Abstracts of some important publications of previous issues

Vol. XXIV No.1 January-April, 2003

*Prof. of Social Work, Department of Social Work, University of Delhi, Delhi-110 007 India

People’s participation no doubt is vital for the success of any programme whether it relates to prevention of crime or for the treatment of offenders. Participation involves contribution by the people in programmes and projects to bring about the required changes either among the people or in the environment (Muthayya, 1995). To make people’s participation effective there should be independent, autonomous and democratic organisations of people organised by people themselves for their own benefit( Chandekar and Thomas, 1990). It has been well established that education plays an important role in bringing about peoples’ participation. Only through education can they understand the root cause behind the exploitation and injustice prevailing in the society. This knowledge activates them to fight for their rights rather than merely remain silent spectators. In order to sustain participation it is important to develop local leadership, improve their capabilities, create awareness regarding importance of the issue, and build their knowledge and skills by providing relevant educational inputs and attitudes needed to effectively participate in managing the problem (Santhanam et. Al, 1984) Thus people’s participation involves ways in which h community groups can assist in the prevention of crime and treatment of offenders. It is, therefore, important to understand the various mechanisms of public participation and the relationship between local communities and the government authorities. The criminal justice system and its subsystems of police courts and corrections throughout the world depend on public participation. The paradigm of public participation rests in achieving individual conformity to group values. Primary prevention of crime through social planning and its heavy reliance on public participation for general social welfare is equally important for reducing crime.

*Research Scholar in Ahwaz City of Iran.

The paper is resulted from a field work research doing in Ahwaz City of Iran. The sample group of this study, consisting of 200 juvenile delinquents, is randomly selected from a population arrested between 1996-2001. As the majority of them belong to the lower class urban residents, they are mainly from the families living in the poor slum areas of Ahwaz. Assuming that the salient feature of slums to be the inadequate housing conditions (IHC), this research is conducted to study the relationship between the different levels of IHC and the relative intensity of delinquency. With a critical view on the Chicago School approach, it is maintained that the mere ecological elements, or even the shortcoming of social control, could not be the independent factors making the “favourable place for commitment of crime and delinquency”, but poverty, job instability, and lack of educational achievement, or depression as a whole, could be the determinant factors for delinquency commitment.

This paper focuses ineffectiveness of the run-of-the-mill treatment methods currently being used for the treatment of the juveniles in conflict with law. The pertinent issue raised here is to use eclectic treatment methods, which will be both effective and viable in nipping subsequent Juvenile delinquency in the bud.

One of the important correlates of Prison effectiveness is the staff interaction within the prisons. The old concepts of keeping inmates away from others has been changing. Participative management is one of the important strategies in the correctional organizations which go hand in hand with the Philosophy of Organizational effectiveness. According to the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals(1973), the management of corrections as human resource organization must be viewed broadly in terms of how offenders, employees and various organization process (communications, decision making, and others) are combined into what is called the correction process. Organizational development has a promising future in the field of successful management of correctional organization. It represents one of the best approaches of improvement strategies for coping with the changing demands of effective management of the organization. This paper attempts to assess the role of staff participation on effectiveness of correctional organization. Data has been collected from 180 prison staff of different zones in India using a semi Structured questionnaire. Results reveal that the prison where there is better participation opportunity are significantly different from others in terms of their effectiveness.

A randomly selected group of 200 criminals divided equally into: (1) female property criminals (2) female persons criminals (3) male property criminals and (4) male person criminals, and an equal number of non-criminals – one hundred females and one hundred males – were compared with each other in terms of their scores on Bhatia’s (1974) Achievement Motivation Test, and Scale. Except insignificant differences between females property criminals and female non-criminals, and male property criminals and male non-criminals, different kinds of female and male criminals, especially the person female criminals, as compared to their non-criminals counterparts, had altogether significantly lower, though moderate in amount, levels of achievement motivation. Further, there was significant difference between female property and person criminals in their levels of achievement motivation, but not between the male property and person criminals in this regard. The statistical comparison of different groups of criminals and non-criminals with each other in terms of their levels of aggression and its dimensions revealed that all the groups of criminals, especially the male person criminals, were more vulnerable to aggression and its various reactions as compared to their non-criminals counterparts, particularly that of the group of female non-criminals. Also, there was no significant difference between female and male property criminals, as well as between female and male persons criminals in terms of any of the dimensions of aggression. However, female property criminals differed clearly from the group of male person criminals in their level of assault, suspicion, verbal aggression, sense of guilt, and total aggression. Although the female person criminals did not express such tendency, excepting a marked difference between them in their level of suspicion. The intra-group comparisons also exhibited similar trend, excepting significant differences between property and person criminals of both the sexes on assault and suspicion.

*Senior Resident

**Director, Professor & Head

***Professor

Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Lady Hardinge Medical College & Smt. Sucheta Kriplani Hospital, New Delhi-110001

Sildenafil (trade names – Viagra, Penagra etc.), a drug for the treatment of erectile dysfunction is freely available in India often without a proper prescription. We report a 65 year old man who died suddenly during sexual activity after consuming two 25 mg tablets of Sildenafil. The action of Sildenafil and the hazards of taking this drug without proper medical evaluation have been discussed along with the case report.

* Deputy Director, Forensic Science Laboratory, Chandigarh

** Scientific Officers, Forensic Science Laboratory, Punjab Chandigarh

An estimation of shape & size of the weapon used for stabbing can be done with a fairly good degree of accuracy provided the information about the injuries gathered by the doctor during the medical treatment or post-mortem, as the case may be, is amply descriptive. A Study in this regard has been done on the basis of a case in which the clothing of the deceased bearing cut marks caused as a result of stabbing were referred to the Laboratory for ascertaining the type of weapon used for stabbing. The details of the injuries provided in the post-mortem report and the physical and microscopic study of cut marks provided the cue for estimating the size and shape of the weapon used. The findings and the inherent limitations have been discussed in the light of test cut marks prepared with weapons of known shapes and sizes.

* Dr.S.Sanyal, Reader (Sociology), NICFS, (MHA), New Delhi.

Terrorism has become a world wide phenomena yet the world has failed to reach a legal definition of terrorism. Even today there is no single universal definition. The UN member states still have no agreed definition. This has become a major obstacle to meaningful international counter measures. Without a clear definition the international community is hard pressed to combat a problem which it cannot with an assurance identity. Cynics have often commented that one states “terrorists” is another stat4es “freedom fighter”. In this way the fight against terrorism will always suffer from “cultural relativism”. (Ganor, 2001). The free world must understand that cultural relativism applied to terrorism irrespective of their goals will lead only to more terrorism.

Limitations in the international laws are many in numbers. It has been accepted by legal experts that the international law is not effective when it comes to dealing with terrorists and international terrorism. Some terrorists are killed and others are captured who are at times not even brought, instead quietly dispersed to some safe haven. Even the states response towards the definition or the basic legal concepts of terrorism remained confused Worse still, how might a definition impact seeming terrorist acts by a state’s armed forces ?. It’s a million dollar question said Subramaniam (2002) to know how far special laws would be of use in containing the menace of cross border terrorism. Terrorism has to be fought according to the rule of law and combating terrorism must be legal. The United Nation has made a concerted effort to arrive at a consensus definition of terrorism and it has been surveyed that all states desire that UN should play a more significant role in controlling terrorism.

The present paper has taken two salient issues for discussion. They are (1) the definition of terrorism as given in various acts (2) the activities identified as terrorism. To obtain an in depth knowledge the anti-terrorist acts of certain countries are studied and the commonalties and the non-commonalties between the different acts are identified. The aim is to make a diagnostic analysis of the laws of different counteies with the help of content analysis. Countries like United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Israel, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are studied. They are selected on the basic of their vulnerability to terrorism in the last few decades.

The paper concludes that (1) that all countries discussed mentioned that the use of threat or action meant to disturb the national integrity and sovereignty were terrorism (11) any an organizations involved in promoting these activities were considered as terrorist organizations. Thirdly there is a growing appreciation that acts of terrorism and political violence are distinct genres and should be dealt separately.