j u s t c r i m

ZotZine Feature - Vice and virtue

Amid the riot of books, papers, student exams, posters and paraphernalia in John Dombrink's office at UC Irvine, one thing stands out: little yellow sticky notes he's tacked onto a row of file drawers labeled "sin."

Dombrink — who once considered the priesthood before finding his true calling — specializes in sin. The professor of criminology, law & society and sociology studies immoral, unethical or unlawful behavior and how our definitions of these evolve over time. Gambling, euthanasia, stem cell research, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage — if it gets people riled up over what's right and wrong, he's intrigued.

"Anytime there's ferment, it's valuable to me," Dombrink says. "I'm interested in the letter of the law but even more in how mores shift and people's beliefs change. On issues like stem cells and same-sex marriage, there's advancement and backlash. Looking at these animates me — and accounts for most of the mess in this office."

via www.zotzine.uci.edu

ARCAblog: The Journal of Art Crime: Essayist Simon Cole on Connoisseurship

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

In one of ARCA’s three scholarly responses to David Grann’s “The Mark of a Masterpiece,” published in The New Yorker in July 2010, Simon A. Cole penned an editorial essay, “Connoisseurship All the Way Down: Art Authentication, Forgery, Fingerprint Identification, Expert Knowledge” in the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime (Fall 2010).

Simon A. Cole is Associate Professor & Chair of the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Harvard University Press, 2001) and Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (University of Chicago Press, 2008, with Michael Lynch, Ruth McNally & Kathleen Jourdan). His work has been published in numerous criminology journals, Art Journal, and Suspect (MIT Press, 2005), the 10th issue of the design award winning series Alphabet City. He is co-editor of the journal Theoretical Criminology.

via art-crime.blogspot.com

Veritas Initiative

The American Bar Association states the prosecutor has a duty different from other advocates- not to simply convict, but to seek justice. While many prosecutors conscientiously do their job with the integrity, there are some that commit misconduct. Ways in which a prosecutor can commit misconduct include improperly examining witnesses, making improper arguments to a [...]

Those who have served time in prison for crimes they did not commit deserve to be compensated for their ordeal. The impact of incarceration is devastating; defendants lose much more than their freedom. In addition to the pain of separation from friends and family, imprisonment can result in loss of education, employment, job skills, earnings [...]

Over 250 people have been exonerated through the use of DNA testing. While DNA has become the golden standard, experts estimate that only 5-10% of all criminal cases involve biological evidence that could be subjected to DNA testing. This means that in 90-95% of all criminal cases, DNA testing is not an option. Therefore, law [...]

via www.veritasinitiative.org

"is steven slater a criminal" | we are all criminals

Is Steven Slater a criminal? USA TODAY Opinion (By Erin Murphy, Professor, New York University School of Law)

"After years of silently suffering claimed professional indignities, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater grabbed two beers and slid to freedom. Or so he thought. Less than 24 hours after his headline-making exit, he was in custody on felony charges of reckless endangerment, trespassing and criminal mischief. His next court hearing is scheduled for this month. But of all the conversations inspired by his actions, one is conspicuously absent: Even those who applaud him seem totally unfazed by the fact that he also is being treated as an alleged felon . . ." (RESTOFSTORY) (via CrimProf Blog)

criminal justice podcasts

Check out UCB's Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast series --  “The Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast, a co-production of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice and the Berkeley School of Journalism, features in-depth, thirty-minute interviews with a wide range of criminal justice leaders: law enforcement officials, policymakers, advocates, service providers, academics and others. 

The weekly Podcast, hosted by criminal justice expert David Onek, gets behind the sound bites that far too often dominate the public dialogue about criminal justice, to have detailed, nuanced conversations about criminal justice policy." 

[via Prison Law Blog]

a psa for frontline prison programming

The Prison Law Blog pulls together a great short list of current Frontline shows on prison and crime related issues.  Check it out:

"The PBS documentary series Frontline also makes its programming available online at www.pbs.org. Here are a few Frontline episodes to start with if you’re interested in prison and jail issues — note that each of these websites includes not just streaming video of the episode itself, but also links to a range of related resources and information:

• “The Released” (2009): What happens to mentally ill offenders after they leave prison, and why do so many return? A sequel of sorts to 2005’s The New Asylums (see below).
• “When Kids Get Life” (2007): What should be done with children who commit murder?
• “The Meth Epidemic” (2006): Why has meth use exploded in the U.S. and what policy solutions might work?
• “The New Asylums” (2005): Why are so many mentally ill men and women in prison, and what kind of treatment to they receive there? Focused on the Ohio state prison system.
• “The Plea” (2004): Examining the plea bargaining process that resolves 95%+ of criminal cases in the U.S.
• “Burden of Innocence” (2003): After years of wrongful imprisonment, what happens to men who are exonerated once they get out of prison?"

strip search illegal

Supreme Court Rules Strip Search of Girl Illegal (LATIMES.COM - Associated Press 8:12 AM PDT, June 25, 2009): "The Supreme Court ruled today that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal. In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford. Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills -- the equivalent of two Advils..." [The Safford opinion is available at the SCOTUS site: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-479.pdf]

"investigating the csi effect"

From the Symposium: Media, Justice, and the Law:  Simon A. Cole & Rachel Dioso-Villa, Investigating the 'CSI Effect' Effect: Media and Litigation Crisis in Criminal Law, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1335 (2009).

VOLUME 61, ISSUE 6 - April 2009
Symposium: Media, Justice, and the Law
Introduction, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1333 (2009).
Articles
Simon A. Cole & Rachel Dioso-Villa, Investigating the 'CSI Effect' Effect: Media and Litigation Crisis in Criminal Law, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1335 (2009).
Russell D. Covey, Criminal Madness: Cultural Iconography and Insanity, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1375 (2009).
William R. Montross & Patrick Mulvaney, Virtue and Vice: Who Will Report on the Failings of the American Criminal Justice System?, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1429 (2009).
Russell K. Robinson, Racing the Closet, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1463 (2009).
Note
Rachel C. Lee, Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in the Internet Era, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1535 (2009).

theoretical criminology - latest issue

Theoretical Criminology  [Current Issue Contents. May 2009, Volume 13, No. 2]