A Criminal Career Study of the Continuity and Discontinuity of Sex Offending during the Adolescence-Adulthood Transition: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Incarcerated Youth

Longitudinal research has seriously challenged assumptions that juvenile sex offenders (JSO) are characterized by high level of dangerousness, mental health problems, and crime specialization in sex offenses. The current study examines the longitudinal pattern of offending among a sample of JSO and a sample of juvenile nonsex offenders. The research design includes longitudinal data over a nine-year period allowing the examination of offending patterns and the crime mix from age 12 to age 23. The findings highlight that, while JSO are prone to persist offending in adulthood, there is limited continuity of sex offending. Further, the findings stress the importance of taking into account nonsexual juvenile delinquency, more specifically, youth violence, to make a better assessment of early adult offending outcomes of JSO.     

Frisky business: race,gender and police activity during traffic stops

European Journal of Law and Economics - Since the United States Supreme Court laid the foundation for “stop-and-frisk” activity by police departments, a substantial amount of research...     

Truth,Effort, and the Legal Battle

In lawsuits, relative success depends upon two main factors:the true degree of fault, and the efforts invested on eachside. A proposed Litigation Success Function displays thisdependence while satisfying other essential properties. Undertwo different protocols, Nash-Cournot and Stackelberg,solutions are obtained for the litigation efforts,proportionate success, and values of the lawsuit on each side.Outcomes are evaluated in terms of two normative criteria; (i)achieving `justice' (interpreted as equality between Defendantfault and relative Plaintiff success) and (ii) minimizingaggregate litigation cost. Achievement of these aims isdetermined by the decisiveness of litigation effort relativeto true fault.     

Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for "Selectorate Theory"

This study re-examines the empirical support for one of the most influential explanations of leadership tenure, "selectorate theory," by testing for consistency across key regime categories. The argument made herein is that if the measures are good, the consistency of their relationships should not be limited to particular nominal regime categories, and they should capture the implications of the theory differentiating it from competing theories. Current measures of selectorate theory concepts are wanting on both fronts. I find that the measure used for winning coalition size is correlated with the destabilization of leaders in democracies and the stabilization of leaders in nondemocracies. I also find that the measure of selectorate size exhibits two behaviors inconsistent with the theory: larger selectorates are only stabilizing after the leader has already been in office for an extended period of time; and the effect is only substantial for differentiating between types of military regimes. These findings have five implications: (1) they cast serious doubt on the utility of current measures of selectorate theory; (2) they raise conceptual questions about the treatment of political regimes as vectors or categories; (3) they define substantive, not just statistical, issues that future measures will need to address; (4) they give baselines for re-analysis of the effect of these measures on other implications of interest; and (5) they provide an interesting comment on the comparative politics literature on hybrid regimes and the effect of parliamentary institutions in nondemocratic regimes.     

Constituent Communication Through Telephone Town Halls: A Field Experiment Involving Members of Congress

Telephone town halls are an increasingly prevalent method for members of Congress (MCs) to communicate with constituents, even while garnering popular criticism for failing to facilitate engagement and accountability. Yet scholars have paid little attention to the events and their effects, and even less to how they might be improved. To remedy this problem, we report on a field experiment in which four MCs joined their constituents in telephone town halls. Overall, participation in an event improved constituents’ evaluations of the format in general, and of the MC in particular. Furthermore, we studied how these events might be improved by evaluating a reform—a single‐topic focus with predistributed briefing materials—designed to enhance deliberative interaction. This reform enhanced effects on opinions of the format without significantly altering effects on attitudes toward the MC. Our results suggest that telephone town halls hold promise for constituents, officeholders, and democratic practice.     

CONNECTING ALL

After joining China Mobile as an Internet of Things(lol)engineer in 2010,Chen Fang found that the Machine-to-Machine Center where he worked had only about a dozen employees.Now,the number stands at over 200."At that time,I worked to develop modems and sensors for smart home appliances,"said Chen,who received his master's degree in communication engineering from Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications.'The loT had just begun to develop in China back then."     

Community-level impacts of temperature on urban street robbery

Purpose

Conduct the first empirical intra-urban examination of community-level connections between street robbery and temperature. Examine whether community socioeconomic status (SES) and crime-relevant land uses strengthen or weaken the temperature impact. A theoretical framework relying on routine activity theory, crime pattern theory, and resident-based control dynamics organized predictions.

Data and methods

For Philadelphia census tracts (n = 381), monthly street robbery counts and temperature data for 36 consecutive months were combined with census and land use data, and analyzed with multilevel models.

Results

Community robbery counts were higher when temperatures were higher, and in lower SES communities. In support of previous work with property crime, but in contrast to previous work with assault, the effects of temperature were stronger in higher SES communities. In support of the integrated model, commercial land use prevalence and subway stations were associated with heightened temperature impacts on robbery.

Conclusions

Community-level fixed and random effects of temperature on urban robbery counts persist when controlling for land use and community structure; further, the random effects depend in part on both. There are implications for understanding indigenous guardianship or informal resident-based place management dynamics, and for planning seasonal police deployments.