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How does organized crime affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries? Some research examines the effects of crime, such as homicide rates, on FDI. However, we know little about how organized crime in particular might affect such investment. This paper examines organized crime and FDI in Mexican states between 2000 and 2018. This case is important because Mexico is one of the top global recipients of FDI. At the same time, criminal violence has killed hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico in recent years, and scholars seek to understand the violence's wider effects. We explain how organized crime competition, as opposed to crime generally, should shape investors' decisions. Analyses using original data on criminal organization territory find that higher numbers of criminal groups are associated with lower levels of new FDI. Other measures of crime, such as homicide rates or crime rates, are not associated with foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ubiquity of technological devices producing video and audio recordings, violent crimes are increasingly captured digitally and used as evidence in the criminal justice process. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study involving Canadian criminal justice professionals, and asks questions surrounding the treatment of video evidence and the rights of victims captured within such images. We argue that loss of control over personal images and narratives can re-traumatize survivors of sexual violence, creating technologically-facilitated cycles of abuse that are perpetuated each time images are viewed. We find that the justice system has little to no consistent policy or procedure for handling video evidence, or for ameliorating the impact of these digital records on survivors. Subsequently, we assert that the need for a victim-centred evidence-based understanding of mediated evidence has never been greater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the reformation of Ukrainian criminal procedural legislation and the conviction of individual scholars in the necessity of applying a methodological approach to scientific research, new ideas on the nature and procedure of criminal procedural evidence have started to emerge in the domestic scientific literature. The purpose of the paper is to distinguish scientific concepts to criminal procedural proof and substantiation of the expediency of isolation and use of the complex and systemic approach. This study of criminal procedural proof was performed using a methodological approach, the essence of which is to change the attention of the researcher from the object as such to the means and methods of their own thought. The application of an activity-based methodological approach in scientific research allows us to further develop other conceptual ideas about criminal procedural proof, which will contribute to a deeper and more complete study of this legal phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a study of the victimization of queer people in Russia before and after the 'gay-propaganda' bill was signed into law in 2013. Despite the development of hate crime legislation, few violent incidents against LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and questioning) individuals are recorded in the Russian legal system. An original method of court rulings analysis is put forward in order to move towards an actual number of criminal offences against these groups. All court decisions that mention non-heterosexual victims are reviewed to identify whether these cases could have been considered hate crimes. As a result, 267 first-instance criminal court rulings dealing with 297 LGBTIQ victims are identified in 2011–16. Descriptive statistical analysis demonstrates that the number of victims grew substantially after 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the consequences of unenthusiastic criminal justice reform through the case study of special measures provision in England and Wales. These measures provide assistance to vulnerable people giving evidence in criminal trials. For witnesses other than the accused, the law's development followed a standard process: public concern; governmental inquiries; legislation; and a period of inception to prepare for its implementation. The development of special measures for the accused did not follow this same pattern. Instead, it was gradual, ad hoc and somewhat reluctant. This article argues that the way and the context in which special measures developed for the accused has had a negative impact on the extent to which they are embedded within the criminal justice system. This, in turn, has negatively affected their uptake in practice. It is concluded that the way in which the law is reformed is important to its success in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual assault cases have historically resulted in persistent victim dissatisfaction with, and alienation from, the prosecution process. As a result, some adversarial jurisdictions have moved contentiously towards integrating victim participation rights within the legal process to address sexual assault victims' procedural and substantive justice concerns. The introduction of section 34 of the Sex Offenders Act 2001 (IRE), which allows a victim to access state-funded legal representation to oppose a defendant's application for the introduction of the victim's sexual history evidence in court, is one such example. Drawing from five interviews conducted with high-level criminal justice professionals, legal stakeholders and victim support workers, and an analysis of primary source documents, including legislation and reports, this article argues that, although section 34 represents a unique response to the problems raised by the use of a victim's sexual history evidence in criminal trials, its shortcomings may hinder its capacity to improve sexual assault victims' procedural justice experiences in ways unanticipated from its introduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing efforts in the United Kingdom to establish “triage” programs at the police gateway to the criminal justice system have met mixed success. This article reviews the evaluations of these programs, most of which use clinical rather than actuarial models of forecasting risk. Drawing on a recent experiment in diverting low-risk defendants from prosecution in Birmingham, this article suggests the design and implementation of an actuarial approach to risk assessment that would provide an evidence-based triage tool for processing arrestees in police stations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the arguably most interesting pieces of evidence used during the trial of Slobodan Milošević at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia—more than two hundred recordings of intercepted conversations that took place in 1991 and 1992 between Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Dobrica Ćosić, and various other protagonists on the Serbian side of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Analysis of the intercepts presented in this article makes several important contributions to the interpretation of events in former Yugoslavia during that period. First, it identifies the ideological foundations of Milošević-led Serbian war campaigns in the political influence of Dobrica Ćosić and his platform of "unification of Serbs." Second, it contributes to the vigorous debate regarding the possible deal between Milošević and the Croatian president Franjo Tudjman for the division of BiH. It confirms that negotiations took place, but that Milošević and his associates had no intention of respecting any agreement and wanted the whole of BiH until at least late 1991. Third, it provides indications that Milošević held the position of the de facto commander-in-chief in the operations of the Yugoslav People's Army in Croatia and BiH. And fourth, it establishes that the two institutions of force Milošević had direct legal control over—Serbia's State Security Service and Ministry of Interior—were his principal means of control over Croatian and Bosnian Serbs and instruments in the aggression against BiH even after its international recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confession evidence is powerful but flawed, often in nonintuitive ways. Contradicting widely held beliefs, research reviewed in this article suggests the following: Despite special training in how to conduct interviews, police cannot distinguish better than the layperson whether suspects are lying or telling the truth. Suspects in custody routinely waive their self-protective rights to silence and to counsel—especially if they are innocent. Certain legal but deceptive interrogation tactics increase the risk that innocents will confess to crimes they did not commit. Judges and juries are easily fooled, unable to distinguish between true and false confessions. Appellate courts cannot be expected to reasonably determine whether the error of admitting a coerced confession at trial was harmless or prejudicial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeal between January 2005 and December 2006 in cases in which the issues involved concerned search and seizure law. The specific areas of search and seizure law that are addressed include the exclusionary rule, probable cause, stop and frisk, the search incident to arrest exception, the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement, consent searches, automobile searches, plain view, and open fields. The cases were chosen on the basis of current issues in search and seizure law.