Fire and suicide: a three-year study of self-immolation deaths.

Thirty-two self-immolation deaths by fire, representing about 1% of suicides, occurred in the province of Ontario (population 9 million), Canada, from 1986 through 1988. The victims, mostly male (male/female ratio, 26:6), were between 21 and 71 years old (mean age, 38 years). Although the scene of self-immolation was usually familiar to the deceased, some chose remote locations. Eleven were found dead in motor vehicles. An accelerant, usually gasoline, was used in most cases. Many of these individuals had, at some time, indicated their intent to commit suicide, a few by self-immolation, but only about half had a diagnosed psychiatric illness. Most of the victims had a reason to kill themselves, but the factors that motivated them to chose self-immolation by fire were uncertain. Fourteen individuals died in hospitals from severe burn complications. The remainder were found dead at the scene. The postmortem findings of soot in the airway and elevated carbon monoxide in the blood of most of these victims [the carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) concentration was in one case less than 10%, in ten cases greater than or equal to 10 to 50%, and in seven cases greater than 50%] were helpful in determining that the individuals were not only alive at the time of the fire but also that a significant number died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. The highest levels of carbon monoxide were observed in victims discovered in motor vehicles.     

Private Policing in Context

This article considers the development, growth and significance of private policing in a wider context. Section one suggests that the rebirth of private policing is associated with - and, in effect, demands - a change in the conceptual framework with which policing is analysed. While section one addresses the conceptual context of private policing, section two examines its theoretical context by considering various explanations for the post-war growth of commercial security. Moving from specific to general accounts, it is suggested that two explanations - one based upon sociological accounts of the development of modern societies, the other on genealogical accounts of developing mentalities - provide a crucial context for understanding contemporary changes in policing and governance. In the next section, two of these changes - the growing influence of risk-based policing and the increasing significance of diverse patterns of governance - are considered in the context of the fragmented forms of security provision (commercial, municipal, civil and state policing) which are prevalent today. A short concluding section offers some final thoughts on how these arguments impact on the governance of policing. One of the implications contained in this article is that the re-emergence of private policing needs to be considered not only as a problem, but also as an opportunity to identify and address critical questions of contemporary governance.     

State formation in seventeenth-century Ireland: the Restoration financial settlement, 1660–62

The Irish Restoration financial settlement formed an integral part of the deal that was struck between Irish Protestants and the restored Charles II in the early 1660s. Driven by a desire to retain lands acquired in the 1650s, the Protestant-dominated Irish government crafted a set of financial bills that granted the Crown a perpetual and hereditary revenue in Ireland in return for security of tenure. Based on innovative Cromwellian reforms, the royal government retained many elements of Cromwellian fiscal policy, which transformed the Irish economy into a net contributor to the English Treasury by the 1680s. The customs and excise acts also laid the basis for the emergence of an embryonic state bureaucracy that emerged in Ireland during Charles II's reign. This article examines both the rationale behind the Irish Protestant interest's policies in the early 1660s and the political negotiating that saw them secure favourable land legislation at the expense of those Catholics who had served the monarchy in the 1640s and 1650s.     

Lawyers' Perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court: Is the Court a “Political” Institution?

Do legal elites—lawyers admitted to federal appellate bars—perceive the Supreme Court as a “political” institution? Legal elites differentiate themselves from the mass public in the amount and sources of information about the Court. They also hold near‐universal perceptions of Court legitimacy, a result we use to derive competing theoretical expectations regarding the impact of ideological disagreement on various Court perceptions. Survey data show that many legal elites perceive the Court as political in its decision making, while a minority perceive the Court as activist and influenced by external political forces. Ideological disagreement with the Court's outputs significantly elevates political perceptions of decision making, while it exhibits a null and moderate impact on perceptions of activism and external political influence, respectively. To justify negative affect derived from ideological disagreement, elites highlight the political aspects of the Court's decision making rather than engage in “global delegitimization” of the institution itself.