838 research outputs found
National Security vs Criminal law. Perspectives, Doubts and Concerns on the Criminalisation of Organised Crime in England and Wales
This paper will interpret and critically analyse the new offence for organised crime in England and Wales (Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015) from a criminological perspective in light of evidence found in research in the country. It will argue that changes in the law relate to changes in political narratives rather than to variations in the criminal panorama of organised crime. It will discuss these changes within three perspectives, which address various levels of concern: a narrative perspective, which reflects on the overlapping of meanings in the use of the words āorganised crimeā; an evolution perspective, which reflects on the origins of the new participation offences with reference to both national and international pressures; a management perspective, which reflects on some of the immediate effects of the new offences of organised crime on the criminal justice system. This paper will conclude that political narratives have indeed influenced criminal policy, while there is no significant change in the phenomenon of organised crime to justify such narratives
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Diamonds, gold and crime displacement: Hatton Garden, and the evolution of organised crime in the UK
The 2015 Hatton Garden Heist was described as the ālargest burglary in English legal historyā. However, the global attention that this spectacular crime attracted to āThe Gardenā tended to concentrate upon the value of the stolen goods and the vintage of the burglars. What has been ignored is how the burglary shone a spotlight into Hatton Garden itself, as an area with a unique āupperworldā commercial profile and skills cluster that we identify as an incubator and facilitator for organised crime. The Garden is the UKās foremost jewellery production and retail centre and this paper seeks to explore how Hatton Gardenās businesses integrated with a fluid criminal population to transition, through hosting lucrative (and bureaucratically complex) VAT gold frauds from 1980 to the early 1990s, to become a major base for sophisticated acquisitive criminal activities. Based on extensive interviews over a thirty year period, evidence from a personal research archive and public records, this paper details a cultural community with a unique criminal profile due to the particularities of its geographical location, ethnic composition, trading culture, skills base and international connections. The processes and structures that facilitate criminal markets are largely under-researched (Antonopoulos et al. 2015: 11), and this paper considers how elements of Hatton Gardenās āupperworldā businesses integrated with project criminals, displaced by policing strategies, to effect this transition
An area of untapped potential? The use of restorative justice in the fight against serious and organized crime : a perception study
This article presents the results of a perception study which examined the potential for deploying restorative justice (RJ) in the context of serious and organized crime (SOC) offending. This is a hitherto unexplored area of debate and the study sought to engage the key stakeholders in RJ processes ā victims, offenders and practitioners ā to gather their views as to the suitability and desirability of extending RJ in this way. Employing a mixed methods approach, the study engaged over 40 participants across the three stakeholder groups. The findings challenge existing, deeply embedded orthodoxies concerning the very nature of SOC offending and offendersā motivations, as well confirming the multiplicity of SOC victimsā expectations. The findings also demonstrate the urgent need for further debate concerning how best to account for the complexity of SOC victimsā needs which are currently unmet by the systemic limits of the criminal justice system
Subject specific demands of teaching: Implications for out-of-field teachers
This chapter provides a framework for thinking about the subject-specific nature of teaching in terms of the
knowledge, modes of inquiry and discursive practices that delineate one subject from another in the
traditional school curriculum. The chapter will explore how these disciplinary traits are translated into
teaching as curriculum, knowledge and pedagogy, and how this subject-specificity of teaching is
juxtaposed against the more generic aspects of teaching. The chapter explores the idea that if a teacherās
expertise can be situated within a field, then they can also be positioned out-of-field. Implications for
teaching out-of-field are discussed in terms of the subject-specific knowledge, processes and skills, and the
difficulties associated with teacher practice. English and Australian illustrations of teacher practices from
in-field and out-of-field situations are provided, in particular highlighting the demands of moving across
subject boundaries. Cross-fertilisation is especially evident when subjects are integrated, therefore, the
issues associated with integrated curriculum are discussed where the traditional subject boundaries are
being challenged as schools are reorganised to integrate subjects through, for example, STEM teaching, or
holistic curriculum designs
The Effect of Immune Selection on the Structure of the Meningococcal Opa Protein Repertoire
The opa genes of the Gram negative bacterium Neisseria meningitidis encode Opacity-associated outer membrane proteins whose role is to promote adhesion to the human host tissue during colonisation and invasion. Each meningococcus contains 3ā4 opa loci, each of which may be occupied by one of a large number of alleles. We analysed the Opa repertoire structure in a large, well-characterised collection of asymptomatically carried meningococci. Our data show an association between Opa repertoire and meningococcal lineages similar to that observed previously for meningococci isolated from cases of invasive disease. Furthermore, these Opa repertoires exhibit discrete, non-overlapping structure at a population level, and yet low within-repertoire diversity. These data are consistent with the predictions of a mathematical model of strong immune selection upon a system where identical alleles may occupy different loci
Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans treated by micrographic surgery
Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans is an uncommon cutaneous tumour which rarely metastasises. However, local recurrence following apparently adequate surgical excision is well recognised, presumably as a result of sub-clinical contiguous growth, for which micrographically controlled excision would be a logical treatment. A retrospective study of all patients treated by micrographic surgery, from April 1995āMarch 2000, at a tertiary skin oncology centre. Twenty-one patients (11 males), age 14 to 71 years with dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans on the trunk (10 patients), groin (four), head and neck (four), and limbs (three) were treated. In 15 patients one micrographic layer cleared the tumour, and four were cleared with two layers. For one patient the second stage was completed by conventional excision guided by positive margins. Another patient with a multiply recurrent perineal dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, not cleared in one area after two layers, died from a pulmonary embolus before total clearance could be achieved. There was no correlation between tumour size and lateral excision margin. No recurrence was observed during the follow-up, from 21 to 80 months, median 47 months. The study provides further support for micrographic surgery as the treatment of choice for dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans
Strongly magnetized pulsars: explosive events and evolution
Well before the radio discovery of pulsars offered the first observational
confirmation for their existence (Hewish et al., 1968), it had been suggested
that neutron stars might be endowed with very strong magnetic fields of
-G (Hoyle et al., 1964; Pacini, 1967). It is because of their
magnetic fields that these otherwise small ed inert, cooling dead stars emit
radio pulses and shine in various part of the electromagnetic spectrum. But the
presence of a strong magnetic field has more subtle and sometimes dramatic
consequences: In the last decades of observations indeed, evidence mounted that
it is likely the magnetic field that makes of an isolated neutron star what it
is among the different observational manifestations in which they come. The
contribution of the magnetic field to the energy budget of the neutron star can
be comparable or even exceed the available kinetic energy. The most magnetised
neutron stars in particular, the magnetars, exhibit an amazing assortment of
explosive events, underlining the importance of their magnetic field in their
lives. In this chapter we review the recent observational and theoretical
achievements, which not only confirmed the importance of the magnetic field in
the evolution of neutron stars, but also provide a promising unification scheme
for the different observational manifestations in which they appear. We focus
on the role of their magnetic field as an energy source behind their persistent
emission, but also its critical role in explosive events.Comment: Review commissioned for publication in the White Book of
"NewCompStar" European COST Action MP1304, 43 pages, 8 figure
A Novel Air-Dried Multiplex High Resolution Melt Assay for the Detection of Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase and Carbapenemase Genes.
OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to develop and evaluate a novel air-dried high-resolution melt (HRM) assay to detect eight major extended spectrum beta-Lactamase (ESBL) (blaSHV and blaCTXM groups 1 and 9) and carbapenemase (blaNDM, blaIMP, blaKPC, blaVIM and blaOXA-48-like) genes that cause antimicrobial resistance to cephalosporins and carbapenems. METHODS: The assay was evaluated using 439 DNA samples extracted from bacterial isolates from Nepal, Malawi and UK and 390 clinical isolates from Nepal with known antimicrobial susceptibility results. Assay reproducibility was evaluated across five different q-PCR instruments (Rotor-Gene Q, QuantStudioTM 5, CFX96, LightCyclerĀ® 480 and MIC). Assay stability was also assessed upon the assay storage in the refrigerator (6.2Ā°CĀ±0.9), room temperature (20.4Ā°CĀ±0.7) and oven (29.7Ā°CĀ±1.4) at six time points for eight months. RESULTS: The sensitivity and specificity for detecting the ESBL and carbapenemase genes in comparison to the reference gel-base PCR and sequencing was 94.7% (95%CI: 92.5%-96.5%) and 99.2% (95%CI: 98.8%-99.5%), and 98.5% (95%CI: 97.0%-99.4%) and 98.5% (95%CI: 98.0%-98.9%) when compared to the original HRM wet PCR mix format. The overall agreement was 91.1% (95%CI: 90.0%-92.9%) when predicting phenotypic resistance to cefotaxime and meropenem among Enterobacteriaceae isolates. We observed almost perfect inter-machine reproducibility of the air-dried HRM assay and no loss of sensitivity occurred under all storage conditions and time points. CONCLUSIONS: We present here a ready-to-use air-dried HRM-PCR assay that offers an easy, thermostable, fast and accurate tool for the detection of ESBL and carbapenemase genes in DNA samples to improve AMR
'Gain with no painā: anabolic-androgenic steroids trafficking in the UK
Anabolic-androgenic steroids are performance and image enhancing drugs (PIED) that can improve endurance and athletic performance, reduce body fat and stimulate muscle growth. The use of steroids has been studied extensively in the medical and psychological literature, as well as in the sociology of sport, health and masculinity. From the late 2000s, the worldwide trade in steroids increased significantly. However, trafficking in steroids remains a largely under-researched criminological phenomenon with a few notable exceptions. Currently in the UK there are only small and fragmented pieces of information available relating to steroids trafficking in autobiographical accounts of professional criminals. Drawing on original empirical data, the purpose of this article is to provide an account of the social organization of the steroids trafficking business in the UK. The trade in steroids is decentralized, highly flexible with no hierarchies, and open to anyone willing to either order the merchandise online or travel to producing countries and obtain steroids in bulk from legitimate manufacturers. The patterns of trafficking of this specific type of substance are patently conditioned by its embeddedness in the gym/bodybuilding scene and this greatly affects relations between actors in the business. In the steroids market, one typically encounters a multitude of individuals likely to drift between legality and illegality, online and offline, use and supply
A qualitative reading of the ecological (dis)organisation of criminal associations. The case of the ?Famiglia Basilischi? in Italy
This paper combines the theoretical foundations of organisational ecology - one of the most important approaches in economic sociology - with classic criminological theories to interpret the birth, evolution and death of criminal associations. This mixed approach will support the interpretation of organised crime groups as phenomena strictly linked to the environment as well as to other competitors in criminal markets. This paper analyses the birth, evolution and death of a criminal association in Basilicata, Southern Italy, known as the ?Famiglia Basilischi?. The case is exemplary of how ecological conditions affect the success or failure of a newly formed criminal association. These conditions can therefore be indicators to interpret organised criminal activities in similar environments
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