Enhancing Information Sharing in Family Drug Courts: A Lean Six Sigma Case Study

Given the variety of stakeholders involved in cases within family drug courts, efficient communication and information sharing, which are needed to support decision‐making, can be quite challenging. Through a case study in one family drug court system, this research employed an action research approach to improve the information sharing process following the Lean Six Sigma methodology. The solutions implemented through this study contributed to improving the quality of the services provided by this court system and its overall productivity. In addition, this research extends our knowledge about methods for improving court systems from which others can learn to guide future improvement efforts.     

Enforcement of International Human Rights Law by Domestic Courts: A Theoretical and Practical Study

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Police Stress: A Structural Model

A number of existing studies have identified various factors that contribute to stress among police officers. This analysis is unique among these insofar as it employs structural equation modeling to specify, in path model format, the influence of participation in workplace decision-making and other variables on employee stress levels. The findings of this analysis provide new as well as confirmatory statistical evidence regarding the mitigating and direct effects of certain variables on physical stress. This study poses important implications by lending itself to meaningful future comparative research across occupations such as corrections and probation / parole.

Swedish Drug Policy: A Successful Model?

The shift in Swedish drug policy since around 1980 towards a more strict model has according to the official point of view been successful by comparison with the earlier, more lenient drug policy. However, available systematic indicators show that the prevalence of drug use has increased since around 1980, that the decrease in drug incidence was particularly marked during the 1970s and that some indicators point towards an increase during the 1990s. The shift towards a more strict policy.     

Implementing the Key Components of Specialized Drug Treatment Courts: Practice and Policy Considerations

The perceived need for specialized drug courts emerged from the most recent "war on drugs." Courts were no longer able to handle such cases effectively because of an overwhelming volume of drug arrests and prosecutions. The increased emphasis on drug enforcement also revealed that many of the most serious criminally involved drug‐using offenders were undeterred by threats of incarceration, but were amenable to substance abuse treatment. Drug court professionals have identified several "key components" that must be in place for these courts to achieve their goals of reducing drug use and crime. Through the lens of these key drug court components, we examine the development and initiation of specialized drug treatment courts in Cook County (Chicago), Illinois. By exploring and documenting Cook County's experiences, we elucidate several of the basic policy and organizational issues surrounding the implementation and operations of specialized drug treatment courts in the United States.     

Implementing Intelligence-Led Policing: An Application of Loose-Coupling Theory

Purpose

This research is intended to inform a knowledge gap in the literature and present the first national findings related to intelligence-led policing adoption among state and local agencies. Specific practices are identified to inform scholars and practitioners regarding intelligence-led policing behaviors.

Methods

Original survey research from a federally-funded project is gleaned to explore intelligence-led policing adoption through a loose-coupling theoretical perspective. Negative binomial and logistic regression models are employed to identify predictive relationships.

Results

Agencies nationwide appear to be closely following the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan recommendations to enhance information sharing. Consistent with the Department of Homeland Security’s Target Capabilities List is also observed. Agency size appears to have a significant effect on key organizational information sharing behaviors. The findings are tempered due to limitations in the research design.

Conclusions

Local agencies appear to be tightly-coupled with the recommendations put forth in the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan in their efforts to adopt intelligence-led policing. Agency size appears to enhance adoption across most dependent metrics. This research progresses the limited evidence base and progress regarding this emerging policing philosophy.     

论中国法院的“合一制”——历史、实践和理论

中国法院经过较长时间的历史演变,于20世纪80年代初确立了独特的合一制组织模式。合一制指的是一种审判与(司法)行政彼此交织融合、由院长全面负责的科层化的制度安排。合一制一度对中国持续快速的经济增长产生积极影响。但是,随着社会中心议题及正当化机制从经济增长逐渐向社会可持续、综合性发展转变,司法行政与审判融为一体的组织结构已不合时宜。将司法审判从过度的科层结构和总体性框架中脱域出来,进而促进宏观政治社会的功能分化,应作为一种发展取向。     

An Integrated Theoretical Model of Sibling Violence and Abuse

Drawing on three theoretical perspectives (feminist, conflict, and social learning), an integrated analytical model of adolescence sibling violence and abuse is proposed. The model suggests that certain characteristics of the parents' relationship, various aspects of parent–child relations, and characteristics of the sibling relationship are major components in explaining sibling violence and abuse. These are mediated by individual sibling characteristics and sibling verbal conflict. The model should enable researchers to systematically examine, in a more holistic way, the factors related to violence and abuse, and to assess their relative importance in accounting for these phenomena.     

Gender and Juvenile Drug Abuse: A General Strain Theory Perspective

This study is a partial test of Robert Agnew's (2006 Agnew , Robert. 2006 . “Pressured Into Crime: General Strain Theory.” Pp. 201 – 209 in Criminological Theory: Past to Present. , 3rd ed. , edited by F. T. Cullen and R. Agnew . Oxford , England : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]) general strain theory. The sample consists of 39,879 juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17 from a metropolitan area in Texas with more than 5 million people. Logistic regression is used to determine the effect of living situation on drug offenders, drug recidivists, and juvenile court case outcome when race, abuse, sex, and mental health problems are controlled. Gender-specific analysis is used to test L. Broidy and R. Agnew's (1997 Agnew , Robert and Timothy Brezina . 1997 . “Relational Problems With Peers, Gender, and Delinquency.” Youth & Society 84 – 111 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) hypothesis that girls and boys react differently to strain. Results show partial support for the influence of a strained living situation on drug offenders, drug recidivists, and case outcome. Support is found for the hypothesis that boys' and girls' experiences with strain differ.     

理论缺陷与实践困窘--刑罚个别预防论批判

个别预防论具有其理论缺陷与实践困窘.其理论缺陷在于它因否定刑罚的报应性而有失公正,因对一般预防的忽视而有失功利,因自相矛盾与以偏概全而不合逻辑;其实践困窘在于其以对人身危险性的预测为出发点,而人身危险性无法预测,因此,其不具有在实践中贯彻的可行性.     

Sentencing Native Americans in US Federal Courts: An Examination of Disparity

Existing sentencing literature largely focuses on the study of white, African-American, and to a lesser extent, Hispanic offenders. Unfortunately, very little is known about the sentencing of Native American offenders, especially in the federal courts. To address this shortcoming, the current study employs United States Sentencing Commission data for the fiscal years 2006-2008 to examine the comparative punishment of Native Americans. Consistent with the focal concerns perspective and its reliance on perceptions of race-based threat, findings demonstrate that Native Americans are often sentenced more harshly than white, African-American, and Hispanic offenders. Moreover, race-gender-age interactions indicate that during the incarceration decision, young Native American males receive the most punitive sentences, surpassing the punishment costs associated with being a young African-American or Hispanic male. These findings highlight the importance of directing increased attention toward the sentencing of this understudied offender population.     

Risks of Criminal Victimization in Contemporary Urban China: An Application of Lifestyle/Routine Activities Theory

The philosophical underpinnings of youth courts rest on the notion that youths are less culpable and more reformable than adults. Some scholars argue that, ideally, when sentencing youth crime, judges should engage youthful offenders in moral communication to elicit change. But do they? What more generally do judges say to the youths? This paper analyzes the frequency and content of judicial censure and moral communication in the sentencing of youth sex offenders. Drawing on the sentencing remarks for 55 sexual violence cases, we examine the ways in which judges interact with youths and censure the offenses, and what, if any, normative guidance they give concerning gender, sexuality, and violence. We found that in most but not all cases, the judges censured the offending as both a moral and legal wrong. However, they spent more time discussing a youth’s future than past behavior, as they sought to elicit change. The judges did not degrade or exclude the offenders; rather, they addressed them in a spirit of reintegration, as worthy individuals with future potential. Although the judges set norms of appropriate sexual behavior to the youths when the offense victims were children, they did not always do so when victims were female peers. In this Youth Court, “real rape” was sexual offending by a youth against a child under 12 years of age. By contrast, in about one‐fifth of cases, all of which occurred against a female peer, the offending was censured only as a legal wrong (a “pseudo censure”) and less likely subject to judicial norm setting.     

International Law in the Courts of the Russian Federation: Practice of Application

This paper analyses the practice of the Courts of the RussianFederation in applying the rules of International Law in theperiod following acceptance of the Constitution of the RussianFederation (1993). The present constitution and the new federallegislation regulate the relevance of International and RussianLaw much differently than they did before. Accordingly, judiciarypractice is developing in a new way. Despite the massive bodyof laws and regulations, there are no precise reference pointsand answers in the legislation to practically important questionsof correct application of the international treaties and generallyrecognized rules. This is one of the reasons why judiciary practiceis developing inconsistently, and the application of InternationalLaw is often incorrect or even wrong. Not all of the internationalnorms are applicable, and not all of the treaties have priorityover laws. There are certain legal conditions for the applicationof international treaties, conditions for when they prevailover laws, and also there is a procedure of application whichshould be observed by Courts trying particular cases. Althoughone can speak of many contradictions, it is wise to take noteof the tendency in judiciary practice to co-ordinated applicationof international and Russian law.     

Transnational Jihadism and the Role of Criminal Judges: An Ethnography of French Courts

Lower national courts are increasingly asked to perform a transnational role, being directly involved in major geopolitical issues such as conflicts, migration, and transnational terrorism. Based on an ethnography of French criminal courts, this article aims to examine this emerging role of national lower courts as transnationalized players. Through an examination of terrorism prosecutions in France and the positions of the different judicial actors, it is argued that lower criminal courts, acting within a transnational context, can offer more robust resistance to states’ policies than supreme courts. This is because of the routine and the banality of their function and the direct interaction with the accused persons coupled with the judges’ own professional ethos and notion of judicial independence. Unlike supreme courts, whose role is more visible, and thus under the constant scrutiny of the political branches of the state, lower courts can operate in a more distant, independent space.