How and why people stop offending: discovering desistance

This is an evidence summary published by the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social services in Scotland (IRISS). It summarises evidence about desistance from crime and provides a series of recommendations for criminal justice policy, systems and practice

Could the values or value system of a competent person, disclosed in a living will, play a role in medical treatment decision-making processes under the Mental Capacity Act 2005?

Disclosing a value system in a living will could be in your best interests: Whilst doctors are recognised for being expert in medical matters they are nevertheless generally required by law to obtain the consent of a competent adult patient prior to administering a medical treatment.1 The need for consent underpins the right of a competent adult patient to refuse treatment, even life preserving treatment. Accordingly, bodily inviolability is a fundamental principle of law and violation of it, even for benevolent reasons, is prima facie punishable. Instead of which a competent patient has a right to self-determine what shall happen to their own body. In this way the subjective decision-making standards and methods of a competent patient inform, and are made determinative, of any decision to accept or reject a medical treatment. It is against this general background that the comments of Lord Goff in the case of Bland should be considered. There he suggested that the best interests test should comprise of something more than purely professional appraisal of a person’s medical welfare.2 To confine the test in this way, he said, would be inconsistent with the primacy given to the principle of self-determination and would ‘downgrade the status of the incompetent person by placing a lesser value on [their] intrinsic worth and vitality’.3 So as the title to this thesis suggests I am primarily concerned with legal provisions governing medical treatment decision-making processes in respect of formerly competent adult patients. More specifically it questions whether the values, beliefs and preferences of members of this patient group should be more favourably promoted, i.e. used and made determinative, in medical treatment decision-making processes concerning them based on contemporary understanding and application of the moral principle of autonomy

Brine management strategies for desalination systems: Decision support system

This thesis explores and evaluates a decision support system (DDS) for the management of desalination brine. The rapid uptake of desalination technologies to meet freshwater demands has led to producing a significant quantity of brine, which is a highly saline solution. Currently, the most popular brine management method in Western Australia (WA) is disposal by surface water discharge (into the ocean), deep-well injection or evaporation ponds. Brine disposal isn’t a long-term sustainable option due to the environmental impacts it can cause, such as salinisation. Brine treatment methods that reduce the liquid volume of brine partially or completely brine is still under development or aren’t currently economically viable. The DDS uses two multi-criteria analysis techniques, interval analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) under hybrid information. The use of interval AHP gives decision-makers a reliable method of assigning appropriate weightings to the chosen criteria, using the relative importance between each criterion. The DDS uses TOPSIS to allow for different information types (crisp numbers, interval numbers, fuzzy triangular numbers representing linguistic terms) within the DDS. To showcase the DDS, a case study using 4 emerging brine treatment technologies, membrane distillation (MD), forward osmosis (FO), osmotically-assisted reverse osmosis (OARO) and eutectic freeze crystallisation (EFC) was developed. The results suggest that the most to least appropriate technology are MD. FO, EFC and OARO. Sensitivity analyses using a Monte Carlo simulation determined the influence of varying different criteria weightings on the TOPSIS process. MD was the most dominant appropriate technology with little confusion between FO, which was consistently ranked 2nd. Sensitivity analysis of the entire DDS requires further validation of the interval AHP

The Populist Challenge and the Future of the United Nations Security Council

This article examines the potential impact of the populist challenge to International Law on the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council is often criticized as ineffective, unprincipled, and an anachronistic mechanism that reflects a power balance from the past, rather than the realities of today. The article argues that the rise of populism is likely to further erode the Security Council's legitimacy and efficacy. At the same time, however, it emphasizes the need for greater nuance in the way that both the phenomenon of populism, as well as the relationship between national and international concerns, are understood and framed. Taking these complexities into account, the Article explores three scenarios that could result from an escalating crisis of Security Council legitimacy. The first involves reform and renewal. The second comprises retreat and realignment. The third encompasses reimagining the international peace and security architecture and creating something new

Four forms of 'offender' rehabilitation: Towards an interdisciplinary perspective

This paper aims to advance the case for a more fully interdisciplinary understanding of offender rehabilitation, partly as a means of shedding light upon and moving beyond contemporary ‘paradigm conflicts’. It begins with a review of current arguments about what a credible ‘offender’ rehabilitation theory requires and by exploring some aspects of current debates about different theories. It goes on to locate this specific kind of contemporary theory building in the context of historical arguments about and critiques of rehabilitation as a concept and in practice. In the third part of the paper, I explore the nature of the relationship between desistance theories and rehabilitation theories, so as to develop my concluding argument; that is, that debates about psychological rehabilitation have been hampered by a failure to engage fully with debates about at least three other forms of rehabilitation (legal, moral, and social) that emerge as being equally important in the process of desistance fr

Suspect Until Proven Guilty, a Problematization of State Dossier Systems via Two Case Studies: The United States and China

This dissertation problematizes the state dossier system (SDS): the production and accumulation of personal information on citizen subjects exceeding the reasonable bounds of risk management. SDS - comprising interconnecting subsystems of records and identification - damage individual autonomy and self-determination, impacting not only human rights, but also the viability of the social system. The research, a hybrid of case-study and cross-national comparison, was guided in part by a theoretical model of four primary SDS driving forces: technology, political economy, law and public sentiment. Data sources included government documents, academic texts, investigative journalism, NGO reports and industry white papers. The primary analytical instrument was the juxtaposition of two individual cases: the U.S. and China. Research found that constraints on the extent of the U.S. SDS today may not be significantly different from China\u27s, a system undergoing significant change amidst growing public interest in privacy and anonymity. Much activity within the U.S., such as the practice of suspicious activity reporting, is taking place outside the domain of federal privacy laws, while ID systems appear to advance and expand despite clear public opposition. Momentum for increasingly comprehensive SDS appears to be growing, in part because the harms may not be immediately evident to the data subjects. The future of SDS globally will depend on an informed and active public; law and policy will need to adjust to better regulate the production and storage of personal information. To that end, the dissertation offers a general model and linguistic toolkit for the further analysis of SDS

Rotated Half-Mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide and other Planar Integrated Structures

High data rate communication channels are becoming more and more integrated into our increasingly technological society. Substrate Integrated Waveguides (SIW) are one planar solution available to the microwave engineer, offering a low-loss and low dispersion means of propagating these high speed, high bandwidth signals. In this thesis, a brief synopsis of SIW structures and components is presented covering the basic waveguide propagating modes and cut-off frequencies. The main analysis techniques associated with SIWs including full wave electromagnetic modelling methods are overviewed, and the associated loss mechanisms of conduction, dielectric and radiation defined, leading to the design rules and guidelines on how best to mitigate them. SIW antennas as both leaky-wave and radiating slots are discussed and an example of a single and dual resonating slot antenna design is presented, along with a detailed review of a novel switch beam antenna developed for use within the current WiFi bands. The Slot SIW (or SSIW), which has a small longitudinal gap in one of the main conducting surfaces, allows easy integration of lumped elements or active devices, enabling the waveguide to be loaded with impedances or to be shorted. When the slot is shorted, the waveguide reverts back to the full SIW mode, and when partially loaded an intermediate state results. This is discussed, and the SSIW analysed with the transverse resonance technique, leading to the development of a travelling wave attenuator with the SSIW being periodically loaded with pin diodes. The application of the pin diodes required the use of a capacitive overlay, a development of flexi circuit design to allow capacitive coupling of impedances to connect to the waveguide. The overlay concept is extended further, to form novel passive bandpass filters, with the introduction of virtual vias. A limitation of the SSIW is that the majority of the field resides within the dielectric; this allows only a limited interaction with the field at the slot. The rotated Half Mode SIW (rHMSIW), a new variant of the SIW family, places the maximum of the electric field directly on the top dielectric surface, allowing for direct interaction. The waveguide width a is now defined by the dielectric thickness, allowing for the waveguide height b to be adjustable, in normal SIWs this is the other way round; the dielectric thickness fixing the waveguide height and the waveguide width being adjustable. The rHMSIW is characterised with regard to the height and width ratios b/a and the dielectric exposed width (which is adjustable). These parameters effect the modal cut-off frequency, this is investigated and a new equation describing the fundamental mode cut-off frequency is empirically derived. Finally a test coupon which spans the Ku band is designed and measured, which required the development of a novel waveguide transition

Delay in Notice of Tort Claim against a Government Agency

Despite an onslaught of criticism and a rationale predicated on the discredited doctrine of Divine Right of Kings, the rule of sovereign immunity still exists in many states. As a result of this anachronism, municipalities and other subdivisions of state government have continued to escape liability for the tortious conduct of their agents. This situation has persisted despite a tendency by the courts to restrict rather than extend the principle of immunity. Statutory enactments such as short term notice provisions applied against potential plaintiffs by states and their subdivisions, when strictly construed by the courts, have had the effect of a short term statute of limitation. The result of such construction is the exacerbation of the fiction of immunity

Transnational Legal Order Through Rule of Law? Appraising the United Nations Security Council, 1990-2022

Utilizing the theoretical framework of transnational legal orders (TLOs), this article treats two master questions in global governance: what are the limits to the power of the UN Security Council? Can norms of rule-of-law constrain UNSC powers? First, we outline a research design with emphasis on its documentary and unique internal empirical sources. Second, we sketch an interpretive narrative of UNSC engagement from the early 1990s to the present with ROL in three areas of UNSC action: peacekeeping, sanctions, and force. Third, we offer a new conceptual approach by proposing that ROL in the UNSC manifests itself in three dimensions: discourse; procedure (or rules); and structures. These dimensions come into play both internally, within the UNSC itself, and externally, to ROL institution-building in and between states, as well as in post-conflict zones, with a rather gray area between (e.g., when the UN peacekeeping missions are themselves subject to ROL oversight for the behavior of their personnel). Fourth, we examine the emergence of micro-TLOs under construction within the UNSC itself. We conclude with reflections on the potential for empowering elected members of the UNSC and weaker states in the UN to press ROL norms on the UNSC as a springboard for ROL global governance via the UNSC