Isolation for Profit: How Privately Provided Video Visitation Services Incentivize Bans on In-Person Visitation Within American Correctional Facilities

American correctional facilities are banning in-person visitation in lieu of privately provided and expensive video visitation services. This Note discusses the types of private services provided; how video visitation negatively affects inmates’ mental health and finances; and the ongoing legal battle occurring in Knox County, Tennessee, regarding whether the Knox County Jail’s ban on in-person visitation violates the Constitution. Because of the significant degree of deference courts grant correctional facilities when considering whether challenged regulations violate the Constitution, it will be difficult for the Knox County Jail inmates to successfully argue that the jail has violated their constitutional rights. There are, however, other methods to challenging bans on in-person visitation. Through political advocacy, individuals and organizations have successfully motivated counties throughout the United States to overturn and prohibit bans on in-person visitation. Going forward, political advocacy seems like the best method for challenging these bans

Comparative advantage in demand: Experimental evidence of preferences for genetically modified food in the United States and European Union

The United States (US) exports more than US$6 billion in agricultural commodities to the European Union (EU) each year, but one issue carries the potential to diminish this trade: use of biotechnology in food production. The EU has adopted more stringent policies towards biotechnology than the US. Understanding differences in European and American policies towards genetically modified (GM) foods requires a greater understanding of consumers' attitudes and preferences. This paper reports results from the first large-scale, cross-Atlantic study to analyse consumer demand for genetically modified food in a non-hypothetical market environment. We strongly reject the frequent if convenient assumption in trade theory that consumer preferences are identical across countries: the median level of compensation demanded by English and French consumers to consume a GM food is found to be more than twice that in any of the US locations. Results have important implications for trade theory, which typically focusses on differences in specialization, comparative advantage and factor endowments across countries, and for on-going trade disputes at the World Trade Organization

Developing tomorrow's decision-makers: Opportunities for biotechnology education research

Globally, science curricula have been described as outdated, and students perceive school science as lacking in relevance. Declines in senior secondary and tertiary student participation in science indicate an urgent need for change if we are to sustain future scientific research and development, and perhaps more importantly, to equip students with the knowledge and skills to make informed decisions related to scientific research. This paper argues that a good starting point would be the inclusion of more contemporary areas of science in middle school curricula. One such area with continually emerging developments is biotechnology. This paper further argues the need for research into the impact of biotechnology education that would allow students to go beyond learning about biotechnological processes and products to explore their benefits and risks through an integrated approach, where biotechnology education were extended to include subject areas beyond science, such as social sciences, health education, and English. Such an approach is important, in light of research that suggests that the general public has a limited understanding of biotechnology and that public dissemination of information is insufficient to allow individuals to make informed decisions about or to develop attitudes towards, the varied applications of biotechnology. If we are to educate students to be tomorrow’s informed decision-makers, we must start by addressing their understanding of and attitudes towards emerging sciences. Further research is needed to broaden our understanding of how to achieve these goals