Volume 5, Fall 2007, Issue 1

BUT DID THEY LISTEN?: THE NEW JERSEY DEATH PENALTY COMMISSION’S EXERCISE IN ABOLITIONISM: A REPLY

Robert Blecker

On January 2, 2007, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, with one dissenting vote, declared itself “pleased” to submit its report and recommendations to the Governor. The Commission had reached consensus: The legislature should simply abolish the death penalty and substitute life without parole. Although they personally supported capital punishment, some Commissioners voted to abolish it, despairing that the state’s “liberal” Supreme Court would never allow an execution to take place. Why dangle false hope before irate and grieving victims’ families? View More 

THE DWINDLING MARGIN FOR ERROR: THE REALIST PERSPECTIVE ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND GLOBAL WARMING

Paul L. Joffe

The young professor arrived in the United States in 1937, a refugee from the rise of Nazism in Germany and civil war in Spain. After teaching in Brooklyn and Kansas City, he moved to the University of Chicago in 1943. In 1948 he published his book about power politics that brought him lasting prominence and established what became known as the realist school of international relations. But there was irony in his accomplishment.View More 

THE IMPACT OF MANDATORY REPORTING REQUIREMENTS ON THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM

Robert J. Lukens

This article explores the impact of the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect by analyzing the repercussions of erroneous reports. The consequences of investigating reports that do not result in an intervention by the child welfare agencies can be very serious because these diminish the already over-extended resources of these agencies. The consequences of over-burdening the child welfare system through this misallocation of investigative resources can be devastating for a high volume of children who remain at risk but whose needs are not properly addressed. Mandatory reporting exacerbates the tensions inherent in the child welfare system between the social responsibility of protecting children at risk of harm, and a similar obligation to shore up families who are distressed. As one way to reduce the over-reporting of spurious incidents of child abuse or neglect, this article argues for some professional discretion in deciding when to report suspected circumstances. View More 

THE RIGHT TO HEALTH – A HOLISTIC PLAN FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION

Barbara P. Billauer

While both sides of the aisle agree that minimizing costs is a critical component in any health plan, few plans provide specifics aimed at achieving that objective. Current programs provide or extend insurance coverage to the uninsured, divest employers of a coverage requirement, and vest it, instead, in individuals. These methods would add substantial costs to the system without commensurate return. At the outset, the cost- savings of buying insurance in bulk — by several thousand employers – – disappears, replaced by the costs of handling hundreds of millions of individual policies. One can only imagine the staff needed to process applications numbering orders of magnitude more than the current load, along with the additional bureaucratic layers needed to police legal requirements. View More