Surveillance and Entanglement: How mandatory sex offender registration impacts criminalised survivors of human trafficking

This short article describes how some victims of human trafficking in the sex industry in the United States are prosecuted alongside traffickers and put on sex offender registries. The result is both a criminal record and an indefinite digital mark that limits their ability to find a job, settle in a new community, and see their children. The article concludes with a call for a careful, critical look at the system of sex offender registries and, more broadly, policing and prosecution strategies, including in cases of human trafficking, in the United States.

(De-)Criminalizing Welfare? The Rise and Fall of Social Security Fraud Prosecutions in Australia

The social security fraud prosecution rate has fallen by approximately 74.9 per cent in Australia since 2010. This is remarkable considering the national dialogue continues to propound a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to fraud in the welfare system. Drawing on interviews with compliance staff from the Australian Department of Human Services, documentary research and a Foucauldian governmentality analytic, this article charts and interrogates the declining welfare fraud prosecution rate in the context of neoliberal welfare reform. It argues that this decline is at least partially the result of the reformulation of the objects of prosecution strategies by staff responsible for their enactment. This finding highlights the importance of localized accounts of welfare administration to supplement and complicate macro analyses of the ‘criminalization of welfare’ in Western industrialized nations.

Roma Children and Young People in Bulgaria: Patterns of Risk and Effective Protection in Relation to Child Sexual Exploitation

This article examines patterns of risk regarding child sexual exploitation (CSE). There is specific focus on those living in alternative care, child sexual exploitation and trafficking among Roma communities in Bulgaria and the UK. Data is drawn from a desk-based literature review and partnership work with Bulgarian and British academics and practitioners to explore the issues in both countries. Although there is limited statistical data on CSE and children in care across Europe and the risk-factors for Roma children and young people are still not being fully recognised, we can draw on what is known in Bulgaria to inform practice in the UK with emerging Roma communities. Research on CSE more generally can also inform awareness of risk factors particularly around care systems. Comparative information about what is known in the UK and Bulgaria is considered in order to make some recommendations for international prevention, protection efforts, and prosecution strategies for the future.

Patent Prosecution Strategies for Stem Cell–Related Applications

Stem cell research and the intellectual property derived from it, because of its potential to completely transform health care, demand an especially high level of consideration from business and patent prosecution perspectives. As with other revolutionary technologies, ordinary risks are amplified (e.g., litigation), and ordinarily irrelevant considerations may become important (e.g., heightened level of both domestic and foreign legislative risk). In the first part of this article, general strategies for patent prosecutors such as several prosecution considerations and methods for accelerating patent prosecution process are presented. In the second part, patent prosecution challenges of stem cell—related patents and possible solutions are discussed. In the final part, ethical and public policy issues particular to stem cell—related and other biotechnological inventions are summarized. ( Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2007:769-774)

Commentaries & Analyses

Patent Prosecution Strategies for Stem-Cell Related Applications.