Domestic Offenses Research Articles

Domestic Violence Against Women- Its Causes, Effects and Remedies

Violence against women, of late, has become a global problem. Women of all races, ethnic groups, classes and nationalities are affected by it. It has recently emerged as a life-threatening problem for individual women and as a grievous problem for societies. Violence impacts the lives of millions of women globally in all socio-economic and educational classes. It cuts across cultural and religious barriers and hinders women’s right to fully engage in society. Violence against women takes a discouraging variety of forms, from domestic offense to rape, to childhood marriages and to practices like female circumcision. All these deny the most fundamental human rights. Crime against women is not a recent phenomenon in Assam. In Assamese society, as per available written records of social organization and family, women have been subjected to ill-treatment, humiliation, torture, and exploitation. These records exhibit repetition of incidents of rape, abduction, torture and murder of women. Yet, sadly enough, literature on social problems or on criminal violence have not given much importance on female victims of violence. There are not much attempts made to explain why both the public and the academicians alike have ignored for so long the hard fact that women have continuously been ruthlessly exploited in our society. The aim of this article is to find out the types,causes,effects and remedies of domestic violence against women and its remedies.

О ПОДСУДНОСТИ ЧИНГИЗИДОВ ТРАДИЦИОННОМУ СУДУ БИЕВ

The implementation of new research projects in the field of synthesis works on national history has actualized the issue of revising many outdated views, interpretations and assessments. The presented work examines the validity of the assertion widespread in scientific works that representatives of the Chingizid estate were outside the jurisdiction of the Biy Courts in traditional Kazakh society and could only be responsible to a special, aristocratic judicial body. The researchhas shown that the thesis was based on the some sources reflecting the realities of the period when the traditional Steppe Law underwent a significant transformation due to the political, economic, social and cultural changes in Kazakh society caused by impact of Russian Empire. In addition to criticizing the source, the author also examines various episodes in the history of the Kazakhs in XVIII century. They testify that famous Kazakh khans and sultans acted on several occasions as one of the parties in the Biy Court, including disputes for dynastic succession and domestic offenses. These data suggest a complete revision of the outdated thesis that distorts the idea of one of the basic institutions in traditional society, which used to solve effectively all contradictions in traditional Kazakh society.

ТАКТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ УЧАСТКОВЫХ УПОЛНОМОЧЕННЫХ ПОЛИЦИИ ПО ПРЕДУПРЕЖДЕНИЮ ПРАВОНАРУШЕНИЙ В СФЕРЕ СЕМЕЙНО-БЫТОВЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ

Currently, the prevention of family and domestic offenses is one of the priority areas of activity of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Poor-quality and untimely response of police officers to this type of offense, as well as heinous crimes, garnered media coverage, preceded by family conflicts, create a negative public opinion about the activities of the police and the state as a whole. This work deals with the improvement of the effectiveness of the work carried out by the internal affairs bodies to prevent and suppress the facts of family and domestic conflicts, including those accompanied by the violence against children and women. Within the framework of the research, the authors pay special attention to the concept of family and domestic offenses, the analysis of the causes and conditions of the occurrence of family and domestic offenses, legal foundations of regulating the liability in the sphere of family and domestic conflicts according to the laws of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The authors analyzed the main directions of prevention of domestic crimes and administrative violations by district police officers, identified tactical aspects of work with people registered with law enforcement agencies when executing preventive patrolling in an administrative area. The paper proposes a mechanism of involvement of the public and specific categories of citizens in the assistance to law enforcement agencies to timely domestic violations detection and suppression. Following the analysis, the authors conclude that the insurance of effective work on the eradication of considered negative social phenomenon is the patrolling in an administrative area, preventive conversations based on the study of a psychological maker of persons, their past, and basic personality characteristics, as well as on the awareness of their immediate environment and relations carrying both positive and negative connotation. The study shows that the issues of protection of family members’ life and health against offenses should be solved holistically, in cooperation with other agencies and institutes of civil society.

Transplanting Legal Context without the Law: Double Criminality in Meng Wanzhou’s Extradition Case

Law is often transplanted from one place to another. Law is inextricably linked to its social context. In the new location, it will operate differently because the legal context changes. The law undergoes a transformation. In its new context, it might fulfil its intended purpose or satisfy a different one. In the extradition case of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of the Chinese private company, Huawei, the Canadian Court applied the double criminality test. This involved transferring the social context of the requesting jurisdiction, as it attached to the alleged conduct constituting the offence, to judge whether the domestic offence requirements could be satisfied. The social context may include background law comprising the sociolegal landscape. However, the law creating the offence is not transplanted for this purpose, as only the local law is relevant, not that of the foreign jurisdiction. This article reviews the application of the test and questions whether the deciding Court went too far by using foreign law, that creating US Sanctions against Iran, which does not exist in Canada, to satisfy a required element of the local offence. The article posits that the legal element of the transplanted ‘context’ shifted from passive background context to playing a performative role in the Court’s decision that the double criminality test had been satisfied. It is suggested that further study of the previous work of legal comparatists might help identify the role of transplanting law and context in this aspect of the extradition process.

Transplanting Legal Context without the Law: Double Criminality in Meng Wanzhou’s Extradition Case

Law is often transplanted from one place to another. Law is inextricably linked to its social context. In the new location, it will operate differently because the legal context changes. The law undergoes a transformation. In its new context, it might fulfil its intended purpose or satisfy a different one. In the extradition case of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of the Chinese private company, Huawei, the Canadian Court applied the double criminality test. This involved transferring the social context of the requesting jurisdiction, as it attached to the alleged conduct constituting the offence, to judge whether the domestic offence requirements could be satisfied. The social context may include background law comprising the sociolegal landscape. However, the law creating the offence is not transplanted for this purpose, as only the local law is relevant, not that of the foreign jurisdiction. This article reviews the application of the test and questions whether the deciding Court went too far by using foreign law, that creating US Sanctions against Iran, which does not exist in Canada, to satisfy a required element of the local offence. The article posits that the legal element of the transplanted ‘context’ shifted from passive background context to playing a performative role in the Court’s decision that the double criminality test had been satisfied. It is suggested that further study of the previous work of legal comparatists might help identify the role of transplanting law and context in this aspect of the extradition process.

Reducing the Harm of Intimate Partner Violence: Randomized Controlled Trial of the Hampshire Constabulary CARA Experiment

Research QuestionAmong Southampton-area males arrested for and admitting to low-risk intimate partner violence as a first domestic offence and receiving a conditional caution, did a randomly assigned requirement to attend (with four to seven other male offenders), two weekend day-long Cautioning and Relationship Abuse (CARA) workshops led by experienced professionals reduce the total severity of crime harm relative to a no-workshop control group?DataEligible offenders (N = 293) were randomly assigned to the CARA workshop attendance requirement (n = 154) or to the no-workshop requirement (n = 139), with 91% of all cases receiving treatment as randomly assigned. Each offender’s records of police contact were tracked for exactly 365 days after the date of random assignment.MethodsAll repeat arrests or complaints of crime naming the 293 randomly assigned offenders were coded by the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CHI) as the primary outcome measure for each offender (Sherman et al. in Policing, 10(3), 171–183, 2016), with the sum of total days of recommended imprisonment for each offence (as the guideline starting point for sentencing) summed across all new offences, with both domestic and non-domestic relationships to their victims. Prevalence and frequency of repeat contact were also computed. All analysis was done by intention-to-treat.FindingsOffenders assigned to the workshop group were re-arrested for crimes with a total CHI value that was 27% lower than for re-arrests of offenders assigned to the control group (P = .011). The CARA workshop group members were arrested for crimes totalling an average of 8.4 days of recommended imprisonment under English sentencing guidelines, compared to an average of 11.6 days per offender assigned to the control group, the equivalent of 38% more harm without the workshop than with it. The effect size was much stronger, however, in the first study period of high caseflow (72% reduction in CHI, P = .001) than in the second period (21% reduction in CHI, P = .178). Frequency of re-arrest for domestic abuse (21% lower for workshop-assigned group) and prevalence (35% lower for workshop-assigned group) also favoured the CARA workshop group.ConclusionsThe results of this 1-year follow-up analysis suggest that the CARA workshops are an effective way to reduce the future harm of domestic abuse among first offenders who admit their crime, although effect size may vary over time. Given the highly restrictive eligibility criteria for the programme, these findings provide an evidence-based reason for testing the same treatment among a larger proportion of all first-offender arrests for domestic abuse.

Individual determinants of punitive attitudes towards sexual and domestic abuse offenders

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address individual factors predicting punitive attitudes towards sexual and domestic offences and offenders have received little attention. Design/methodology/approach In Study 1,137 participants completed a 25-item online questionnaire exploring individual factors hypothesised to predict punitive attitudes towards four sexual crimes: rape, paedophilia, incest and bestiality. In Study 2,100 participants completed a similar questionnaire exploring individual factors hypothesised to predict punitive attitudes towards male and female emotional, physical and sexual abusers. Findings The standard multiple regression models of Study 1 found that age (i.e. being older), belief in a just world and gender (i.e. being female) were predictors of harsher punitive attitudes. The models of Study 2 found that the low score on the social dominance scale was the most common predictor. Research limitations/implications This survey-based project presents a nuanced picture that could be complemented by the inclusion of a wider range of more complex factors and follow-on qualitative studies. Practical implications The key message from this study is to inform the public on the role of personality factors in developing punitive attitudes. Social implications It is vital to increase the legislators’ and the people’ awareness of the factors shaping the public impressions of criminal justice processes and evidence-based treatment effectiveness. Originality/value This relatively modest paper offers insight of personality factors into people’s punitive attitudes shaping actual legislation.

Contemporary Approaches to the Philosophy of Crimes against Humanity

Crimes against humanity have recently been the object of significant examination in contemporary analytical philosophy. Yet several theoretical issues are still up for grabs. What exactly is a crime against humanity? How are crimes against humanity different from domestic offences? What does humanity stand for in this notion? And who is entitled to define and prosecute these crimes? This article provides a concise, critical overview of the main positions available in the literature. It seeks to isolate the key conceptual and normative issues that surround this debate, and to assess the different answers currently available. It concludes that although all the answers available face significant objections and difficulties, they have made increasingly clear what the philosophical questions surrounding the notion of crimes against humanity are.

Jonathan Doak, Victims' Rights, Human Rights and Criminal Justice: Reconceiving the Role of Third Parties

Jonathan Doak deals with the topic of victims’ rights and their legal role and status within the adversarial system in England. Doak advocates a unified definition of victims that includes victims of both state and non-state crimes, the latter mainly understood by him as domestic offences. The author considers that the adversarial system has not completely fulfilled the victims’ rights and he proposes a progressive incorporation of international human rights law, international criminal justice standards and some features of the inquisitorial system into the criminal justice system in England. The authors’ criticism is related to the bipartisan nature of the adversarial model in which interest in punishing the responsible and keeping the equality of arms between prosecutor and accused monopolizes criminal procedures. Victims consequently play a secondary role as mere participants or witnesses and, when participating, victims may not be completely protected. Doak therefore calls for judicial reform, moving away from a system led by retributive justice values and principles, which are often present in adversarial procedures, towards a system driven by mechanisms of restorative justice, so as to strengthen the role of victims as third parties and give voice to their concerns and interests.

Using International Law to By-pass Domestic Legal Hurdles: On the Applicability of the Statute of Limitations in the Menendez et al. Case

Thirty-one years after committing their crimes, General Menendez and seven other represores were sentenced by an Argentinean Federal Tribunal to prison terms ranging from 18 years to life in prison for the kidnapping, torture and murder of four members of a political opposition group. The crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against those opposed to the military regime that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. According to national legislation, however, they should have been shielded from prosecution by the statute of limitations found in Article 62 of the Penal Code. To circumvent this procedural hurdle in domestic law, the Tribunal relied upon international criminal law, describing the offences as crimes against humanity, maintaining that the statute of limitations did not apply to such crimes, and then proceeded to sentence the accused exclusively for domestic crimes. After a concise summary of the facts of the case, the following paper shall, first, review the use of international law by the Tribunal, pointing out certain inaccuracies in the application of international criminal law notions to handle domestic offences. This will be followed by a comment on the Tribunal's arguments regarding the non-applicability of the statute of limitations, in particular concerning its approach to jus cogens norms. Finally, this article presents the Tribunal's use of domestic law to reach its verdict, and questions whether using international law as a tool to by-pass domestic procedural hurdles could ultimately hinder the international struggle to end impunity.

Chinese criminal law concerning money laundering

Traces the evolution of criminal law against money laundering to the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Drugs and Psychotropic Substances 1988, which required member countries to stipulate a domestic offence of concealing drug trafficking proceeds; this was ratified in China and followed by the Decision on Suppressing Drug Dealing 1990. Outlines subsequent Amendments of the Chinese Criminal Code which from 1997 have expanded money laundering control; the predicate offences cover smuggling, organised crime, terrorism and drug‐related crime, and sentences have been increased. Explains the principles behind this legislation, including the concept of scienter as the mens rea, ie the obligation to know that money has originated from a predicate offence, and the five types of money laundering behaviour under the Code; punishments involve loss of freedom, fines, and confiscation of illegal gains.

Constructing a Hierarchy of Crimes in International Criminal Law Sentencing

This Article looks at sentencing in international criminal law. Based primarily on the statutes and decisions of the current International Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) (collectively, the Tribunals), the Article focuses on one critical aspect of sentencing-how judges should assess the harm caused by the perpetration of international crimes. The Tribunals' judges have great discretion in imposing sentences. All crimes within their jurisdiction may be punished with terms ranging from one day to life imprisonment. There are few precedents for the Tribunals' work, and this structure has resulted in a lack of uniformity in sentencing decisions, both in sentence length and in methodology. This article proposes a framework for evaluating the harm associated with the different kinds of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Tribunals. The crimes within the jurisdiction of these Tribunals have two sets of elements: the chapeau, which confers international jurisdiction over the offense, and the enumerated acts, which resemble domestic crimes. The ICTY currently considers only the harm associated with the enumerated act when imposing an appropriate sentence. This Article argues that it is critical that the Tribunals should consider the chapeau elements in their harm determinations for two reasons. First, these international elements encode important information about the secondary harms caused by the offenses. Second, they reflect the norms underlying the internationalization of the crime and reinforce the distinction between international and domestic offenses. This approach yields two results important for international criminal law. It provides a relatively rule-like sentencing methodology that will increase the consistency and ultimately the legitimacy of international criminal law. Furthermore, by examining the differences between international and domestic crimes, it illuminates the purpose of international criminalization and advances a meaningful distinction between the two enforcement regimes.