ESTIMATING INTERVENTION EFFECTS IN VARYING RISK SETTINGS: DO POLICE RAIDS REDUCE ILLEGAL DRUG DEALING AT NUISANCE BARS?*

This paper investigates the effectiveness of police raids in reducing drug dealing in and around nuisance bars. We examine effects of both dosage (number of raids) and duration (months) of the intervention, as well as the conditioning effects of land use and population characteristics in shaping the underlying risk levels of drug dealing in the target and surrounding areas. Results indicate that the police intervention suppresses levels of drug dealing during periods of active enforcement, but the effects largely disappear when the intervention is withdrawn. Also, the effects of the intervention are mediated by risk characteristics in target and surrounding areas. Target areas characterized by higher levels of risk are more resistant to intervention effects than those with lower levels of risk. Risk factors in nearby areas are also significant. Bars with high levels of risk arising from land uses in surrounding areas are easier to treat, while bars with high levels of population‐based risk in surrounding areas are harder to treat.     

What Do Juvenile Offenders Know About Being Tried as Adults? Implications for Deterrence

An underlying assumption in the nationwide policy shift toward transferring more juveniles to criminal court has been the belief that stricter, adult sentences will act as either a specific or general deterrent to juvenile crime. With respect to general deterrence—whether transfer laws deter would‐be offenders from committing crimes—it is important to examine whether juveniles know about transfer laws, whether this knowledge deters criminal behavior, and whether juveniles believe the laws will be enforced against them. The current study is one of the first to examine juveniles' knowledge and perceptions of transfer laws and criminal sanctions. We interviewed 37 juveniles who had been transferred to criminal court in Georgia, obtaining quantitative as well as qualitative data based on structured interviewed questions. Four key findings emerged. First, juveniles were unaware of the transfer law. Second, juveniles felt that awareness of the law may have deterred them from committing the crime or may deter other juveniles from committing crimes, and they suggested practical ways to enhance juveniles' awareness of transfer laws. Third, the juveniles generally felt that it was unfair to try and sentence them as adults. Finally, the consequences of committing their crime were worse than most had imagined, and the harsh consequences of their incarceration in adult facilities may have had a brutalizing effect on some juveniles. The implications for general and specific deterrence are discussed.     

SELF-INTEREST,EQUITY, AND CRIME CONTROL: A GAME-THEORETIC ANALYSIS OF CRIMINAL DECISION MAKING

Employing the analytic technique of game theory, we attempt to answer questions about how individuals with different proclivities to use crime to accomplish ends, and different beliefs about society's fairness, are likely to respond to different incentives and disincentives that are derived from strain and neoclassical deterrence theories. Our analysis indicates that the crime control policies typically recommended by adherents of both theories are often logically invalid, given the premises upon which they are supposedly based. For example, our analysis suggests why punishment strategies like “three strikes and you're out” and “entitlement strategies” such as welfare and other short-term redistributive payment programs fail to deter crime. Finally, after including notions of equity with traditional rational choice assumptions, our analysis identifies a mix of theoretically derived strategies that may more effectively deter crime.     

Building sustainable professional capacity in African public sectors: retention constraints in Kenya

Significant investments are being made by aid agencies to increase Master's-level training of African professionals serving in the public sector. Yet no case studies present detailed data or analysis of past efforts to build sustainable human capacity in governmental institutions. The article reviews career and retention data on 169 economists, planners, and statisticians trained under funding provided by 6 long-term aid projects for targeted posts in Kenyan ministries. After reviewing retention constraints revealed by this data and other evidence, it offers recommendations that might assist governments and aid agencies to design and implement capacity building initiatives with a higher probability of ensuring that returned graduates serve for adequate periods of time in the positions for which they were trained. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 , 307–324 (1997). No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 1. No. of Refs: 31.     

Collage of Comment

Is Internet freedom an absolute, universal value like freedom of speech? If there are limits, how and by whom can they be established? Is crying fire or scaling firewalls anymore acceptable in cyberspace than in physical space? What is the impact on the discourse between nations, cultures and individuals? In this section, we gather a collage of comments from various key players from Google to Wikileaks to the US State Department along with comments by one of the most cogent analysts of the Net and the president of Turkey.     

The Central Paradox of the New Digital Age

The recent scandal of the National Security Agency (NSA) “Hoovering” up the metadata on US and foreign citizens from Google, Facebook and Yahoo exposes in the full light of day the central paradox of the new digital age: The Internet enables us to know and learn more than ever before, but enables more to be known and learned about us by both snooping governments and monetizing information corporations alike. In this section, Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen discuss this paradox. We also reprint an interview from 2009 with Mike McConnell, a former chief of the National Security Agency and the driving force behind Booz, Allen, Hamilton's digital security operation. Edward Snowden, the systems administrator who blew the whistle, was employed by the NSA as a subcontractor from Booz, Allen, Hamilton.