Criminal Law Commons^™

"If Consent Is Bought, It Is Not Freely Chosen": Compromised Consent In Prostituted Sex In Ireland, Ivana Bacik

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article offers feminist arguments for the reconsideration of consent as a legal concept, informed by insights gained through the work of the #MeToo movement and other feminist campaigns. It suggests that consent may be seen as legally compromised in certain contexts of structured gender inequality, such as domestic violence, workplace sexual harassment, and prostitution. The legal understanding of consent in such contexts is antithetical to the conception of consent as “freely and voluntarily” given within a mutual sexual relationship. This understanding of consent underpins the recent introduction of the Nordic model approach into Irish law through the Criminal Law …

Survivor: An Analysis Of The Term From India, Pravin Patkar

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article discusses the need for greater conceptual clarity of the term survivor. It raises questions about the propriety of the term to refer to the victims of sex trafficking. It points out that in the Indian context, the term victim is legally and operationally defined. It cautions against the hasty incorporation of the term survivor into public policies addressing the trafficked victims' problems. Different social platforms use the term survivor differently, and the difference is not nominal. The use of the term survivor is both casual as well as intentional. The term survivor trivializes the exploitation and makes invisible …

The Female Face Of Misogyny: A Review Of Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach To Intimate Partner Violence By Leigh Goodmark And The Feminist War On Crime: The Unexpected Role Of Women's Liberation In Mass Incarceration By Aya Gruber, Dianne L. Post

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

It Is Time To Get Back To Basics On The Border, Donna Coltharp

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Dirty Johns: Prosecuting Prostituted Women In Pennsylvania And The Need For Reform, Mckay Lewis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prostitution is as old as human civilization itself. Throughout history, public attitudes toward prostituted women have varied greatly. But adverse consequences of the practice—usually imposed by men purchasing sexual services—have continuously been present. Prostituted women have regularly been subject to violence, discrimination, and indifference from their clients, the general public, and even law enforcement and judicial officers.

Jurisdictions can choose to adopt one of three general approaches to prostitution regulation: (1) criminalization; (2) legalization/ decriminalization; or (3) a hybrid approach known as the Nordic Model. Criminalization regimes are regularly associated with disparate treatment between prostituted women and their clients, high …

The Never-Ending Grasp Of The Prison Walls: Banning The Box On Housing Applications, Ashley De La Garza

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Racial Justice And Decriminalization Of Prostitution: No Protection For Women Of Color, Janice G. Raymond

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Beat The Heat: Texas’S Need To Reduce Summer Temperatures In Offender Housing, Mary E. Adair

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s lack of air conditioning in offender housing areas is a violation of the Eighth Amendment and deprives offenders of humane living conditions. Unlike most Texans, offenders housed in the TDCJ are unable to adequately protect themselves from the higher, prolonged summer temperatures. Most Texas prisons do not provide air conditioning or other types of cooling systems in offender housing areas, so offenders are at the mercy of the elements with little protection against heat-related illnesses. Several jurisdictions, other than Texas, have recognized extreme temperatures in housing areas can lead to constitutional violations because the …

Sanctuary Cities And Their Respective Effect On Crime Rates, Adam R. Schutt

Undergraduate Economic Review

According to the U.S. Center for Immigration Studies (2017), cities or counties in twenty-four states declare themselves as a place of “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. This study addresses the following question: Do sanctuary cities experience higher crime rates than those cities that are not? Using publicly available data, this regression analysis investigates the relationship between crime rates in selected cities and independent variables which the research literature or the media has linked to criminal activity. Results of this research reveal that sanctuary cities do not experience higher violent or property crime rates than those cities that are not sanctuary cities.

Lessons Learned, Lessons Offered: Creating A Domestic Violence Drug Court, Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, Dr. Stacy Speedlin Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Safe Consumption Sites And The Perverse Dynamics Of Federalism In The Aftermath Of The War On Drugs, Deborah Ahrens

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In this Article, I explore the complicated regulatory and federalism issues posed by creating safe consumption sites for drug users—an effort which would regulate drugs through use of a public health paradigm. This Article details the difficulties that localities pursuing such sites and other non-criminal-law responses have faced as a result of both federal and state interference. It contrasts those difficulties with the carte blanche local and state officials typically receive from federal regulators when creatively adopting new punitive policies to combat drugs. In so doing, this Article identifies systemic asymmetries of federalism that threaten drug policy reform. While traditional …

Free Battered Texas Women: Survivor-Advocates Organizing At The Crossroads Of Gendered Violence, Disability, And Incarceration, Cathy Marston Phd

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

This article recaps my symposium presentation, where I argue that feminist organizing strategies are central to healing our society and creating restorative justice from my perspective as a survivor of occupational injury, battering, and criminalization for self-defense. This includes the creation of Free Battered Texas Women. We prefer to think of ourselves as survivor-advocates who use a variety of tactics to empower ourselves, incarcerated battered women, and citizens. These strategies include pedagogy; poetry and other written forms; art; and legislative advocacy. I blend this grassroots activism with feminist disability theory, radical feminist theory, feminist ethnography, and feminist criminology.

Replacing Death With Life? The Rise Of Lwop In The Context Of Abolitionist Campaigns In The United States, Michelle Miao

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

On the basis of fifty-four elite interviews[1] with legislators, judges, attorneys, and civil society advocates as well as a state-by-state data survey, this Article examines the complex linkage between the two major penal trends in American society during the past decades: a declining use of capital punishment across the United States and a growing population of prisoners serving “life without the possibility of parole” or “LWOP” sentences. The main contribution of the research is threefold. First, the research proposes to redefine the boundary between life and death in relation to penal discourses regarding the death penalty and LWOP. LWOP …

Families Belong Together: The Path To Family Sanctity In Public Housing, Mckayla Stokes

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 2015 landmark civil rights decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court finally held that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution guarantee same-sex couples’ marital equality. The Court’s unprecedented declaration that the right to marry is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause strengthened married couples’ right to privacy because it subjects government actions infringing on marital unions to heightened scrutiny. The Supreme Court has the option to minimize the impact of Obergefell by interpreting the right to marriage very narrowly—as only encompassing the right to enter into a state-recognized union …

Feminist Action Against Pornography In Japan: Unexpected Success In An Unlikely Place, Caroline Norma, Seiya Morita

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In late 2016 a feminist movement against problems of commercial sexual exploitation, and especially issues of coerced pornography filming, arose in Japan. This article describes the history of this movement as it mobilized to combat human rights violations perpetrated by the country’s pornographers. The movement’s success came not spontaneously or haphazardly; in fact, it was orchestrated earlier over a full decade-and-a-half by activists who persevered in researching and highlighting pornography’s harms in a civil environment of hostility, isolation and social derision, even among progressive groups and individuals. The Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (APP) was particularly prominent in this history. …