Prosecutors and Sentencing

Author(s):  
Nora V. Demleitner

Prosecutorial decisions play an important, and sometimes a decisive, role in a defendant’s ultimate sentence. They begin with the selection of charges and may end with a recommendation on clemency or expungement of a criminal conviction. The influence of prosecutors over the sentence, therefore, is far more extensive than that of any other official. The charging decision sets the starting point for the sentence range. The prosecution tends to control entry into diversion programs that may spare an offender a criminal record after complying with a set of requirements. Plea bargains, which have become more frequent even in Europe’s civil law countries, usually focus on the type and scope of the criminal justice sentence. Mandatory minimum sentences, mandatory aggravators, and stacked charges provide prosecutors with overwhelming bargaining power, causing many defendants to waive their right to a trial. Judges tend to follow the parties’ agreements and impose the recommended sentence. In many states prosecutors routinely weigh in on parole decisions and determine whether to proceed against defendants for supervision violations. Even in clemency decisions, they frequently submit a recommendation.

Author(s):  
Chrysanthi S. Leon ◽  
Corey S. Shdaimah

Expertise in multi-door criminal justice enables new forms of intervention within existing criminal justice systems. Expertise provides criminal justice personnel with the rationale and means to use their authority in order to carry out their existing roles for the purpose of doing (what they see as) good. In the first section, we outline theoretical frameworks derived from Gil Eyal’s sociology of expertise and Thomas Haskell’s evolution of moral sensibility. We use professional stakeholder interview data (N = 45) from our studies of three emerging and existing prostitution diversion programs as a case study to illustrate how criminal justice actors use what we define as primary, secondary, and tertiary expertise in multi-agency working groups. Actors make use of the tools at their disposal—in this case, the concept of trauma—to further personal and professional goals. As our case study demonstrates, professionals in specialized diversion programs recognize the inadequacy of criminal justice systems and believe that women who sell sex do so as a response to past harms and a lack of social, emotional, and material resources to cope with their trauma. Trauma shapes the kinds of interventions and expertise that are marshalled in response. Specialized programs create seepage that may reduce solely punitive responses and pave the way for better services. However empathetic, they do nothing to address the societal forces that are the root causes of harm and resultant trauma. This may have more to do with imagined capacities than with the objectively best approaches.


2020 ◽  
pp. 123-150
Author(s):  
Julia Saviello

Smell and taste – of the five senses these are the two most strongly stimulated by smoking tobacco. The article presents an in-depth analysis of the reflection of both these forms of sensory perception in textual and visual sources concerning the early consumption of the herb. In a first step, tobacco’s changing reception, first as medicine and then as stimulant, is traced through the years of its increasing distribution in Europe, starting in the middle of the 16th century. As this overview reveals, at that time the still little known substance gave rise to new forms of sense perception. Following recent studies on smell and gustation, which have stressed the need to take into account the interactions between these senses, the article probes the manifold stimulation of the senses by tobacco with reference to allegorical representations and genre scenes addressing the five senses. The smoking of tobacco was thematized in both of these art forms as a means of visualizing either smell or taste. Yet, these depictions show no indication of any deliberate engagement with the exchange of sense data between mouth and nose. The question posed at the end of this paper is whether this holds true also for early smoker’s still lifes. In the so-called toebakjes or rookertjes, a subgenre of stilllife painting that, like tobacco, was still a novelty at the beginning of the 17th century, various smoking paraphernalia – such as rolled or cut tobacco, pipes and tins – are arrayed with various kinds of foods and drinks. Finally, the article addresses a selection of such smoker’s still lifes, using the toebakje by Pieter Claesz., probably the first of its kind, as a starting point and the work by Georg Flegel as a comparative example. Through their selection of objects, both offer a complex image of how tobacco engages different senses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 784-795
Author(s):  
Krisnna M.A. Alves ◽  
Fábio José Bonfim Cardoso ◽  
Kathia M. Honorio ◽  
Fábio A. de Molfetta

Background:: Leishmaniosis is a neglected tropical disease and glyceraldehyde 3- phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a key enzyme in the design of new drugs to fight this disease. Objective:: The present study aimed to evaluate potential inhibitors of GAPDH enzyme found in Leishmania mexicana (L. mexicana). Methods: A search for novel antileishmanial molecules was carried out based on similarities from the pharmacophoric point of view related to the binding site of the crystallographic enzyme using the ZINCPharmer server. The molecules selected in this screening were subjected to molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Results:: Consensual analysis of the docking energy values was performed, resulting in the selection of ten compounds. These ligand-receptor complexes were visually inspected in order to analyze the main interactions and subjected to toxicophoric evaluation, culminating in the selection of three compounds, which were subsequently submitted to molecular dynamics simulations. The docking results showed that the selected compounds interacted with GAPDH from L. mexicana, especially by hydrogen bonds with Cys166, Arg249, His194, Thr167, and Thr226. From the results obtained from molecular dynamics, it was observed that one of the loop regions, corresponding to the residues 195-222, can be related to the fitting of the substrate at the binding site, assisting in the positioning and the molecular recognition via residues responsible for the catalytic activity. Conclusion:: he use of molecular modeling techniques enabled the identification of promising compounds as inhibitors of the GAPDH enzyme from L. mexicana, and the results obtained here can serve as a starting point to design new and more effective compounds than those currently available.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 466
Author(s):  
Włodzimierz Kęska ◽  
Jacek Marcinkiewicz ◽  
Łukasz Gierz ◽  
Żaneta Staszak ◽  
Jarosław Selech ◽  
...  

The continuous development of computer technology has made it applicable in many scientific fields, including research into a wide range of processes in agricultural machines. It allows the simulation of very complex physical phenomena, including grain motion. A recently discovered discrete element method (DEM) is used for this purpose. It involves direct integration of equations of grain system motion under the action of various forces, the most important of which are contact forces. The method’s accuracy depends mainly on precisely developed mathematical models of contacts. The creation of such models requires empirical validation, an experiment that investigates the course of contact forces at the moment of the impact of the grains. To achieve this, specialised test stations equipped with force and speed sensors were developed. The correct selection of testing equipment and interpretation of results play a decisive role in this type of research. This paper focuses on the evaluation of the force sensor dynamic properties’ influence on the measurement accuracy of the course of the plant grain impact forces against a stiff surface. The issue was examined using the computer simulation method. A proprietary computer software with the main calculation module and data input procedures, which presents results in a graphic form, was used for calculations. From the simulation, graphs of the contact force and force signal from the sensor were obtained. This helped to clearly indicate the essence of the correct selection of parameters used in the tests of sensors, which should be characterised by high resonance frequency.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-510
Author(s):  
Gunjan M. Sanjeev ◽  
Richard Teare

Purpose The paper aims to profile the theme issue of Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes titled “How is the need for innovation being addressed by the Indian hospitality industry?” with reference to the experiences of the theme editor, contributors from the industry and academia and the theme issue outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses structured questions to enable the theme editor to reflect on the rationale for their theme issue question, the starting-point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process. Findings It highlights recent innovations that have taken place in the Indian hospitality industry especially in the areas of customer service, cost competitiveness, culinary management, revenue management and technology. Practical implications As hotel sector investment in India intensifies, this theme issue will be of interest to hoteliers, policy makers, analysts and others interested in the role that innovation can play in helping to facilitate differentiation between competing hotel products and services. Originality/value There is limited literature available on industry innovations in the Indian context. All the papers in this theme issue were written after several cycles of interaction between academics and practitioners and so they incorporate real–time, relevant and contemporary data.


2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Karstedt

Exchange, transport and import of crime policies takes place on a global scale. New strategies of crime prevention, models of institutions and interventions rapidly spread around the globe. Knowledge is increasingly shared among the `epistemic communities' of criminologists, and criminal justice and policing experts and practitioners. Notwithstanding the global scale of exchange, criminal justice systems and policies are definitely local, and embedded in traditions, culture and the particular institutional regimes of national states. This article explores how crime policies travel within a globalized world of nonetheless local legal and institutional cultures, and how we can conceptualize the routes of travelling they take. The article starts by analysing what exactly travels when crime policies are `en route'. Next, overarching concepts and convergence theories, which have played such a decisive role in analysing the globalization of crime policies are discussed. These are contrasted with loosely coupled concepts like actors, mechanisms and principles, following suggestions by Braithwaite and Drahos (2000). `Modelling' seems to be a mechanism that is most useful in describing present exchange and transport of crime polices.


2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Green ◽  
Christopher P.M. Waters

For self-defence actions to be lawful, they must be directed at military targets. The absolute prohibition on non-military targeting under the jus in bello is well known, but the jus ad bellum also limits the target selection of states conducting defensive operations. Restrictions on targeting form a key aspect of the customary international law criteria of necessity and proportionality. In most situations, the jus in bello will be the starting point for the definition of a military targeting rule. Yet it has been argued that there may be circumstances when the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello do not temporally or substantively overlap in situations of self-defence. In order to address any possible gaps in civilian protection, and to bring conceptual clarity to one particular dimension of the relationship between the two regimes, this article explores the independent sources of a military targeting rule. The aim is not to displace the jus in bello as the ‘lead’ regime on how targeting decisions must be made, or to undermine the traditional separation between the two ‘war law’ regimes. Rather, conceptual light is shed on a sometimes assumed but generally neglected dimension of the jus ad bellum’s necessity and proportionality criteria that may, in limited circumstances, have significance for our understanding of human protection during war.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 78-92
Author(s):  
Marija Koprivica

The first collection of canon law translated from the Greek into the Slavic language in the ninth century supported the consolidation of Christianity among the Slav peoples. This article focuses on the nomocanon of St Sava of Serbia (Kormchaia), a collection which was original and specific in its content; its relationship to other contemporary legal historical documents will be considered. The article also explores the political background to the emergence of Orthodox Slav collections of ecclesiastical and civil law. The political context in which these collections originated exercised a determinative influence on their contents, the selection of texts and the interpretation of the canons contained within them. The emergence of the Slavic nomocanon is interpreted within a context in which Balkan Slav states sought to foster their independence and aspired to form autocephalous national churches.


Author(s):  
Géraud Blatman ◽  
Thomas Métais ◽  
Jean-Christophe Le Roux ◽  
Simon Cambier

In the 2009 version of the ASME BPV Code, a set of new design fatigue curves were proposed to cover the various steels of the code. These changes occurred in the wake of publications [1] showing that the mean air curve used to build the former ASME fatigue curve did not always represent accurately laboratory results. The starting point for the methodology to build the design curve is the mean air curve obtained through laboratory testing: coefficients are then applied to the mean air curve in order to bridge the gap between experimental testing and reactor conditions. These coefficients on the number of cycles and on the strain amplitude are equal to 12 and 2 respectively in the 2009 ASME BPV code, using the mean air curve proposal from NUREG/CR-6909 [1]. Internationally, with the same mean air curve, other proposals have emerged and especially in France [2]-[3] where a consensus seems to be reached on the reduction of the coefficient on strain amplitude. This paper provides statistical analyses of the experimental data obtained in France at high-cycle for austenitic stainless steels. It enables to bring arguments for the selection of a coefficient on strain amplitude in the French RCC-M code, where less scatter on the data is witnessed due to fewer material grades.


2018 ◽  
pp. 53-63
Author(s):  
Leonid Kondratyk

Kondratyk L. "Ideas of Civil Religion in the Creative Work of Cyril Methodians". The author is based on the fact that the civil religion is such a sociocultural phenomenon in which, through the prism of a peculiar religious language and specific practices, the necessity of acquiring and establishing a national state is substantiated, which originates in the need of the community to find the sacral in the activity that is inherent in the transcendent, eternally -linear character and which is rooted in the history of the territory. It is proved that the soil on which the ideas of the Cyril and Methodius civil religion originated is Western European romanticism, religiosity, the starting point of which was the idea of religion as the focus of the spiritual world of the individual and community, the idea of the Higher Reason that sets the directions for historical development, Christianity a decisive role in the spiritual and moral and social renewal of mankind, the view of Ukraine as an independent cultural and historical and social force, the influence of creativity T. Shevche gt; The main ideas of the civil religion of the Cyril Methodians are as follows: the messianism of the Ukrainian spirit manifests itself in the ability to unite the Slavs in the best way, because Ukraine is inspired by self-sacrifice with the Christian spirit and has apostolic intercession; Kiev - the capital of the resurrected from the oppression of the Slavs, the city - in which the courts prevail, truth, equality; concepts "temple", "truth", "righteous judgment", "freedom", "brotherhood", "equality", "love", "Kiev", "Kiev mountains" - the basic concepts-symbols of the Ukrainian civil religion; in the Ukrainian community with the need to coincide Christian values and moral standards, which dominate it.


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