This thesis presents a quasi-longitudinal investigation of the lived experiences of Children's Service professionals in the period between the introduction of the 2004 Children Act to 2012: a period of public service austerity. The aim of the research was to gain an understanding of the factors which shape and transform professional behaviour. Data collection was undertaken using semi-structured interviews with Children's Service practitioners. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used as an analytical framework through which to develop understandings of shifts in professional practice. The analysis of interviews surfaced a number of professional shifts. These included: a re-conceptualisation of partnership working, from policy ambition to one based upon positive outcomes for children and families, together with a move from a universal to a targeted approach to the provision of services for children and young people. The findings also illustrate the limited direct role that government policy took in shaping professional changes. The study tests out a range of theoretical perspectives and challenges those which present a stable and slowly evolving professional community; the study explores theoretical positions which present the transformation of professional practice as dynamic, fluid and idiosyncratic.

The main aim of this thesis is to advocate a more scientifically informed approach towards epidemiological evidence in disease litigation. It analyses the judicial scepticism about epidemiology in UK tort law, and finds that the myth of scientific certainty lies at the heart of the devaluation of epidemiology as proof of specific causation. It traces misconceptions about epidemiology to broader misconceptions about science as a whole (including medical science and disease), and confused legal approaches to causation. To explain why legal objections to epidemiology are erroneous, the thesis clarifies fundamental aspects of science and disease causation that lawyers need to better grasp. Scientific reasoning is inherently probabilistic. Further, medical research indicates that disease causation is usually multifactorial and stochastic. Rigid and deterministic ‘but for’ questions are thus fundamentally unsuited for assessing disease causation. The mismatch between legal and medical causal models makes courts resort to normative, ‘backwards’ causal reasoning or haphazard exceptional approaches to disease causation, where the most difficult dilemmas around causation arise. This thesis argues that courts need a better test for causation for disease that can take account of probabilistic scientific and epidemiological evidence, and suggests one such principled approach. Epidemiology can be invaluable in such an assessment of disease causation.

Child imprisonment has a long history, one that predates the formal creation of juvenile justice. However, the continued use of prison establishments for children, known as young offender institutions (YOIs), remains a controversial issue. This thesis seeks to advance the debate regarding the abolition of child imprisonment by drawing on empirical research conducted in an English YOI accommodating teenage boys. In so doing, the thesis contributes to the established prison ethnographic literature by developing an understanding of the attitudes and lived experiences of child prisoners, a typically overlooked dimension of prison ethnography. The thesis critically analyses three key themes that emerged from the empirical research: surviving life inside; interpersonal victimisation; and, the nature of the staff-prisoner relationships and the use of power. It is argued that imprisonment is far from a neutral experience. The stark similarities between the lived experience of adult and child prisoners illustrate the futility of attempting to create a distinct secure estate for children whilst retaining the use of YOIs. The differences that do exist only serve to demonstrate the inappropriateness of detaining children in the prison environment. The recent fall in the youth custody population presents an opportunity to finally abolish child prisons.

In this thesis, I explore the desirability of including polygamous marriages within contemporary legal understandings of marriage in the UK. I develop existing research in this area to undertake a contextualised, historically-conscious examination of English legal and judicial responses towards polygamous marriages which I then use to underpin my analysis of real women’s narratives. My thesis addresses five research questions: 1.) How are legal and judicial responses towards polygamous marriage framed in English law? 2.) What is the impact of current legal and judicial attitudes towards polygamous marriages on women in the UK? 3.) How are women’s views, experiences and perceptions of polygamous marriage constructed in relation to law, religion, culture and society in the UK? 4.) How might the UK’s legal regulation of polygamy be changed to better reflect the needs of women? 5.) Is legal recognition for polygamous marriages in the UK, a desirable or viable option for reform? I argue that current English legal and judicial responses towards polygamous marriages are archaic and remain underscored by colonial imperialist, orientalist and sexist attitudes. These attitudes have also permeated wider social and cultural attitudes towards polygamy. The debate surrounding the legal recognition of polygamous marriages has evolved very little because the same arguments concerning equality and harm have been made for centuries. A more sensitive engagement with the advantages and implications of legal recognition for polygamous marriages is required to promote a nuanced model of recognition.

Today slavery is illegal in every part of the world. It has been recognised as a crime against humanity and a violation of fundamental human rights. Nonetheless, the exploitation, marginalisation and degradation of human beings for material profit continue to flourish in 21st-century society. Sophisticated criminal networks and transnational illicit operations, coupled with weak governance and a high demand for slave labour, has allowed modern slavery to evolve and thrive underground, where vulnerable individuals are exploited for a multitude of purposes. Due to the complex nature of modern slavery, not only is a comprehensive approach needed to address its commonalities, but particular attention needs to also focus on the complexities and challenges unique to specific forms of exploitation. Further, due its transnational nature its regulation requires the involvement and co-operation of various actors in the international community. In particular, one area that has been subject to increasing concern is the role of corporate entities in joining the fight against slavery, by ensuring that their operations and supply chain networks are not tainted with exploitative labour and riddled with human rights abuses. The international community has recognised that while corporate entities have the capacity to promote positive effects such as economic development, job opportunities, and technological innovations, that their operations can also adversely affect vulnerable individuals and communities. Thus, through the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and various human rights initiatives, businesses have been facing pressure to use their global resources, and power to acknowledge their influence and impact on significant global issues such as human rights, modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking. Separately, as States are the prime guarantors of international human rights, they have an obligation to establish and enforce effective measures to regulate modern slavery, including the conduct of those who violate human rights and engage in the exploitation of people. Concerning unethical business practices, States then have a responsibility to establish corporate liability for complicity in modern slavery and related issues. Against the backdrop of global contemporary forms of slavery, this thesis aims to understand the extent of corporate obligation to respect internationally recognised human rights in the regulation of modern slavery, and challenge the perceived role of firms in combatting slavery in their operations. Moreover, this study considers the role of the State in enforcing CSR in line with its international obligation to protect human rights and combat modern slavery by preventing and prohibiting the crime, protecting the victims and prosecuting the offenders. This thesis will then conclude with an exploration of domestic level operations in the United Kingdom and evaluate what key approaches mean in the support of victims, the prosecution of offenders, and the responsibility of UK businesses.

The European Union (EU) policy of gender mainstreaming has been discussed at length in the context of embedding gender equality into the EU's internal market. The effectiveness of gender mainstreaming has been less analysed in other areas of EU competence. This PhD draws on feminist theory to explain the EU's gendered treatment of vulnerable women within the asylum system. Using a range of theories of gender equality, notably separate spheres, radical feminism, and intersectional feminism, the thesis analyses the relevant asylum legislation, judgements and guidelines in international law, EU law and the national legal systems of two EU member states: the United Kingdom and Ireland. These feminist theories provided a perspective which allowed this research to explain how the EU has failed to address significantly and meaningfully the gendered aspects of the asylum system in member states. Despite the EU's stated attempts to ensure through gender mainstreaming that the member states rely on a theory of gender equality which provides protection to women in the asylum system, this PhD found both that the EU has not sufficiently embodied an intersectional approach to gender and asylum and that member states are still more influenced by their national political culture and treatment of gender equality than that of the EU. This thesis uses that research to make recommendations at both an EU and national level to help the EU and its member states better incorporate gender mainstreaming in order to ensure human rights protection for vulnerable women. As the EU manages increasing refugee applications and increasing nationalist sentiment, this presents an opportunity to embed more thoroughly intersectional gender mainstreaming in both EU asylum policy and the EU's political culture.

This thesis investigates the work of custody visiting in police stations. Custody visitors make what are supposed to be random and unannounced visits to custody blocks in all parts of England and Wales. They check on the welfare of detainees being held in police custody, and they report their findings to the local Police and Crime Commissioner. Custody visiting is an important component of the criminal justice system, but it has been almost completely ignored by police scholars, and is largely unknown among the general public. The thesis analyses the character of official policy about custody visiting since the first “lay visiting” schemes in the early 1980s, through to the operation, from 2002, of the current statutory scheme known as “Independent Custody Visiting”. Using observation and face-to-face interviews in a local case study, along with wider desk and archival research and elite interviews, and drawing on Steven Lukes’ concept of power, this thesis is an original, in-depth investigation of this phenomenon. It is the first rigorous assessment of custody visiting, and the first thorough evaluation of its independence and of its effectiveness as a regulator of police behaviour.

This thesis explores the potential of volunteer-based mentoring of offenders and victims in criminal justice in England and Wales. The research was based on four case-study organisations and involved analysis of the recruitment and training of volunteers and of their contribution in comparison with standards defined for mentoring as practiced in more generic professional mentoring circles. Key findings from the research were of limited appreciation of the nature of mentoring among the four organisations; of significant reliance on college students as volunteers seeking work experience for their CVs (and who therefore were not always available to provide longer-term mentoring support); of rudimentary training programmes; and of supervisory staff who often seemed reluctant to empower volunteers to engage in proper mentoring roles. Indeed, rather than mentoring, the contribution of the volunteers was better described as a mix of practical assistance provision, coaching and clerical/administrative support. Despite this, the main conclusion of this research was that volunteer-based mentoring does appear to offer valuable potential in criminal justice for both offenders and victims of crime. However, more strategic approaches to recruitment and more rigorous training in the principles and skills of mentoring are needed, as well as greater support from supervising staff.

No description available.

NMDARs are indispensable for developmental plasticity in the mammalian brain, but their roles in vivo are difficult to ascertain as NMDAR-knockouts are lethal. To circumvent this problem, we utilized NR1-knockdown mice to examine plasticity at the calyx of Held-MNTB synapse in the auditory brainstem. Previous work shows NMDARs at this synapse are rapidly down-regulated following the onset of hearing (P12), leading to the hypothesis that transient NMDAR expression is indispensable for modulating functional and morphological remodelling during development. We tested this by performing electrophysiological recordings, fluorescence tracing in vitro, and auditory brainstem responses in vivo, and surprisingly found that reducing postsynaptic NMDARs appears to promote functional maturation via presynaptic mechanisms in the absence of morphological and acoustic transmission differences in the mature calyx. This suggests a novel role for NMDARs to function as an activity-dependent control for setting the pace of consolidation and maturation in the calyx of Held synapse.