The Institutions of Privacy: Data Protection Versus Property Rights to Data

This paper investigates the conceptual possibility for, and the institutions relating to a positive right of private property to data. To do so, it distinguishes between structured data, as a designator, and datapoints, which are data embedded in the timeline. The reasoning being explored here is: the agents generating datapoints – he source of the data – have a right to private property to the datapoints they generate. The agents, then, can choose to retain the datapoints or to sell them to data-users, aggregators, etc. Once these data-users render property of data themselves, they can further market it. There are, however, challenges to this view. One is the relative high cost of managing private property to data versus the relative low cost of misappropriating data and datapoints. The other is network effects: more precisely, data created or enriched in networks.

Human Rights and Sovereign Debts in the Context of Property and Creditor Rights

The chapter reflects on the strikingly different origins of ‘human’ versus property and creditor rights, because the differences have implications. It then highlights the importance of the enforcement of property and creditor rights for the attainment of other human rights, especially those of an economic nature. There follows a discussion of the wide gap between aspirational human rights and economic reality and demonstrates the poorly understood interconnections between sovereign debt and human rights, because most writings on the topic fail to recognize the trade-offs and incompatibilities that arise because of existing property and creditor rights. Neglect of property and creditor-rights considerations has led many contemporary human rights advocates down an infertile intellectual and practical path.

The Effect of Criminal Records on Access to Employment

This paper adds to the empirical evidence that criminal records are a barrier to employment. Using data from 2,655 online applications sent on behalf of fictitious male applicants, we show that employers are 60 percent more likely to call applicants that do not have a felony conviction. We further investigate whether this effect varies based on applicant race (black versus white), crime type (drug versus property crime), industry (restaurants versus retail), jurisdiction (New Jersey versus New York City), local crime rate, and local racial composition. Although magnitudes vary somewhat, in every subsample the conviction effect is large, significant, and negative.

The Irish Constitution ‘from below’: squatting families versus property rights in Dublin, 1967–71

Thomas Murray’s chapter draws on a critical social theory of law and a range of qualitatively rich primary sources to incorporate heretofore neglected social movement voices into a more complex account of constitutional development in Ireland. The chapter concentrates on the political practices and discourses at stake in a single moment of conflict when property rights were contested from below, specifically the squatting campaigns of the Dublin Housing Action Committee (D.H.A.C.) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Murray aims to open up a broader terrain of debate about constitutional development and judicial power in Ireland than conventional studies of case-law, legislation or parliamentary politics would suggest.

Part II Public Obligations and Regulatory Responsibilities, A Offences, 8 The Terrorism Acts and Conspiracy

This chapter looks at acts of terrorism and the issue of conspiracy. It starts by defining ‘terrorism’ and looking at various acts of terrorism and the history of terrorism and how the latter relates to money laundering. It then considers money laundering offences in particular and conspiracy to commit such offences. It looks at the example of the Salik case. In relation to this case, it considers the issue of property identified versus property not identified. It concludes this section of the chapter by looking at the implications of the Salik case. This discussion leads to the question: is knowledge relevant if the defendant intended to commit a crime?

Measuring and Explaining Inmate Misconduct

This essay explores definitions of inmate misconduct (e.g., the distinction between crimes versus “other” rule infractions, violent versus property versus drug crimes in prison, and the incidence versus the prevalence of institutional misconduct). The current applicability of importation, deprivation, and administrative control theories to understanding inmate deviance is assessed. Other potentially applicable criminological theories (e.g., social control theories, Agnew’s general strain theory) are also discussed. General theories of crime and deviance may offer a comprehensive explanation of misconduct and permit consideration of incarceration as a stage (or stages) in an offender’s life course that may encourage desistance from offending or induce further criminality. The literature on best practices for predicting (and preventing) institutional misconduct is also reviewed, as well as research on a possible link between engaging in misconduct during confinement and postrelease recidivism.