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MIOIR researchers led a study funded by the Manchester Law and Technology Initiative into "Attitudes Towards LegalTech Adoption in the UK" with UCL and The Law Society. MIOIR researchers led a study funded by the Manchester Law and Technology Initiative into "Attitudes Towards LegalTech Adoption in the UK" with UCL and The Law Society.

The law should take into consideration neuroscientific evidence that suggests fear and threat can cause victims to become 'frozen' in cases of rape or sexual assault, argue UCL experts. In a comment article, published in Nature Human Behaviour, Professor Patrick Haggard and former UCL undergraduate, Ebani Dhawan, state that victims of sexual assault are often blamed for not fighting or fleeing their attackers.

Domestic abuse allegations and convictions of parents who have perpetrated abuse are not being adequately captured by Scottish civil courts during child contact hearings, a new study by the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh Napier has found. Researchers discovered family lawyers were heavily reliant on their clients telling them about ongoing or past domestic abuse as there is no formal mechanism for them to be informed about criminal proceedings.

A new report by experts from The University of Manchester and barrister Keir Monteith KC has raised urgent questions about racial attitudes and practices in the justice system in England and Wales. Although the judiciary wields enormous power over individuals, its operations are alarmingly underscrutinised, and one area that has remained largely beyond examination is judicial racial bias.

What happens to all the sensitive personal information our smart devices collect from us? Where does the data picked up by our smart watches, speakers and TVs go, who has access to it and how is it used? It's often unclear what happens with the data these devices collect: where that data goes and how it is used.

A new study argues that lower drink drive limits need to be backed up with stricter enforcement to tackle persistent drink driving-related accidents. Last updated on Tuesday 10 August 2021 The introduction of a tougher drink drive limit in Scotland over six years ago has had 'no effect' at reducing drink driving or alcohol related collisions say the authors of a new academic study.

Prisons with more green space have lower levels of violence and self-harm, according to new research at the University of Birmingham and Utrecht University. The study is the first to attempt large-scale mapping of green space within prison environments and link it to well-being in a robust, statistically significant way.

Seismic waves, commonly associated with earthquakes, have been used by scientists to develop a universal scaling law for the sense of touch. A team, led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, used Rayleigh waves to create the first scaling law for touch sensitivity. The results are published in Science Advances .

A new Bluetooth contact tracing system for detecting Covid-19 proximity, has been developed by a team of scientists and data privacy experts, including from UCL. The DP-3T tracing system, which is presented openly for public scrutiny in a new White Paper , works at scale and has been developed to the highest privacy standards, ready to deploy into an app.

Nearly half (45%) of in-house lawyers have been asked to advise on an action with debatable ethics, according to research by UCL. The research, published in a new report ' Which way is the wind blowing? Understanding the moral compass of in-house legal counsel' also found that 39% of in-house lawyers had been asked to advise on something which was potentially illegal.

The system in place under the Mental Health Act that places decision-making powers in the hands of the nearest relatives for people who are sectioned needs to be extended to others to improve patient choice, according to new research. The study, from academics at the universities of Bath, Bristol and the University of the West of England published in the journal Health & Social Care in the Community , identifies challenges to the existing system and makes recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners.

Findings from the UK's largest mock jury research project to-date have been released. Commissioned by the Scottish Government, the research was led by Ipsos MORI Scotland, with the collaboration of School of Law academics Professor Fiona Leverick and Professor James Chalmers and the University of Warwick's Professor Vanessa Munro.

A law against possession of rape pornography, introduced in 2015, is very rarely used with few charges and prosecutions. This is what our researchers have found after analysing data obtained through a Freedom of Information request. Police focus The research shows that during 2015-2017 the vast majority (85 per cent) of extreme pornography charges were for possessing bestiality porn with only one per cent of charges for rape pornography.

Professor Ruth Morgan (UCL Security and Crime Science) writes about the misinterpretation of forensic evidence and the issues that this causes for the criminal justice system. Imagine you're in court, accused of a crime that you know you didn't commit. Now imagine a scientist takes the stand and starts explaining to the court how your DNA is on the murder weapon.

LGBTQI+ Muslims seeking asylum are more successful if they speak, dress and act in accordance with Western notions of homosexuality, according to a new study from the University of Bristol.

UK designers are less likely to seek legal action if someone copies their work compared with the rest of Europe, according to new research. Experts at the University of Nottingham tested the effectiveness of design case law in the 28 member states of the EU. Among the big countries in the EU, the UK had some of the lowest numbers of cases brought to court per population, often with less favourable outcomes for designers.

Police at a crime scene in Leyton, east London after a man in his twenties was stabbed to death in March of this year. Credit: PA. Police at a crime scene in Leyton, east London after a man in his twenties was stabbed to death in March of this year. Credit: PA. Knife crime data from a 12-month period could be used to help forecast the London neighbourhoods most likely to suffer a fatal stabbing the following year, according to latest research.

The lowering of the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers in Scotland has had no impact on the number of road traffic accidents, a new study has found. The research, led by the University of Glasgow and published in The Lancet, evaluated the impact of the change in legislation which occurred in Scotland in December 2014, when the blood alcohol concentration limit for drivers was reduced from 80 mg/dL to 50 mg/dL.

Intergenerational power relations may be just as important as male-female power relations for women's economic empowerment, according to new UCL research. The study, published in  World Development , was conducted in rural Nepal where mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law often have fraught relationships, as their survival and well-being depend on gaining favour with male family members.

A change in culture within the NHS is needed to ensure that managers are less resistant to hearing, and acting upon, bad news, research led by the University of Birmingham has found. Research led by the University's Health Services Management Centre found that any future whistleblowing policies must deal with the 'deaf effect' amongst NHS managers, where entrenched status and power differences between different professional and occupational groups can limit open reporting cultures.