Mapping Human Rights, Reading the European Union

Abstract: The EU's human rights policy has provoked increasing scholarly attention over the last decade. Yet rarely has it been subjected to rigorous analysis in the context of any integration theory. This article is an attempt to rectify the omission. By building on the approach of historical institutionalism, whilst at the same time recognising its analytical deficiencies, a method of reading the EU and interpreting its human rights policies is promoted. Specifically, the article contends that an analysis based on the textual nature of the EU and the configuration of this text through ‘institutional narrative’ will enable a better understanding of the institutional logic behind the construction of human rights policy. An agenda for research and analysis is thus suggested that might map the development of human rights in the EU and predict the compass of future policy direction more effectively.     

Measuring Government in the Early Twentieth Century

This article discusses the early history of performance and productivity measurement. It finds sophisticated development of these tools beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, primarily at the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. These practices grew out of accounting, the social survey, work records, and municipal statistics. The bureau built government's capacity to measure. They advocated such basic empirical practices as making observations at all, doing so systematically and routinely, and recording data at the time of observation. By 1912, performance measurement exhibited many of the features associated with the modern practice: measuring of input, output, and results; attempting to make government more productive; making reports comparable among communities; and focusing on allocation and accountability. Performance measurement was developed in the context of shifting power between the elected executive and the legislature.     

High‐Performance Human Resource Practices and Employee Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Public Service Motivation

This article responds to recent calls for research examining the mechanisms through which high‐performance human resource practices (HPHRPs) affect employee outcomes. Using the theoretical lens of social exchange and process theories, the authors examine one such mechanism, public service motivation, through which HPHRPs influence employees’ affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors in public sector organizations. A sample of professionals in the Egyptian health and higher education sectors was used to test a partial mediation model using structural equation modeling. Findings show that public service motivation partially mediated the relationship between HPHRPs and employees’ affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors. Similar results were achieved when the system of HPHRPs was disaggregated to consider the individual effects of five human resource practices.     

Intergenerational offending in Liverpool and the north-west of England, 1850–1914

Using contemporary sources from the north-west of England in the Victorian period, the authors examine the putative connections made by contemporaries which linked together ‘bad’ parenting and the transmission of criminal traits. Poor parenting practices were a prevalent explanation for juvenile (leading onto sustained) delinquency, especially in the mid to late nineteenth century. Popular narratives by Charles Dickens and media opinion-formers were very influential in depicting neglectful mothers who did not socialise their children into law-abiding, useful members of society, and criminal fathers who inducted their children into their own criminal affairs and organisations. This article examines the reality of intergenerational offending (using prison- and court-generated data) to show that there is very little convincing research that proves direct intergenerational transmission of offending practices (i.e. parent-to-child-offending transmission). The authors then examine other possible routes of intergenerational offending using case studies and archival research, and the article concludes that environmental/socio-economic conditions and wider familial/neighbourhood relationships were, in fact, the main trigger for onset of offending, and the maintenance of criminal careers, rather than direct familial transmission. The article is therefore an important marker in understanding the processes which inhibit/generate criminality in a significant number of juvenile offenders in this period.     

Comparison of the Columnar‐Thin‐Film and Vacuum‐Metal‐Deposition Techniques to Develop Sebaceous Fingermarks on Nonporous Substrates,

Both the columnar‐thin‐film (CTF) and the vacuum‐metal‐deposition (VMD) techniques for visualizing sebaceous fingermarks require the deposition of a material thereon in a vacuum chamber. Despite that similarity, there are many differences between the two techniques. The film deposited with the CTF technique has a columnar morphology, but the film deposited with the VMD technique comprises discrete islands. A split‐print methodology on a variety of fingermarked substrates was used to determine that the CTF technique is superior for developing fingermarks on clear sandwich bags and partial bloody fingermarks on stainless steel. Both techniques are similar in their ability to develop fingermarks on glass but the CTF technique yields higher contrast. The VMD technique is superior for developing fingermarks on white grocery bags and the smooth side of Gloss Finish Scotch Multitask^? tape. Neither technique worked well for fingermarks on black garbage bags.     

What Can We Expect to Gain from Reforming the Insolvent Trading Remedy?

This paper argues that reform of the wrongful trading remedy in section 214 of the Insolvency Act 1986 is unlikely to yield significant increases in civil recovery for creditors of insolvent companies. The paper argues that the widely held view that procedural restrictions in the provision have unduly limited the application of the remedy are without foundation and, likewise, that there is little evidence that current modest levels of litigation under the provision demonstrate underperformance in the sanction relative to the scale of the misconduct against which it is directed. The paper draws on a wide range of analytical and empirical evidence to argue that the scope for application of the sanction is inherently limited by factors independent of the particular rules within the statutory remedy.     

Soilwater Conductivity Analysis to Date and Locate Clandestine Graves of Homicide Victims

In homicide investigations, it is critically important that postmortem interval and postburial interval (PBI) of buried victims are determined accurately. However, clandestine graves can be difficult to locate; and the detection rates for a variety of search methods (ranging from simple ground probing through to remote imaging and near‐surface geophysics) can be very low. In this study, simulated graves of homicide victims were emplaced in three sites with contrasting soil types, bedrock, and depositional environments. The long‐term monthly in situ monitoring of grave soil water revealed rapid increases in conductivity up to 2 years after burial, with the longest study evidencing declining values to background levels after 4.25 years. Results were corrected for site temperatures and rainfall to produce generic models of fluid conductivity as a function of time. The research suggests soilwater conductivity can give reliable PBI estimates for clandestine burials and therefore be used as a grave detection method.     

Predicting Outcomes with Juvenile Court Case Histories

This report supplements a prior article in this journal (Rogers and Williams, 1994). Utilizing Ted Palmer's 1991 formulation, we identified a set of indicators relevant to juvenile court decision-making and to policy formulation. Here, through a more stringent statistical technique, we provide additional evidence of the potential that juvenile court histories possess for both theory and practice. We explore case materials gained and maintained by juvenile probation officers as a way of generating outcome predictors for whether youth receive probation or institutionalization. Using discriminant function analysis, we obtain relatively good prediction. Delinquency history and social psychological variables are found to enhance prediction of case outcomes. Contrary to some scholars, we believe the juvenile court is here to stay. Thus, the fundamental issue becomes one of making it a more efficient, effective instrument for reintegrating youths it must serve. As this institution approaches its centennial in 1999, we believe the court must become a focal point of research. This article is intended to further that task. After identifying the three strongest predictive variables (offense after first hearing, alienation, and denial of blame), we employ our seven key indicators as a guide for illustrating their everyday application for juvenile probation officers working with their youthful clientele.