This paper studies the origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (vory-v-zakone). I web scraped a unique dataset that contains detailed biographies of more than 5,000 mafia leaders operating in 15 countries of the (former) Soviet Union at some point between 1916 and 2017. Using this data, I...

This paper studies the origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (vory-v-zakone). Using a unique web scraped dataset containing detailed biographies of more than 5,000 mafia leaders, I first show that the Russian mafia originated in the Soviet Gulag archipelago, and could be found near the...

This paper examines Islamic law on the punishment of apostasy and its use and abuse by State and non-state actors to justify the taking of human life. It highlights the traditional view of Muslim jurists that apostates must be killed. This approach is contrasted with the growing body of juristic...

Does consent excuse violence against another? Generally, it does not. Recently, however, criminal defendants charged with violence against their sexual partners have asked courts to treat violent sex or sadomasochism (S/M) as a sport, like prize fighting and hockey. While most courts have...

State socialist nationalization policies in the 1980s severely impacted the ethnic Turkish and Muslim regions of Bulgaria, while neo-liberal economic strategies have subsequently further deepened their economic crisis. This paper focuses on the ways in which policies of regional economic...

Violence against women and poverty are closely connected. Measures to address this violence must tackle the social and economic factors that contribute to gender inequality. Violence against women is now recognised as a human rights violation but this is often understood narrowly in relation to...

In criminal cases the task of the judge is to transform the uncertainty about the facts into the certainty of the verdict. In this experiment we examine the relationship between evidence of which the strength is known, subjective probability of guilt and verdict for abstract cases. We look at...