Criminal Law and Procedure

Following the general rise of incarceration rates in Latin America, two general frameworks have been influential in attempting to explain the phenomenon: the neoliberal and the state transformation theses The paper takes the case of Chile, the Latin American model of neoliberal governance, to test the broad explanatory power of both frameworks. By doing so, it shows that the connection with a narrative of substitution has distortive potential. Although the Chilean case does show that investment in state capacity augmentation and output maximization mechanisms did have direct effects on incarceration rates, no change in the project of control through criminal justice can be appreciated. Rather than changing its orientation towards the type of social control it provides for, the system still stands for the traditional Latin American project of control of a large, marginalized population through confinement.

Στα πλαίσια της συγκεκριμένης συνέντευξης, εξειδικεύονται, μεταξύ πολλών άλλων ζητημάτων, οι πολύ σημαντικές διαφορές μεταξύ της εγκληματικής οργάνωσης του άρθρου 187 ΠΚ και της τρομοκρατικής οργάνωσης του άρθρου 187Α ΠΚ, το Ευρωπαϊκό Ένταλμα Σύλληψης, ο θεσμός της Έκδοσης και η νομική συμπεριφορά των πολιτών στον κόσμο του διαδικτύου.

Judicial practice and available official statistics indicate that discovering, proving and sanctioning the crime of animal cruelty, i.e. criminal offence of killing and torture of animals prescribed by Paragraph 269 of Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia seems to be connected with numerous obstacles and complications. This could be considered as one of the circumstances that contribute to the fact that the number of persons accused of or convicted for this criminal offence in Serbia appears to be rather small in comparison to the actual number of committed and reported cases of animal cruelty. Additional concern is caused by the fact that similar misbalance, showing the presence of so-called “dark figure of crime” follows other criminal offences against environment. In attempt to contribute to more efficient suppression of this type of criminality, the author of this paper discusses fundamental features of criminal offence of killing and torture of animals, draws attention to its most frequent forms (including killing of animals by using firearms or other weapons, animal poisoning, animal neglect, animal hoarding, sexual abuse of animals and causing unnecessary fear and distress to animals) and points out the most acceptable ways to provide valid, relevant and complete evidence against their perpetrators. Moreover, the author highlights the most common practical difficulties that might occur while attempting to provide evidence for each of the aforementioned types of animal cruelty and offers possible solutions that would improve the speed, quality and efficiency of evidentiary proceedings in such cases.
Keywords: animal cruelty, criminal offence, criminal proceedings, evidence, proving.

Following the general rise of incarceration rates in Latin America, two general frameworks have been influential in attempting to explain the phenomenon: the neoliberal and the state transformation theses. The article takes the case of Chile, the Latin American model of neoliberal governance, to test the broad explanatory power of both frameworks. By doing so, it shows that the connection with a narrative of substitution has distortive potential. Although the Chilean case does show that investment in state capacity augmentation and output maximization mechanisms did have direct effects on incarceration rates, no change in the project of control through criminal justice can be appreciated. Rather than changing its orientation towards the type of social control it provides for, the system still stands for the traditional Latin American project of control of a large, marginalized population through confinement.

This essay reviews Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language in the Justice System, by John Gibbons. After providing a succinct, descriptive review of the content of Gibbons' text, I explore the developing areas of "audience design" for jury instructions, and the seldom-discussed problem of manipulating trial transcripts prepared by court reporters.