Family Law - case study1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Family Law - case study1 - Essay Example Furthermore the marriage laws also state that if the marriage has been intimate (consummated) within a 6 month period during which a divorce is filed then the couple is required to wait 6 more months to a year before they can re-file for a divorce decree2. Furthermore the no-fault areas of the marriage, preceding a divorce have to be examined as well. Because John does not want a divorce and wants to work on the marriage then the court would look at the impact a divorce might have on him in particular. However, as was stated, due to the policies surrounding the divorce laws in the UK and England in particular, there will be a great deal of counseling and other interventive measures utilized to try and save this marriage if indeed it were to proceed into the family courts. The primary reasoning for counseling is going to fall into the area of the courts expecting there to be clear and coherent mental competency to ensure that both of the individuals are aware of their actions and are fully understanding of what will take place within their lives after a divorce is granted3. As the laws in cohabitation have changed drastically in the past few years, there are new stipulations in regards to couples who live together and often the same laws that govern marriage apply to cohabitating partners4. However, cohabitant partners are not wholly equal to married couples in all respects, not according to the English laws. For instance married couples do have the protection of marital law to assist them if there are problems that develop that have to do with property or a specific living situation where violence is occurring5. However, following modern civil law, a cohabitating couple such as Jeremy and Claude can adopt a set of rules that ultimately divides the property between the two and of which is upheld in a court of law just as a married couple's property rights would be viewed. Therefore there is the possibility that Jeremy could have a legal way of forcing Claude to vacate the flat that they share but due to the fact that they don't have a legal civil partn ership creates other types of problems besides not being married brings. For instance, without a civil partnership there are no real legal grounds that an individual within a cohabitating relationship can rely on fully. This isn't to say that Jeremy would not have any legal protection at all but the point that is being made is that it would be further complicated by the fact that the two aren't married, there is violence in the relationship, and no civil partnership is in existence to refute any adverse statements or actions that might come into being6. The law is quite clear on one aspect of this domestic problem however, regardless of whether the couple is married or not. Because of the fact that the flat is solely in Jeremy's name the law would stipulate that he could enforce the removal of Claude through a legal means without any adverse repercussions to himself. However, any joint property that remained in the flat would have to be legally divided according to any legal arrange ment that Jeremy and Claude have in affect. If they have none (which without a civil p

Longer sentences offer no more guarantee of reducing criminal Essay

Longer sentences offer no more guarantee of reducing criminal propensities than do shorter terms (The effectiveness of sentencing, Home Office Resea - Essay Example confinement total included about 325,618 persons. In the next quarter century, American prisons more than quintupled in size, reaching a one-day population of 1,182,169 by the end of 1996. As of June 30, 1996, jails across the country grew to hold an estimated 518,492 persons. At midyear 1996, the total adult incarcerated population was 1,630,940 inmates. Taking the nations population growth into account, the U.S. incarceration rate had risen by a factor of 3.75, from 160 inmates per 100,000 general population in 1970 to 600 per 100,000 in 1995. This expansion was not planned in advance, and, even with the benefit of hindsight, its causes are not well understood. Deliberate or not, explicable or not, the upswing in the use of confinement appears to be ongoing. American prisons and jails were growing at a rate of 189 new inmates per day between mid-1995 and mid-1996. While theories of pendulum swings might foretell an eventual reversal of the incarceration explosion, so far there is little evidence of such a shift in the national statistics. Alongside the trend of escalation of confinement, there has been widespread experimentation across the country with new institutions and systems for the apportionment of criminal punishment. Rehabilitation, once the guiding theoretical light of American sentencing structures, has fallen by the wayside in the past two and a half decades, leaving policy makers scrambling for an alternative blueprint. Further, as criminal punishment has grown into an ever-more-sizable enterprise, governments have become increasingly interested in managerial tools for controlling systemic throughputs and outputs. Many jurisdictions have created sentencing commissions, some have abolished parole boards, all have enacted mandatory penalty statutes for selected crimes, and a growing number have adopted sentencing guidelines (Tonry, 2000). Sentencing has been radically refashioned in two ways. First, sentencing