For many years, psychological–clinical research has been aiming at studying the Mafia from different viewpoints: the man of honor's inner world, relational and psychopathological structures of his family matrices, connections between inner and social worlds, interiorized and social rules. Today, however, a complex phenomenon has come to light, which concerns the great connection between the Mafia and financial crime, and for us as researchers it is very interesting and complicated to analyze, because it involves the study of psychological peculiarities (...) that can be specifically found in the numerous illegalities. The crossbreeding of the various criminalities, which are always more interacting and merging and less isolated, makes this picture even more complex. (shrink)

Racial profiling has come under intense public scrutiny especially since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. This article discusses two questions: whether racial profiling is sometimes rational, and whether it can be morally permissible. It is argued that under certain circumstances the affirmative answer to both questions is justified.

. Freedom of thought as freedom of expression: Hate crime sentencing enhancement and first amendment theory. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 29-42.

Why do war crimes occur? Are perpetrators of war crimes always blameworthy? In an original and challenging thesis, this book argues that war crimes are often explained by perpetrators' beliefs, goals, and values, and in these cases perpetrators may be blameworthy even if they sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing.

First published in 1984, this book examines corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry. Based on extensive research, including interviews with 131 senior executives of pharmaceutical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico and Guatemala, the book is a major study of white-collar crime. Written in the 1980s, it covers topics such as international bribery and corruption, fraud in the testing of drugs and criminal negligence in the unsafe manufacturing of drugs. The author considers the implications (...) of his findings for a range of strategies to control corporate crime, nationally and internationally. (shrink)

Financial misconduct has come into the spotlight in recent years, causing market regulators to increase the reach and severity of interventions. We show that at times the economic benefits of illicit financial activity outweigh the costs of litigation. We illustrate our argument with data from the US Securities and Exchanges Commission and a case of investment misconduct. From the neoclassical economic paradigm, which follows utilitarian thinking, it is rational to engage in misconduct. Still, the majority of professionals refrain from misconduct, (...) foregoing economic rewards. We suggest financial activity could be reimagined taking into account intrinsic and prosocial motivations. A virtue ethics framework could also be applied, linking financial behavior to the quest for moral excellence and shared flourishing. By going beyond utilitarian thinking and considering alternative models, we offer a fuller account of financial behavior and a better perspective from which to design deterrence methods. (shrink)

Recent years have seen mounting challenge to the model of the criminal trial on the grounds it is not cost-effective, not preventive, not necessary, not appropriate, or not effective. These challenges have led to changes in the scope of the criminal law, in criminal procedure, and in the nature and use of criminal trials. These changes include greater use of diversion, of fixed penalties, of summary trials, of hybrid civil–criminal processes, of strict liability, of incentives to plead guilty, and of (...) preventive orders. The paper will assess the implications of these changes for the function of the criminal law, assessing the reasons behind them, and examining whether or not they are to be welcomed. Identifying the larger import of these changes draws attention to the changing relationship between state and citizen as well as changes in the nature of the state itself. These can in turn be attributed to a jostling among the different manifestations of the authoritarian state, the preventive state, and the regulatory state. These changes have profound normative implications for a liberal theory of the criminal law that require its re-articulation and its defence. A modest start may be to insist that where the conduct is criminal and the consequences are punitive the protections of criminal procedure and trial must be upheld. (shrink)

War crimes are being committed in Ukraine today, but who should be held responsible? By looking at the literature on responsibility and violence by Philippa Foot and John Harris, this article argues that there are grounds for holding Vladimir Putin responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, even if he did not give the command for these crimes and other atrocities to be carried out.

One of the most ingenious arguments in all of Attic oratory is to be found in the speech Lysias wrote for Euphiletus to deliver at his trial for the murder of Eratosthenes . In his speech Euphiletus first describes to the court how his wife was seduced by Eratosthenes, then recounts how he discovered the affair, caught the adulterer in the act, and, despite an offer to pay compensation, slew him. Euphiletus defends his action by citing the law of the (...) Areopagus that whoever kills an adulterer caught in flagranti with his wife cannot be convicted of murder. Euphiletus further points out that the same exemption applies to the man who catches someone seducing his pallakē. If the lawgiver regarded the seduction of a pallakē as so serious that it merited the death penalty, Euphiletus argues, he must have regarded the seduction of a wife as even more reprehensible, deserving a penalty worse than death. (shrink)

Recent developments in neuroscience and social science are illuminating the critical importance of regret in human choices, including criminal decision making. After differentiating regret from related emotions (e.g., disappointment, sadness, shame), I argue that regret can prompt desistance from crime and that regret avoidance is a powerful mechanism of conformity. I then turn to American and European penal history to demonstrate that the invention of the prison was premised on the notion that solitary confinement could inculcate regret in prisoners (...) and thereby change them profoundly. The place of regret in both historical and emerging thinking about human choice underscores its importance for understanding the connections between emotions and criminality. (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive overview of what the criminal law would look like if organised around the principle that those who deserve punishment should receive punishment commensurate with, but no greater than, that which they deserve. Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan argue that desert is a function of the actor's culpability, and that culpability is a function of the risks of harm to protected interests that the actor believes he is imposing and his reasons for acting in the (...) face of those risks. The authors deny that resultant harms, as well as unperceived risks, affect the actor's desert. They thus reject punishment for inadvertent negligence as well as for intentions or preparatory acts that are not risky. Alexander and Ferzan discuss the reasons for imposing risks that negate or mitigate culpability, the individuation of crimes, and omissions. (shrink)

Humanitarian organisations often work alongside those responsible for serious wrongdoing. In these circumstances, accusations of moral complicity are sometimes levelled at decision makers. These accusations can carry a strong if unfocused moral charge and are frequently the source of significant moral unease. In this paper, we explore the meaning and usefulness of complicity and its relation to moral accountability. We also examine the impact of concerns about complicity on the motivation of humanitarian staff and the risk that complicity may lead (...) to a retreat into moral narcissism. Moral narcissism is the possibility that where humanitarian actors inadvertently become implicated in wrongdoing, they may focus more on their image as self-consciously good actors than on the interests of potential beneficiaries. Moral narcissism can be triggered where accusations of complicity are made and can slew decision making. We look at three interventions by Médecins Sans Frontières that gave rise to questions of complicity. We question its decision-guiding usefulness. Drawing on recent thought, we suggest that complicity can helpfully draw attention to the presence of moral conflict and to the way International Non-Governmental Organisations can be drawn into unintentional wrongdoing. We acknowledge the moral challenge that complicity presents to humanitarian staff but argue that complicity does not help INGOs make tough decisions in morally compromising situations as to whether they should continue with an intervention or pull out. (shrink)

In this paper I reconsider the Roman law on magic through an examination of three key “moments”: the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis; the trial of Apuleius as known from his Apology; and a passage from The Opinions of Paulus. I argue that the Roman law on magic grounded in the Lex Cornelia gradually shifted from a focus on harmful and uncanny actions to a concern with religious deviance. This shift was already underway at the time of Apuleius' trial, (...) if only on an ad hoc basis, and was firmly established in the formal discourse of Roman law by ca. 300 CE, the date of The Opinions of Paulus. I argue for the importance of retaining “magic” as a heuristic category, since it is the only term fluid enough to function as an inclusive rubric for this shifting set of concerns. (shrink)

Inchoate crime consists of acts that are regarded as crimes despite the fact that they are only partial or incomplete in some respect. This includes acts that do not succeed in physically harming the victim or are only indirectly related to such a result. Examples include attempts (as in attempted murder that does not eventuate in the killing of anyone), conspiracy (in which case the crime has only been planned, not yet acted out) and incitement (where the inciter (...) does not himself commit the crime he is urging others to undertake). The present paper attempts to analyze these inchoate crimes from a libertarian perspective, based on the non-aggression principle. (shrink)

A substantial consideration of a film genre that is a distinctive part of American popular art.

Crimes of Reason brings together expanded and updated versions of some of Braude’s best previously published essays, along with new essays written specifically for this book.

Neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero proposed the HEAVEN procedure – i.e. head anastomosis venture – several years ago, and has recently received approval from the relevant regulatory bodies to perform this body-head transplant in China. The BHT procedure involves attaching the donor body to the head of the recipient, and discarding the body of R and head of D. Canavero’s proposed procedure will be incredibly difficult from a medical standpoint. Aside from medical doubt, the BHT has been met with great resistance from (...) many, if not most bio- and neuroethicists.Given both the known challenges and unknown outcomes of HEAVEN, several important neuroethical and legal questions have emerged should Canavero be successful, including: What are the implications for transplantology in the U.S., inclusive of issues of expense, distributive justice, organizational procedures, and the cost of novel insight? How do bioethical and neuroethical principles, and legal regulations of human subject research apply? What are the legal consequences for Canavero performing a BHT? What are the tentative implications for the metaphysical and legal identity of R should they survive post-BHT? These questions are analyzed, issues are identified, and several solutions are proposed in an attempt to re-configure HEAVEN into a safe, clinically effective, and thus realistically viable procedure.Notably, the permissibility of conducting the BHT in China fosters additional, important questions, focal to whether Western ethics and professional norms be used to guide the BHT – or any neuroscientific research and its use - in non-Western countries, such as China; if the models of responsible conduct of research are identical, similar, or applicable to the intent and conduct of research in China; and what economic and political implications are fostered if/when such avant garde techniques are successful.These questions are discussed as a further impetus to develop a globally applicable neuroethical framework that would enable both local articulation and cosmopolitan inquiry and oversight of those methods and approaches deemed problematic, if and when rendered in more international settings. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Hate Speech and the Law Two Theories of Rights Should Hate Speech be Free Speech? Hate Crimes and the Law.

Gender differences have been observed regarding many political and social issues, yet we lack comprehensive evidence on differences in perceptions on a wide range of security issues increasingly important to voters: military threats, criminality, and terrorism. Previous research suggests that when women are highly politically mobilized, as they are in Sweden, gender differences in political opinion are large. On the other hand, Swedish politicians have worked hard to reduce gender stereotypical thinking. This prompts the question: Are there gender differences in (...) attitudes on security issues in Sweden, and if so, in what ways do the attitudes differ? This study is based on comprehensive data from focus groups and a large-scale survey. The results show that women were more prone to respond with an “ethic of care,” across security issues. Women were more inclined to understand security problems as structural, explained by macho culture, segregation, and injustice. Women tend to support preventive measures that provide individuals with opportunities to choose “the right path,” such as education and economic investment in deprived areas. When asked about national security, women believe more in diplomacy and dialogue. In general, women are less inclined to support various repressive solutions. (shrink)