Law enforcement information sharing: A Florida case study

Many attempts have been made over the last several decades to improve communication among law enforcement agencies. This article is a case study of a “low-level” data sharing project in Florida that could serve as a national model. The Florida Law Enforcement Data Sharing Consortium is a partnership between the University of Central Florida and more than one hundred law enforcement agencies. It offers an inexpensive, yet technically advanced alternative to the proprietary data sharing model. Its distributed architecture was endorsed by the Markle Foundation, the 9/11 Commission, and the 2004 National Security Act. Civil liberties concerns raised by this and other types of data sharing projects are discussed.     

Constitutional Reform, the Lord Chancellor, and Human Rights: The Battle of Form and Substance

This article examines the impact of the Human Rights Act on the government's constitutional proposals for reform of the role of the Lord Chancellor and the appointment of the judiciary. It also looks at the uncertain acceptance of a 'human rights' culture by the department charged with lead responsibility for its implementation. It concludes that the government went further than was required in reforming the role of the Lord Chancellor. As a consequence, considerable - and possibly undue – weight now hangs on the enlarged role of the Lord Chief Justice. Meanwhile, the Department of Constitutional Affairs and its ministers have rejected the 'rule of law' brief of the Lord Chancellor without clarity as to where such responsibilities might now be adequately located within government.     

Routine crime in exceptional times: The impact of the 2002 Winter Olympics on citizen demand for police services

Despite their rich theoretical and practical importance, criminologists have paid scant attention to the patterns of crime and the responses to crime during exceptional events. Throughout the world large-scale political, social, economic, cultural, and sporting events have become commonplace. Natural disasters such as blackouts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis present similar opportunities. Such events often tax the capacities of jurisdictions to provide safety and security in response to the exceptional event, as well as to meet the “routine” public safety needs. This article examines “routine” crime as measured by calls for police service, official crime reports, and police arrests in Salt Lake City before, during, and after the 2002 Olympic Games. The analyses suggest that while a rather benign demographic among attendees and the presence of large numbers of social control agents might have been expected to decrease calls for police service for minor crime, it actually increased in Salt Lake during this period. The implications of these findings are considered for theories of routine activities, as well as systems capacity.     

The relationship between education, experience, and police performance

This study used data from 299 police officers from 12 municipal police departments across the state of Virginia to determine the relationship between education and police performance. Performance was measured by supervisor evaluations of each officer's overall performance, communication skills, public relations skills, report writing skills, response to new training, decision making ability, and commitment to the police department. Significant correlations were found between education and most measures of performance. Most importantly, the results show a significant correlation between overall performance and education (r=24, p.<001). The only variables not proving to be significantly related to education were objective measures of the volume of arrests, number of times the officer required discipline, and number of accidents. Interestingly, the benefits of a college education do not become apparent until police officers gain experience. In addition, police, officers with only a high school diploma decreased in overall performance after five years of experience.     

India's “Grand Strategy” for the Indian Ocean: Mahanian Visions

This article considers how India sees the Indian Ocean, and in particular its drive to make the Indian Ocean, “India's Ocean.” Various comparisons and links are made. Firstly there is the role and application of Mahanian tenets of “sea-power,” in particular naval projection, control of sea-routes and access to bases. Second is the contrast between the earlier maritime visions of Kavalam Panikkar (1945) and Keshav Vaidya (1949) and the continental mindset evident under Nehru and his successors which saw neglect of India's maritime power. Third is the strategic vision evident since 1998 with the BJP government and maintained by the Congress administration since 2004. This has underpinned India's Naval Chief of Staff Arun Prakash's current eloquence on the possibilities opening up for India in and around the Indian Ocean. Questions of intent (strategic doctrine) and the application of “state power” (spending, bases, ships and equipment, geographical reach) are woven together.     

Federal Reimbursement for Mandates on State and Local Governments

One of the remedies sought by state and local officials for the growing burden of federal mandates is a mandate reimbursement law. A major purpose of mandate reimbursement is to deter Congress from imposing excessive costs on state and local governments by making it fully accountable for its actions. The paper begins by extending the economic theory of grants to mandates and reimbursed mandates. It goes on to assess the benefits and costs of mandate reimbursement, and to distinguish mandates that should be reimbursed, should a reimbursement program prove desirable, from those that should not. Then, using the economic theory of grants and mandates, the paper compares reimbursed mandates with two alternatives for accomplishing the same objective, compensating grants and procedural rules. It concludes that the latter are more promising than mandate reimbursement.     

Fertility,development, and family planning, 1970–1980: An analysis of cases weighted by population

A series of related studies (Freedman and Berelson, 1976; Mauldin and Berelson, 1978; and Tsui and Bogue, 1978) have presented empirical findings based on multiple regression analysis which indicated that family planning program effort (FP), as measured by an index developed by Lapham and Mauldin (1972), was the single most important predictor of (or influence on) fertility reduction in less-developed countries (LDCs). The basic results have been confirmed repeatedly. A more extensive data set was used to extend the analysis to a comparison of results of corss-sectional models circa 1970 and 1980. The study builds upon the results of past studies yet differs from them in several ways. All the variables in the present study were measured at 2 points in time: circa 1970 and circa 1980, allowing a comparison between cross-sectional models for 1970 and 1980. Among the cases included in this multivariate analysis was China, a country usually excluded for lack of data. The analysis was extend to 85 countries. Cases were weighted by population, having the effect of increasing the impact of larger countries such as India and China on the outcome of the analysis. Total fertility rate (TFR) was used as an indicator of fertility. For 1970, family planning program effort had the strongest direct influence on fertility (a result consistent with previous studies). Life expectancy at birth was the other direct influence. The direct influence of life expectancy at birth was less than that of family planning, but the total influence was greater. After life expectancy and family planning, school enrollment and relative educational status of women had the strongest indirect and total influences. The other variables all had a positive influence on fertility. When the total variance attributable was considered, directly and indirectly to each of the independent variables, urbanization, carlorie supply, and per capita gross national product all accounted for less than 5% of the variance in fertility, all of it indirect. Life expectancy, family planning, and school enrollment each explained (directly plus indirectly) more than 10% of the variance in fertility. The pattern differed somewhat for 1980. Calorie supply, per capita gross national product, and relative educational status of women had no influence, direct or indirect on fertility. Also for 1980, life expectancy had a stronger direct influence on fertility than family planning. Overall, life expectancy at birth, family planning program effort, and total school enrollment emerged as the principal influences on fertility.     

Reviews

Terry Cox and Gary Littlejohn, eds., Kritsman and the Agrarian Marxists. (Library of Peasant Studies, No. 7), London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1984, 149 pp., £18.50.

S. G. Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies eds., Materials for a balance of the Soviet national economy 1928–1930 (with foreword by Richard Stone). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xxiv + 467 pp., £35.00, $59.50.

I. Birman, Ekonomika nedostach. New York: Chalidze Publications, 1983, 470 pp.

Richard F. Staar, USSR Foreign Policies After Detente. Stanford, Ca: Hoover Institution Press, 1985, xxvii + 300 pp., h/b $26.95, p/b $10.95.

John J. Maresca, To Helsinki: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1973–1975. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1985, xiii + 292 pp., £47.50.

Mark V. Kauppi and R. Craig Nation eds., The Soviet Union and the Middle East in the 1980s. Lexington, Mass, and Toronto: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company, 1983, ix + 293 pp., £25.00.

Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1939. New York: St. Martin's, 1984, xii + 310 pp., $29.95.

Alfred L. Monks, Soviet Military Doctrine: 1960 to the Present. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1985, xii + 351 pp., $34.50.

Jeffrey D. Boutwell, Paul Doty, and Gregory F. Treverton eds., The Nuclear Confrontation in Europe. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 247 pp., £22.50.

Condoleezza Rice, The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948–1983: Uncertain Allegiance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984, xiv + 303 pp. Tables. £40.40.

Vitaly Rapoport and Yuri Alexeev, High Treason: Essays on the History of the Red Army, 1918–1938. Translated by Bruce Adams. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, xvii + 436 pp., £35.00.

Robert Conquest, Inside Stalin's Secret Police. NKVD Politics 1936–1939. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1985, ix + 222 pp., $22.95.

Jeffrey T. Richelson, Sword and Shield. The Soviet Intelligence and Security Apparatus. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1986, xix + 279 pp., $39.95 h/b, $16.95 p/b.

P. Marer, Dollar GNPs of the USSR and Eastern Europe. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London: For the World Bank. 1985, xiii + 241 pp., £20.00.

Moshe Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia. London: Methuen, 1985, viii + 354 pp., £19.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Eric P. Hoffmann and Robbin F. Laird, Technocratic Socialism: the Soviet Union in the Advanced Industrial Era. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, viii + 228 pp. h/b £37.50, p/b £12.50.

Robert Cassen ed., Soviet Interests in the Third World. London: Sage Publications, 1985, xi + 329 pp., h/b £27.50, p/b £10.50.

Václav Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central‐Eastern Europe, Ed. John Keane, Introduction by Steven Lukes. London, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Johannesburg: Hutchinson, 1985, 228 pp., £16.95.

Michael M. Boll, Cold War in the Balkans: American Foreign Policy and the Emergence of Communist Bulgaria, 1943–1947. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984, ix + 250 pp., £27.50.

Edward R. Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 259 pp., £17.95.

Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, viii + 384 pp., £12.95.

David W. Lovell, Trotsky's Analysis of Soviet Bureaucratization. London: Croom Helm, 1985, ix + 82 pp., £7.95.

Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist, Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1984, xi + 398 pp., £19.95.

Hans‐Georg Heinrich, Hungary. Politics, Economics and Society. London: Frances Pinter, 1986, xviii + 198 pp., £17.50.

Henry Rollet, La Pologne au XX^e Siècle. Paris: éditions A. Pedone, 1985, 603 pp., 240F.

Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski, Ein schwieriger Dialog. Aufzeichnungen zu Ereignissen in Polen 1981–1984. Mit einem Vorwort von Peter Bender. Econ Verlag. Düsseldorf‐Wien 1985. 269 pp. Index. DM. 38,00.

John Ambler, Denis J. B. Shaw and Leslie Symons eds., Soviet and East European Transport Problems. London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, xix + 260 pp., £19.95.

Joan de Bardeleben, The Environment and Marxism‐Leninism: The Soviet and East German Experience. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1985, xi + 338 pp., no price quoted.

John R. Lampe, The Bulgarian Economy in the Twentieth Century. London: Croom Helm, 1986 x + 245 pp., £25.00.

Pedro Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1963–1983. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, xviii + 299 pp., $27.50.

Boris Meissner, Partei, Staat und Nation in der Sowjetunion. Ausgewdhlte Beitrage. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1985, 544 pp., DM148.00.

Jiri Hochman, The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collective Security, 1934–1938. Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984. 253 pp. $32.95.