Are the offences in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) legitimate and effective? : an analysis based in harm and social norms theory

This thesis examines the effectiveness of offences in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) in the online environment. The application of social norm theories suggests that the offences will be ineffective in creating an effective deterrent to non-commercial copyright infringement.

Governing young people’s drug use: Crime, harm and contemporary drug use practices

Since the nineteenth century, drug use has been variously understood as a problem of epidemiology, psychiatry, physiology, and criminality. Consequently drug research tends to be underpinned by assumptions of inevitable harm, and is often directed towards preventing drug use or solving problems. These constructions of the drug problem have generated a range of law enforcement responses, drug treatment technologies and rehabilitative programs that are intended to prevent drug related harm and resituate drug users in the realm of neo-liberal functional citizenship. This paper is based on empirical research of young people’s illicit drug use in Brisbane. The research rejects the idea of a pre-given drug problem, and seeks to understand how drugs have come to be defined as a problem. Using Michel Foucault’s conceptual framework of governmentality, the paper explores how the governance of illicit drugs, through law, public health and medicine, intersects with self-governance to shape young people’s drug use practices. It is argued that constructions of the drug problem shape what drug users believe about themselves and the ways in which they use drugs. From this perspective, drug use practices are ‘practices of the self’, formed through an interaction of the government of illicit drugs and the drug users own subjectivity.

Harm, responsibility, age and consent

This article explores the contradictory ways in which adolescents just under the age of consent are represented in illegal sexual relations with both men and women who are over the age of consent. We are specifically interested in the ways in which the gender of the adolescent and the adult affect public perceptions, legal responses and perceptions of harm of sexual relations. We argue that the development of an indiscriminate legal and policy narrative of child abuse which increasingly includes all aspects of adolescent sexuality, ‘erases’ adolescent subjectivity. By exploring the nuanced ways in which the historical construction of childhood as sexually innocent intersects with current cultural scripts of femininity and masculinity, this article hopes to add to the small but growing literature on the issue of sexual consent, sexual ethics and sexual citizenship for young people.

Court finds negligent dental treatment not an intentional act intended to cause harm : Dean v Phung

NSW Supreme Court decision - claim resulting from alleged damaging dental treatment of healthy teeth - failure of plaintiff to prove dishonest and fraudulent behaviour - assessment of damages.

Practical Advice to Entrepreneurs Series by ACE Adjunct Professor Dean Shepherd: Practical advice on engaging values to avoid causing harm

The author, Dean Shepherd, is of entrepreneurship—how entrepreneurs think, decide to act, and feel. He recently realized that while his publications in academic journals have implications for entrepreneurs, those implications have remained relatively hidden in the text of the articles and hidden in articles published in journals largely inaccessible to those involved in the entrepreneurial process. This series is designed to bring the practical implications of his research to the forefront.

Green Cultural Criminology : Constructions of Environmental Harm, Consumerism, and Resistance to Ecocide

Over the last two decades, "green criminology" has emerged as a unique area of study, bringing together criminologists and sociologists from a wide range of research backgrounds and varying theoretical orientations. It spans the micro to the macro—from individual-level environmental crimes and victimization to business/corporate violations and state transgressions. There have been few attempts, however, to explicitly or implicitly integrate cultural criminology into green criminology (or vice versa). This book moves towards articulating a green cultural criminological perspective. Brisman and South examine existing overlapping research and offer a platform to support future excursions by green criminologists into cultural criminology’s concern with media images and representations, consumerism and consumption, and resistance. At the same time, they offer an invitation to cultural criminologists to adopt a green view of the consumption landscape and the growth (and depictions) of environmental harms.

The way schools cope with learning difficulties is doing more harm than good

We fail children who experience difficulty in school and with learning almost every day in Australia and in so many ways. These children can fall through a myriad of cracks: cracks that appear in some schools and not others, cracks that exist for different reasons whether they be capacity, belief or resource-related, and cracks that are exacerbated by industrial relations and education policy. Whatever their origin, these cracks need to be addressed.

Smoke and mirrors in trade disputes will harm public health

The 2014 World Cancer Report, issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), indicates that the number of new cancer cases has reached an all-time high. On the 19 May 2014, Dr Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the WHO, gave a stirring speech to the 67th Health Assembly on the heavy health burden associated with cancer. Chan was particularly interested in public health measures designed to combat the global tobacco epidemic...

Saviour Siblings and the Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology: Harm, Ethics and Law

Advances in the field of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) have been revolutionary. This book focuses on the use of ARTs in the context of families who seek to conceive a matching sibling donor as a source of tissue to treat an existing sick child. Such children have been referred to as ‘saviour siblings’. Considering the legal and regulatory frameworks that impact on the accessibility of this technology in Australia and the UK, the work analyses the ethical and moral issues that arise from the use of the technology for this specific purpose. The author claims the only justification for limiting a family’s reproductive liberty in this context is where the exercise of reproductive decision-making results in harm to others. It is argued that the harm principle is the underlying feature of legislative action in Western democratic society, and as such, this principle provides the grounds upon which a strong and persuasive argument is made for a less-restrictive regulatory approach in the context of ‘saviour siblings’.

Open-access more harm than good in developing world

The traditional 'publish for free and pay to read' business model adopted by publishers of academic journals can lead to disparity in access to scholarly literature, exacerbated by rising journal costs and shrinking library budgets. However, although the 'pay to publish and read for free' business model of open-access publishing has helped to create a level playing field for readers, it does more harm than good in the developing world.

The effects of the 2004 reduction in the price of alcohol on alcohol-related harm in Finland : A natural experiment based on register data

Changes in alcohol pricing have been documented as inversely associated with changes in consumption and alcohol-related problems. Evidence of the association between price changes and health problems is nevertheless patchy and is based to a large extent on cross-sectional state-level data, or time series of such cross-sectional analyses. Natural experimental studies have been called for. There was a substantial reduction in the price of alcohol in Finland in 2004 due to a reduction in alcohol taxes of one third, on average, and the abolition of duty-free allowances for travellers from the EU. These changes in the Finnish alcohol policy could be considered a natural experiment, which offered a good opportunity to study what happens with regard to alcohol-related problems when prices go down. The present study investigated the effects of this reduction in alcohol prices on (1) alcohol-related and all-cause mortality, and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases, (2) alcohol-related morbidity in terms of hospitalisation, (3) socioeconomic differentials in alcohol-related mortality, and (4) small-area differences in interpersonal violence in the Helsinki Metropolitan area. Differential trends in alcohol-related mortality prior to the price reduction were also analysed. A variety of population-based register data was used in the study. Time-series intervention analysis modelling was applied to monthly aggregations of deaths and hospitalisation for the period 1996-2006. These and other mortality analyses were carried out for men and women aged 15 years and over. Socioeconomic differentials in alcohol-related mortality were assessed on a before/after basis, mortality being followed up in 2001-2003 (before the price reduction) and 2004-2005 (after). Alcohol-related mortality was defined in all the studies on mortality on the basis of information on both underlying and contributory causes of death. Hospitalisation related to alcohol meant that there was a reference to alcohol in the primary diagnosis. Data on interpersonal violence was gathered from 86 administrative small-areas in the Helsinki Metropolitan area and was also assessed on a before/after basis followed up in 2002-2003 and 2004-2005. The statistical methods employed to analyse these data sets included time-series analysis, and Poisson and linear regression. The results of the study indicate that alcohol-related deaths increased substantially among men aged 40-69 years and among women aged 50-69 after the price reduction when trends and seasonal variation were taken into account. The increase was mainly attributable to chronic causes, particularly liver diseases. Mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality, on the other hand, decreased considerably among the-over-69-year-olds. The increase in alcohol-related mortality in absolute terms among the 30-59-year-olds was largest among the unemployed and early-age pensioners, and those with a low level of education, social class or income. The relative differences in change between the education and social class subgroups were small. The employed and those under the age of 35 did not suffer from increased alcohol-related mortality in the two years following the price reduction. The gap between the age and education groups, which was substantial in the 1980s, thus further broadened. With regard to alcohol-related hospitalisation, there was an increase in both chronic and acute causes among men under the age of 70, and among women in the 50-69-year age group when trends and seasonal variation were taken into account. Alcohol dependence and other alcohol-related mental and behavioural disorders were the largest category in both the total number of chronic hospitalisation and in the increase. There was no increase in the rate of interpersonal violence in the Helsinki Metropolitan area, and even a decrease in domestic violence. There was a significant relationship between the measures of social disadvantage on the area level and interpersonal violence, although the differences in the effects of the price reduction between the different areas were small. The findings of the present study suggest that that a reduction in alcohol prices may lead to a substantial increase in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity. However, large population group differences were observed regarding responsiveness to the price changes. In particular, the less privileged, such as the unemployed, were most sensitive. In contrast, at least in the Finnish context, the younger generations and the employed do not appear to be adversely affected, and those in the older age groups may even benefit from cheaper alcohol in terms of decreased rates of CVD mortality. The results also suggest that reductions in alcohol prices do not necessarily affect interpersonal violence. The population group differences in the effects of the price changes on alcohol-related harm should be acknowledged, and therefore the policy actions should focus on the population subgroups that are primarily responsive to the price reduction.

Medicalising Prohibition : Harm reduction in Finnish and International Drug Policy

The increase in drug use and related harms in the late 1990s in Finland has come to be referred to as the second drug wave. In addition to using criminal justice as a basis of drug policy, new kinds of drug regulation were introduced. Some of the new regulation strategies were referred to as "harm reduction". The most widely known practices of harm reduction include needle and syringe exchange programmes for intravenous drug users and medicinal substitution and maintenance treatment programmes for opiate users. The purpose of the study is to examine the change of drug policy in Finland and particularly the political struggle surrounding harm reduction in the context of this change. The aim is, first, to analyse the content of harm reduction policy and the dynamics of its emergence and, second, to assess to what extent harm reduction undermines or threatens traditional drug policy. The concept of harm reduction is typically associated with a drug policy strategy that employs the public health approach and where the principal focus of regulation is on drug-related health harms and risks. On the other hand, harm reduction policy has also been given other interpretations, relating, in particular, to human rights and social equality. In Finland, harm reduction can also be seen to have its roots in criminal policy. The general conclusion of the study is that rather than posing a threat to a prohibitionist drug policy, harm reduction has come to form part of it. The implementation of harm reduction by setting up health counselling centres for drug users with the main focus on needle exchange and by extending substitution treatment has implied the creation of specialised services based on medical expertise and an increasing involvement of the medical profession in addressing drug problems. At the same time the criminal justice control of drug use has been intensified. Accordingly, harm reduction has not entailed a shift to a more liberal drug policy nor has it undermined the traditional policy with its emphasis on total drug prohibition. Instead, harm reduction in combination with a prohibitionist penal policy constitutes a new dual-track drug policy paradigm. The study draws on the constructionist tradition of research on social problems and movements, where the analysis centres on claims made about social problems, claim-makers, ways of making claims and related social mobilisation. The research material mainly consists of administrative documents and interviews with key stakeholders. The doctoral study consists of five original articles and a summary article. The first article gives an overview of the strained process of change of drug policy and policy trends around the turn of the millennium. The second article focuses on the concept of harm reduction and the international organisations and groupings involved in defining it. The third article describes the process that in 1996 97 led to the creation of the first Finnish national drug policy strategy by reconciling mutually contradictory views of addressing the drug problem, at the same as the way was paved for harm reduction measures. The fourth article seeks to explain the relatively rapid diffusion of needle exchange programmes after 1996. The fifth article assesses substitution treatment as a harm reduction measure from the viewpoint of the associations of opioid users and their family members.