The effect of prison gang membership on recidivism

Purpose

How does prison gang membership affect recidivism? In this paper, we use a unique dataset of all releasees from prisons operated by the Illinois Department of Corrections during the month of November 2000, which includes demographic information and data on gang participation. We attempt to control for confounding factors that are traditionally associated with both prison gang membership and rearrest.

Methods

We develop a potential-outcomes framework and describe the conditions under which a counterfactual can be estimated when gang membership is not randomly assigned. We combine regression analysis with Coarsened Exact Matching, which has several advantages over the more popular propensity score matching, to estimate the effect of gang membership on recidivism.

Results

Prison gang membership results in a six percentage point increase in recidivism.

Conclusions

Despite the strengths of the data, unobserved heterogeneity among inmates could still bias estimates. However, there are probably important subtleties to the gang participation decision such that experimental or quasi-experimental data are unlikely to increase our understanding of the relationship between gang-membership and post-release outcomes. We recommend incorporating ethnography with survey data collection, because ethnographers are able to document otherwise unobservable contextual information concerning the selection process which could be used to identify causal relationships.     

International environmental law as a complex adaptive system

Complex adaptive systems are a special kind of self-organizing system with emergent properties and adaptive capacity in response to changing external conditions. In this article, we investigate the proposition that international environmental law, as a network of treaties and institutions, exhibits some key characteristics of a complex adaptive system. This proposition is premised on the scientific understanding that the Earth system displays properties of a complex adaptive system. If so, international environmental law, as a control system, may benefit from the insights gained and from being modelled in ways more appropriately aligned with the functioning of the Earth system itself. In this exploratory review, we found evidence suggesting that international environmental law is a complex system where treaties and institutions self-organize and exhibit emergent properties. Furthermore, we contend that international environmental law as a whole is adapting to exogenous changes through an institutional process akin to natural selection in biological evolution. However, the adequacy of the direction and rate of adaptation for the purpose of safeguarding the integrity of Earth’s life-support system is questioned. This paper concludes with an emphasis on the need for system-level interventions to steer the direction of self-organization while maintaining institutional diversity. This recommendation stands in contrast to the reductionist approach to institutional fragmentation and aims at embracing the existing complexity in international environmental law.     

Representatives of the public? Public opinion and interest group activity

Although scholars have long speculated about how organised interests link the public to decision makers, there has actually been little empirical research on this important element of democratic theory. This important gap in the literature is addressed in this article by examining, in addition to other supply‐side and demand‐side factors, whether groups mobilise on issues in policy areas that are regarded as salient by the public. Based on an analysis of 4,501 contributions in 142 European Commission online consultations, it is found that organised interests potentially can act as a transmission belt between the public and decision makers. Although the results vary to some degree by issues, higher rates of mobilisation are found on those issues that fall within policy areas that are regarded as salient by the general public and those with consequences for budgetary spending.     

The hegemonic work of automated election technology in the Philippines

This article addresses the political role of information technology in the Philippines. It uses a theoretical framework inspired by Antonio Gramsci to examine the discourse surrounding automated elections in two major daily papers, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Business World Philippines. It argues that this discourse strengthens current conceptions of the development process by appealing to the interests not only of the dominant fraction of capital in the country today, but also to the middle class. Such operations are essential for the creation of an historic bloc capable of exercising hegemony.     

Issues surrounding a reduction in the use of internal autopsy in the coronial system

In 2003 it was estimated that 2,700 full internal coronial autopsies were performed in Queensland at a cost of approximately A$5.3 million. This large number of internal coronial autopsies (almost 95% of all matters referred to the coroner) is of concern not only due to the economic cost but also because of the public heath risks, availability of specialist staff and significant religious and cultural sensitivities surrounding internal autopsies. In 2005 the authors began research funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) to determine if unnecessary internal autopsies are being performed in Queensland and to establish guidelines for when an internal autopsy is required. This article highlights areas of potential concern when the issue of autopsy is reviewed within the coronial system through an examination of international literature on the issue of autopsy diagnosis and error rates more generally, and through preliminary discussion of the data obtained. The article considers the role and purpose of the autopsy generally as well as within the coronial system specifically; compares diagnostic error rates in hospital autopsies with those in the coronial system; the current situation internationally with regard to internal autopsies; and finally the specific circumstances existing in Queensland.     

Reviews

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The Limits to Coercive Consociationalism in Northern Ireland

The merits of consociation as a means of solving the Northern Ireland conflict are presented through contrasting it with other ways of stabilizing highly divided political systems. Why voluntary consociation has been unsuccessful in Northern Ireland and unfortunately is likely to remain so is explained. The signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) must be understood against the background of the failure of previous consociational experiments. The AIA partly represented a shift in British strategy from voluntary to coercive consociationalism. The prospects for this coercive consociational strategy and variants on it are evaluated.     

The Dalriada Document: Towards a Multinational Compromise that Respects Democratic Diversity in the United Kingdom

Northern Ireland and Scotland could and should stay within the European Union while remaining inside the United Kingdom. This proposal need not prevent, and may facilitate, England and Wales in leaving the EU, and it is in accordance with the respective preferences of the peoples of the two Unions who voted in the advisory referendum held on 23 June 2016. Prime Minister May and her Cabinet should address carefully the question of whether to trigger Article 50, or instead to give notice that only parts of the UK—England and Wales—will be leaving the EU. The price of enforcing the entirety of the UK's exit from the EU may be lasting damage to the two Unions that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.