Reassessing the impact of race on citizens' attitudes toward the police: A research note

This paper reassesses the relationship between race and attitudes toward the police. Using data obtained through a telephone interview survey of 560 residents of Detroit, the study contradicts previous research by finding that blacks hold more favorable attitudes toward the police than do whites. To explain these findings, we argue that as the social context of cities changes, so might the relationship between race and citizens' attitudes toward the police.     

从纳税人权利保护看房产税改革

2011年1月国务院常务会议同意在部分城市进行对个人征收房产税改革试点,1月28日上海、重庆两地政府决定对部分个人征收房产税试点,使房产税改革一时成为热点话题。传统的税收征纳观念强调税收的强制性、无偿性,强调国家与纳税人权利义务的不对等,应以房产税改革为契机,转变税收征纳观念,以平等的税收债务理论统筹立法,在房产税改革的过程中为全社会树立纳税人权力观念。     

New Jersey's Mount Laurel Doctrine and Its Implementation: Under Attack,But Safe (for Now)

Abstract

In the year 2013, it seemed like all New Jersey was marching against the Mount Laurel anti‐exclusionary zoning doctrine and how it was to be put into effect—the governor, the legislature, many developing suburban municipalities, and even the independent agency established to oversee its implementation, the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). Indeed, COAH itself, ignoring minimal procedural due process, would attempt to seize the monies municipalities had set aside in municipal affordable trust funds collected from development fees on residential construction to help the production of low‐and moderate‐income housing.     

A woman's place is in the home: Females and residential burglary

Little is known about the nature of women's participation in residential burglary, an offense statistically dominated by males. This paper examines women's involvement in residential burglary by comparing the characteristics of female burglars to those of their male counterparts and by outlining a typology of female burglars which emphasizes their roles during offenses. In some respects, female and male burglars do not appear to differ significantly. Nevertheless, the results suggest that important differences also may exist. Most important, the findings demonstrate that women's involvement in residential burglary, like men's, is marked by diversity. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

General strain theory,exposure to violence,and suicide ideation among police officers: A gendered approach

PurposeA wide body of research has demonstrated that police officers are profoundly affected by their exposure to violence and the traumatic events viewed commonly as part of their job duties. Faced with stress, officers learn to adapt by incorporating coping techniques.MethodsThe current study utilizes Agnew's general strain theory to explain occurrences of the most dangerous maladaptive coping technique: suicide ideation. Male and female police officers from three large cities in Texas were surveyed (n = 1,410).ResultsThe present study utilizes logistic regression techniques, finding that strain has a positive and direct effect on male officers suicide ideation risk, but not for female police. Moreover, depression has a mediating effect on strain and suicide ideation for both genders.ConclusionsSome critical differences in suicide ideation outcomes between male and female police officers are reported. Policy implications concerning retention and recruiting are also discussed.     

Inclusionary Housing After Koontz

Abstract

Inclusionary housing requirements, typically determined locally, have met with mixed success in the courts. After the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District (Koontz), many are wondering if they have become harder to defend.     

The Fight For Survival:African-American gang members and their families in a segregated society

We can no longer trivialize, or ignore, the impact of structural impediments, racial discrimination, and racial segregation in our analysis of African-American youth gangs in America's inner cities. These issues set a stage where 79 African-American youngsters view their gang affiliation as a means for survival. The present study, conducted over a four-year period, explores structural and racial barriers that many African-Americans, parents and children, encounter regularly. The participants, gang members and their parents, reveal their frustrations about the lack of opportunities for many inner city African-Americans, their experiences as targets of racial discrimination and segregation, and their confinement to deteriorating, poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Detroit.     

IRC § 71 MAY IMPOVERISH CHILDREN,ENDANGER EX‐WIVES,AND DISRUPT FEDERALISM1

The Internal Revenue Code provides that alimony will be deductible to the payor and taxable to the payee. Although this treatment may seem contrary to the payee's interest, compared to making the payments non‐deductible and nontaxable, it can increase the payee's after‐tax income. The payor's deduction will allow larger payments at no after‐tax cost increase; if the payee is in a lower tax bracket, then even after paying taxes the payee will have more resources. Because this favorable treatment of alimony does not apply to child support, children of divorce are poorer. Nor does the favorable treatment apply to lump‐sum payments, making this option less generous, even though many states have phased down the grant of alimony. Because the definition of alimony requires that it end with the payee's death—to protect the treatment provided for lump sums—the tax system is on the wrong side of the issue of violence against ex‐spouses (typically the ex‐wife). The article proposes extending to other similar payments the favorable tax treatment now provided for alimony.     

Tax Havens: Renegade States in the International Tax Regime?*

Taxing multinational enterprises (MNEs) is inherently conflictual because national tax systems are not well designed to handle their international activities. The OECD has been instrumental in developing an international tax regime to govern the conflicts and interdependencies induced by national taxation of MNEs. The strength of this regime depends on the extent to which states adhere to the regime's norms and practices. We examine the OECD's Harmful Tax Competition initiative, arguing that tax havens have been as renegade states in the international tax regime. We explore how the OECD initiative developed and evaluate its impact on regime effectiveness.     

Pattwena of harm: An analysis of gender and defamation

This article explores whether the law of defamation is gender‐specific. Through a quantitative and historical analysis of libel and slander cases, the study indicates that when women brought actions against those who assaulted their reputations their likelihood of being awarded judicial remedy was unalterably linked to their sexual identity. The study examined 278 appellate cases brought by both male and female plaintiffs during two decades in United States history when emergent women's rights movements were pronounced, the late 19th century and the mid‐20th century.     

Clicking Away Your Speech Rights: The Enforceability of Gagwrap Licenses

Abstract

Software companies would like to be able to control what their customers and reviewers can say about them and their software. To this end, many include in their license agreements “DeWitt” or “gagwrap” clauses which purport to prevent written reviews or disclosure of benchmark test results involving the software without the manufacturer's consent. While the courts have recognized the enforceability of software licenses to protect manufacturers, they have so far not addressed the enforceability of gagwrap clauses. This article examines gagwrap clauses and examines them in a public policy framework arising from contract and First Amendment jurisprudence. It proposes a test for the enforceability of the clauses that leaves in place many agreements not to speak but renders gagwrap clauses suspect on public policy grounds.     

A comparative analysis of police vehicle pursuit policies

The written pursuit policies of 47 state law enforcement agencies and the nation's 25 largest cities were subjected to comparative analysis. Qualitative analysis of the policies focused on factors justifying pursuit, physical operation of the police vehicle, circumstances of operation, and external factors. The policies also were rated quantitatively on a continuum ranging from allowing officers a great deal of judgment in the conduct of a pursuit to discouraging all pursuits except as a last resort. Most policies were found to permit a great deal of judgment, although cities tended to be more likely than states to place restrictions on pursuits.     

Seeking Shelter in Personal Insolvency Law: Recession,Eviction, and Bankruptcy's Social Safety Net

Many legal systems understand consumer insolvency laws as social insurance, providing relief and a ‘fresh start’ to over‐indebted households who fall through gaps in the social safety net. Personal insolvency law in England and Wales in practice functions similarly, but in terms of legal principle and policy is ambivalent – sometimes emphasizing household debt relief, other times creditor wealth maximization. This article assesses, in the context of novel debt problems brought to prominence by recession and austerity, the extent to which the law has embraced personal insolvency's social insurance function. The discussion is framed particularly by the escalating United Kingdom housing crisis and the case of Places for People v. Sharples concerning consumer bankruptcy's (non)protection of debtors from eviction. The analysis illustrates how tensions between conceptual understandings and personal insolvency law's practical operation undermine the law's ability to fulfil its potential to produce positive policy responses to contemporary socio‐economic challenges.     

A historical sketch of plea bargaining

Plea bargaining is one of the most emotional and controversial topics in the field of criminal justice. Not only is it defined and documented poorly, its origins also are much disputed. Pro-plea bargainers like to trace plea bargaining to Cain and Abel's classic struggle. Anti-plea bargainers cite the post-American Civil War era as the beginning point for plea negotiation. The truth lies somewhere in between. This paper investigates primary and secondary sources from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries in an effort to pin down the specific initiation of plea bargaining and its antecedents. This work demonstrates that prejudice has distorted the study of plea bargaining's origin and encourages further research in this area.     

Can Tax Authorities Scrutinise the Ideas of Foreign Charities? The ECJ's Persche Judgment and Lessons from US Tax Law

The European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) recent Persche judgment poses important questions about the relationship between taxation of gifts and charitable purposes in the light of EC law requirements. This article argues that by applying its established case‐law to the matter of donors to foreign recipient bodies, the ECJ takes a position on the social role of both charities and tax deduction. Moreover, the position of the ECJ clearly paves the way for tax authorities to check the objectives and the values pursued by recipient bodies seeking tax‐preferred status, a situation that recalls a similar power recognised under specific circumstances of the US Internal Revenue Services. Arguably, the ECJ case‐law has more profound consequences on charitable action, since it seems that the power accorded to tax authorities of the Member States to check the purposes of charitable organisations leads to a cosmopolitan apprehension of charitable action while it pushes charities to enhance transparency in their activities.     

Crime,youth gangs,and urban transition: The social dislocations of postindustrial economic development

On the basis of a multivariate analysis of quantitative data from all U.S. cities of 25,000 or more in 1970 and 1980, this paper investigates the impact of recent economic changes and population shifts on the levels of violent and property crime. Further investigation of a subset of cities yields information on the effect of these shifts for the development of youth gangs. The findings illustrate the criminogenic consequences of transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, where changes in technological conditions undermine the comparative locational advantages of cities as industrial centers and worsen economic opportunities for the unskilled urban poor. The results suggest that higher crime rates and more youth gangs are among the unintended consequences of the nation's patterns of postindustrial development.     

The impact of local alcohol ordinances on official crime rates: The case of Tennessee

Past research has shown a strong link between alcohol and crime. In this study we examine the relationship between local alcohol ordinances and UCR crime rates for cities within the state of Tennessee. To assess adequately the actual relationship between crime and our alcohol availability measures, we included in the analysis a number of socioeconomic and demographic variables commonly associated with high crime rates. The results of this study suggest strongly that race, poverty, population size, and age composition provide the “best explanation” for variations in the level of criminal activity. Our findings support the hypothesis that social disorganization caused by numerous factors (especially racial and economic inequality) contribute strongly to a community's crime rate. The alcohol-related variables contribute to our understanding of the crime problem, but their impact is secondary and probably ancillary, once we have accounted for the influence of our demographic and socioeconomic variables.     

Reflections on Bell's Hate Thy Neighbor

Jeanine Bell's Hate Thy Neighbor: Move In Violence and the Persistence of Racial Segregation in American Housing offers an in‐depth look at the central role that violence has and continues to play in maintaining segregated housing patterns.     

Is tax competition harmful and is the EU an optimal tax area?

This paper examines the issue of harmfulness of tax competition commenting on issues like welfare, growth, redistribution, harmonization and individual freedom. A simple game theoretical ap proach is formulated, where for the first time the two players start from unequal initial conditions, thus influencing strategy and outcomes. Next we propose the new criterion of Optimal Tax Area under which the possibility and feasibility of tax harmonization is examined. The policy implication of our paper is that we do not expect harmonization for direct taxes like corporate taxes in the EU in the near future and if so, harmonization of corporate tax rates on low levels. We conclude that both more theoretic research and empirical evidence are needed before we can answer with certainty whether tax competition is harmful or not. classification A1 . D6 . H0