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Background This paper reports on court outcomes for people with an intellectual disability in comparison with other offenders. It is part of a longitudinal study where it was possible to examine all levels of the criminal justice system, that is, from arrest to court appearance and finally to conviction. The study is based on the summation of nearly 11 years of data, from 1 April 1984 to 31 December 1994.Method Using comprehensive databases, a group of offenders with intellectual disability (n?=?843) was “tracked” through the criminal justice system to assess their criminal history and compare it with a cohort of general population offenders (n?=?2442).Results The findings show that at the sentencing stage of the court process people with intellectual disability are treated differently from others. There was no difference between the two groups in the proportion who were convicted, that is, where a penalty was imposed by the courts. However, there were considerable disparities between groups for the types of penalties imposed. The nature of the charge does not offer an adequate explanation for this.Conclusion A crucial finding is that it appears that the initial police decision to charge seems to have an enduring, albeit indirect effect at the final stage of disposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on online reading and note-taking. Early advocates of digital documents were sure that it was just a matter of time before paper as a reading material would become obsolete. The author states that his experience as a heavy user of information from digital, Web-based sources is the opposite. He often judges the potential of the source on a first impression or an abstract on screen, but when he decides to read a document in more detail, he prints it out. One of the characteristics of the reading-to-write process that participants commented on extensively was annotation and note-taking.

The article presents a paper that explores ways in which general practitioners make sense of the changing political economy of this relationship. It explains that the interpersonal relationship between doctor and patient is fundamental to general medical practice. However, it is restructured by ideas about the patient as consumer, and as it increasingly constitutes the consultation as a point of interaction that may be intrinsically therapeutic. In particular, ways are explored in which consultation is the site of negotiated power relations between doctor and patient, and is the site of the doctor's negotiation of powerful discourses of professional and institutional identity. It develops some ideas about the relationship between doctors and patients in general practice. It focuses on the ways in which the professional rhetoric of general practice has come to be organized around a very specific view of the possibilities that arise from this relationship.

The central point by Philippa Foot is that there are some concepts not understood well but which are essential to genuine discussions of the merits of different moral systems. Steve Cahn has no such reservations as shown in his paper The Happy Immoralist. Cahn's example gains whatever plausibility it has by featuring some of the things that many people associate with happiness. Cahn's point may not be subjectivism but the importance of diversity. Different things make different people happy. Foot's point, however, is that human nature seems to impose some limits on this diversity. Moreover, there is room for great variation in valuable human relationships, but happiness without any friendship is another matter. Human beings are enormously dependent on one another. None could survive the early stages of life, and usually the latter stages, without the love and concern of others. This suggest that friendship is fundamental to the well-being of human beings. This puts in doubt the plausibility of Cahn's example. So too does his depiction of his character Fred as thoroughly dishonest while having a reputation for probity. Cahn's discussion has troublesome normative overtones.