A contextual analysis of crime rates: The Korean case<Superscript>⋆</Superscript>

During recent attempts to understand crime in relation to its environments, studies have focused on a single aspect of either economic or organizational context. Furthermore, scant attention has been given to the independent role of the political influence on response to criminal activity. This study examines the relative roles of economic conditions, organizational constraints of police, and political climate in explaining changes in crime rates by incorporating these three contexts into a single study. By using a variety of official statistics, we conducted time-series analyses to examine the social context of crime over the past three decades in South Korea. Findings indicate, first, that the unemployment rate is the best predictor of changes in crime rates; it consistently increased the level of both property and violent crimes. Second, organizational capacity, as indicated by police per capita, is found not to have any consistent effect on crime rates. Third, the impact of political repression, measured by the presence of extraordinary laws and the number of political prisoners, also shows inconsistent effects on crime. However, crime rates were somewhat lower during the past three military regimes, which support the argument that authoritarian governments exercised more punitive sanctions to deter crimes. Implications are discussed and suggestions are offered for future research on this topic.This work was supported by Korean Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2004-003-BO0142). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2004 mettings of the American Society of Criminology. We would like to thank Ivan Sun for his insightful comments and helpful suggestions.     

Measurement Properties of the Communities That Care<Superscript>®</Superscript> Youth Survey Across Demographic Groups

Prevention science has produced information about risk and protective factors that predict adolescent drug use and related problem behaviors. This paper investigates the Communities That Care Youth Survey that measures multiple risk and protective factors. Using a sample of 172,628 students who participated in surveys administered in seven states in 1998, analyses were conducted to test the factor structure of these risk and protective factors and to test the equivalence of the factor models across five racial/ethnic groups (African Americans, Asians or Pacific Islanders, Caucasians, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans), four grade levels (6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th) and both gender groups. Results support the construct validity of the surveys risk and protective factor scales and indicate that the measures are equally reliable across males and females and five racial/ethnic groups. Implications of these findings for science-based prevention planning are discussed.     

A New Alliance of De-legalisation and Legal Formalism? Reflections on Responses to the Social Deficit of the European Integration Project<Superscript>⋆</Superscript>

This paper will cover a wide range of issues. It will start with a reconstruction of the European Community’s ‘social deficit’, arguing that a credible response to this deficit would be a pre-condition for the democratic legitimacy of the deepened integration project. Such a response can be developed in a re-conceptualisation of European law as a new type of supranational/trans-statal conflict of laws – this is the thesis defended in the second section. This vision is contrasted in the third section, first with the steps towards Social Europe envisaged in the Draft Constitutional Treaty, and then with the messages of the recent judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Viking and Laval. It goes without saying that the theoretical premises of the argument, let alone its many interdisciplinary dimensions and empirical background, can often only be signalled, but not developed systematically.

&lt;&lt;中华人民共和国刑法修正案&gt;&gt;述议

《中华人民共和国刑法修正案》的颁布，是我国刑事立法的一大进步，它无论从修改《刑法》的方式，还是修改《刑法》的内容，都会对我国今后的刑事立法产生深远的影响，也会对我国市场经济的发展产生积极的作用。