Looking at Prediction from an Economics Perspective: A Response to Harcourt's Against Prediction

This article discusses Bernard E. Harcourt's Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age (2007 ). The book opposes the use of probabilistic methods, such as profiling, on efficiency, equity, and jurisprudence grounds. By contrast I argue that profiling is always efficient, that there is no theoretical flaw in reliance on actuarial methods, as long as they are implemented properly. I also show that the equity-based criticism of reliance on actuarial methods (Harcourt's ratchet effect argument) is based on two questionable assumptions: that profiling is perfectly efficient (as zero deterrence is assumed), and that the police are making an obvious logical mistake, by gradually increasing the extent to which they target the group with the higher offending rate instead of targeting only them in the first place.     

Against Prevention? A Response to Harcourt's Against Prediction on Actuarial and Clinical Predictions and the Faults of Incapacitation

This article reviews Bernard Harcourt's Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age (2007), in which he criticizes the use of actuarial prediction methods in the contexts of policing and sentencing. I focus on the latter context. I argue that Harcourt has identified an important, and not exclusively American, trend and develops a valid critique of it that should be pushed further. From a theory of punishment perspective, I argue that Harcourt's critique is no less applicable to clinical prediction methods than to the use of actuarial ones. Harcourt's arguments, however, beg a more general explanation of the flaws of incapacitation as a justification for punishment. If we base our objection to the use of prediction methods on such larger grounds, questions arise as to the legitimacy of other practices that are not considered punitive but rather "regulatory" or "preventive."     

A Reader's Companion to Against Prediction: A Reply to Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir on Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, and Race

From parole prediction instruments and violent sexual predator scores to racial profiling on the highways, instruments to predict future dangerousness, drug-courier profiles, and IRS computer algorithms to detect tax evaders, the rise of actuarial methods in the field of crime and punishment presents a number of challenging issues at the intersection of economic theory, sociology, history, race studies, criminology, social theory, and law. The three review articles of Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age by Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir, raise these challenges in their very best light. Ranging from the heights of poststructuralist and critical race theory to the intricate details of mathematical economics and criminological analysis, the articles apply different disciplinary lenses to the analysis of the actuarial turn offered in Against Prediction and set forth both substantive and structural challenges to the book. By means of a detailed reply to the three reviews, this article provides a reader's companion to Against Prediction.     

Opening the Black Box of Officer Decision-Making: An Examination of Race,Criminal History,and Discretionary Searches

Recent evidence suggests that police officers engage in discretionary searches of minority citizens at a disproportionate rate; however, the impact of citizen criminal history on this relationship is largely unknown. Using the theoretical framework of officer suspicion, this study examines the impact of citizen race on the likelihood of a discretionary search and whether this relationship is mediated by citizen criminal history. A series of multilevel models were computed on officer-initiated traffic stops in a manner that conforms to Baron and Kenny's recommendations to test for mediation effects. Results indicated that while citizen race was predictive of a discretionary search, this effect was mediated by consideration of criminal history. These findings have implications for understanding the decision-making process of officers, the influence of citizen race on these decisions, and the role of officer suspicion in police-citizen encounters.     

《联合国打击跨国有组织犯罪公约》浅说

当今世界,不断滋生和蔓延的跨国有组织犯罪已经严重威胁到了全人类的共同利益。一方面,跨国有组织犯罪集团以聚敛到巨额非法收益为资本加紧向民主政体的渗透与腐蚀,造成了政治统治上的腐败和法律秩序上的混乱;另一方面,跨国有组织犯罪又与各种经济犯罪、环境犯罪、恐怖主义活动相伴生,不但严重损害合法资本持有者的利益,而且直接威胁各国国民经济体系的根基。同时,偷渡、贩卖人口、国际卖淫等有组织犯罪更是构成了对各国人民的生存权、发展权等基本人权的肆意践踏。正是基于面临的这种严峻形势,联合国迅速把如何采取积极的司法对策以有效打击跨国有组织犯罪事实列为其重要的战     

英国防治家庭暴力与保护受害人立法述评

家庭暴力是一个普遍存在于英国社会各阶层的家庭中的社会问题,尽早发现、尽早处理才能将伤害减少至最低。为此,英国自从20世纪70年代开始制定了一系列法律案防治家庭暴力,从家庭成员身份界定到司法保护、从家庭暴力的认定到骚扰防治进行较全面的法律干预。英国法既注重对加害人予以法律制裁,更注重预防,及时帮助受害人和加害人,防止家庭暴力延伸到下一代,防止家庭暴力从家庭内部延伸到家庭之外。英国法防治家庭暴力的理念、路径和对策能够为我国制定防治家庭暴力法提供诸多借鉴与启发。     

Of Rebels and Disobedients: Reflections on Arendt,Race, Lawbreaking

Hannah Arendt valued the unprecedented, the unexpected, and the new, yet in essays crafted at the end of the rebellious 1960s, struggled to square this valuation with a palpable desire for law and order. She lamented that criminality had overtaken American life, accused the police of not arresting enough criminals, and charged ‘the Negro community’ with standing behind what she named black violence. At once, she praised ‘the white rebels’ of the student movement in the United States for their courageous acts of disobedience. This essay explores how differential Arendt’s treatment of lawbreaking action was in an effort to understand how ‘certain sections of the population’ in the United States could appear to stand for criminality rather than civil disobedience to her mind. It examines how Arendt’s reflections on the ostensibly non-racial subjects of civil disobedience and lawbreaking were underwritten by racial, when not racist, ways of thinking. The essay also raises a larger question: to the extent that the concept of civil disobedience involves limits, how are those limits drawn to the exclusion of certain kinds of actors and their particular claims in the public realm? Pondering this question through Arendt, it concludes that in her theorization of civil disobedience, Arendt was profoundly limited by the fabulous tale that the United States is an exceptional land of freedom and democracy in the world.

     

Facts, Law, Exculpation, and Inculpation: Comments on Simons

Orthodox criminal law doctrine treats mistakes of law and mistakes of fact differently for purposes of both exculpation and inculpation. Kenneth Simons’ paper in general defends this orthodoxy. I have earlier criticized the criminal law’s attempt to distinguish mistakes of law from mistakes of fact, and I continue to maintain, in opposition to Simons, that the distinction is problematic.     

Stop,Question, and Assess: Comments on Rosenfeld and Fornango

We develop three points in this commentary on Rosenfeld and Fornango’s empirical assessment of the NYPD policy of stop, question, and frisk (SQF). First, we draw attention to some of the key patterns uncovered in the analysis, posing questions that we think warrant additional thought. Second, we highlight some potential ambiguities between the underlying logic model of SQF and the empirical models assumed in existing research evaluations that have important implications for the conclusions that one might draw from the available evidence. Finally, we suggest some ways in which the empirical basis for evaluating the efficacy of SQF might be strengthened.     

中国环境法治的历史、现状与走向——中国环境法治30年之评析

1978年以来，中国的环境立法、环境执法、环境司法、环境守法、环境参与和环境法律监督工作取得了巨大的成就。1997年国家正式提出依法治国方略後，中国的环境保护工作正式走向法治化的轨道。目前，无论是从环节上，还是从整体的判断指标上分析，或者从实效上评估，都说明中国的环境法制架构已经基本形成。符合科学发展观和生态文明要求的环境友好型和资源节约型环境法治工作正在完善之中。完善的措施既包括立法完善工作，还包括执法、司法、守法、参与和监督环节的体制、制度和机制的创新工作。     

Lessons from History: Why Race and Ethnicity Have Played a Major Role in Biomedical Research

Before any citizen enters the role of scientist, medical practitioner, lawyer, epidemiologist, and so on, each and all grow up in a society in which the categories of human differentiation are folk categories that organize perceptions, relations, and behavior. That was true during slavery, during Reconstruction, the eugenics period, the two World Wars, and is no less true today. While every period understandably claims to transcend those categories, medicine, law, and science are profoundly and demonstrably influenced by the embedded folk notions of race and ethnicity.     

The Complexity of Policy Preferences: Examining Self-interest,Group-Interest,and Race Consciousness Across Race and Political Ideology

Social Justice Research - Research on attitudes toward racial policies has often been limited to a single racial group (e.g., either Whites or Blacks). These studies often focus on the role of...     

Race,politics, and punishment

This paper empirically evaluates two competing theories of electoral accountability in the context of New Orleans’ 2006 mayoral election. According to the democratic efficiency theory, voters can successfully punish ineffective political agents by removing them from office. In contrast, the public choice theory argues that the bundled nature of political goods prevents voters from successfully holding ineffective politicians accountable. We find that although there is limited support for the punishment effect predicted by the democratic efficiency theory, this effect is overwhelmed by the fact that the bundle of goods politicians offer contains elements that pull in opposing directions. This prevents the punishment effect from having any real impact, leading to democratic failure. Our results support the public choice theory of electoral (un)accountability.     

Integrating Critical Race Theory and Postmodernism Implications of Race, Class, and Gender

This paper begins with an overview of criticalrace theory tenets, which in turn will befollowed by an overview of postmodernism. These bodies of knowledge consist of an arrayof ideologies; but for the purpose of thisarticle only the fundamentals of each will bediscussed. Thereafter, an integration ofthese two contemporary areas of thought willdemonstrate the constructive linkage ofcritical race theory and postmodern theory. Theintegrations that follow will emphasize how acollaboration of critical race theory tenetsand postmodern thought can contribute to asuccessful, and more importantly improved,analysis of the social constructions of race,class, and gender. In addition, theintersectional analysis presented willdemonstrate a more informative and betterunderstanding of the subtleties of blatant andmore hidden forms of race, class, and gender.     

Race, Money and Medicines

Taking notice of race is both risky and inevitable, in medicine no less than in other endeavors. On the one hand, race can be a useful stand-in for unstudied genetic and environmental factors that yield differences in disease expression and therapeutic response. Attention to race can make a therapeutic difference, to the point of saving lives. On the other hand, racial distinctions have social meanings that are often pejorative or worse, especially when these distinctions are cast as culturally or biologically fixed. I argue in this essay that we should start with a presumption against racial categories in medicine, but permit their use when it might prolong lives or meaningfully improve health. Use of racial categories should be understood as an interim step; follow-up inquiry into the factors that underlie race-correlated clinical differences is important both to improve the efficacy of clinical care and to prevent race in itself from being misunderstood as a biological determinant. If we pursue such inquiry with vigor, the pernicious effects of racial categories on public understanding can be managed. But perverse market and regulatory incentives create the danger that use of race will be "locked-in," once drugs or other therapies are approved. These incentives should be revisited.     

Race,crime and hegemony: A review essay

Crime, Law and Social Change -