NEW FEDERALISM, OLD REMEDIES, AND CORRECTIONS POLICYMAKING

Corrections litigation is changing, but new case law does not authorize a wholesale cutback of prisoner constitutional rights. Supreme Court cases urge a return to traditional compensatory damages as the remedy for unconstitutional acts and conditions. Monitoring of state correctional performance by federal courts is disfavored. The author believes that basic rights of prisoners will remain protected, but that systematic planning and exemplary programs will erode. Under the money damages model, legal reform should thus urge waiver of the state sovereign immunity provided by the Eleventh Amendment.     

WHAT DO YOU TEACH POLICY STUDIES EDUCATORS ABOUT COMPUTERS?

Computers are no longer an idea of the future. They are, rather, a common and even expected tool of the public administrator. The authors assert that students of the discipline must have a practical knowledge of computer applications. While it is not necessary that advanced computer engineering be studied, students should nevertheless be made familiar with the uses of the computer in administration. Beyond learning how to operate a computer, the article states that students, especially adult learners, first have to be made not to fear this instrument of the age of information so that they will be comfortable when learning its applications.     

Recidivism as a feedback process: An analytical model and empirical validation

A feedback model of the criminal justice system (CJS) incorporates the continuing input of people arrested for the first time (virgin arrests) and the recycling of individuals with prior arrests (recidivists). Such a model is needed to enable CJS planners to assess the impact of possible actions on the future arrests and system workloads. Using an empirically determined estimate of the number of virgin arrests in the U.S. as input to a feedback model of the CJS, recidivism parameters, probability of rearrest, and average time between arrests were estimated by matching the output of the model to the total arrests in the U.S. in the period 1960–70. The average deviation between the model output and total U.S. arrests was minimized at less than 4% when the probability of rearrest is equal to 0.875 and the average time between arrests equal to 1.1. years. The relative sensitivity of total arrests to changes in virgin arrests and the probability of rearrest are also presented.     

Case involving differentiation of deer and human bone fragments

In a recent Louisiana forensic anthropology case, it was necessary to attempt species identification of six small bone fragments. The primary concern was whether or not they matched the fractured humerus of a woman killed by two shotgun blasts and then disposed of in the Mississippi River. These tiny fragments were recovered by law enforcement officers inside a jeep pickup and at the gas station where the vehicle had been cleaned. The police suspect claimed that these fragments were from a deer that he had recently killed. The small size of the pieces precluded positive recognition of human versus nonhuman origin based upon gross morphology and cortical thickness. Microscopic examination was possible. This analysis involved comparison of the unknown specimens to reference deer and human thin sections including bone recovered from the woman during autopsy. Examination of the jeep and gas station fragments revealed no plexiform bone, secondary (not primary) osteons, and variability in size and shape of the osteons and Haversian canals. These and other variables identified the bone fragments as human.     

THE EFFECTS OF SELECTION SYSTEM ON JURY COMPOSITION

The Supreme Court and judicial scholars have argued that the demographic composition of grand and petit juries is important. To the extent that composition is a function of the selection system used, this suggests that the method of selecting grand and petit jurors is important. This article tests the link between selection system and composition by comparing the representation of blacks, Mexican-Americans, and women on grand juries selected by commissioners with the same three classes' representation on grand juries selected at random from the voter registration lists. For these jurisdictions, only female representation is consistently higher under random selection procedures.