Reassessing the Influence of Criminal History in Federal Criminal Courts

Abstract

Prior sentencing research indicates that defendants with more extensive criminal histories receive more punitive dispositions and that criminal history influences sentencing decisions over and above its influence on the guideline recommended sentence. To date, these additional effects of criminal history have almost exclusively been treated as linear effects. However, there are plausible reasons to expect that criminal history could have curvilinear effects on sentencing outcomes that taper off at higher scores. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential curvilinear effects of defendant criminal history on incarceration, sentence length, and downward departure decisions in federal criminal courts. The findings suggest that criminal history has curvilinear effects on each of these sentencing outcomes. As criminal history category increases, defendants receive more severe sentences, net of other factors, but only up to a certain threshold level, at which point criminal history effects taper off and even reverse.     

Narratives of the EU in Israel/Palestine: narrative “stickiness” and the formation of expectations

ABSTRACT

Analysis of narrative can help identify the expectations actors hold about each other in international relations. This article triangulates a mix of elite interviews, media content analysis and an original Q-sort public opinion methodology to map the presence of narratives about EU relations among young Israelis and Palestinians. Our aim is not to explain the effects of EU public diplomacy in these countries. Instead we aim to identify the narrative “terrain” or conditions that the EU communicates to and with and, drawing on feminist and everyday narrative studies, to examine the role of affect and identity to explain why some narratives are more “sticky” than others in those societies. We find, first, a broad recognition that the EU’s capacity to act in international relations is necessary but limited in the face of greater challenges in the international system, and indeed, within the EU itself. We find, second, little evidence that young people radically reshape the narratives they encounter in their public spheres, but nevertheless some important divisions emerge that pose problems for how EU policymakers can communicate consistently without dismaying some citizens in third countries.     

新时代青年政治引领的价值、挑战和策略

青年是中华民族伟大复兴的生力军,是与新时代脉搏同步跳动的新力量.青年阶段是人生的"拔节孕穗期",最需要精心引领、引导和栽培.切实做好青年政治引领,对于为实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦凝聚青春磅礴力量具有重要的时代意义和价值.新时代青年思想活跃、思维敏捷,主体意识和参与意识强,交流交往的国际化程度高,信息获取及时广泛,价值认同多元并存,关注点发散且迁移多变.传统的青年政治引领,面临形式枯燥、吸引力弱化、受外部环境影响和干扰较大等挑战,工作相对乏力.针对青年工作的现实需要,提出做好新时代青年政治引领的对策:一是夯实理论基础;二是营造成长环境;三是突出价值认同;四是创新方式方法;五是践行青春担当.     

Immigration effects on crime in a midwestern,nontraditional destination: a neighborhood-level analysis of Cincinnati,Ohio

Abstract

A wide-ranging body of research on the immigration-crime relationship has shown that immigration does not increase community crime levels. However, most prior studies have focused on traditional immigrant destinations or border cities. This study addresses several gaps in this line of research by exploring immigration effects on neighborhood levels of Violent and Property Index crimes for the 2008 to 2014 period in Cincinnati, Ohio – a Midwestern, mid-sized, nontraditional immigrant destination. Overall, our findings are consistent with previous research and indicate that controlling for other factors, the percent foreign-born has largely neutral effects on census tract-level crime rates in Cincinnati. Moreover, our findings show no signs of indirect effects of immigration on crime through neighborhood disadvantage.     

Anti-Social Capital in Former Members of Non-State Armed Groups: A Case Study of Colombia

Illegal organizations, like mafia syndicates, gangs, and insurgencies, are often highly cohesive and hostile toward the outside world. Such groups cultivate a particular form of “anti-social” capital, which relies on ingroup bonding and limits outgroup bridging for the purpose of commissioning illicit acts. We argue that experiences within the group leave members with varying intensities of anti-social capital, and that higher intensities lead to significantly weaker relationships with political institutions and civil society, even many years after they exit the group. We test this theory using survey data from 1,485 former members of insurgent and paramilitary groups in Colombia, along with insights from 68 qualitative interviews. We find strong evidence that anti-social capital has individually varying and sticky effects on former members. These effects are pervasive and intense, and exhibit surprising and counterintuitive properties: former members of pro-state militia with higher levels of anti-social capital are systematically less likely to trust political institutions, while members of peasant-based insurgent groups with high levels of anti-social capital are less likely to participate in their communities.