The House of Lords: A Deliberative Democratic Defence

This article defends the idea of an appointed House of Lords using deliberative democratic theory. The analysis suggests that while one might well think that current appointment procedures leave much to be desired, a reformed but still appointed House of Lords would be better at maximising the deliberative democratic qualities of inclusiveness and the scrutiny of arguments than a fully elected one; indeed, that election might do actual damage. It suggests that the debate thus far has been focused too narrowly on an outdated account of democracy, and too narrowly on the peculiarities of the House of Lords in isolation from its institutional context.     

PATTERNS OF REPORTING NONCRIMINAL INCIDENTS TO THE POLICE

Reasons for citizen reporting to the police have not been systematically studied. This paper presents the results of an inquiry into the patterns of reporting noncriminal incidents. These events far outnumber crimes reported to the police in most jurisdictions and present unique opportunities for research. Four reporting patterns are presented and discussed: maintaining social boundaries: relieving unpleasant situations; counter-reporting; and correcting hazardous situations. The consequences of these patterns for policing and criminology are outlined in terms of citizens defining the most probable outcomes of situations.     

Tools for Anticipating Asylum Denials: An Application to Afghan Refugees in Pakistan, 1997-2001

The growing tendency toward non-compliance with internationalobligations to refugees requires UNHCR to make contingency plansfor asylum denials. Making such plans calls for tools, suchas game theory and confrontation analysis, that link non-compliancein refugee asylum with the configuration of interests for asylumand donor countries in a potential crisis. We illustrate suchtools in a case study of Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 1997–2001,which generated asylum denials by Pakistan ranging from briefborder closings to threats of mass refoulement, linked to thewithholding of assistance by the United States and other donors.We also consider the prospects for using these tools to informcontingency planning for an impending crisis.     

DEMOGRAPHY,POLICE BEHAVIOR,AND DETERRENCE *

This paper presents a model of police response to changes in crime frequencies and a criminal response model characterizing the deterrent effects of police arrest behavior. These models are estimated for data taken from police department records in the city of St. Louis. The underlying theoretical conception is that arrests constitute communication to criminals in general in addition to the specific deterrence achieved through the arrest it see Disaggregation in both space and time enables identification of the statistical models through measurement rather than through statistical manipulation. The models are estimated for burglaries under varying demographic conditions and using data organized through aggregation in time (by weeks) and space (by census tracts). Under some demographic conditions, both police response and deterrent effects on criminal behavior are enhanced. Under other demographic conditions, these effects are suppressed. Enhancements and attenuations arising from specific demographic conditions for both the police response and criminal response models have a similar pattern, consistent with the underlying communication hypothesis.     

THE PUBLIC SERVICE ORIENTATION: ISSUES AND DILEMMAS

The public service orientation sets service for the public as the key organizational value, providing motivation and purposes both for the local authority and its staff. This article describes the public service orientation before focusing on the major issues which this orientation raises. In particular, it examines service for, not to, the public; the ways in which the public service Orientation differs from consumerism; and the relationship to the political process. Finally, the article surveys the dilemmas posed by the public service orientation.