Foreign Direct Investment,Institution and Industrialisation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Economic Change and Restructuring - Empirical studies have been conducted around the impact of foreign direct investment on industrialisation; however, while they have produced inconsistent...     

The Base Rate Study: Developing Base Rates for Risk Factors and Indicators for Engagement in Violent Extremism

Improvements have been made in identifying the prevalence of risk factors/indicators for violent extremism. A consistent problem is the lack of base rates. How to develop base rates is of equal concern. This study has two aims: (i) compare two methods for developing base rates; the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT) and direct questioning, (ii) generate base rates in a general population sample and compare these to a sample of lone-actor terrorists (n = 125). We surveyed 2108 subjects from the general population. Participants were recruited from an online access panel and randomly assigned to one of three conditions; direct survey, control, or UCT. Survey items were based on a lone-actor terrorist codebook developed from the wider literature. Direct questioning was more suitable under our study conditions where UCT resulted in deflation effects. Comparing the base rates identified a number of significant differences: (i) lone-actor terrorists demonstrated propensity indicators related to a cognitive susceptibility, and a crime- and/or violence-supportive morality more often; the general sample demonstrated protective factors more often, (ii) lone-actor terrorists demonstrated situational indicators related to a crime- and/or violence-supportive morality more often, whereas the general sample experienced situational stressors more often, (iii) lone-actor terrorists demonstrated indicators related to exposure to extremism more often. Results suggest there are measurable differences in the prevalence of risk factors between lone-actor terrorists and the general population. However, no single factor “predicts” violent extremism. This bears implications for our understanding of the interrelation of risk and protective factors, and for the risk assessment of violent extremism.     

Subcontracting military power: The privatisation of security in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa

This article seeks to establish a clear differencebetween the classical view of mercenaries as hiredguns and the more recent, business oriented,phenomenon of private security companies. Thelimitations of the definitions currently used ininternational law will be explored and their impact onthe control of private military forces assessed. Thearticle will then go on to identify the particularcircumstances existing in Africa that provide such afertile environment for the operation of privatesecurity companies. The activities of ExecutiveOutcomes and Sandline International Ltd will be usedas case studies, particularly their operations inSierra Leone. Their corporate connections will behighlighted, especially their links to mineralextraction companies, and how these are used tofinance their operations by the host countries.Finally, recent attempts to legislate to control theactivities of these companies are examined.     

Grievance Practices in Post-Soviet Kyrgyz Agriculture

This article examines legal consciousness in action as expressed in grievances arising from commercial transactions among sellers and buyers in the new post-Soviet economy of Kyrgyzstan. Using focus groups, direct observation, and participant observation, I investigate the transformation of disputes between Kyrgyz vegetable growers and processors. My data show variation in the way grievances are dealt with among Kyrgyz farmers. Farmers opt out of the contractual relationship, remain in the relationship, or practice a combination of the two over time. The farmers included in this study did not seek legal remedies through the court system. Data also reveal that expressions of grievances transform in tandem with an evolution of feelings—from anger and distrust to understanding and even sympathy for the party responsible for the grievance.     

When Formal Sanctions Encourage Violent Offending: How Violent Peers and Violent Codes Undermine Deterrence

Research focusing on deterrence has stressed the negative relationship between perceived formal sanctions and criminal behavior, ignoring the possibility that in some populations formal sanctions may serve to increase offending under some conditions. Utilizing a sample of 300 homeless street youths, the study explores if violent peers, violent values, and the culture of the street moderates the association between perceived legal sanctions and violent offending. The results suggest that violent peers, violent values, and the culture of the street condition the perceived certainty of punishment so that it leads to higher levels of violence. Further, the culture of the street conditions the relationship between perceived severity of punishment and violence. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

宋慈和他的《洗冤集录》

南宋宋慈所著的《洗冤集录》是我国现存最早的一部比较系统的法医学专著。该书主要包括法医检验的准则和要求、各种死伤的鉴别、保辜和急救等内容,对解剖、生理、病理、诊断、治疗以及急救等医学知识都有精辟的论述,留下了许多典型的案例和宝贵的方剂。记述范围广泛几乎触及现代法医学的所有分支科目,为现代法医学提供了有参考价值的辨别知识和鉴定经验。     

Violent crime and modernization in Colombia

This paper assesses violent crime in Colombia by focusing on police arrest data from 1938 to 1967. Social and political conditions provide the cultural context from which the effects of modernization on crime are examined. Shelley's modermization perspective claims that violent crime increases when a country modernizes, but property crimes increase after relative wealth and prosperity are achieved. Regression results support Shelley's perspective for the crimes of robbery and theft, whereas her theory gamered weaker support for the crimes of homicide and assault. Theoretical implications for modernization theory in light of the findings are discussed.     

Assessing the Violent Offending and Violent Victimization Overlap Among Discharged Psychiatric Patients

Prior studies have documented linkages between mental disorder and both offending and victimization. However, few studies have examined the violent offending–violent victimization overlap among mentally disordered individuals and none have examined the factors that are jointly related to their covariation. Here, we assess this overlap during the first ten weeks following hospital discharge among a large sample of psychiatric patients from three large cities. Findings indicate that: (1) violent offending and violent victimization show substantial covariation; (2) although each of the two outcomes were predicted by a few unique risk factors, several risk factors were similarly predictive of both outcomes; and (3) even after adjusting for demographic, clinical, and social risk factors, the correlation between violent offending and violent victimization remained robust. Implications for theory, research, and policy are highlighted.     

Project Safe Neighborhoods and Violent Crime Trends in US Cities: Assessing Violent Crime Impact

Since the mid-1990s, a number of initiatives intended to address gang, gun and drug-related violence have arisen and demonstrated promise in reducing levels of violent crime. These initiatives have employed some combination of focused deterrence and problem-solving processes. These strategies formed the basis for Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a national program implemented by the Department of Justice and coordinated by US Attorneys’ Offices. This paper is an initial attempt to assess the potential impact of the nationally implemented PSN initiative through an analysis of violent crime trends in all US cities with a population of 100,000 or above. While a number of site specific studies exist examining the potential impact of locally implemented PSN programs, to date no national-level study has examined whether PSN may have had an impact on violent crime trends. Cities included in the current study are distinguished on the basis of whether they were considered a treatment city by the PSN task force and by the level of implementation dosage of the PSN program. This allowed a comparison of 82 treatment cities and 170 non-treatment cities as well as a variable of dosage level. Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models (HGLM) were developed that controlled for other factors that may have affected the level of violent crime across the sample of cities. The results suggested that PSN treatment cities in higher dosage contexts experienced statistically significant, though modest, declines in violent crime whereas non-target cities and low dosage contexts experienced no significant changes in violent crime during the same period. The limitations of this initial analysis are noted but the evidence seems to suggest that the multi-agency, focused deterrence, problem solving approach holds promise for reducing levels of violent crime. At a minimum, these findings call for continued programmatic experimentation with data-driven, highly focused, deterrence-based violence reduction strategies.     

Responding to the environmental effects of remittances and trade liberalization in net-importing economies: the role of renewable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Economic Change and Restructuring - Little is currently known about how policy choices that seek to bridge the gap between low production capacity and growing consumption demands in developing...     

Violent recidivism in criminal psychopaths

The predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) was compared with 3 actuarial risk scales in a sample of 81 offenders followed for a maximum of 67 months (average of 30 months). The recommittal or general recidivism rate for the entire sample was 57% (40% for nonpsychopaths, 51.2% for a mixed group, and 85% for psychopaths). The violent reoffense rate was 10% for the sample (nonpsychopaths 0%, mixed 7.3%, psychopaths 25%). All instruments were significantly correlated with general recidivism; however, the PCL-R was the best predictor of violent recidivism. Compared to the actuarial scales, the PCL-R had a higher predictive efficiency (Relative Improvement Over Chance (RIOC)) and yielded fewer decision errors. Most importantly, Factor 1 was a better predictor of violent recidivism than Factor 2, suggesting that the trait construct of psychopathy makes a unique contribution to the prediction of violent recidivism.     

Temporal Linkages in Violent and Nonviolent Criminal Activity

Research on the temporal distribution of criminal behavior has highlighted two distinct mechanisms—population heterogeneity and state dependence. Most of this work indicates that long-term patterns of criminal offending reflect a mixture of stable individual differences and the causal effect of life events and experiences. Yet several ambiguities remain. Among the most important of these problems is whether both population heterogeneity and state dependence processes operate for different types of offending. We use longitudinal official record and self-report data for violent and non-violent offending activity from the Rochester Youth Development Study to address these ambiguities.     

Violent crimes in native and foreign national offenders

Although the foreign national population in Spanish prisons has doubled during the past decade from 22% to 44%, few studies have investigated the contribution of foreign nationals to criminality and their risk profiles compared to natives. The present paper compared rates of violent conviction in 917 native and 657 foreign national male offenders, and explored differences in risk factors for violence between groups using logistic regression, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and positive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV, respectively). Natives and foreign nationals showed no significant differences in the rate of violent conviction (19.6% vs. 17.2%, respectively). However, when multivariate models were developed to predict violence in the samples using logistic regression, between-group differences in the risk profiles of violent and non-violent offenders were found. Implications of the findings for research, public policy and risk management were explored.     

Ethnicity and Violent Crime: The Ethnic Structure of Networks of Youths Suspected of Violent Offences in Stockholm

This study employs network analysis in order to study patterns of co-offending among youths suspected of violent offences in Stockholm. The study's objective is to examine the ethnic structure of relations among persons suspected of committing violent offences together. The Swedish media have presented information suggesting that violent conflicts between Swedish youths and youths with an immigrant background, based on ethnic conflicts between these groups, are common. The study also discusses the relevance of this image. The study's findings show that violent offences committed by youths in Stockholm are of an ethnically heterogeneous character. At the same time there is a tendency for marginalized and segregated ethnic groups to join together to some extent. The findings may be interpreted as indicating that youth violence in Stockholm today is characterized by ethnic diversity, but that increased ethnic segregation may lead to an increase in the level of ethnically related violent crime. Apparently there is a perception that ethnic conflicts do occur, which persists despite the fact that such conflicts are not common. It is of concern that the occurrence of such perceptions, not least in the Swedish media, may lead to an increase in the level of conflicts of this kind.1 ¹The author would like to thank David Shannon for his translation of the text.      

Administrative Justice in the Penitentiary: A Report on Inmate Grievance Procedures

The majority of prisons today have an internal grievance mechanism that gives inmates an opportunity to air complaints and seek solutions to individual and institution-wide problems. This study reports on the way the mechanism functions at two Illinois state prisons—one minimum security and one maximum security. The main findings are: (1) that the mechanism is heavily and repetitively used by only a portion of the inmate population, (2) that the grievances filed range widely in type as well as in merit, although it is clear that there is much frivolous activity, (3) that inmates win only a small percentage of their cases, either at the first-instance level or on appeal, and (4) that among both line prison staff (at least at one of the prisons) and inmates there is considerable dissatisfaction with the process, although a minority of prisoners and the higher echelon prison administrators can be counted on for more favorable assessments. The article goes on to compare these findings with the generally articulated objectives of the grievance process and concludes with a series of suggestions that have been made for improving its workings.     

极端主义犯罪辨析——基础理论与立法剖析

极端主义犯罪是一种新的犯罪类型,价值理念的极端性和行为手段的极端性是其核心内涵。极端主义犯罪并不以政治指向性为必要条件,行为手段也不限于暴力,但它发展到一定程度之后有可能演变为恐怖主义犯罪。国内外关于极端主义犯罪的立法模式大体上可以分为单独式和融合式,我国总体上是一种一般关联犯罪加某些特殊类型犯罪的融合式立法模式。在我国刑法典中,对于极端主义犯罪应当集中规定,并增设极端主义行为罪,组织、领导、参加极端主义组织罪和资助极端主义组织、个人罪,同时明确界定极端主义行为、极端主义组织、极端主义活动的内涵。