Effects of a prison facility on the regional economy

Changes in economic and social well-being in three Alabama countries, immediately subsequent to the opening of large state prison facilities in those countries, are examined. Case study comparisons of prison and control (no prison) counties, using variables of population growth, total employment, per capita income, retail sales, property value, farm acreage and value, school enrollment, and crime rates and juvenile court cases, find some mixed indicators of a prison's effect on the local economy, but the majority of variables showed no negative effects, and positive improvement was found in some cases.     

Economic Elites and Support for Housing Affordability Policy: How a Housing-Health Belief Matters

Political Behavior - To investigate economic elites’ housing policy preferences and test the attitudinal, contextual, political, and economic conditions that drive support for affordable...     

DNA recovery from different evidences in 300 cases of sexual assault

Almost 60% of the DNA evidences analyzed in our laboratory correspond to sexual assault cases. With the aim to assess the efficiency of the DNA IQ System (Promega) in recovering the perpetrator DNA profile, the statistical analysis of results obtained in 300 casework was performed. In such cases, 850 evidence samples were processed. In 71% of the cases the perpetrator DNA profile was detected in at least one of the submitted casework samples, with a minimum of 13 STRs markers typed using the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR amplification kit (Applied Biosystem). When the suspect DNA profile was available, 67% matched with the evidence.With regard to the type of evidence, the best performance corresponded to panties, with more than 70% of success in recovering male profile, whereas the efficiency of vaginal swabs was almost 60%, with a higher incidence of victim/perpetrator mixed profiles.     

Paths to the recognition of homo-parental adoptive rights in the EU-27: a QCA analysis

Although the recognition of the adoptive rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) couples is a socially salient topic, cross-national variation regarding this issue has been largely underexplored in social science research. With the aid of configurational analysis, this article fills this gap and shows the conditions that explain the recognition of the adoptive rights of homosexual couples in the countries of the EU-27. It is argued that two different paths led to this outcome. All countries where adoptive rights were recognized had higher degrees of secularization and lower levels of social homophobia. In addition, in Northern European countries, the Protestant background and absence of conservative governments for a certain time period seemed to be the determinant. However, for the remaining European countries that recognized these rights, rising levels of gender equality appeared to have a more salient role.     

Contracts,control and contestation: The harvest of lemons for export

This article analyses the labour process of an export industry in Argentina that supplies fresh lemons to an increasingly demanding European market. We examine the structural tensions as well as formal and informal protests to managerial strategies used to circumvent state controls, the power of unions and the cost of harvesters' wages. We identify the technocratic counterstrategies used by producers concerned about product quality and monitoring costs and how these strategies reduce the impact of informal acts of resistance and gain the cooperation of workers. We link these strategies to specific economic and political conditions and to how actors perceive conditions and responses.     

Modelling the relationship between counter‐knowledge and open‐mindedness for policy development

Counter‐knowledge refers to flaws in citizens' mental models arising from utilization of rumours, inappropriate knowledge structures, outdated routines or procedures. When counter‐knowledge is applied to civil servants, it may result in problems of efficiency, equity and motivation. This paper examines the relationship between counter‐knowledge and open‐mindedness to model a framework for improving city marketing and policy development. This study tested two measurement models. While the theoretical model represents the effect of counter‐knowledge on city marketing and that the latter has a negative effect on open‐mindedness, the alternative model involves that counter‐knowledge has a positive indirect impact on open‐mindedness. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 203 Spanish city halls. The results show a potential positive indirect effect of counter‐knowledge on open‐mindedness through city marketing programmes. This paper clarifies the existing literature, which tries to contribute to the discussion of city marketing, and helps us to obtain meaning out of the relationship between counter‐knowledge, city marketing and open‐mindedness. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lighting and Homicides: Evaluating the Effect of an Electrification Policy in Rural Brazil on Violent Crime Reduction

Introduction

This study estimates the effects of lighting on homicides in rural areas of developing countries.

Methods

We use an IV strategy by exploring the LUZ PARA TODOS or Light for All (LPT) program that was adopted by the federal government to expand electrification to rural areas in Brazilian municipalities in the 2000s as an exogenous source of variations in access to electricity.

Results

Our results indicate a significant decrease in homicide rates in municipalities the Northeast region, which is the poorest region of the country and most affected by the policy expansion. We estimate that helping a municipality increase from zero electricity coverage to full coverage reduces homicide rates by 92 per 100,000 inhabitants. This is equivalent to moving a municipality that is at the 99th percentile to the median (zero) of the crime distribution across municipalities. In addition, we perform placebo exercises using sub-samples of predominantly urban municipalities. The results increase our confidence in the IV strategy since our primary results were from areas with a larger percentage of rural population, as should be expected by the policy.

Conclusions

This study contributes to the extant literature by investigating the effects of lighting on homicides in a different context, rural areas of a developing country (Brazil).