Law Commons^™

Class Crimes: Master And Servant Laws And Factories Acts In Industrializing Britain And (Ontario) Canada, Eric Tucker, Judy Fudge

Articles & Book Chapters

This chapter compares the historical development and use of criminal law at work in the United Kingdom and in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, it considers the use of the criminal law both in the master and servant regime as an instrument for disciplining the workforce and in factory legislation for protecting workers from unhealthy and unsafe working conditions, including exceedingly long hours work. Master and servant legislation that criminalized servant breaches of contract originated in the United Kingdom where it was widely used in the nineteenth century to discipline industrial workers. These laws were partially replicated in Ontario, where it had …

Commerce Clause Challenges Spawned By United States V. Lopez Are Doing Violence To The Violence Against Women Act (Vawa): A Survey Of Cases And The Ongoing Debate Over How The Vawa Will Fare In The Wake Of Lopez, Lisanne Newell Leasure

Maine Law Review

On September 14, 1994, in response to and in recognition of the epidemic of violence against women in the United States, Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The VAWA is a comprehensive statute designed to provide women greater protection from and recourse against violence and to impose accountability on abusers and those who commit crimes of violence based on gender animus. The VAWA, which contains seven parts, creates new federal crimes, strengthens penalties for existing federal sex crimes, and provides $1.6 billion over six years for education, research, treatment of domestic and sex crime victims, and the improvement …

Intimate Partner Violence Strategies: Models For Community Participation, Jenny Rivera

Maine Law Review

Over the last several years, states have passed legislation to address intimate partner violence, more commonly known as “domestic violence,” or violence and abuse between current and former spouses, or persons in similar intimate relationships. Much of this legislation is composed of civil and criminal provisions, including criminal sanctions for intimate partner violence. The constitutionality, practical impact, and present and potential benefits of these statutes are the topic of political debates, scholarly diatribes, and litigation. The passage and implementation of federal legislation specifically designed to address violence between present and former spouses and intimate partners reflects a sea change in …

The Hardship That Is Internet Deprivation And What It Means For Sentencing: Development Of The Internet Sanction And Connectivity For Prisoners, Mirko Bagaric, Nick Fischer, Dan Hunter

Akron Law Review

Twenty years ago, the internet was a novel tool. Now it is such an ingrained part of most people’s lives that they experience and exhibit signs of anxiety and stress if they cannot access it. Non-accessibility to the internet can also tangibly set back peoples’ social, educational, financial, and vocational pursuits and interests. In this Article, we argue that the sentencing law needs to be reformed to adapt to the fundamental changes in human behavior caused by the internet.

We present three novel and major implications for the sentencing law and practice in the era of the internet. First, we …

Freedom Of Speech And The Criminal Law, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

Because the Free Speech Clause limits government power to enact penal statutes, it has a close relationship to American criminal law. This Article explores that relationship at a time when a fast-growing “decriminalization movement” has taken hold across the nation. At the heart of the Article is the idea that free speech law has developed in ways that have positioned the Supreme Court to use that law to impose significant new limits on the criminalization of speech. More particularly, this article claims that the Court has developed three distinct decision-making strategies for decriminalizing speech based on constitutional principles. The first …

Legal Aid's Once And Future Role For Impacting The Criminalization Of Poverty And The War On The Poor, Aneel L. Chablani

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Recent media coverage and advocacy efforts on behalf of individuals subjected to criminal sanctions as a result of their poverty status has resulted in increased attention on this nation’s troubled history of oppression and control of the poor and people of color. At the federal, state, and local levels, a growing number of policies create criminal sanctions for poverty-related circumstances. These, in turn, result in collateral consequences that unfairly affect those who lack the means to afford their criminal justice experience (i.e., processing costs, fees, and fines), or affect their ability to access employment, housing, or other basic services. These …

Sexual Harassment On Campus: Does The Accused Have Any Rights?, Richard C. Cahn

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blackmail: The Paradigmatic Crime, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

The ongoing debate about the rationale for punishing blackmail assumes that there is something odd about the crime. Why, the question goes, should demanding money to conceal embarrassing information be criminalized when there is nothing wrong with the separate acts of keeping silent or requesting payment for services rendered? Why should an innocent end (silence) coupled with a generally respectable means (monetary payment) constitute a crime? This supposed paradox, however, is not peculiar to blackmail. Many good acts are corrupted by doing them for a price. There is nothing wrong with government officials showing kindness or doing favors for their …

Hybrid Principles For The Distribution Of Criminal Sanctions, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Most criminal codes, and most criminal law courses, begin with the 'familiar litany' of the purposes of criminal law sanctions - just punishment, deterrence, incapacitation of the dangerous, and rehabilitation. We train and direct our lawyers, judges, and legislators to use these purposes as guiding principles for the distribution of criminal sanctions. The purposes are thus to guide both the drafting and interpretation of criminal statutes and the imposition of criminal sentences in individual cases. The purposes frequently conflict, however, as part I will demonstrate. Conflicts arise because each purpose requires consideration of different criteria; in some cases, a particular …

Organised Crime As Terrorism, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a somewhat belated incursion into the international debate about the threat of organised crime, Federal and State governments in Australia have chosen to represent the 'menace' as an attack on the institution of the state as much as a physical and financial danger to society. This is consistent with the approaches of governments in the United States and Italy in constructing the reality of the Mafia.

Organised Resistance, Terrorism And Criminality In Ireland: The State's Construction Of The Control Equation, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Despite the reality of partition that created "two Irelands," comparative analysis of the state's reactions to terrorism in the Province and in the Republic is rare. The struggle over reunification, which permeates society on both sides of the border, is usually viewed by the populist press not from the Irish viewpoint, but rather from the perspective of the British government. Given this bias, organized resistance -- most notably in the North of Ireland -- is represented as an assault on a majority-supported state. Because the legitimacy of the state under attack is rarely questioned, and the motivations for the resistance …

Two Kinds Of Legal Rules: A Comparative Study Of Burden-Of-Persuasion Practices In Criminal Cases, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Good men everywhere praise the presumption of innocence. And be they Frenchmen, Germans, or Americans, they agree on the demand of the presumption in practice. Both here and abroad, the state's invocation of criminal sanctions demands a high degree of proof that the accused has committed the offense charged. To express the requisite standard of proof, common lawyers speak of the prosecutor's duty to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. And Continental lawyers invoke the maxim in dubio pro reo – a precept requiring triers of fact to acquit in cases of doubt.

The French speak of the presomption …

Why Imprisonment Must Go, Giles Playfair

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.