Does Clausewitz Apply to Criminal-States and Gangs?

Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers present unique problems for contemporary international political theory. This essay examines the applicability of the theory of war developed by Carl von Clausewitz to Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers. As modified by Aristotle's idea of justice as the basis for the political community, this essay proposes that Clausewitz's famous connection between politics and war holds where such states and soldiers evince political behavior. Some contrasting implications for states and state leaders are examined when such entities evince — and do not evince — political behavior.     

Opening Pandora’s Box: How Does Defendant Race Influence Plea Bargaining?

Minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system has long been an important topic of research and policy debate. In New York City, recent changes in the Rockefeller Drug Laws and the controversy around police stop-and-frisk practices have placed an even greater emphasis on the need for studying the possible impact of defendants’ race and ethnicity on criminal justice outcomes. Relatively little contemporary research, though, examines plea-bargaining outcomes. Using unique data on misdemeanor marijuana cases, this study examines the impact of defendants’ race on prosecutors’ decisions to make (a) plea offers for a lesser charge and (b) sentence offers for non-custodial punishments. Preliminary findings indicated that black defendants were less likely to receive reduced charge offers, and both black and Latino defendants were more likely to receive custodial sentence offers. However, these disparities were largely explained by legal factors, evidence, arrest circumstances, and court actor characteristics, though black defendants were still more likely to receive custodial sentence offers after including these controls. No differences were found between white and Asian defendants. Implications for research and prosecutorial practices are discussed.     

Do Defense Attorney Referrals for Competence to Stand Trial Evaluations Depend on Whether the Client Speaks English or Spanish?

Criminal defense attorneys (N = 142) responded to a survey asking them to read a vignette describing a Hispanic defendant charged with assault and rate the severity of the defendant’s mental illness and likelihood of referring him for an evaluation of competence to stand trial (CST). The vignettes varied in terms of whether the defendant spoke English or Spanish, and whether his mental illness symptoms were obvious or ambiguous. Overall, attorneys rated the Spanish-speaking defendant as less mentally ill than the English-speaking defendant, and were less likely to refer the Spanish-speaking defendant for a CST evaluation. Attorneys who perceived more logistical barriers to seeking a CST evaluation in their local communities were less likely to refer the defendant for a CST evaluation, but only when the defendant spoke Spanish. These findings suggest attorney decisions were influenced by language, although further research is needed to identify the mechanism of this influence.     

The Attorney–Client Relationship in Capital Cases and Its Impact on Juror Receptivity to Mitigation Evidence

The United States Supreme Court has placed a great deal of trust in the ability and willingness of capital jurors to consider mitigation evidence during sentencing deliberations as a constitutional aspect of capital sentencing. This paper examines the jurors’ perception of the affective warmth and friendliness shared by attorney and client, and the degree to which the defense attorney appears to regard the defendant as a close working member of the defense team. Using data obtained from interviews with 725 jurors in capital trials, regression analysis revealed that respondents were more receptive to mitigation evidence when they viewed the relationship between the attorney and client as warm and friendly, but less receptive when they reported the attorney–client as having a close working relationship. Analysis of interaction terms revealed that the negative effects of the close working relationship can be suppressed by modeling a warm affective attorney–client relationship.     

Incitement to Religious Hatred: All Talk and No Substance?

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 has a frenetic history. It is the culmination of six attempts in Parliament in the last twelve years to make incitement to religious hatred unlawful. ¹ 1 Lord Lester proposed two amendments to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, June 1994 and the (Lord) Bishop of Oxford moved an amendment in July 1994. Lord Avebury introduced a Religious Offences Bill in 2001. The government has tried three times: in the Anti‐Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill in 2001; in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, introduced in November 2004 and (successfully) in the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, introduced June 2005.
Each attempt has met with intense criticism. But now that the legislation is here, what may it achieve?     

Self-Reported Intentions to Offend: All Talk and No Action?

To study criminal decision making, researchers commonly present hypothetical offending scenarios to participants and record their self-reported intentions to offend (SRIO). These SRIO scores are treated as an indicator of participants?? predisposition to commit the act described in the scenario. Drawing from the field of clinical measurement, the current study examines the diagnostic accuracy of SRIO scores by comparing participants?? intentions to acquire illegal music files from a designated distributor to their actual attempts to acquire such files. Approximately 7% of participants who read about a (bogus) music piracy opportunity reported strong??and at times definitive??intentions to seek out the illegal files. However, in actuality, no one in the study engaged in this behavior. Clinimetric indicators suggest that SRIO scores are better at predicting abstention from crime than actual criminal participation.     

Does Racial Balance in Workforce Representation Yield Equal Justice? Race Relations of Sentencing in Federal Court Organizations*

Increasing racial and ethnic group representation in justice‐related occupations is considered a potential remedy to racial inequality in justice administration, including sentencing disparity. Studies to date yield little evidence of such an effect; however, research limitations may account for the mixed and limited evidence of the significance of justice workforce racial diversity. Specifically, few studies consider group‐level dynamics of race and representation, thus failing to contextualize racial group power relations in justice administration. To consider these contextual dynamics we combine court organizational and case‐level data from 89 federal districts and use hierarchical models to assess whether variably “representative” work groups relate to district‐level differences in sentencing. Using district‐specific indexes of population and work group dissimilarity to define representation, we find no relationships between black judge representation and sentencing in general across districts, but that districts with more black representation among prosecutors are significantly less likely to sentence defendants to terms of imprisonment. We also find in districts with increased black representation among prosecutors, and to a lesser degree among judges, that black defendants are less likely to be imprisoned and white defendants are more likely to be imprisoned, with the effect of narrowing black‐white disparities in sentencing. Consistent with the “power‐threat” perspective, and perhaps “implicit racial bias” research, findings encourage modeling diversity to account for relative racial group power in processes of social control and suggest that racial justice may be moderately advanced by equal representation among authorities.     

Psychopathy,Conduct Disorder,and Stigma: Does Diagnostic Labeling Influence Juvenile Probation Officer Recommendations?

This study investigated the potential influence of labeling a juvenile as psychopathic. Juvenile probation officers (JPOs; N = 260) rendered hypothetical recommendations based on eight mock psychological evaluations. The evaluations varied the presence of two diagnostic criteria (antisocial behavioral history and psychopathic personality traits) and diagnostic labels (psychopathy, conduct disorder, no diagnosis) in order to distinguish criterion effects from labeling effects. The diagnostic criteria of antisocial behavior had a substantial effect on JPO recommendations (effect sizes .50–.79), while the diagnostic criteria of psychopathic personality traits had a more limited effect. Surprisingly, diagnostic labels had little effect, and there were no appreciable differences between conduct disorder and psychopathy diagnoses. These findings illustrate the importance of distinguishing diagnostic criterion effects from diagnostic labeling effects.     

Race and peremptory challenges during voir dire: Do prosecution and defense agree?

Recent litigation in state and federal courts in the United States suggests that black prospective jurors may be systematically excluded from sitting on trial juries through the issue of peremptory challenges during the voir dire process. Numerous trial and appellate cases have reaffirmed the importance of excluding prospective jurors without cause through peremptory challenges. An insufficient number of studies have examined peremptory challenge data to determine if a systematic bias against black prospective jurors actually exists. This study analyzes peremptory challenges issued by both prosecution and defense to determine if both adversary parties agree on the proclivity of black jurors to influence a jury verdict in a given direction. The study concludes that both prosecution and defense agree, as evidenced in the issue of peremptory challenges, that black jurors are prone to move a jury toward a verdict of acquittal.     

Is It Legal Representation or Clients? : An Empirical Testing of Clients’ Performance and Their Legal Representation in Tulsa County Drug and DUI Programs

The importance of legal representation to a criminal defendant is widely accepted, but the quality of government-provided counsels (particularly public defenders) has continuously been questioned. Based on data from Tulsa County DUI and Drug programs in Oklahoma, the authors tested the impact of legal representation (public defender versus private counsel) on clients?? performance in program, measured by plea terms and program outcome. Initial bivariate analyses showed disparate effect of legal representation, as clients represented by private counsels received better plea terms and fared better in program outcome. This effect, however, disappeared once other variables were controlled. Instead, factors closely related to the clients themselves (e.g., demographic features and their criminal behaviors) significantly impacted their program performance.     

The Convention Method Revisited: Does It Have a Future and Does It Matter?

Scholars have argued that the convention method has democratised the process of treaty reform and increased the legitimacy of EU constitutionalisation. This article finds that the convention method has contributed to a slightly more democratic process, but has not, in any fundamental way, improved the democratic status of the EU's treaty reform process. We should accordingly not be too concerned over the future fate of the convention method. From a democratic perspective, we should be more worried over the possible scenario that future changes to the EU's institutional structure will come about through implicit constitutional change without any formal changes being made to the treaties. The often cumbersome ratification process could thereby be bypassed, but this would also deprive EU citizens of the only real opportunity they have of influencing decisions on the overall design of the integration project.     

Land Use Regulation and Residential Segregation: Does Zoning Matter?

Critics of zoning have attributed to it much of the responsibilityfor the persistent and severe patterns of racial and economicsegregation that characterize urban America. Yet, little empiricalevidence has been produced to demonstrate the degree to whichobserved patterns of residential segregation are attributableto zoning. This article explores that question by comparingpatterns of residential segregation in Houston, the nation'sonly unzoned large city, and Dallas, a similar zoned city. Houston'sunique system of "nonzoning" is described. The index of dissimilarityis used to measure segregation by race, tenure, and housingtype, and a variation of the index is developed to measure segregationby income. No significant differences in residential segregationare evident between the two cities. These results suggest that,absent zoning, private voluntary institutions produce nearlyidentical patterns of residential segregation.     

Peer Group Delinquency and Sexual Victimization: Does Popularity Matter?

Though a large body of research has found that peer social network characteristics influence both offending and victimization, relatively little is known about the influence of social network characteristics on adolescent sexual victimization. Attractiveness and sociability largely indicate popularity for teenage females, which in turn leads to earlier onset of dating, greater dating options, and potential risk of sexual victimization—an observation not tested in the criminological and criminal justice literature. We suggest and evaluate 2 competing hypotheses: that popularity within a network insulates females from sexual victimization and that popularity may increase exposure to delinquent others and facilitate sexual victimization. Results suggest that popularity does not have a consistent effect but instead that its role is conditioned by the deviance of the network. Popularity is associated with an increase in the likelihood of victimization when peer deviance is high but with a decrease when peer deviance is low. We further demonstrate that an interaction between a female's own drinking and the proportion of her friends that are male strongly affects her likelihood of sexual victimization. Implications for policy and future research are explored.     

Groups, gangs, and delinquency: Does organization matter?

Purpose

A consistent finding of research on delinquency has been that gang members show higher levels of delinquent behavior than non-gang members. However, research attempting to understand the mechanisms underlying this finding is lacking. The basic premise of the current article is that the level of organization found in delinquent groups and gangs matters in clarifying the relationship between membership and delinquency.

Methods

This article examined the association between organization and delinquency in a sample of 523 self-reported juvenile offenders from a high school survey conducted in the province of Quebec, Canada.

Results

The results showed that 1) there is clearly something special about membership in a gang that influences delinquency beyond the more general membership in a delinquent group; 2) the key to understanding finding lies, in part, in the level of organization found in gangs. Organization emerged as the most important factor associated with general delinquency, involvement in violence, and in drug supply offences, significantly (but not completely) reducing the effect of gang membership on delinquency.

Conclusions

Even if most delinquent associations show little signs of formal structure and organization, this study demonstrates the importance of organization as a key mechanism to understand the gang effect on delinquency.     

Empty Homes and Acquisitive Crime: Does Vacancy Type Matter?

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Research suggests that vacant homes are associated with a variety of negative outcomes for communities, including higher rates of some crimes. A few studies...     

Representation and participation in child care proceedings: what about the voice of the parents?

In Ireland, the Constitution guarantees very strong rights to parents and the family, and there has been a long and unfortunate history of failures to adequately protect children at risk. As a result, there has been much discussion in recent years about the need to improve legal mechanisms designed to protect the rights of children. By comparison, little attention has been given to establishing whether the theoretically strong rights of parents translate into strongly protected rights in practice. This paper presents new empirical evidence on the manner in which child care proceedings in Ireland balance the rights and interests of children and parents, including the rates at which orders are granted, the frequency of and conditions in which legal representation is provided, and the extent to which parents are able to actively participate in proceedings. A number of systemic issues are identified that restrict the capacity of the system to emphasise parental rights and hear the voice of parents to the extent that would be expected when looking at the legal provisions in isolation.     

Correction to: Explaining regional inflation programmes in Indonesia: Does inflation rate converge?

Economic Change and Restructuring -