Reentry and the Ties that Bind: An Examination of Social Ties,Employment, and Recidivism

Scholars consistently find that reentering offenders who obtain steady work and maintain social ties to family are less likely to recidivate. Some theorize that familial ties may operate through employment to influence recidivism and that such ties may also serve a moderating role. The current study employs an integrated conceptual framework in order to test hypotheses about the link between familial ties, post‐release employment, and recidivism. The findings suggest that family ties have implications for both recidivism and job attainment. In fact, the results suggest that good quality social ties may be particularly important for men with histories of frequent unemployment. The implications of these findings are discussed with regard to theory and future research on prisoner reentry and recidivism.     

Communal Ties and Political Obligations

The associative argument for political obligation has taken an important place in the debate on political obligation. Proponents of this view argue that an obligation to obey the government arises out of ties of affiliation among individuals who share the same citizenship. According to them, relationships between compatriots constitute basic reasons for action in the same way in which relationships between family members or friends do. As critics point out, this account of the normative force of relationships has counterintuitive implications: if relationships between people sharing the same citizenship make up basic reasons for action, then relationships between people sharing other attributes, for example, relationships between racists or sexists form basic reasons for action too. In this essay, I pursue a modified version of the associative approach that is not vulnerable to this objection.     

如何保持党同人民群众的血肉联系

加强党的执政能力建设,核心是保持党同人民群众的血肉联系。如何保持党同人民群众的血肉联系?需要从三个方面着手:第一,深化全党对保持党同人民群众的血肉联系的必然性的认识;第二,把执政为民的理念贯彻到改革、发展、稳定的大局中;第三,加强党的建设,坚持群众路线,克服党群问题,为群众办实事、办好事。     

The Ties That Bind: Multiculturalism and Secularism Reconsidered

The article examines contemporary controversies over the rights of Muslim women to wear various forms of the veil, in both France and the United Kingdom and argues that despite their apparent differences as political ideologies, both multiculturalism and secularism are deployed as techniques to govern difference. It traces a common philosophical lineage of these two ideologies, and their shared genealogical relationship to the subject of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought. Drawing on Marx and Hegel, it argues that at the core of secularism and multiculturalism there lies the germ of a subject and law formed through a concept of culture that was to a great degree indivisible from religion. While secularism ostensibly decouples culture from religion to produce a common political culture, and multiculturalism purports to accommodate a diverse range of cultural and religious practices, both fail to accommodate difference that stretches the bounds of a citizen-subject defined according to Anglo-European norms of culture, which implicitly includes Christianity.     

The Dynasty Advantage: Family Ties in Congressional Elections

Political dynasties, families in which multiple members have held elected office, commonly feature in the U.S. Congress. I explored the electoral origins of this phenomenon and determined that members of political dynasties have a significant advantage over first‐generation politicians in open‐seat House elections. Using an original dataset containing candidate‐ and district‐level covariates for all candidates in open‐seat House contests between 1994 and 2006, I found that dynastic politicians enjoy “brand name advantages,” giving them a significant edge over comparable nondynastic opponents. In contrast, hypotheses concerning potential advantages stemming from past political experience and fundraising ability yield null results.     

The Strength of Strong Ties: University Spin-offs and the Significance of Historical Relations

This article investigates the relationship between universities and academic spin-offs, with special emphasis on the antecedent conditions of, and the nature of the linkages that the spin-offs form, as well as the means for sustaining them. The present research uses an instrumental case study approach, and is also an instance of a collective case study as four companies of various size and activities have been studied together. The preliminary results indicate that the network relations are characterized by a small number of strong ties to universities, with a high degree of trust and informality. Although fruitful for the transfer of complex knowledge, the strength of the ties also make them difficult to substitute, which may lead to problems as the spin-offs are highly dependent on continued basic research support. This may in turn lead to implications for policy at university, as well as higher levels.     

Networking in the Shadow of the Law: Informal Access to Legal Expertise through Personal Network Ties

Civil legal problems are common in everyday life, but the costs of obtaining legal representation create barriers to legal action and contribute to disparities in access to justice. Some individuals, however, may have informal access to legal assistance through personal network ties with lawyers, enhancing their responses to justiciable problems. In this study, we draw from theories of social capital and network formation to examine the distribution and mobilization of network‐based legal expertise. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that network‐based access to lawyers is widespread, and most people who have ties to lawyers expect to informally mobilize legal assistance when facing a problem. But people who are most likely to afford formal legal representation are also most likely to have informal access to lawyers. Thus, while informal access to lawyers may shape responses to legal problems, it may also exacerbate inequalities in experiences with civil justice events.     

论“新月派”作家与伍尔夫的精神契合与文学关联

得天独厚的知识背景与崇尚"优雅"的美学品格,使得"新月派"作家对西方现代主义艺术情有独钟.其灵魂人物徐志摩以及文学中坚林徽因等均与英国"布鲁姆斯伯里团体"的精神领袖弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫存在着深刻的精神契合与文学关联.徐志摩是中国文坛评介伍尔夫思想与创作成就的第一人;林徽因不仅在教养、才情上与伍尔夫颇多类似,其小说创作的现代性特征也体现出对伍尔夫式的意识流技巧的借鉴."新月派"作家与伍尔夫的不解之缘,映照出20世纪中国文学现代性进程的一个侧面.     

Family Ties: The Use of DNA Offender Databases to Catch Offenders'' Kin

The authors examine the scientific possibility and the legal and ethical implications of using DNA forensic technology, through partial matches to DNA from crime scenes, to turn into suspects the relatives of people whose DNA profiles are in forensic databases.     

Social Ties, Collective Efficacy and Perceived Neighborhood Property Crime in Guangzhou, China

This study aims to (1) explore perceptions of property crime at the neighborhood level and their correlates based on a random sample from Guangzhou, China and (2) assess the applicability of collective efficacy theory in contemporary urban China. Since the data used in this study are multilevel and the dependent variable is dichotomous, a generalized hierarchical linear model was used for analysis of the data. This study reveals that both community structural variables (residential stability and poverty) and community process variables (social ties, collective efficacy and semi-formal control) were found to affect individuals’ perceptions of neighborhood property crime in Guangzhou. However, communities in Guangzhou are different from those in big cities in the US. This is evidenced by several findings in this study: (1) poorer communities in Guangzhou were not associated with lower levels of formal and informal control; (2) communities with higher levels of residential mobility were neither linked to higher levels of poverty nor disorganization; and (3) the correlation between residential stability and perceived neighborhood property crime was not mediated by community processes.     

The Path of the Law Review: How Interfield Ties Contribute to Institutional Emergence and Buffer against Change

Early neoinstitutional theory tended to assume institutional reproduction, while recent accounts privilege situations in which alternative models from outside an organizational environment or delegitimizing criticism from within precipitate institutional change. We know little about institutions that persist despite such change conditions. Recent advances in sociological field theory suggest that interfield ties contribute to institutional change but under‐theorize how such ties may reinforce institutions. Extending both approaches, I incorporate self‐reinforcing mechanisms from path‐dependence scholarship. I elucidate my framework by analyzing the student‐edited, student‐reviewed law review. Despite its anomalous position relative to the dominant peer‐reviewed journal model of other disciplines, and despite sustained criticisms from those who publish in them, the law review remains a bedrock institution of law schools and legal scholarship. I combine qualitative historical analyses of legal scholarship and law schools with quantitative analyses of law‐review structures and field contestation. The analysis covers law review's entire historical trajectory—its emergence, its institutionalization and coherence of a field around it, and its current state as a contested but persistent institution. I argue that self‐reinforcing mechanisms evident in law review's ties to related fields‐legal practice, law schools, the university, and legal periodicals—both enabled its emergence and have buffered it against change.     

Tender Ties: Husbands' Rights and Racial Exclusion in Chinese Marriage Cases, 1882-1924

When Congress ended the immigration of Chinese laborers in 1882, the Chinese population was over 95% male. While there has been much disagreement about why so few women came, the more fruitful question may be to ask how Chinese women were able to immigrate to the United States at all. Central to their immigration were legal arguments for lawful Chinese immigrants-primarily merchants and native-bom citizens-to bring their wives to the United States. Due to racial restrictions barring them from independent entry or marital naturalization, Chinese wives appealed to the uncodified gender privileges of their husbands in turn-of-the-century legal society: the natural right of a man to the company of his wife and children. In the face of a bureaucratic structure designed to sift immigrants by race, judges ruled that racial admission policies must conform to established gender privileges. The power of these arguments was tested in cases involving the deportation of Chinese women admitted as wives. While initially evading registration regulations for immigrants, Chinese women were unsuccessful at evading regulations concerning prostitution. This failure underscored the performative aspects of husbands' rights arguments, especially the image of the dutiful wife and husband and the class-based ideal of the elite merchant or citizen.     

视频分享网站的侵权责任认定——由华夏树人诉优酷网案着手

如果视频分享网站对于用户上传的内容进行了内容上的审核,或进行了内容上的改变,则其行为属于直接的信息网络传播行为.否则,其行为属于<信息网络传播权保护条例>第22条所规定的信息存储空间服务,只有在网站经营者主观上为知道或有合理理由知道用户上传的内容构成侵权的情况下,才须承担赔偿责任.除一些特定情形外,对于主观上为知道或有合理理由知道的认定,须结合案情具体分析.     

The Islands that Ate the Constitution

Liverpool Law Review - This article reviews and updates the counterintuitive status of non-state territories under the United States constitution. Taking into account the historical interpretation...     

MPs' Responses to a Proposed New Constituency Map: Electoral Prospects,Community Ties and Party Organisation

Until new legislation was passed in 2011, community ties and continuity of representation were the major criteria deployed by the United Kingdom's Boundary Commissions when defining parliamentary constituency boundaries. Equality of electorates is now the paramount criterion, and the Commissions' first proposals using that new format substantially fractured many of the existing constituencies. MPs were able to respond to the Commissions' proposals under the altered public consultation procedures. Only a small majority did so, however: there were significant differences across the political parties in both response rates and the nature of the responses, the majority of which used community ties as the main grounds for either supporting or opposing the Commissions' proposals.     

The ghost that slayed the mandate

Virginia v. Sebelius is a federal lawsuit in which Virginia has challenged President Obama's signature legislative initiative of health care reform. Virginia has sought declaratory and injunctive relief to vindicate a state statute declaring that no Virginia resident shall be required to buy health insurance. To defend this state law from the preemptive effect of federal law, Virginia has contended that the federal legislation's individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. Virginia's lawsuit has been one of the most closely followed and politically salient federal cases in recent times. Yet the very features of the case that have contributed to its political salience also require its dismissal for lack of statutory subject matter jurisdiction. The Supreme Court has placed limits on statutory subject matter jurisdiction over declaratory judgment actions in which a state seeks a declaration that a state statute is not preempted by federal law--precisely the relief sought in Virginia v. Sebelius. These statutory limits are a sea wall; they keep out, on statutory grounds, some suits that should otherwise be kept out on Article III grounds. The statutory and constitutional limits on federal jurisdiction over suits like Virginia v. Sebelius insulate federal courts from the strong political forces surrounding lawsuits that follow from state statutes designed to create federal jurisdiction over constitutional challenges by states to federal law. This Article identifies previously neglected jurisdictional limits, shows why they demand dismissal of Virginia v. Sebelius, and explains why it is appropriate for federal courts to be closed to suits of this type.     

The hand that rocks the cradle

This essay responds to Donald Hope's proposal that a woman's right to reproductive choice under the U.S. Constitution should end after she has been pregnant for eight weeks, because before that point science shows the developing embryo lacks human form, while after that point the fetus possesses physical characteristics that make it uniquely human. Hope's line purporting to determine when the fate of developing life becomes a matter of public concern rather than a strictly private decision is drawn both too early and too late. Eight weeks is too early because it imposes coerced motherhood on those least able to bear it while impugning the moral integrity of all women, and it is too late because this rule measures the value of human life by the utility of our physical features. Instead, no line need be drawn at all; the state can give effect to its concern for developing human life by valuing and supporting mothers who make it possible.     

Spreading Influence Through Weak Ties: Cosponsorship,Legislative Networks,and Bill Success in Fragmented Congresses

Literature on legislative success tends to focus on independent variables of which lawmakers have scarce control. This article analyzes instead how legislators’ strategies affect their success in Congress. I posit that while weak ties between congresspeople are the most useful in increasing success in the chamber of origin under majoritarian settings, they do not raise the likelihood of bill approval in the second chamber or in plurality‐led legislatures. Building on a data set that contains all bills proposed to the Argentine Congress between 1983 and 2007, results support these context‐dependence hypotheses. I then use data from the Uruguayan Congress (1995–2010) to explore how the argument plays out in a Latin American legislature with weaker gatekeeping rules (i.e., an “open sky” legislature). Findings help gain insight into the strategies used in environments different from that of the widely studied U.S. Congress.