Disquisition on the Need for a New Model for Criminal Sanctioning Systems

The time is ripe for a major restructuring of our criminal sanctioning systems. Pressures for change are arising from many sources. As crime rates continue to rise and public fear of crime grows apace, thoughtful persons from many walks of life are more strongly articulating the need to find a different method of dealing with those convicted of violating the criminal law. The criminal prosecutions and dispositions arising from Watergate and related cases have brought many of the issues of unequal justice into the thoughts of American citizens. Proposals for criminal and penal code revision await action in legislatures throughout the country. Judges find a growing percentage of their workload being devoted to hearing and attempting to resolve complaints from convicted offenders concerning the nature of their sentences, the conditions of their confinement, and the procedures by which their lives are governed. This article will highlight some of the major problems, sources of confusion, and matters of controversy that surround present sanctioning practices. The subject areas to be addressed include sentencing discretion, lack of clarity or consensus regarding the purposes to be served in imposing criminal sanctions, dispartity in sentencing, the acceptability of current sanctions by humanitarian and legal standards, and the parole release function as a part of sentencing. A number of officers, institutions, and forces impinge upon or influence the nature and duration of sanctions. This article will focus primarily on the legislature, judiciary, and paroling authorities as they impact on the sanctioning process, excluding discussion of a number of other critical actors. The problems that will be highlighted in these three areas reflect flaws that are endemic throughout the criminal justice process. The article will also summarize the major types of reform that have been suggested in the last ten or fifteen years. This review of the problems that characterize present sanctioning practices and of proposed remedies is not intended to be fully exhaustive of the subjects raised. Rather, the intent is to reiterate the flaws in the system, already catalogued in much greater detail elsewhere, as a prelude to addressing the inadequacy of most of the existing proposals for change. Many of our present sanctioning practices are performed in ways, or result in ends, that are unlawful, unjust, ineffective, and inhumane. Decisions regarding where and how thousands of persons may spend years of their lives are left to individuals whose discretion is unguided by clear objectives and virtually unchecked by procedural requirements or further review. In view of the awesome power embodied in sanctioning decisions and their critical impact on American citizens, the current state of the criminal sanctioning process is appalling. Complete restructuring of our sanctioning practices is necessary, requiring a reconceptualization of both the purposes that a criminal sanctioning system should be designed to serve and the most sensible practices for achieving the desired goals. Social change seldom arises simply from presentation of facts showing that the status quo is ineffective. This may be a necessary condition for change, but it is not a sufficient one. What is needed is a vision of a new way-a vision that is compelling enough to attract sufficient number of adherents to achieve its implementation. This article is designed to assemble the major arguments concerning why a new model for criminal sanctioning is needed and to offer some directions such a model might follow

Il tema del “doppio” nel romanzo di A. Skaldin Stranstvia i priključenija Nikodima Staršego

L’«inspiegabile divisione» (неизъяснимое разделение) psicofisica della personalità sperimentata dal giovane barin Nikodim Michajlovič Ipat’ev, protagonista del romanzo filosofico di Aleksej Skaldin Stranstvija i priključenija Nikodima Staršego [Peregrinazioni e avventure di Nikodim il Vecchio]4, va certamente letta come un tributo dell’ultimo (in ordine cronologico) dei simbolisti russi ad un tema di antica memoria, caro alla mitologia e alla classicità – quello del “doppio” –, che, a partire da Pogorel’skij, passando per Puškin, Odoevskij, Gogol’ e Dostoevskij, aveva imperversato nell’Ottocento russo e, prima ancora, nell’ambiente letterario europeo barocco e romantico, confermandosi nel Novecento, secolo del relativismo e della crisi dell’io, come il tratto distintivo della modernità. Eppure lo sdoppiamento, a detta di Pasolini «la più grande delle invenzioni letterarie», se ricollega Skaldin alla grande tradizione culturale otto-novecentesca, è un Leitmotiv che l’autore desume non da fonti esterne ma dall’intimo della propria esperienza personale. La mia analisi della scissione identitaria del Nikodim skaldiniano si basa appunto sull’ipotesi di una totale o parziale identificazione dello scrittore con il suo personaggio, nella convinzione che solo un accurato esame del substratum autobiografico dell’opera ci possa restituire il significato e la funzione che in essa riveste il topos della destrutturazione e moltiplicazione dell’io

A rapid technique for the direct metallization of PDMS substrates for flexible and stretchable electronics applications

Metallization of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based substrate is a challenge due to the difficulties in forming crack-free polymer and metal features using standard deposition techniques. Frequently, additional adhesion layers, rigid substrates, multiple processing steps (lift-off and etching) and expensive metal sputtering techniques are required, to achieve such metal patterns. This work presents a novel and rapid technique for the direct metallization of PDMS substrates using photolithography and electroless copper plating. The method has the advantage of not requiring expensive vacuum processing or multiple metallization steps. Electroless copper layer is demonstrated to have a strong adhesion to PDMS substrate with a high conductivity of (3.6 ± 0.7) × 107 S/m, which is close to the bulk copper (5.9 × 107 S/m). The copper-plated PDMS substrate displays mechanical and electrical stability whilst undergoing stretching deformations up to 10% due to applied strain. A functional electronic circuit was fabricated as a demonstration of the mechanical integrity of the copper-plated PDMS after bending

Maximum likelihood and the single receptor

Biological cells are able to accurately sense chemicals with receptors at their surfaces, allowing cells to move towards sources of attractant and away from sources of repellent. The accuracy of sensing chemical concentration is ultimately limited by the random arrival of particles at the receptors by diffusion. This fundamental physical limit is generally considered to be the Berg & Purcell limit [H.C. Berg and E.M. Purcell, Biophys. J. {\bf 20}, 193 (1977)]. Here we derive a lower limit by applying maximum likelihood to the time series of receptor occupancy. The increased accuracy stems from solely considering the unoccupied time intervals - disregarding the occupied time intervals as these do not contain any information about the external particle concentration, and only decrease the accuracy of the concentration estimate. Receptors which minimize the bound time intervals achieve the highest possible accuracy. We discuss how a cell could implement such an optimal sensing strategy by absorbing or degrading bound particles.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

\u3ci\u3eCritical Social Justice Issues for School Practitioners\u3c/i\u3e

Editors: Sandra Harris and Stacey Edmonson Chapter 5: From Ice Raids to Equity: Hispanic Students\u27 Progress through High School in an Immigrant Responsive City, co-authored by John Hill, UNO faculty member. Chapter 9: Focusing School Leadership on Poverty and Ethnicity for K-12 Student Success, co-authored by Jeanne L. Surface, Kay A. Keiser, Peter J. Smith, and Karen L. Hayes. This project was borne of a desire to support these scholar-practitioner leaders. We invited educational leaders to share recent studies which brought issues of social justice to the fore. Certainly, the 20 papers that were accepted as chapters for this book do not address all of the problems with which educators are faced. Nor do the 20 chapters provide definitive answers to these difficult issues. However, they do provide valuable information and ensure that thoughtful, reflective dialogue is occurring regarding critical social justice understandings or misunderstandings.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/facultybooks/1173/thumbnail.jp

Plastic Packaging Recycling Using Intelligent Separation Technologies for Materials

The sorting of plastic articles is currently achieved using near infrared spectroscopy but this cannot identify all material types. The objective of this work is to develop luminescent codes that can be printed onto plastic articles that identify both the material and also end-use in high speed sorting equipment.The authors are grateful to Innovate UK and the EPSRC (EP/N508974/1) for funding this progra