An analysis of police interview discourse and its role(s) in the judicial process

This study analyses the current role of police-suspect interview discourse in the England & Wales criminal justice system, with a focus on its use as evidence. A central premise is that the interview should be viewed not as an isolated and self-contained discursive event, but as one link in a chain of events which together constitute the criminal justice process. It examines: (1) the format changes undergone by interview data after the interview has taken place, and (2) how the other links in the chain – both before and after the interview – affect the interview-room interaction itself. It thus examines the police interview as a multi-format, multi-purpose and multi-audience mode of discourse. An interdisciplinary and multi-method discourse-analytic approach is taken, combining elements of conversation analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis. Data from a new corpus of recent police-suspect interviews, collected for this study, are used to illustrate previously unaddressed problems with the current process, mainly in the form of two detailed case studies. Additional data are taken from the case of Dr. Harold Shipman. The analysis reveals several causes for concern, both in aspects of the interaction in the interview room, and in the subsequent treatment of interview material as evidence, especially in the light of s.34 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The implications of the findings for criminal justice are considered, along with some practical recommendations for improvements. Overall, this study demonstrates the need for increased awareness within the criminal justice system of the many linguistic factors affecting interview evidence.

A közvetlen külföldi befektetések és a korrupció közötti kapcsolat (The connection of Foreign Direct Investment and corruption)

A szerzők tanulmányának középpontjában a közvetlen külföldi befektetések és a korrupció kapcsolata áll. Feltételezésük az, hogy a közvetlen külföldi befektetők a kevésbé korrupt országokat kedvelik, mivel a korrupció egy további kockázati tényezőt jelent a befektetők számára, amely növelheti a befektetések költségeit. Megítélésük szerint ezt kvantitatív módszerekkel érdemes vizsgálni, így elemzésük során 79 országot vizsgálnak meg tíz évre vonatkozó átlagokkal a Gretl-program és az OLS becslőfüggvény segítségével. Több modell lefuttatása után azt az eredményt kapták, hogy a közvetlen külföldi befektetők döntéseiben a korrupció szignifikáns tényező, a két változó között negatív korrelációt figyeltek meg. / === / The study focuses on the connection of Foreign Direct Investment and corruption. The authors assume that investors prefer countries where corruption level is lower, as corruption an additional risk factor that might increase the cost of investment. They believe that the best way to prove the previous statement if they use quantitative methods, so they set up a model where 79 countries are tested for 10 years averages, with the help of the Gretl and OLS estimator. After running several models their finding was that corruption is a significant factor in the decisions of foreign investors, and there is a negative correlation between corruption and FDI.

Korrupció: mérhetőség és modellezés = In the core of our study we focus on the connection of Foreign Direct Investment and corruption.

Tanulmányunk középpontjában a közvetlen külföldi befektetések és a korrupció kapcsolata áll. Feltételezésünk az, hogy a közvetlen külföldi befektetők a kevésbé korrupt országokat kedvelik, mivel a korrupció egy további kockázati tényezőt jelent a befektetők számára, amely növelheti a befektetések költségeit. Megítélésünk szerint ezt kvantitatív módszerekkel lehet a leginkább vizsgálni, így elemzésünk során 79 országot vizsgálunk meg 10 évre vonatkozó átlagokkal a GRETL program és az OLS becslőfüggvény segítségével. Több modell lefuttatása után azt az eredményt kaptuk, hogy a közvetlen külföldi befektetők döntéseiben a korrupció szignifikáns tényező, a két változó között negatív korrelációt figyelhetünk meg. ____ We assume that investors prefer countries where corruption level is lower, as corruption an additional risk factor that might increase the cost of investment. We believe that the best way to prove the previous statement if we use quantitative methods, so we set up a model where 79 countries are tested for 10 years averages, with the help of the GRETL and OLS estimator. After running several models our finding was that corruption is a significant factor in the decisions of foreign investors, and there is a negative correlation between corruption and FDI.

The corruption risks of EU funds in Hungary

In corruption, a group of players gain an economic advantage without providing any socially beneficial services in return, therefore corruption is considered to be a form of rent-seeking. Similar to other forms of rent-seeking, corruption causes losses on a societal level, due to the less efficient allocation of resources, as well as the costs of operation and prosecution. Fighting corruption is important not just because of ethical but also economic considerations. Contributions from the European Union are making possible the use of more funds than ever, and spending the full amount of this money is a priority preference of the government. The abundance of funds and the pressure on absorption increase corruption, by the managers of the funds overplanning the amount of money to be allocated to individual tender invitations, setting generous rules on eligible costs, and specifying low rates of own contribution wherever possible. As a result, the opportunities for rent-seeking are increased, as it is worth it for beneficiaries to carry out the project even after relinquishing part of the funds they have been awarded. Thus, the abundance of funds generates a sphere of corruption in which rent-seekers may appear on various levels of the system, often even without the knowledge or approval of those on higher decisionmaking levels.

Political corruption in the Caribbean Basin: A comparative analysis of Jamaica and Costa Rica

Political corruption in the Caribbean Basin retards state economic growth and development, undermines government legitimacy, and threatens state security. In spite of recent anti-corruption efforts of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (IGO/NGOs), Caribbean political corruption problems appear to be worsening in the post-Cold War period. This dissertation discovers why IGO/NGO efforts to arrest corruption are failing by investigating the domestic and international causes of political corruption in the Caribbean. The dissertation's theoretical framework centers on an interdisciplinary model of the causes of political corruption built within the rule-oriented constructivist approach to social science. The model first employs a rational choice analysis that broadly explains the varying levels of political corruption found across the region. The constructivist theory of social rules is then used to develop the structural mechanisms that further explain the region's levels of political corruption. The dissertation advances its theory of the causes of political corruption through qualitative disciplined-configurative case studies of political corruption in Jamaica and Costa Rica. The dissertation finds that IGO/NGO sponsored anti-corruption programs are failing because they employ only technical measures (issuing anti-corruption laws and regulations, providing transparency in accounting procedures, improving freedom of the press, establishing electoral reforms, etc.). While these IGO/NGO technical measures are necessary, they are not sufficient to arrest the Caribbean's political corruption problems. This dissertation concludes that to be successful, IGO/NGO anti-corruption programs must also include social measures, e.g., building civil societies and modernizing political cultures, for there to be any hope of lowering political corruption levels and improving Caribbean social conditions. The dissertation also highlights the key role of Caribbean governing elite in constructing the political and economic structures that cause their states' political corruption problems. ^

Latin America and the Caribbean in 2011 and Beyond: A conversation among Latin America and Caribbean Specialists.

For the first time in more than fifty years, the domestic and external conflicts in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are not primarily ideological in nature. Democracy continues to thrive and its promise still inspires hope. In contrast, the illegal production, consumption, and trading of drugs – and its links to criminal gangs and organizations – represent major challenges to the region, undermining several States’ already weak capacity to govern. While LAC macroeconomic stability has remained resilient, illegal economies fill the region, often offering what some States have not historically been able to provide – elements of human security, opportunities for social mobility, and basic survival. Areas controlled by drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are now found in Central America, Mexico, and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, reflecting their competition for land routes and production areas. Cartels such as La Familia, Los Zetas, and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC-Brazil), among others, operate like trade and financial enterprises that manage millions of dollars and resources, demonstrating significant business skills in adapting to changing circumstances. They are also merciless in their application of violence to preserve their lucrative enterprises. The El Salvador-Guatemala-Honduras triangle in Central America is now the most violent region in the world, surpassing regions in Africa that have been torn by civil strife for years. In Brazil’s favelas and Guatemala’s Petén region, the military is leaving the barracks again; not to rule, however, but to supplement and even replace the law enforcement capacity of weak and discredited police forces. This will challenge the military to apply lessons learned during the course of their experience in government, or from the civil wars that plagued the region for nearly 50 years during the Cold War. Will they be able to conduct themselves according to the professional ethics that have been inculcated over the past 20 years without incurring violations of human rights? Belief in their potential to do good is high according to many polls as the Armed Forces still enjoy a favorable perception in most societies, despite frequent involvement in corruption. Calling them to fight DTOs, however, may bring them too close to the illegal activities they are being asked to resist, or even rekindle the view that only a “strong hand” can resolve national troubles. The challenge of governance is occurring as contrasts within the region are becoming sharper. There is an increasing gap between nations positioned to surpass their “developing nation” status and those that are practically imploding as the judicial, political and enforcement institutions fall further into the quagmire of illicit activities. Several South American nations are advancing their political and economic development. Brazil in particular has realized macro-economic stability, made impressive gains in poverty reduction, and is on track to potentially become a significant oil producer. It is also an increasingly influential power, much closer to the heralded “emerging power” category that it aspired to for most of the 20th century. In contrast, several Central American States have become so structurally deficient, and have garnered such limited legitimacy, that their countries have devolved into patches of State controlled and non-State-controlled territory, becoming increasingly vulnerable to DTO entrenchment. In the Caribbean, the drug and human trafficking business also thrives. Small and larger countries are experiencing the growing impact of illicit economies and accompanying crime and violence. Among these, Guyana and Suriname face greater uncertainty, as they juggle both their internal affairs and their relations with Brazil and Venezuela. Cuba also faces new challenges as it continues focusing on internal rather than external affairs and attempts to ensure a stable leadership succession while simultaneously trying to reform its economy. Loosening the regime’s tight grip on the economy while continuing to curtail citizen’s civil rights will test the leadership’s ability to manage change and prevent a potential socio-economic crisis from turning into an existential threat. Cuba’s past ideological zest is now in the hands of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who continues his attempts to bring the region together under Venezuelan leadership ideologically based on a “Bolivarian” anti-U.S. banner, without much success. The environment and natural disasters will merit more attention in the coming years. Natural events will produce increasing scales of destruction as the States in the region fail to maintain and expand existing infrastructure to withstand such calamities and respond to their effects. Prospects for earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes are high, particularly in the Caribbean. In addition, there are growing rates of deforestation in nearly every country, along with a potential increase in cross-sector competition for resources. The losers might be small farmers, due to their inability to produce quantities commensurate to larger conglomerates. Regulations that could mitigate these types of situations are lacking or openly violated with near impunity. Indigenous and other vulnerable populations, including African descendants, in several Andean countries, are particularly affected by the increasing extraction of natural resources taking place amongst their terrain. This has led to protests against extraction activities that negatively affect their livelihoods, and in the process, these historically underprivileged groups have transitioned from agenda-based organization to one that is bringing its claims and grievances to the national political agenda, becoming more politically engaged. Symptomatic of these social issues is the region’s chronically poor quality of education that has consistently failed to reduce inequality and prepare new generations for jobs in the competitive global economy, particularly the more vulnerable populations. Simultaneously, the educational deficit is also exacerbated by the erosion of access to information and freedom of the press. The international panorama is also in flux. New security entities are challenging the old establishment. The Union of South American Nations, The South American Defense Council, the socialist Bolivarian Alliance, and other entities seem to be defying the Organization of American States and its own defense mechanisms, and excluding the U.S. And the U.S.’s attention to areas in conflict, namely Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – rather than to the more stable Latin America and Caribbean – has left ample room for other actors to elbow in. China is now the top trading partner for Brazil. Russian and Iran are also finding new partnerships in the region, yet their links appear more politically inclined than those of China. Finally, the aforementioned increasing commercial ties by LAC States with China have accelerated a return to the preponderance of commodities as sources of income for their economies. The increased extraction of raw material for export will produce greater concern over the environmental impact that is created by the exploitation of natural resources. These expanded trade opportunities may prove counterproductive economically for countries in the region, particularly for Brazil and Chile, two countries whose economic policies have long sought diversification from dependence on commodities to the development of service and technology based industries.

Mapping Transnational Crime in El Salvador: New Trends and Lessons from Colombia

Since El Salvador’s civil war formally ended in 1992 the small Central American nation has undergone profound social changes and significant reforms. However, few changes have been as important or as devastating as the nation’s emergence as a central hub in the transnational criminal “pipeline” or series of recombinant, overlapping chains of routes and actors that illicit organizations use to traffic in drugs, money weapons, human being, endangered animals and other products. The erasing of the once-clear ideological lines that drove the civil war and the ability of erstwhile enemies to join forces in criminal enterprises in the post-war period is an enduring and dangerous characteristic of El Salvador’s transnational criminal evolution. Trained, elite cadres from both sides, with few legitimate job opportunities, found their skills were marketable in the growing criminal structures. The groups moved from kidnapping and extortion to providing protection services to transnational criminal organizations to becoming integral parts of the organizations themselves. The demand for specialized military and transportation services in El Salvador have exploded as the Mexican DTOs consolidate their hold on the cocaine market and their relationships with the transportista networks, which is still in flux. The value of their services has risen dramatically also because of the fact that multiple Mexican DTOs, at war with each other in Mexico and seeking to physically control the geographic space of the lucrative pipeline routes in from Guatemala to Panama, are eager to increase their military capabilities and intelligence gathering capacities. The emergence of multiple non-state armed groups, often with significant ties to the formal political structure (state) through webs of judicial, legislative and administrative corruption, has some striking parallels to Colombia in the 1980s, where multiple types of violence ultimately challenged the sovereignty of state and left a lasting legacy of embedded corruption within the nation’s political structure. Organized crime in El Salvador is now transnational in nature and more integrated into stronger, more versatile global networks such as the Mexican DTOs. It is a hybrid of both local crime – with gangs vying for control off specific geographic space so they can extract payment for the safe passage of illicit products – and transnational groups that need to use that space to successfully move their products. These symbiotic relationships are both complex and generally transient in nature but growing more consolidated and dangerous.

Cuba's Judicial System and Transition: Lecture by Antonio G. Rodiles and Amelia Maria Rodríguez Cala

This flyer promotes the event "Cuba's Judicial System and Transition: Lecture by Antonio G. Rodiles and Amelia Maria Rodríguez Cala" cosponsored by the FlU College of Law and the Vaclav Hável Initiative for Human Rights and Diplomacy.

A responsabilidade enunciativa na sentença judicial condenatória

The Textual Analysis of Discourse has its origin in Text Linguistics and it aims at studying the co(n)text meaning production based on the analysis of concrete texts by offering elements to the understanding of the text as a discourse practice throughout the plans or levels of linguistic analysis. In this perspective, we intend to investigate the enunciative responsibility phenomenon in the sentencing court judgment. To do so, we review the theoretical contributions of Textual Analysis of Discourse (ADAM, 2011) and the Enunciative Linguistics from various authors, among them, Rabatel (1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010), Nølke (2001, 2005, 2009, 2013), Nølke, Fløttum and Norén (2004), Guentchéva (1994, 1996) and Guentchéva et al. (1994). In this direction, we investigate the enunciative responsibility through a range that comprises the phenomenon from four gradations, each one with a kind of point of view (PoV) and with links that may mark the assumption or the distance from the point of view. Regarding the legal approach of the thesis, our theoretical anchoring follows several authors, among them, Petri (1994), Soto (2001), Alvarez (2002), Alves (2003), Cornu (2005), Albi (2007), Bittar (2010), Asensio and Polanco (2011), López Samaniego (2006), López Montolío and Samaniego (2008), Montolío (2002, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), Sterling (2010), Prieto (2013), Lawrence and Rodrigues (2013) and Rodrigues, Passeggi and Silva Neto (2014). Our corpus is composed of 13 sentences from criminal cases arising from the district of Currais Novos-RN, completed in 2012. The results reveal how the judge, from various enunciative instances, builds the court decision, which allowed us to understand the configuration of (non) assumption of enunciative responsibility in the sentencing court judgment discourse genre. In conclusion, we perceive that the discourse units are envisaged or through the assumption, or the non assumption of PoV by the enunciative instances, what guides the producer organization argumentative text and his (her) communicative purposes. With that, the judge creates and/or modifies values and beliefs, induces and/or guides his (her) interlocutor by being able to demonstrate objectivity and/or preventing his (her) face through the mediated constructions or engage through the assumption of the enunciative responsibility of the propositional content of an utterance. In short, we reaffirm our belief that the (non) assumption of the enunciative responsibility configures as an argumentative mechanism strongly marked by the producer of the text with a view to their communicative purposes. The sentence, therefore, is constructed in this game of taking and/or not taking of statements according to argumentative orientation and the objectives of the text producer.

A representação discursiva da vítima e do réu no gênero sentença judicial

This dissertation aims to identify and describe the phenomenon of discursive representation of victim and defendant in court judgment genre. Researchis part of general theoretical framework of text linguistics and more specifically in textual discourse analysis (ATD) theory developed by Jean-Michel Adam ([2008] 2011). Discursive representation notion proposed by ATD is one of the most important aspects of semantic dimension of the text, being complemented in the work of Grize (1990, 1996) from schematization notion. In this perspective, this work is guided by studies of text linguistics with Koch (2012, 2005, 2004), Marcuschi (2012, 2008, 2005), Rodrigues, Passeggi and Silva Neto (2010, 2012, 2014), with genre Bazerman (2005), Bakhtin (1992) and the juridical discourse with Capez (2012), Pimenta (2007), Lourenço (2013) and Gomes (2013) . Methodologically, is a documentary research, presenting qualitative and descriptive characters and is guided by the inductivedeductive method. Corpus consists of a judicial sentence, criminal, collected electronically from Court of Justice of São Paulo - Judiciary website in consultation Judged1st Degree, with the theme of violence against women. Analysis procedures use semantic categories of discursive representation, such as referencing, predication, modification and the spatial and temporal location. Results are focused on the construction of discursive representation of (victim and defendant) from PdV distinct enunciators, which may approach or distance themselves according to argumentative text orientation. Thus, considering social importance of forensic text and, in particular, court judgment in the lives of citizens, it was possible to realize the importance of developing research that addresses the study of text semantic dimension, especially in construction of representations of discourse objects

Vínculo empregatício: interpretação judicial do direito fundamental à relação de emprego protegida e seus efeitos

The Federal Constitution, in Article 1, sections III and IV, lifted the work as the foundation of the Federative Republic of Brazil, including work as a social guarantee in Article 6, listing in its Article 7 minimal guarantees role with respect to social rights of workers. Although elevated to constitutional rights, these social rights of workers have in the judicial interpretation of the characteristic elements of the employment relationship, sometimes a mismatch with the legal and constitutional order, when, in deciding not ponder such elements, causing damage economic and social benefits to all workers, thus affecting the very constitutional basis of worker protection, there is therefore situations in which there must be part of unavailability of rights by the employee. Therefore, identifying the characteristic elements of employment, means allow immediate legal finding about possible illegality perpetrated by the employer, precisely because the sentence recognizes be merely declaratory noting, therefore, the elements that make up the juridical system normative in order to establish the characterization of employment in step with the effective observance and guarantee of social rights and therefore the employer's performance limiter as pertains to hiring and employee dismissal. This point is it's main element of this work, which is fundamental for the exegesis of the theme to limit the autonomy of the will. There is no denying, therefore, the need to extend the effects of these guarantees in the employment contract. In this context, therefore, jumping the guarantees of employees, embodied in particular in the Consolidation of Labor Laws, and especially in the Federal Constitution and international protection instruments to ensure the fundamental right to secure employment relationship, where technological advancement, social and economic, reflect directly, such as the parassubordinação, and claiming more and more systematic resolutions, especially when evidence gaps' values, which elevate the debate about the need for increased use of precedents of order to support the judgments, often beset with aspects of unconstitutionality, all in compliance with the integration of standards, seeking legal enforcement of this bond and providing legal certainty, there emerged, so the essence of the theme: discuss to what extent the distortion of employment limits the effectiveness of social rights and what its legal effects, since the constitutional standard for social guarantees protects equally worker admission.

Ateliê biográfico de formação profissional: prática socioeducativa em Escola Judicial

In recent decades, debates have intensified about (auto) biographical narratives as devices of socio-educational practices, aligned to the educational setting of the XXI century which have stimulated a new educational perspective woven with epistemological and methodological training throughout life. Towards that scenario, the continued training in Judicial School has occupied important space for constitutional effectiveness and, on the other hand, has grown the demands of expanding knowledge and enhancing training practices, in turn, judicial practices. The aim is to analyze the reflective Group through "Professional Training biographical Workshop" with Bailiffs such as socio-educational practices in socio Judicial School, in the city of Natal /RN. It has highlighted the questions that guided this study: 1. What paths of experiences and knowledge shared by the Law Officials, Federal Appraisers in "Professional Training biographical Workshop" as reflective Group? 2. How is organized the reflective Group as practice in socio-professional training setting? 3. What contributions narratives of themselves bring to the bailiff in reflective Group on Judicial School? The theoretical assumptions are supported in the lifelong training in methodological and epistemological dimension of (auto) biographical knowledge (JOSSO, 2008, 2010, 2012; PINEAU, 2005, 2006; DOMINICÉ, 2010; DELORY-MOMBERGER, 2006, 2008; FREIRE, 1987, 1996, 2001; PASSEGGI, 2008; 2010; 2011; 2012). In 2009, 09 (nine) civil servants in post of Federal Appraiser Justice Official, law graduates participated in this research through eight (08) "Biographical Workshops of Professional Training", consisting of biographical practices and scenarios, enabling oral and written narratives about a memory that has meaning, relationship and tessituras between files, facts and feelings that reveal the perception of self and other, as well as mobilize and weave the training process. The experiences of speaking, writing and reading were constituted of spaces that facilitating the reconstruction of the trajectory of training and career awareness-making, helping to re-signify labor relations and lead to their own professional design. From this study, the reflective properties of groups have emerged, consisting of Reflexivity, Experience, Historicity, Reversibility, dialog and formability processes, with paths to social and educational practices in which professionals identify the meaning and significance of self and of the profession that are exercising. The expectation is to continue with the spirit of research to emerge from the participants responses to training practices in Judicial School, aligned with the new knowledge of understanding the human being, not only an object of his work, but also a social subject, co-participant in the process of re-signifying life and work in a permanent way.

Os operadores argumentativos como estratégia linguística e discursiva da argumentação na sentença judicial

We studied in this dissertation the argumentation in the court judgment, which goal was to identify, describe and explain the running of argumentative operators in the argumentative orientation of text and discourse built through the text of the judgment. We support our research in the constructs adopted for the ATD – (Textual Analysis of the Discourses) - Adam (2011), in the studies about the Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1959) and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1996) and other works such as of the Alves (2005), Capez (2008), Charaudeau (2012), Keller and Bastos (2015), Koch (2009; 2011), Rodrigues, Silva Neto and Passeggi (2010), Trubilhano and Henriques (2013). In a methodological way, we made use of deductive-inductive method, because we analyzed the argumentation in an "unknown" text - particular case - based on a theory already known (about language, text and argumentation). About the nature and objectives, our search was characterized as qualitatively and as an explanatory and descriptive investigation, with technical procedures of documental collection of Bibliographic Search. As corpus, we use a court judgment of character condemnatory, issued on September 10, 2014 and taken from the online site of the Federal Court of Rio Grande do Norte (JFRN). The results revealed that the argumentative operators exercised decisive roles in the organization of argumentative strategies of the text and the speech , guiding the announcer to the Desired conclusion by the enunciator. It was also possible to conclude that the use of argumentative operators allowed syllogistic constructions in the form of presentation of the arguments and in the construction of argumentation. In addition, operators like "but", "until", "already", "although" etc. helped to identify in the data's analysis the point of view (PoV) of the enunciator, the expectation break about the previous enunciate and / or the value scale given to the argument. Finally, with the use of argumentative operators the enunciator introduced arguments able to demonstrate/justify a thesis and refute an opposing thesis towards a conclusion sought by the own enunciator.