another man confessed to the crime. The official inquiry found that nothing had gone wrong in the criminal justice process; it had operated as it should. Thus, in the face of evidence that the criminal justice process may be flawed, the discursive strategy became one of silence; no explanation was offered except for the declaration that nothing had gone wrong. The fallibility of the criminal justice system was thus hidden from public view. The second case study examines the Wood Royal Commission into corruption charges within the NSW Police Service. The royal commission revealed a bevy of police misconduct offenses including process corruption, improper associations, theft, and substance abuse, among others. The author discusses the ways in which the other criminal justice players, the judiciary and prosecuting attorneys, emerge only briefly as potential ethical agents in relation to police misconduct and corruption and then abruptly disappear again. Yet, these other players are absolved of any responsibility for police misconduct. The third case study involves a spin-off inquiry into the facts surrounding the Leigh Leigh rape and murder case. This case illustrates how official inquires can seek to exclude non-traditional viewpoints and methodologies; in this case, the views of a feminist criminologist. The third case also illustrates how the adversarial process within the legal system allows those with power to subjugate the viewpoints of others through the legitimate use of cross-examination. These three case studies reveal how official inquiries tend to speak from an “idealized conception of justice” and downplay any viewpoint that questions this idealized version of the truth.

Profiling high-range speeding offenders : investigating criminal history, personal characteristics, traffic offences, and crash history

This paper reports profiling information for speeding offenders and is part of a larger project that assessed the deterrent effects of increased speeding penalties in Queensland, Australia, using a total of 84,456 speeding offences. The speeding offenders were classified into three groups based on the extent and severity of an index offence: once-only low-rang offenders; repeat high-range offenders; and other offenders. The three groups were then compared in terms of personal characteristics, traffic offences, crash history and criminal history. Results revealed a number of significant differences between repeat high-range offenders and those in the other two offender groups. Repeat high-range speeding offenders were more likely to be male, younger, hold a provisional and a motorcycle licence, to have committed a range of previous traffic offences, to have a significantly greater likelihood of crash involvement, and to have been involved in multiple-vehicle crashes than drivers in the other two offender types. Additionally, when a subset of offenders’ criminal histories were examined, results revealed that repeat high-range speeding offenders were also more likely to have committed a previous criminal offence compared to once only low-range and other offenders and that 55.2% of the repeat high-range offenders had a criminal history. They were also significantly more likely to have committed drug offences and offences against order than the once only low-range speeding offenders, and significantly more likely to have committed regulation offences than those in the other offenders group. Overall, the results indicate that speeding offenders are not an homogeneous group and that, therefore, more tailored and innovative sanctions should be considered and evaluated for high-range recidivist speeders because they are a high-risk road user group.

Fatigued driving : prevalence, risk factors and groups, and the law

Fatigue and sleepiness are major causes of road traffic accidents. However, precise data is often lacking because a validated and reliable device for detecting the level of sleepiness (cf. the breathalyzer for alcohol levels) does not exist, nor does criteria for the unambiguous detection of fatigue/sleepiness as a contributing factor in accident causation. Therefore, identification of risk factors and groups might not always be easy. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to incorporate fatigue in operationalized terms into either traffic or criminal law. The main aims of this thesis were to estimate the prevalence of fatigue problems while driving among the Finnish driving population, to explore how VALT multidisciplinary investigation teams, Finnish police, and courts recognize (and prosecute) fatigue in traffic, to identify risk factors and groups, and finally to explore the application of the Finnish Road Traffic Act (RTA), which explicitly forbids driving while tired in Article 63. Several different sources of data were used: a computerized database and the original folders of multidisciplinary teams investigating fatal accidents (VALT), the driver records database (AKE), prosecutor and court decisions, a survey of young male military conscripts, and a survey of a representative sample of the Finnish active driving population. The results show that 8-15% of fatal accidents during 1991-2001 were fatigue related, that every fifth Finnish driver has fallen asleep while driving at some point during his/her driving career, and that the Finnish police and courts punish on average one driver per day on the basis of fatigued driving (based on the data from the years 2004-2005). The main finding regarding risk factors and risk groups is that during the summer months, especially in the afternoon, the risk of falling asleep while driving is increased. Furthermore, the results indicate that those with a higher risk of falling asleep while driving are men in general, but especially young male drivers including military conscripts and the elderly during the afternoon hours and the summer in particular; professional drivers breaking the rules about duty and rest hours; and drivers with a tendency to fall asleep easily. A time-of-day pattern of sleep-related incidents was repeatedly found. It was found that VALT teams can be considered relatively reliable when assessing the role of fatigue and sleepiness in accident causation; thus, similar experts might be valuable in the court process as expert witnesses when fatigue or sleepiness are suspected to have a role in an accident’s origins. However, the application of Article 63 of the RTA that forbids, among other things, fatigued driving will continue to be an issue that deserves further attention. This should be done in the context of a needed attitude change towards driving while in a state of extreme tiredness (e.g., after being awake for more than 24 hours), which produces performance deterioration comparable to illegal intoxication (BAC around 0.1%). Regarding the well-known interactive effect of increased sleepiness and even small alcohol levels, the relatively high proportion (up to 14.5%) of Finnish drivers owning and using a breathalyzer raises some concern. This concern exists because these drivers are obviously more focused on not breaking the “magic” line of 0.05% BAC than being concerned about driving impairment, which might be much worse than they realize because of the interactive effects of increased sleepiness and even low alcohol consumption. In conclusion, there is no doubt that fatigue and sleepiness problems while driving are common among the Finnish driving population. While we wait for the invention of reliable devices for fatigue/sleepiness detection, we should invest more effort in raising public awareness about the dangerousness of fatigued driving and educate drivers about how to recognize and deal with fatigue and sleepiness when they ultimately occur.

The accountability of transnational armed groups under international law

Terrorist attacks by transnational armed groups cause on average 15,000 deaths every year worldwide, with the law enforcement agencies of some states facing many challenges in bringing those responsible to justice. Despite various attempts to codify the law on transnational terrorism since the 1930s, a crime of transnational terrorism under International Law remains contested, reflecting concerns regarding the relative importance of prosecuting members of transnational armed groups before the International Criminal Court. However, a study of the emerging jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court suggests that terrorist attacks cannot be classified as a war crime or a crime against humanity. Therefore, using organisational network theory, this thesis will probe the limits of international criminal law in bringing members of transnational armed groups to justice in the context of changing methods of warfare. Determining the organisational structure of transnational armed groups, provides a powerful analytical framework for examining the challenges in holding members of transnational armed groups accountable before the International Criminal Court, in the context of the relationship between the commanders and the subordinate members of the group.

Sexual offences against children: An exploration of attrition in the Northern Ireland criminal justice system

Objective: This paper uses data provided by the Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) to compare the characteristics and outcomes of reported sexual offences involving child and adult victims and explore the factors associated with case outcomes.
Method: PSNI provided data on 8,789 sexual offences recorded between April 2001 and March 2006. Case outcomes were based on whether a case was recorded by police as having sufficient evidence to summons, charge, or caution an offender (detected). Where an offender was summonsed, charged, or cautioned, this is classified as detection with a formal sanction. A case can also be classified as "detected" without a formal sanction. The analysis focused on two key categories of detection without formal sanction: cases in which the police deem there to be sufficient evidence to charge an offender but took no further action because the victim did not wish to prosecute, or because the police or the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) decided that no useful purpose would be served by proceeding.
Results: The analysis confirmed that the characteristics of recorded sexual offences involving adult and child victims vary significantly according to gender, offence type, the timing of report and victim-offender relationship. Almost half of child sex abuse cases are not detected by police and a quarter do not proceed through the criminal justice system because either the victim declines to prosecute or the Police/PPS decide not to proceed. Only one in five child cases involved detection with a formal sanction. Child groups with lower detection with formal sanction rates included children under 5, teenagers, those who do not report when the abuse occurs but disclose at a later date; and those who experience abuse at the hands of peers and adults known to them but not related. The analysis also highlighted variation in formal sanction rates depending on where the offence was reported.
Conclusions: Consideration needs to be given to improving the criminal justice response to specific child groups as well as monitoring detection rates in different police areas in order to address potential practice variation.
Practice implications: Consideration needs to be given to improving the professional response in relation to with particularly lower detection with formal sanction rates. There is also a need to monitor case outcomes to ensure that child victims in different areas receive a similar service.

Exploring the Influence of Reporting Delay on Criminal Justice Outcomes: Comparing Child and Adult Reporters of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Delay between disclosure and reporting child sexual abuse is common and has significant implications for the prosecution of such offenses. While we might expect the relationship to be a linear one with longer delay reducing the likelihood of prosecution, the present study confirms a more complex interaction. Utilizing data from 2,079 police records in Northern Ireland, the study investigated the impact of reporting delay on pretrial criminal justice outcomes for child and adult reporters of child sexual abuse. While teenagers were found to be the group most disadvantaged by reporting delay, increased delay actually appeared advantageous for some groups, notably adult females reporting offenses that occurred when they were 0 to 6 years old. Conversely, adult males reporting child sexual abuse did not appear to benefit from increased delay, suggesting both an adult and gender bias within decision-making processes. The implications for future research are discussed. 

Accountability for Forced Displacement in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda before the International Criminal Court

This article examines the challenges of investigating and prosecuting forced displacement in the Central African countries of Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where higher loss of life was caused by forced displacement, than by any other. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, armed groups intentionally attacked civilian populations displacing them from their homes, to cut them off from food and medical supplies. In Northern Uganda, the government engaged in a forced displacement policy as part of its counter-insurgency against the Lord’s Resistance Army, driving the civilian population into “protected villages”, where at one point the weekly death toll was over 1,000 in these camps. This article critically evaluates how criminal responsibility can be established for forced displacement and alternative approaches to accountability through reparations.

Criminal liability of canadian corporations for international crimes

Ce mémoire porte sur la responsabilité pénale des entreprises canadiennes pour des crimes internationaux commis en partie ou entièrement à l’étranger. Dans la première partie, nous montrons que les premiers développements sur la reconnaissance de la responsabilité criminelle d’entités collectives devant les tribunaux militaires établis après la deuxième guerre mondiale n’ont pas été retenus par les tribunaux ad hoc des Nations Unies et par la Cour pénale internationale. En effet, la compétence personnelle de ces tribunaux permet uniquement de contraindre des personnes physiques pour des crimes internationaux. Dans la deuxième partie, nous offrons des exemples concrets illustrant que des entreprises canadiennes ont joué dans le passé et peuvent jouer un rôle criminel de soutien lors de guerres civiles et de conflits armés au cours desquels se commettent des crimes internationaux. Nous montrons que le droit pénal canadien permet d’attribuer une responsabilité criminelle à une organisation (compagnie ou groupe non incorporé) pour des crimes de droit commun commis au Canada, comme auteur réel ou comme complice. Nous soutenons qu’il est également possible de poursuivre des entreprises canadiennes devant les tribunaux canadiens pour des crimes internationaux commis à l’extérieur du Canada, en vertu de la Loi canadienne sur les crimes contre l’humanité et les crimes de guerre, du principe de la compétence universelle et des règles de droit commun. Bref, le Canada est doté d’instruments juridiques et judiciaires pour poursuivre des entreprises soupçonnées de crimes internationaux commis à l’étranger et peut ainsi mettre un terme à leur état indésirable d’impunité.

Reexamining the Role of Incarceration and Stigma in Criminal Law

One of the ways by which the legal system has responded to different sets of problems is the blurring of the traditional boundaries of criminal law, both procedural and substantive. This study aims to explore under what conditions does this trend lead to the improvement of society's welfare by focusing on two distinguishing sanctions in criminal law, incarceration and social stigma. In analyzing how incarceration affects the incentive to an individual to violate a legal standard, we considered the crucial role of the time constraint. This aspect has not been fully explored in the literature on law and economics, especially with respect to the analysis of the beneficiality of imposing either a fine or a prison term. We observed that that when individuals are heterogeneous with respect to wealth and wage income, and when the level of activity can be considered a normal good, only the middle wage and middle income groups can be adequately deterred by a fixed fines alone regime. The existing literature only considers the case of the very poor, deemed as judgment proof. However, since imprisonment is a socially costly way to deprive individuals of their time, other alternatives may be sought such as the imposition of discriminatory monetary fine, partial incapacitation and other alternative sanctions. According to traditional legal theory, the reason why criminal law is obeyed is not mainly due to the monetary sanctions but to the stigma arising from the community’s moral condemnation that accompanies conviction or merely suspicion. However, it is not sufficiently clear whether social stigma always accompanies a criminal conviction. We addressed this issue by identifying the circumstances wherein a criminal conviction carries an additional social stigma. Our results show that social stigma is seen to accompany a conviction under the following conditions: first, when the law coincides with the society's social norms; and second, when the prohibited act provides information on an unobservable attribute or trait of an individual -- crucial in establishing or maintaining social relationships beyond mere economic relationships. Thus, even if the social planner does not impose the social sanction directly, the impact of social stigma can still be influenced by the probability of conviction and the level of the monetary fine imposed as well as the varying degree of correlation between the legal standard violated and the social traits or attributes of the individual. In this respect, criminal law serves as an institution that facilitates cognitive efficiency in the process of imposing the social sanction to the extent that the rest of society is boundedly rational and use judgment heuristics. Paradoxically, using criminal law in order to invoke stigma for the violation of a legal standard may also serve to undermine its strength. To sum, the results of our analysis reveal that the scope of criminal law is narrow both for the purposes of deterrence and cognitive efficiency. While there are certain conditions where the enforcement of criminal law may lead to an increase in social welfare, particularly with respect to incarceration and stigma, we have also identified the channels through which they could affect behavior. Since such mechanisms can be replicated in less costly ways, society should first try or seek to employ these legal institutions before turning to criminal law as a last resort.

Universidad y producción de conocimiento orientado a la política criminal : Un estudio de caso

Se presentan resultados parciales de una investigación en curso que analiza la producción de conocimiento criminológico en el ámbito universitario público argentino desde la perspectiva del campo CTS. El foco principal de interés es la caracterización de las formas de vinculación entre actores científicos y no científicos durante las prácticas de producción de conocimiento, y la detección de fenómenos de co-producción, discutido en la literatura como uno de los factores que estimula la aplicación y uso social de resultados de la I+D. Para abordar este tema, se seleccionaron cuatro grupos de investigación localizados en una provincia argentina, e integrantes a su vez de una red multidisciplinaria de grupos universitarios financiada con fondos públicos y dedicada a estudiar el problema de la seguridad, el delito y las respuestas del Estado y las políticas públicas en el país. Estos grupos fueron analizados bajo una metodología de análisis de redes sociales, con el fin de modelizar los patrones de interacción observados entre los investigadores y otros actores sociales en diversas instancias del desarrollo de sus investigaciones. Se discuten los resultados obtenidos en el cálculo de indicadores relacionales de centralidad, centralización e intermediación derivados del análisis de redes.

Universidad y producción de conocimiento orientado a la política criminal : Un estudio de caso

Se presentan resultados parciales de una investigación en curso que analiza la producción de conocimiento criminológico en el ámbito universitario público argentino desde la perspectiva del campo CTS. El foco principal de interés es la caracterización de las formas de vinculación entre actores científicos y no científicos durante las prácticas de producción de conocimiento, y la detección de fenómenos de co-producción, discutido en la literatura como uno de los factores que estimula la aplicación y uso social de resultados de la I+D. Para abordar este tema, se seleccionaron cuatro grupos de investigación localizados en una provincia argentina, e integrantes a su vez de una red multidisciplinaria de grupos universitarios financiada con fondos públicos y dedicada a estudiar el problema de la seguridad, el delito y las respuestas del Estado y las políticas públicas en el país. Estos grupos fueron analizados bajo una metodología de análisis de redes sociales, con el fin de modelizar los patrones de interacción observados entre los investigadores y otros actores sociales en diversas instancias del desarrollo de sus investigaciones. Se discuten los resultados obtenidos en el cálculo de indicadores relacionales de centralidad, centralización e intermediación derivados del análisis de redes.

Universidad y producción de conocimiento orientado a la política criminal : Un estudio de caso

Se presentan resultados parciales de una investigación en curso que analiza la producción de conocimiento criminológico en el ámbito universitario público argentino desde la perspectiva del campo CTS. El foco principal de interés es la caracterización de las formas de vinculación entre actores científicos y no científicos durante las prácticas de producción de conocimiento, y la detección de fenómenos de co-producción, discutido en la literatura como uno de los factores que estimula la aplicación y uso social de resultados de la I+D. Para abordar este tema, se seleccionaron cuatro grupos de investigación localizados en una provincia argentina, e integrantes a su vez de una red multidisciplinaria de grupos universitarios financiada con fondos públicos y dedicada a estudiar el problema de la seguridad, el delito y las respuestas del Estado y las políticas públicas en el país. Estos grupos fueron analizados bajo una metodología de análisis de redes sociales, con el fin de modelizar los patrones de interacción observados entre los investigadores y otros actores sociales en diversas instancias del desarrollo de sus investigaciones. Se discuten los resultados obtenidos en el cálculo de indicadores relacionales de centralidad, centralización e intermediación derivados del análisis de redes.

Armed Groups and Violence in Paraguay

Armed violence in Paraguay is not a recent phenomenon. During the second half of the XX Century, Paraguay saw the rise of a larger number of underground, revolutionary movements that sought the overthrow of the Alfredo Stroessner’s (1954-1989) government. From among those movements emerged the Partido Patria Libre (or, Free Fatherland, also known for its acronym PPL), made up of a two branches: one legal and the other one, operational. The latter was based on people’s power, as represented by “Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo” (or, the Paraguayan People’s Army, with acronym EPP). After EPP broke with PPL in March 2008, this Marxist-oriented revolutionary project, which was apparently oriented to put an end to the social, political and economic inequalities in Paraguay, began to carry out markedly criminal activities, which included bank robberies, kidnappings, assassinations, terrorist attacks and armed confrontations. Its strategies and modus operandi utilized by the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC). Paraguay features a farm sector in a state of crisis, in which cattle-ranchers, peasants and agro-exporting companies live in a constant strife. The Paraguayan Departments that are the most affected by this situation are Concepciόn, San Pedro, Canindeyú y Caazapá, which also suffer from a weak government presence. This deficiency has made these departments ripe for drug-trafficking activity by Brazilian groups such as Primer Comando Capital (i.e., First Capital command), also PCC and Comando Vermelho, (i.e., The Red Command). That is why many peasants, now recruited by EPP, have joined the drug-trafficking business and that, not only as marihuana growers but as “campanas” (i.e., early warning sentinels) for the organization. This helps shape their attitudes for their future involvement in all areas of drug-trafficking. Paraguayan society is the result of social inequity and inequality, such as those resulting from a lack of opportunity. Although Paraguay has successfully recovered from the last world economic crisis, economic growth, by itself, does not ensure an improvement in the quality of life. As long as such economic and social gaps persist and the government fails to enact the policies that would result in a more just society and toward EPP neutralization or containment, the latter is bound to grow stronger. In this context, the situation in Paraguay calls for more research into the EPP phenomenon. It would also seem necessary for Paraguay to promote an open national debate that includes all sectors of society in order to raise consciousness and to induce society to take actual steps to eliminate the EPP, as well as any other group that might arise in the immediate future. EPP has strong connections with the Frente Patriόtico Manuel Rodríguez in Chile and other armed groups and peasant movements in other countries of this region. Although most governments in the region are aware that the armed struggle is not a solution to current problems, it might be worth it to hold a regional debate about armed or insurgent groups in Latin American to seek common strategies and cooperation on dealing with them since the expansion of these armed groups is a problem for all.

Patriarchal ideology and frequency of partner abuse among men in batterer treatment groups

This research examined the relative influence of a number of factors, patriarchal ideology, age, socio-economic status, partner relationship, and problem behaviors on the frequency of partner abuse. Patriarchal ideology as measured by the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS), and the Inventory of Beliefs about Wife Beating (IBWB) among men in batterer treatment programs did not have the strong influence expected on whether men in treatment are more frequent abusers of their partners. Instead, having a criminal record and having been identified as having a substance abuse problem stood out as being the most influential factors associated with frequent partner abuse. Questionnaires were administered to 283 men in batterer treatment programs in Dade County Florida who volunteered to participate in the study. Specifically, men in batterer groups who scored low on the AWS or high on the IBWB indicating an adherence to patriarchal ideology were predicted to report more frequent abuse of their partners. Conversely, men in treatment who scored high on the AWS or low on the IBWB indicating a tendency towards a non-patriarchal ideology were predicted to report less frequent abuse. ^