Assessing Data Completeness,Quality, and Representativeness of Justifiable Homicides in the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports: A Research Note

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - The most widely used data set for studying police homicides—the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) kept by the Federal Bureau of Investigation—is...     

SERVICE UTILIZATION AND SATISFACTION WITH SERVICE PROVIDERS IN VICTIMS OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT

The aim of the present study was to investigate service utilization and satisfaction with service delivery among victims of rape and sexual assault. The victims completed a questionnaire comprising questions about whether they felt they received the appropriate help following an assault and whether they were met with positive staff attitudes within the public treatment system. The victims completed the questionnaire at three different time points： one month, three months and six months following an assault. Results showed that a high number of victims were satisfied with the support and treatment they received from psychologist and other part of the public help system. However, a high number of victims also reported receiving insufficient help from the social service and the police. Results are discussed in terms of consequences for victim recovery and the importance of receiving feedback from the victims in order to improve public service provision for victims of rape and sexual assault.     

Revocation by consent: The United States Parole Commission's expedited revocation procedure

This article examines the United States Parole Commission's development and use of an expedited revocation procedure for parole violations not involving serious new felony offenses. The majority of parole revocation proceedings involve charges of administrative violations (such as alcohol abuse, drug use, or failure to report) or misdemeanor offenses, and most parolees charged with such violations admit them. When there is no dispute as to the charged violation, the sole issue is the determination of the appropriate sanction.In 1996, the commission began a pilot project designed to expedite the processing of parole violations involving administrative, misdemeanor, and lesser felony charges. Certain alleged parole violators were given the option of waiving the right to a revocation hearing, acknowledging responsibility for the charged violation, and accepting a specified revocation penalty determined by the commission on the basis of the case record. The goal was to conserve commission resources without negatively affecting the due process rights of the alleged parole violator or the integrity of the guideline system used to sanction parole violations. In 1998, the commission incorporated the expedited revocation procedure developed in the pilot project into its permanent regulations. By FY 2003, expedited revocation determinations accounted for 40 percent of all commission revocation actions. The savings generated by the expedited revocation procedure allowed the commission to devote more resources to conducting revocation hearings involving more serious and/or contested charges.     

Law and Firms' Access to Finance

This article examines how a country’s legal origin influencesthe operation of its financial system by using firm-level surveydata across a broad cross-section of countries on the obstaclesthat firms face in raising external finance. Using panel regressions,the article assesses two channels through which legal originmay influence the financial system. We find that the adaptabilityof a country’s legal system is more important for explainingthe obstacles that firms face in accessing external financethan the political independence of the judiciary.     

The End of Regional Middle Eastern Exceptionalism? The Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council after the Arab Uprisings

Up to the Arab uprisings, Middle Eastern exceptionalism served as an important paradigm for analyzing politics in the Arab world. With the numerous upheavals of the Arab uprisings, which caused fundamental political change in significant parts of the Arab world, this paradigm has been challenged for analyzing the domestic affairs of contemporary Middle Eastern politics. The present article aims at contributing to the debate by focusing on the regional dimension of Arab Middle Eastern exceptionalism. The Arab uprisings vitalized regional institutions, particularly the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Two main arguments are critically discussed. First, in sharp contrast to the revolutionary period of the 1950s, the conservative Gulf monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been spearheading regional politics since the Arab uprisings. Second, in striking difference to the conservative character of the Gulf States’ domestic agenda, the means that the Arab League (and the Gulf Cooperation Council) has recently used are innovative—for instance, policies of softening the principle of noninterference in the domestic affairs of other states. However, despite the recent animation of regional institutions under the leadership of Saudi Arabia, it is unclear whether the recent trend of new regionalism will be sustained.     

Sex offender notification: An exploratory assessment of state variation in notification processes

Prior research suggested that when community members are notified that a sex offender is residing in their neighborhood they are likely to engage in precautionary behavior to prevent potential victimization. Since states employ different processes in notifying community members of the presence of a sex offender, it is important to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the various notification processes. The current exploratory study compared the proactive sex offender notification process in Hamilton County, Ohio, with the passive notification process in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Not surprisingly, study findings indicated that the proactive sex offender notification process used in Ohio resulted in better community dissemination of information.