Crime‐Control in the Post‐Wall Era: The Menace of Security

Over the past ten to fifteen years, an increasing number of social issues have become linked, and then subordinated, to security policy. This policy area has witnessed a paradigm shift, with the emergence of a new security mentality. The crumbling of the walls built up during the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet empire, meant the disappearance of the East versus West polarity. And as this world order, based on a balance of terror, passed into history, the nature of the global threat situation was transformed. The antagonisms of the Cold War had hardly had time to cease creating fear before new threat images emerged onto the scene. Unlike the Cold War situation, where world peace was threatened by a frenetic arms race between two highly concrete superpowers, the perceived threats of the 1990s became increasingly vague. The military menace was superseded by what was said to be a much more diffuse criminal threat. For what is it that lies concealed behind such concepts as ‘cross‐border crime’, ‘organized crime’, ‘terrorism’ and the like? Previously, security policy analysts had been able to localize the source of a given threat with precision. Their benchmark was now gone, however. Once the established geographical demarcations between Us and Them ceased to apply, it was found that the enemy might instead be in our midst.     

Homicide Trends in Finland and Estonia in 1880–1940: Consequences of the Demographic,Social and Political Effects of Industrialization

While in western Europe and Scandinavia homicide rates reached their all time low during the period of industrialization, in Finland and Estonia they increased considerably. The rapid growth of criminal violence during the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s in these two countries seems to have been the result of interaction of several factors, partly non-simultaneous and unrelated. They do not seem to have been identical either, although the underlying equation was the same: the quick social and economic change following industrialization, and the modernisation of agriculture, the pressures it put especially on the youth in the form of uncertain prospects for the future and a new competition-oriented set of values, connected with the authoritarian political system of Russian Empire, which prevented necessary political reforms and left behind a legacy of social thinking idealizing violence as a political and social instrument. A legacy, which affected large parts of Finnish and Estonian population still for years after the czarist system itself already passed into history. The criminal violence arisen from the equation, however, had quite a different face on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland from that on the southern one. In Finland the violence was centered in the new forest industrial communities, in Estonia again among the landless population of the countryside.     

Citizens’ knowledge and perceptions of legislatures in Canada,Britain and the United States

This study has two major parts. The first uses survey data to reveal what citizens in Britain, Canada and the United States know about their national legislatures and what factors ‐ including cognitive ability, opportunity, motivation and media exposure ‐ affect that knowledge. We find that US citizens are the least knowledgeable. The second part of the study looks at whether the level of knowledge in each country has any importance for understanding levels of public support for the national legislature. In the United States, the more knowledgeable citizens are less likely to support Congress, in sharp contrast to the tendency of knowledgeable Canadian citizens to be more supportive of their parliament. Knowledge is not a significant predictor of support in the British model. Some implications of the findings are discussed.     

Repression and incitement: A critical demographic,feminist, and transnational analysis of birth control in Estonia, 1920–1939

This article addresses the role of inheritance in the economic well-being of widows in early modern urban Holland. It discusses marital property law and inheritance law, as well as inheritance practices, by analysing marriage contracts and wills. The egalitarian distribution of property and the strong commitment to the nuclear family embedded in law was strengthened by wills. Widows benefited from these tendencies. A comparison with English law points to the strong position of Dutch widows. The legal system enabled widows to continue the household after the death of their spouses and in this respect their situation was remarkably similar to that of widowers.     

Temperance Culture and the Repression of Scientific Inquiry Into Illegal Drug‐Altered States of Consciousness

American scientific inquiry into the understandings of drug‐altered states of consciousness is underdeveloped primarily because government regulations embedded within a temperance culture has repressed it. Despite preliminary evidence of the therapeutic value of altered states of consciousness associated with the use of illegal drugs to both physical and mental health, science has been able to do little to understand this potential. Within this essay, we examine the influence of this temperance culture on government regulations and its impingement on scientific practice in the study of illegal drug‐altered states of consciousness as the explanation for much of the failure of science to adequately explore these lines of inquiry. Much of our analysis is based upon examples from research in the area of alcohol studies, as the temperance movement arose primarily in response to this particular drug.     

Immigrants,their children,and theories of assimilation: Family structure in the United States, 1880–1970

This research employs United States census data from 1880 to 1970 to assess the influence of ethnicity and generation on the family structure of Mexican, Irish, Swedish, Italian, Polish, and native white children. Using evidence for three generations, it tests two theories, linear assimilation and segmented assimilation. Assimilation theory makes no special claims for ethnic effects, but segmented assimilation proposes that ethnicity influences the incorporation of immigrant-origin children into American society. We find few consistent ethnic effects on the probability of family type. Our principal finding is that migration itself, common to all groups, has similar consequences for all; these are revealed in generational changes in family structure. The historical periods of open immigration do differ from the contemporary period, which implies that immigration policy affects family structure. The results disconfirm segmented assimilation theory's emphasis on ethnicity in family structure, and confirm aspects of linear assimilation theory. They point to the salience of structural factors resulting from the migration process and policy, rather than ethnicity, in the evolution of family form among immigrant-origin persons.     

Evidence of Negligible Parenting Influences on Self‐Control,Delinquent Peers,and Delinquency in a Sample of Twins

Behavioral genetic findings continue to call into question the dominant role of parental influence. Utilizing a sample of twins from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we assess the association between parenting behaviors and child self‐control, delinquent peer formation, and delinquency. Our results indicate that genetic influences and non‐shared environmental influences account for variation in these outcomes. We discuss these findings as they relate to theorizing about the role and function of parenting in the etiology of unique traits and behaviors.     

Capital punishment politics and policies in the States, 1977–1997

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty constitutionalin 1976, thirty-eight states have readopted new capital punishmentstatutes consistent with Supreme Court decisions on procedural guidelines. While much of the literature about capital punishmentaddresses the legal aspects of the issue, this essay examines thepolitics of the major institutions of state government in the formulation of capital punishment policies. In some states, thereis agreement between key officials in the institutions on the desirability of, or opposition to, capital punishment. However, inmost other states, the debate over the appropriateness of deathpenalty policies is vigorously waged between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Overall, 432 felons were executedin 30 states between 1977 and 1997. However, no executions haveoccurred in nine of these states. Twelve states have no provisionsfor the death penalty. The majority of executions since 1977 havetaken place in just six states. In addition to the abolitioniststates, the others can be categorized as (1) aggressive executioners,(2) occasional executioners, (3) reluctant executioners, and (4)nonusers where the death penalty has been restored for politicalpurposes but no executions have been carried out in over two decadesand none are likely to be in the immediate future given the minisculenumber of inmates on death row.     

The limits of policy: Rural children and work in the United States and New Zealand, 1870–1920

This article uses public documents and first-hand accounts of late 19th and early 20th centuries child life to examine attempts by public policymakers in the United States and New Zealand to change the quality of rural child life in those countries through compulsory schooling and other related measures. These attempts, however, largely failed due to the demands of the farming economy and the unwillingness of public officials to go to extraordinary lengths on behalf of farm children, as opposed to urban children. Rural children's lives would be changed, not by policy, but by technological developments and the vagaries of the farm economy.     

Rethinking nongovernmental organizations: Neoliberalism, “nonstate” actors,and the politics of recognition in the United States

This article builds on and contributes to the scholarship on social movements and the law by revealing the critical function of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in law and policy in neoliberal times. Building on frame theories in social movement literature, this essay uses the lens of NGO-produced advocacy for binational same-sex couples to consider more broadly the relationship between individual experience, subjectivity, and the discourses and practices employed by NGO actors. It offers an analysis of both how NGOs developed and utilized particular messaging strategies and rhetorical frames to discursively produce a normative image of their constituency, and how constituents navigated and made use of the framing strategies developed by NGOs in their own claims to state rights and recognition. This discussion thus highlights the potentials and the problematics of the NGO model in social movements' efforts toward legal and political change.     

Racial and Ethnic Heterogeneity,Economic Disadvantage,and Gangs: A Macro‐Level Study of Gang Membership in Urban America

There is a lack of macro‐level gang research. The present study addresses this shortcoming by providing a theoretically informed analysis of gang membership in large US cities. More specifically, our goal is to determine whether racial and ethnic heterogeneity conditions the relationship between economic disadvantage and gang membership. Three separate sources of data are used in this study: U.S. Census 2000, Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Services 2000, and National Youth Gang Survey 2002–2006. A series of weighted least‐squares regression models are estimated, finding that both economic disadvantage and racial and ethnic heterogeneity exhibit independent and additive effects on gang membership. In addition, the results show that racial and ethnic heterogeneity has a conditioning relationship with economic disadvantage. Furthermore, our expanded operationalization of the Blau heterogeneity measure indicates that prior research may have underestimated the effects of heterogeneity. The authors discuss these findings in the context of existing gang research and offer directions for future research.     

Rethinking about Construction of China＇s Socialist Democratic Politics in the New Era--Review and Expectation of China＇s Socialist Democratic Politics Construction with 30 -years＇ Implementation of China Constitution

人民民主是我国社会主义国家政权的本质,发展社会主义民主,实现人民当家做主是我国宪法、宪政的核心使命。秉承这一使命,我国现行《宪法》实施30年来,极大地促进了我国社会主义民主政治的发展。然而,在当前我国社会主义建设的新时期,社会主义民主政治也面临着不少问题与挑战。因此,有必要结合既有成就,正视新时期的挑战,通过进一步推进我国现行《宪法》的实施,探索社会主义民主政治发展的新路向。而培育社会主义民主文化,关注公民身份、提升公民的民主行动能力,走社会主义民主渐进发展之路,促进我国社会主义民主制度的完善与创新则是最为重要的环节。     

A cross‐cultural comparison of the self‐concepts of imprisoned young offenders by country,race, and parental status

The Tennessee Self‐Concept Scale (TSCS) was administered to 193 imprisoned male youthful offenders in a southern U.S. state and to 161 male young offenders in one of Her Majesty's young offender institutions in England. The purpose of the study was to determine if the self‐concept scores of the subjects differed significantly according to the subject's ethnicity (Country), whether the youth resided with one or both parents or separate from either parent (Parental Status Residence) at the time of imprisonment, and Race. Analyses reveal the Total Self Concept scores of the U.S. and English offenders, as well as the sub‐scale scores, which together make up the Total Self Concept score, are significantly lower than for normal subjects. The U.S. offenders’ scores were more abnormal than the English offenders, often falling below the lowest normal range score, in some instances so low as to suggest serious psychopathological conditions. Discriminant function (DF) analysis was used to analyze the effects of the 12 self‐concept measures in distinguishing subjects by Country, Race, and Parental Status. Analyses correctly classified group membership more than two thirds of the time for each of the three variables and produced moderate to strong correlation coefficient values for various sub‐scales on each of the three variables. Black subjects in both cultures were found to score significantly lower than their White counterparts, a finding that contradicts numerous earlier studies. Findings also question the labeling theory proposition that the stigma of delinquency and subsequent imprisonment with other delinquents exacerbates one's negative regard of self. And perhaps more important, the findings suggest that cultural influences in both countries, rather than the effects of the stigma of the delinquent label and imprisonment, operate to cause low‐self‐concept long before one becomes involved in the justice system. Findings also reveal that delinquent youths from intact families have significantly higher self‐concepts than those from fragmented families.     

Catalyst or Cause? Legislation and the Demise of Machine Politics in Britain and the United States

In the nineteenth century, British and American parties competed by hiring electoral agents to bribe and treat voters. British parties abruptly abandoned this practice in the 1880s. The conventional explanation is that legislation put an end to agent‐mediated distribution. But this explanation leaves many questions unanswered. Why did the parties use agents for decades, even though they imposed great expense on candidates and were viewed as untrustworthy? And why, after decades of half‐hearted reforms, did the House of Commons pass effective antibribery reforms only in 1883? In our formal model, parties hire agents to solve information problems, but agent‐mediated distribution can be collectively suboptimal. Legislation can serve as a credibility device for shifting to less costly strategies.     

Expressions of IL -1α, IL -1β and IL -13 mRNA in Lung Tissue and Serum of Rats Drown in Fresh WaterCSCD

Objective: To detect the changes of (interleukin, IL)-1α, IL-1βand IL-13 mRNA in lung tissue and serum of drown rats, and to explore the potential value for the diagnosis of drowning in forensic practice. Methods: Eighteen SD rats were randomly divided into drowning group, blank control group and myocardial infarction group (as control group). The serum of right ventricular, the inferior lobe of right lung and the myocardium were taken from the rats in different groups. The expressions of IL- 1α, IL-1βand IL-13 mRNA in the lung tissue and the serum of right ventricular were detected by TaqMan probe method. Results: The expression differences of IL-1α, IL-1βand IL-13 mRNA in lung tissue between drowning group and blank control group, myocardial infarction group were not statistically significant (P>0.05). The expression of IL-1βand IL-13 mRNA in serum of right ventricular increased (P<0.05). The expression differences of IL-1α, IL-1βand IL-13 mRNA in serum between blank control group and myocardial infarction group were not statistically significant (P>0.05). Conclusion: The changes of cytokines IL-1βand IL-13 mRNA in the serum of right ventricular of drown rats are statistical significance, which are highly correlated with drowning. © 2018 by the Editorial Department of Journal of Forensic Medicine.     

Prosecutorial Discretion: An Examination of Substantial Assistance Departures in Federal Crack‐Cocaine and Powder‐Cocaine Cases

Recently there has been a call for research that explores decision‐making at stages prior to sentencing in the criminal justice process. Particularly research is needed under a determinate sentencing system where judicial dispositions are usually restricted by guidelines, which increases the importance of earlier decision‐making stages. As an answer to this call, and in an attempt to build on currents studies on the effects of departures as an intervening mechanism, and a source of unwarranted disparity, this study explores federal sentencing data on offenders convicted of crack‐cocaine and powder‐cocaine offenses. Although decision‐making of all criminal justice actors generally, and prosecutors specifically, has been the subject of much research, studies have yet to resolve the nature and outcome of their “autonomous” discretion. This autonomy becomes especially salient regarding prosecutorial decisions for substantial assistance departures. In deciding who receives a substantial assistance departure, the prosecutor has carte blanche power.     

Renaming States—A Case Study: Changing the Name of the Hungarian State in 2011. Its Background,Reasons, and Aftermath

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - A provision of the Hungarian constitution, adopted in 2011, has renamed the state. The name...