Punishment

Pennsylvania overhauled its sentencing guidelines to be more fair and consistent − but racial disparities may not disappear so soon

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Pennsylvania’s new sentencing guidelines went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.

Key Points: 
  • Pennsylvania’s new sentencing guidelines went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
  • They mark the eighth iteration since the state first introduced such guidelines in 1982 and are perhaps the most comprehensive revision to date.
  • Since Philadelphia has by far the largest share of incarcerated people in the state, the new sentencing guidelines affect many Philadelphia residents.

How do judges determine a person’s sentence?

  • This means that judges are required to consider what the state guidelines suggest a criminal sentence should be, but they are not required to comply with the guidelines.
  • That’s different from other states such as Minnesota and Oregon that have mandatory sentencing guidelines.
  • In Pennsylvania, judges primarily consider what crime the person is charged with along with their prior record or criminal history.

What’s new in the 2024 sentencing guidelines?

  • Probably the most significant change is re-weighting the two categories in the matrix — offense severity and criminal history.
  • These categories are officially known as the Offense Gravity Score and the Prior Record Score.
  • Lapsing policies, for example, have been expanded to reduce the impact of criminal history on sentencing for less serious offenders.

What’s the goal of the new guidelines?

  • The guidelines themselves were created by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing with the the goal of promoting fair and uniform decisions on the severity of people’s punishment.
  • These commission members provide direction and oversight and are unique from commission staff, who collect, analyze and monitor the sentencing data for the state.

What’s been the reaction so far?

  • The new guidelines mirror the federal sentencing guidelines in that there are many offense gravity categories.
  • One critique I’ve heard is that the Offense Gravity Score now has too many categories and adjustments, and that this might complicate things such as plea negotiations.
  • Having more Offense Gravity Score categories could lead to more complicated and slower plea negotiations.

Will the guidelines reduce racial disparities in Pa.’s criminal justice system?

  • For example, a December 2023 analysis by the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit global policy think tank, looked at racial disparities within the criminal justice system in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and is Pennsylvania’s second-most populated county after Philadelphia.
  • It found that significant racial disparities exist at each of the key stages of people’s encounter with the criminal justice system, from having charges filed against them to having their parole revoked.
  • Courts to some degree inherit disparities from police and prosecutor decision making, though the new guidelines may help to reduce them at later stages, such as sentencing.
  • Racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing are widespread in the U.S. and are almost never entirely explained by legally relevant factors such as type of crime committed or criminal history.


C. Clare Strange receives funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

MNA: Hospital Accrediting Agency (Joint Commission) Issues Findings Supporting St. Vincent Hospital Nurses' Complaints about Unsafe Patient Care, Stating that SVH was Found to Be Non-Compliant with Applicable Patient Care Conditions for Medicaid and Medic

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, March 6, 2024

WORCESTER, Mass., March 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital, who have filed a number of official complaints and gone public with their serious concerns about patient care conditions that are harming patients at the Worcester-based facility, have had their claims validated by The Joint Commission, which conducted an investigation into the nurses complaints and found the hospital to be "non-compliant with applicable Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Conditions."

Key Points: 
  • Your report was used to assist our team to better understand the organization's systems of providing care.
  • During the onsite review, the organization was found to be non-compliant with applicable Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Conditions.
  • The complaints detailed a serious and ongoing degradation of care, which were based on more than 600 official reports filed by nurses over the last six months.
  • Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Global Times: Now it's time to phase in market-oriented, law-based, internationalized oversight system to guide China's stock market growth: scholar

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 27, 2024

BEIJING, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- There is a consensus among Chinese regulators over the need to ratchet up the confidence of market participants to draw further investment to the equities market.

Key Points: 
  • The implementation of an across-the-board registration-based IPO system has triggered the reshaping of China's capital market.
  • From the perspective of investor concerns, enhancing the quality of listed companies and investment returns is one major task.
  • More importantly, the authorities need to step up punishment and deterrence for violations of laws and regulations in the market.
  • In addition, market expected that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year, leaving more room for monetary policy easing in China.

Ending legal aid for cultural reports at sentencing may only make court hearings longer and costlier

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 15, 2024

This may be popular, even populist, but it carries the risk of not achieving any of those purported goals.

Key Points: 
  • This may be popular, even populist, but it carries the risk of not achieving any of those purported goals.
  • In fact, court hearings may become longer and more expensive.
  • It is governed by the Sentencing Act 2002, which requires judges to take into account many factors when considering a sentence.

What judges must take into account

  • Judges also need to be aware of the likely effect of a sentence.
  • In short, judges need a lot of information to help reach a proper sentence.
  • Similarly, reports about alcohol or drug use that cause a disproportionate amount of offending can be introduced from relevant specialists.

Reasons for offending

  • But probation officers have limits: they may not have much time and may not have the necessary expertise.
  • When parliament passed the Criminal Justice Act 1985, section 16 allowed a request for the court to hear from someone about a person’s “ethnic or cultural background”, how that might be relevant to the reason for offending, and how it might help avoid further offending.
  • More particularly, they can address how that might have been part of the offending, how it might be relevant to any sentence, and how support might help prevent further offending.

The right to a fair trial

  • But this is partly because it has been clarified that legal aid was the correct funding mechanism for cultural reports.
  • Read more:
    New Zealand's legal aid crisis is eroding the right to justice – that's unacceptable in a fair society

    The Ministry of Justice used to pay for them because they were considered a court report.

  • The fundamental right to a fair trial includes a fair sentencing hearing, with the judge having all information that is useful.

Shifting costs elsewhere

  • On one level, therefore, there will be an additional barrier to equal justice for those who are poorer.
  • So, we can expect lawyers to ask other experts, including drug counsellors or psychiatrists, to collate and include relevant information.
  • This will potentially cost a lot more than any savings to legal aid from not funding section 27 reports.


Kris Gledhill is currently working on a project relating to the Sentencing Act 2002 the expenses for which are funded by the Borrin Foundation. He is also a co-opted member of the Criminal Bar Association's Executive Committee. The views expressed in this article are his own.

North Korea steps up efforts to stamp out consumption of illegal foreign media – but entertainment-hungry citizens continue to flout the ban

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Consuming and sharing foreign media in North Korea can be punishable by death.

Key Points: 
  • Consuming and sharing foreign media in North Korea can be punishable by death.
  • However, North Korea closed its borders during the COVID pandemic, and since then the steady flow of escapees has slowed considerably.
  • This has prompted North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to adopt increasingly harsh measures to combat access to illegal media.

Crackdown

  • Shortly after inheriting the leadership in 2011, Kim tried a number of relatively soft approaches to controlling foreign media access, alongside continued punitive measures.
  • This law sets out specific punishments for both viewers and distributors of foreign media, going further than the existing criminal code.
  • At the same time, Kim has publicly condemned K-Pop (pop music originating in South Korea) as a “vicious cancer” permeating North Korean society.

Changing hearts and minds

  • North Korean escapees have also reported paying keen attention to the settings they saw in films and dramas.
  • Modern streets, cars and homes, with people displaying relative freedom of choice, expression and movement, all offer North Koreans a glimpse into life under capitalism.
  • A similar campaign condemns young North Koreans for showing affection in public and mimicking “western style” dating culture.

Building social bonds

  • It also unsettles the government’s ability to maintain a culture of suspicion and mistrust between citizens.
  • This could potentially generate social change.
  • Foreign diplomats, humanitarian aid workers and tourists are not yet allowed back into North Korea following the pandemic.
  • So, combined with many fewer escapees arriving in the South, it is difficult to know whether foreign media access and consumption has declined since 2020.


Sarah A. Son does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Why retranslate the literary classics?

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Which version of the Metamorphosis or Crime and Punishment should you choose?

Key Points: 
  • Which version of the Metamorphosis or Crime and Punishment should you choose?
  • Because in a particularly well-stocked library or bookshop, you could find more than ten different English translations of these two literary classics.

The art of choosing a translation

  • And yet, very few English speakers today read Dante, Cervantes or Rabelais in a century-old English translation, not to say older.
  • Because a classic is a text that we never stop retranslating, one might say, reversing the terms of the question.
  • The phenomenon of retranslation is both paradoxical and inherent in every culture, to the point that an historian of translation, Michel Ballard, has identified it as one of the few constant features in the history of translation.

Censorship, inaccuracies and ageing

  • Because of some forms of ideological or moral censorship, for instance, which may have deprived its readers of certain aspects of the book.
  • In other cases, the sense of dissatisfaction may be due to errors or inaccuracies, originated by human fallibility or limited resources.
  • Take one of the most famous so-called “errors” in the history of translation, the horns on the head of Michelangelo’s Moses (1515).
  • They age too, of course, but not quite in the same way.
  • They seem to ripen with age, whereas translations often turn grotesque.
  • Divine temptations, however, proved much more controversial and destabilising, as shown by the reactions stirred by the reform of the Lord’s prayer.
  • Retranslations can be disturbing because they introduce relativism into an interpretation which we thought of as definitive and unique.

Can we anticipate the path of a translation series?

  • Can we anticipate when and how often a classic will be retranslated?
  • Several case studies exist, but still no exhaustive studies providing reliable, large-scale statistics for a given period, genre or country.
  • In 1994, Isabelle Collombat, professor at the Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle, predicted that the 21st century would be the age of retranslation.
  • It is the perfect antidote to the idea of a unique translation, and it reminds us that every single translation relies on a peculiar process of interpreting and rewriting.


Enrico Monti ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

Jezebel Launches New Subscription Service

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Jezebel, the influential online publication renowned for its fearless exploration of culture, politics, and feminism, is proud to announce the launch of its new subscription offering and its move to a new platform. As the publication makes a triumphant return, recent challenges in ad serving have prompted the introduction of the new subscription model to ensure access to content Jezebel readers have come to know, expect, and love.

Key Points: 
  • As the publication makes a triumphant return, recent challenges in ad serving have prompted the introduction of the new subscription model to ensure access to content Jezebel readers have come to know, expect, and love.
  • In response to the current media landscape dominated by "brand safety," Jezebel proudly introduced today a subscription service, allowing readers to enjoy an enhanced experience.
  • Monthly members also receive a complimentary Jezebel T-shirt, while annual subscribers also enjoy an exquisite Jezebel canvas tote bag.
  • "As Jezebel moves onto our new platform, it's worth emphasizing that nothing about the site's content is changing," says Jezebel editor-in-chief, Lauren Tousignant.

Training an animal? An ethicist explains how and why your dog − but not your frog − can be punished

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 5, 2024

“Why did you do that?” someone might ask their dog.

Key Points: 
  • “Why did you do that?” someone might ask their dog.
  • Or we might scold the cat – “Don’t touch that!” – as we move a family heirloom across the room.
  • As an ethical theorist, I’ve explored these and related questions, including with some of my colleagues in psychology and anthropology.
  • I would argue it is important to distinguish three types of learning: conditioning, instruction and education.

Conditioning

  • By repeatedly ringing a bell while presenting food, Pavlov famously induced dogs to salivate from the bell ring alone.
  • Such learning proceeds merely from associating two types of stimuli: a sound and a snack, in this case.
  • In operant conditioning, positive or pleasurable stimuli are used to reinforce desired behavior, and negative or painful stimuli are used to deter undesired behavior.
  • The kind of learning that operant conditioning aims to achieve, however, lacks a crucial ingredient of human punishment: responsibility.
  • They are trying to drive home that someone has transgressed – that the individual’s behavior merits punishment.

Instruction

  • It involves a more sophisticated kind of learning: instruction.
  • One important way instruction differs from conditioning is that an instructor addresses their trainee.
  • Instruction involves understanding, whereas learning based on mere conditioning does not.
  • Scientists do not know exactly which animals’ cognition involves understanding, genuine problem-solving and the ability to reason or infer.
  • An owner should have concern for their pet frog, of course, and care for its needs.
  • But they do not need to recognize the frog the same way they should recognize a dog: by addressing it, listening to it and comforting it.

Education

  • Still, scientists do not possess strong evidence that animals have critical thinking abilities or a concept of self, the key requirements for genuine education.
  • Unlike conditioning and instruction, education aims to enable a learner to explain the world, to evaluate and debate rationales for decisions.
  • Much of the time, human beings do not concern themselves with these questions, either – but they can.
  • In fact, caretakers pay great attention to these matters during child-rearing, as when they ask children, “How would you like it if someone did that to you” or “Do you really think it’s OK to act that way?” Assuming that animals do not reflect and criticize, and therefore are not capable of education, I would say that they have no moral obligations.
  • But that’s not the nature of our relationships with our pets – however tempted we may be to think otherwise.


Jon Garthoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Premier League transfer spending has plummeted in January 2024 – an expert explains why belts have been tightened

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 5, 2024

The Saudi slow down

Key Points: 
  • The Saudi slow down
    Some huge spending by the Saudi Pro League was a major contributor to the sums spent in the Premier League over the summer.
  • Then, clubs in receipt of that money were able to buy new players, creating an upward spiral of transfer spending.
  • But in January 2024, the Saudi appetite for Premier League players has not returned (for now), which has slowed the market overall.
  • Once they have adjusted, we will no doubt be seeing more activity – and eye-watering sums – in future transfer windows.

The Bahamas Statement on the US Travel Advisory

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 30, 2024

NASSAU, The Bahamas, Jan. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Government of The Bahamas is alert, attentive, and proactive to ensure that The Bahamas remains a safe and welcoming destination.

Key Points: 
  • NASSAU, The Bahamas, Jan. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Government of The Bahamas is alert, attentive, and proactive to ensure that The Bahamas remains a safe and welcoming destination.
  • In 2023, The Bahamas welcomed over 9 million visitors, a significant milestone for our nation.
  • We were proud to share our crystal-clear waters, beautiful beaches, vibrant culture, warm people, and family-friendly adventures with so many visitors.
  • The rating of The Bahamas has not changed; we remain a level 2 alongside most tourism destinations.