Putting kids to death: Specifying public support for juvenile capital punishment

Using a statewide sample of 539 Tennessee residents, we explored the extent to which the public supports the death penalty for juveniles. The analysis revealed that a majority of respondents favored juvenile capital punishment, often for young offenders. The respondents, however, were less supportive of juvenile than of adult execution. Most important, as an alternative to juvenile capital punishment, nearly two-thirds of the sample favored life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP); four-fifths favored a life sentence with work and restitution requirements (LWOP+W/R). Notably, even among those who endorsed capital punishment for juveniles, a clear majority supported LWOP+W/R. Taken together, these findings reveal that although the public is willing to execute juveniles who commit first-degree murder, they prefer alternative sentencing options that avoid putting youths to death.     

Determinants of public confidence in police: An international perspective

Previous studies concerning public confidence in the police had primarily focused on demographic, attitudinal, and contextual factors in the United States. Little research, however, has used country-level variables to explain variations that exist across countries. As a result, this study examined the impact of country-level predictors (e.g., homicide rate and level of democracy) as well as individual-level predictors on public confidence in the police by utilizing data sets collected from three international surveys. Using hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) for the multinomial dependent variable, this study found a significant and negative relationship between homicide rate and public confidence in the police. People living in a country with a higher homicide rate reported lower levels of confidence in the police. Level of democracy was also found to be positively related to public confidence in the police. Of the individual-level variables, age and education were found to be significant predictors. A positive relationship was also found between political conservatism or personal satisfaction and confidence in the police. In line with attitudinal and contextual predictors, individuals with higher levels of acceptance toward deviant subcultures reported lower levels of confidence in the police. On the other hand, those who were more satisfied with their country's democratic development showed more favorable attitudes toward the police. The findings of this study implied that police organizations should put greater efforts toward the reduction of crime while protecting democratic values within a society.     

The public rhetorics of policing in times of war and violence: countering apocalyptic visions

Public debate about post 9/11 policing presumes for the most part that the world changed fundamentally at that point and that policing powers and tactics have altered in response. For some people, largely defenders of the necessity of a strong security stance, the changes have been possibly not enough. For others, opponents of the security state, the changes represent a latest instalment in an always threatening rise of totalitarian policing. Seen in macro-perspective these views represent the politics of security, helping to shape, modulate, contain, expand, limit the powers available to police, and the possible uses of them. These opposing views, very often highly antagonistic in expression, are part of the politics, and do not stand outside them. They have also been heard before. In seeking to understand what policing means for stable societies under threat of political violence, this article examines some key transitions in the development of security policing over the last 100 years in Australia, highlighting some of the contextual features that have shaped them. In doing so it will suggest that apocalyptic rhetoric is part of the politics of policing, shared by both advocates and opponents of tougher policing, and in tension with the more sober realities of a policing that operates within a framework of enabling as well as limiting conditions.     

Prestigious publications and public relevance: Vietnam war and black protest in the ASR and APSR

This study examines the manner and the extent to which the social sciences are prepared to address large scale, long term historical change. Particularly, the American Political Science Review and the American Sociological Review are subjected to a content analysis with regards to their analyses of the Vietnamese war and the Black uprisings of the 1960s. The results identify the fact that the most preeminent social science journals failed to analyze the conflicts; either prior to, during or after their emergence. This suggests, at a general level, that critical reflection of the dominant theoretical paradigms of social science did not take place. Moreover, it is suggested, on a more specific level, that the fundamental problem was the bankruptcy of the 1950s paradigm for the 1960s and the incapacity of the more influential journals to identify, address and overcome this intellectual limitation.     

Knowledge exhaustibility public support to business R&D and the additionality constraint

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Recent advances of the economics of knowledge about the properties of knowledge as an economic good with the identification of the limited exhaustibility of...     

Microgravity protein crystallization for drug development: a bold example of public sector entrepreneurship

The Journal of Technology Transfer - A basic mission of NASA is to use the United States’ segment of the International Space Station (ISS), designated a national laboratory, to facilitate the...     

The willingness to give: the public and the supply of transplantable organs

We report the results of a representative random-sample telephone survey of the public's willingness to donate organs. Our goal was to identify differences within the public and target groups who might be receptive to educational efforts to increase donation. We distinguish differences in attitude and demographic characteristics in three groups: those committed to donation, those opposed, and those who might change their opinions with more specific information. While approval of donation is nearly universal, only about half of the public would donate a relative's organs when they do not know the relative's preference. Whites, higher-income individuals, and those with higher educational levels were more favorable. Those who might change their minds fall midway between those committed and those opposed, both demographically and by attitude. They include more nonwhites and more individuals with incomes less than $25,000 than members of the group committed to donation. Targeting public education messages to this group is likely to have the most success in reducing the gap between supply and demand for human organs.     

Reasons for South Korean attitudes towards the death penalty: exploring the nexus between strong public support and history of misapplication

As of this writing, South Korea (officially, the Republic of Korea) is an abolitionist-in-practice nation; capital punishment is legal, but no death sentences have been carried out since a moratorium was enacted in 1997. Public support for the death penalty has decreased over time; however, the factors that determine support for or opposition to the death penalty of the South Korean general public are largely unknown. Using survey data from a nationwide sample of 416 respondents, this study examined the potential predictors for public attitudes towards capital punishment support. A majority of survey respondents (83%) supported the death penalty, a higher percentage than recent surveys of the South Korean general public. The deterrence and retribution perspectives were positively related to death penalty support, while crime severity, neighbourhood safety, the brutalisation effect, and innocence were negatively related. This study provides the first multivariate analysis of factors associated with South Korean attitudes towards the death penalty.     

The ghost of Machiavelli: An approach to operation Gladio and terrorism in cold war Italy

In 1990, a document was made public in Italy that shed new light on the secret aspects of the Cold War in Western Europe. The document, dated 1 June 1959, had been compiled by the Italian military secret service SIFAR and is entitled “The special forces of SIFAR and Operation Gladio”. It explained that a secret stay-behind army linked to NATO had been set up in Italy for the purpose of unconventional warfare. Ever since, there have been allegations in Italy that the Gladio stay-behind army was linked to acts of terrorism during the Cold War. Despite their importance for criminal, legal and social investigations into the secret history of the Cold War, these questions have received next to no attention among the English-speaking research community since the documents' discovery, partly due to language barriers. With no claim to deal with the stay-behind armies in an exhaustive manner, this essay attempts to analyse and contextualise the Italian data.     

The will theory of rights: A defence

Hart's will theory of rights has been subjected to at least three significant criticisms. First, it is thought unable to account for the full range of legal rights. Second, it is incoherent, for it values freedom while permitting an agent the option of alienating his or her capacity for choice. Third, any attempt to remedy the first two problems renders the theory reducible to the rival benefit theory. My aim is to address these objections. I argue that will theory has been made vulnerable due to misinterpretation. The theory has been characterized as placing great stress on liberty rights (or claim-protected liberties), whereas it is powers that are central, and hence not choice but control. My argument does, however, depend upon appealing to an extra-legal notion — the hypothetical contract — but I argue that this is consistent with the main aim of a theory of rights.     

The significance of drug analysis of sweat in respect to rapid screening for drug abuse.

Morphine and methamphetamine, which are excreted in the sweat, are detected by the use of routine serological and physicochemical techniques for urinary examinations. Screening for drug abuse can be done with the same accuracy of that of urine. Rapid excretion of the drug via kidney (within one day) is followed by a slow but steady excretion of the sweat gland. Methamphetamine given orally in a dose of 10 mg is excreted in the sweat at a constant rate (1.4 microgram/ml). No significant difference of the amount excreted by both systems is found. Alveolar lining seems to prevent the elimination of the volatile methamphetamine via respiration. Not only narcotics and stimulants, but also many alkaloids and barbituarates are excreted in the sweat and detected quantitatively by the same principles. The toxicological analysis of the sweat promises a new scope of forensic investigation.