Rewards and Regulation

Rewards are less useful in regulation than they are in markets. Firms respond to market incentives because most markets are contestable. In markets that are not oligopolies it makes more sense to adopt a competitor mentality than a fixer mentality. Regulatory power in contrast is mostly not contestable. Firms are therefore more likely to adopt a fixer or game-playing mentality. Reactance to regulatory control through rewards is likely to be greater than reactance to market discipline. If a responsive regulatory pyramid is a good strategy for optimizing compliance, then punishment is more useful in regulation than reward. Reward at the middle of a regulatory pyramid brings about a moral hazard problem. Under certain limited conditions reward can be useful at the base of a regulatory pyramid. These conditions are transparent, easy measurement of the performance to be rewarded, an imbalance of power such that the regulatee is weak in comparison to the regulator, and an absence of weapons of the weak for subverting a regulatory system to which the weak are subject. Absent these conditions, and we cannot expect the undoubted efficiency advantages of a market where regulatory outcomes can be traded so that they are secured where the cost of doing so is least. While, in general, punishments are more useful to regulators than monetary rewards, informal rewards (praise, letters of recognition) are rather consistently useful in securing compliance.     

Corruption and hold-up: the role of intermediaries

Corrupt contracts are illegal and, therefore, vulnerable to hold-up. That is, a bureaucrat who has accepted a bribe from a firm in exchange for a license may still choose not to grant the firm that license (hold-up). This paper develops a model to study the role that intermediaries play in preventing hold-up. There are two types of firms, good firms that are legally entitled to receive a license, and harmful firms that are not. Without intermediaries only good firms enter the market, and harmful firms do not enter because of hold-up. Intermediaries are legally permitted to help firms reduce their navigation costs of obtaining licenses. Thus, intermediaries increase entry of good firms. However, by utilizing the legal aspects of their transaction with good firms as leverage against the bureaucrat, intermediaries can prevent hold-up among harmful firms. Thus, intermediaries increase participation by both good and harmful firms and their welfare costs are ambiguous. Data obtained from occurrences of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act are broadly consistent with our model.     

THE SYSTEM LISTENS BUT DOES NOT HEAR

Throughout the land there has been a growing dissatisfaction with the programs and treatment carried on within institutions, especially those dealing with juveniles. This article attempts to pinpoint some of the reasons why institutions are unable to meet the challenge of delinquency in our society. On the one hand, impediments are inherent to the institutional system; on the other, due to outside forces and factors. they are beyond the control of the institution. Patchwork attempts to shore up a sagging, outmoded system are futile. The facets that perpetuate the present system are identified. and some of the decisions required to build a new system of child care are noted.     

Judicial Perspectives on Family Drug Treatment Courts

Family Drug Treatment Courts are a specialized calendar or docket that operates within the juvenile dependency court. These courts provide the setting for a collaborative effort by the court and all the participants in the child protection system to come together in a non‐adversarial setting to determine the individual treatment needs of substance‐abusing parents whose children are under the jurisdiction of the dependency court. This article is intended to give judges and others a judicial perspective on FDTCs, and to offer some assistance for those who are operating or who are considering creating one.     

论我国刑法中的聚众犯罪

聚众犯罪是指我国《刑法》明文规定以聚集特定或不特定多人进行违法犯罪活动为构成要件的犯罪。我国《刑法》共用11个条文规定了14个聚众犯罪,其中大多数聚众危害社会是构成犯罪的必要条件,少数是该罪的选择行为要件。聚众犯罪的主要特征有法定性、聚众进行、实施的是复数行为等。从犯罪形态上看,聚众为着手,实施具体违法犯罪活动为既遂。它与煽动犯罪、教唆犯、组织犯、首要分子既有联系又有区别,与组织犯部分交叉重合。聚众犯罪的一罪数罪标准在于行为个数、数行为之间是否牵连、牵连时定一罪是否能体现罪刑相适应。     

The Unfairness of Risk-Based Possession Offences

This is a study of possession offences, with the focus on those intended to penalise the risk of a serious harm. Offences of this kind are examined in the light of basic doctrines of the criminal law, and in the light of the proper limits of endangerment offences. They are found wanting in both respects, and are also found to pose particular sentencing problems. The conclusion is that many risk-based possession offences are unfair, save those that require proof of a further intent or those aimed at a failure properly to safeguard a dangerous object.     

Putting race into context: Race,juvenile justice processing,and urbanization

In this article, we examine differential sentencing patterns among black, Hispanic, and white juveniles and the context in which those decisions are made. Using a bivariate probit model, we show that juveniles living in urban counties are more likely to be referred to juvenile court, and that juveniles living in a single-mother household are more likely than juveniles living with both parents to be referred to court and to receive secure placement. Race-specific models indicate that black youths are likely to receive harsh treatments in urban courts; yet white youths are not treated differently on the basis of court location. In addition, living in a single-mother household is a disadvantage for white youths when they are referred and sentenced, but family status is not a determinant for black youths.     

Establishment of a Juvenile Police Record:

According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, the juveniles who are most likely to have a police record of arrest are those who conform to police preconceptions about delinquent types, who are perceived as a threat to others, and who are most visible to the police. Several individual and peer group characteristics can serve as cues that youths are delinquent or that they pose a threat and can increase visibility. The present study uses a survey approach to determine the relative association of these individual and peer group characteristics with the establishment of a police record. The analysis reveals that in addition to delinquent activities, fitting the common image of a delinquent and dangerous person–that is, being a male in a predominantly, male, delinquent peer group–increases a youth's chances of arrest. Moreover, committing a high proportion of offenses with a group of peers, which results in high visibility, also increases the chances of arrest.     

When men fight with women (versus other men): Limited offending during disputes

What transpires in a dispute, even a violent dispute, is affected by the tendency for adversaries to engage in “limited offending.” We focus on one restraint: the tendency of men to limit their aggression in their disputes with women. Analyses are based on an incident-level survey about interpersonal disputes administered to 503 men who are incarcerated and 220 men who had never been incarcerated. Using multinomial and logistic regression models, we examined the extent to which an adversary's gender predicted dispute-related behaviors. The evidence suggests that the chivalry norm has pervasive effects on the behavior of men during their disputes with women. Men are more likely to engage in remedial actions (e.g., apologies) when their adversary is a woman, as opposed to another man. In addition, men are less likely to make violent threats and engage in physical attacks when their adversary is a woman, even after they have themselves been physically attacked. When men are violent, they are less likely to injure a woman than a man. However, the chivalry norm does not inhibit verbal aggression in these disputes: men are just as likely to engage in verbal attacks and nonviolent threats when the adversary is a woman.     

Forensic psychiatry: a subspecialty. The presidential address at the nineteenth annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

The implications of the definition of forensic psychiatry are explored, with particular reference to the field as a subspecialty of general psychiatry. The allegation of undue moral uncertainty in forensic psychiatry is denied and the moral issues are revealed to be related to the status of the underlying philosophical disputes. An outline for the organization of the forensic psychiatric assessment is presented. The charge that forensic psychiatry is not as "hard" a science as the other forensic sciences is denied. The administrative and political organizational problems facing the subspecialty are explored. The practitioners in the field are encouraged to recognize that forensic psychiatry is a subspecialty and to work for official subspecialty status. Cautious predictions about the future of the field are provided.     

Re-election isn't everything: legislators’ goal-seeking and committee activity in Japan

A number of political scientists have explained legislators’ behaviour as a function of their re-election, influence, and policy goals, but these goals are sometimes incompatible. This study seeks to explain under what conditions legislators emphasise the goals of building influence or shaping policy over re-election. The study focuses on Japanese legislators’ Diet committee attendance as a proxy for their attention to an influence or policy goal. It shows that legislators elected from an open-list proportional representation seat are most likely to emphasise building influence or shaping policy, while legislators elected from a district using a single non-transferable vote system are least likely to do so. Legislators are more likely to do so in a non-election year than in an election year. In addition, electorally stronger legislators are more likely to focus on influence or policy goals in an election year, while electorally weaker legislators are more likely to do so in a non-election year.     

从国际实践看国家需要具备的条件

国家需要具备的条件用于区分国家与其他政治实体。从国际实践看,人民、与别的国家进行交往的能力或者进行国际交往的能力、有效的政府、遵守国际法方面的要求、国家的作用、民主和尊重人权方面的要求等国际法学者提出的国家需要具备的条件或者国家资格的标准不是国家需要具备的条件。国家需要具备的条件是定居的居民、领土、政府和独立。     

Luck Egalitarianism and the Rights of Immigrants

This article considers the implications of luck egalitarianism for a range of issues relating to international, South‐North migration. More specifically, the implications of luck egalitarianism for the question of whether receiving societies are justified in extending to immigrants a less comprehensive set of rights than that enjoyed by other members of society are considered. First, are voluntary migrants responsible for their migration in such a way that receiving societies are justified in extending to them a less comprehensive set of rights than if, say, they had been involuntary migrants, or citizens of the destination country? Since luck egalitarianism aims to redistribute only for inequalities for which individuals are not responsible, there is an issue of whether it will hold individuals responsible for their choice of migration in such a way that it may justify asymmetrical sets of rights between voluntary immigrants and other members of society. Second, it may be possible to allow access for a larger number of disadvantaged migrants if they are granted access to a less extensive package of rights when they reach the destination country than if they were granted access to a more extensive such package. If so, may not the less extensive package of rights turn out to have a greater positive impact on global equality? Both these arguments are critically discussed and it is concluded that neither justifies extending to immigrants a less comprehensive set of rights.     

Urban Drug Problems, Policymakers and the General Public

The main focus of this paper is: how strong are people's opinions and policy preferences on the issue of drugs and drug users influenced by their own exposure to drug problems? From a general population survey conducted in eleven European cities, it is concluded that opinions and policy preferences are influenced only to a limited degree by exposure. The people who are not exposed to drug problems in their neighbourhood are more strongly inclined towards a repressive approach than the people who are affected by drug nuisance. Personal experiences with illicit drugs play an important part in the viewpoints. People who have tried drugs themselves lean far more strongly towards a health approach. That tendency is even stronger among those who are exposed to drug-related nuisance.     

Logical evaluation of evidence when a person is suspected of committing two separate offences.

We consider the problem of drawing inferences within a legal framework when a person is a suspect for two separate offences. Although we are primarily concerned with scientific evidence the issue inevitably arises as to how that evidence interacts with other, non-scientific evidence. We show that, in this particular context, the evidence can be conveniently classified into three categories that concern, respectively: the first crime only; the second crime only; and evidence that relates to similarities between the two crimes. Two case examples are considered and we consider DNA, fibres and eyewitness evidence. These are viewed from the perspective of a prosecutor who has to decide whether or not to charge a suspect with one or both crimes. Graphical sensivity analyses are presented which have features that are not intuitively obvious.     

An ideal material for the preparation of known toolmark test impressions

Traditionally, toolmark test exemplars are produced by applying a tool's working surface to a piece of soft metal such as lead. Soft, pliable metals are primarily used for this purpose because they will replicate the microscopic grooves present on a tool's working surface without damaging the tool. In this paper the authors present an alternative material for the preparation of test toolmarks. Jewelry modeling or carving waxes are utilized in this study. These waxes are designed for the jewelry modeling industry to create very fine, highly detailed wax models of jewelry pieces that will be cast in various metals utilizing the lost wax casting method. Jeweler's waxes have been found to be ideal for preparing test toolmarks from exemplar tools. The test tool's working surface is applied to a piece of the appropriate wax in a manner consistent with the tool's design. The replicas obtained are exact, highly detailed, 1:1, negative impressions of the exemplar tools working surface, have a long shelf-life, and are suitable for use in toolmark examination and comparison cases.     

Missing a critical piece of the pie: simple document search strategies inadequate for systematic reviews

A review based on a biased collection of studies is likely to produce biased conclusions. As such, a central component of a quality systematic review is a comprehensive document search. Three issues are explored in this paper that underpin the importance of such a search. First, the evidence of publication selection bias clearly establishes that peer-reviewed journal articles are more likely to show statistically significant results than less formally published studies. Second, the presence of grey literature studies that cannot be discovered through a search of bibliographic databases is demonstrated using Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews, and third, the logical and empirical problems with using publication status as a proxy for methodological quality are examined. More robust methods of identifying research conducted in the social sciences are needed if we are to take seriously the accumulation of knowledge, such as the development of a priori registries of research studies.     

Victim-offender race and support for capital punishment: A factorial design approach

Existing research suggests that juries are more likely to condemn murderers to death when offenders are black victims are white. It remains to be seen, however, whether these decisions reflect broader racial prejudices in society that are imported into the jury room. If they do, then insuring equity in capital sentencing may be beyond reach. Accordingly, this study uses factorial design methodology to examine whether members of the general public are more supportive of capital punishment when asked to rate a vignette describing a murder involving a white victim and black offender as opposed to other victim-offender racial combinations. Our analyses suggest that the race of the offender, but not the victim, has a significant influence on support for capital punishment. Thus, procedural safeguards alone may be unable to eliminate racial bias in capital sentencing.     

The Calculus of Cosponsorship in the U.S. Senate

We investigated why a legislator would be willing to vote “yea” on final passage of a bill but would choose not to cosponsor that bill. We tested a series of hypotheses regarding the cosponsorship decisions of individual senators, using a dataset that includes every major initiative that was introduced and received a floor vote in the Senate between 1975 and 2000. We found that senators are more likely to cosponsor bills when their preferences diverge from the Senate median but are closer to those of the bill's sponsor. Also, senators are more likely to cosponsor bills when they sponsor a higher number of bills overall, when they become more connected with colleagues, and when their constituents increase demand for legislation within particular policy areas. Senators are less likely to cosponsor bills if they received a higher percentage of the general election vote in their most recent election.