Trade secrets versus Cost Benefit Analysis

We argue that administrative agencies should base their decisions on Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) for two reasons: first the well known ex ante effect that CBA make public decisions more rational and second the little discussed ex post effect that the agency’s CBA provides valuable information to judicial or political bodies controlling the agency. The ex post purpose of CBA implies (judicial review of administrative decisions) or requires (political review) the public availability of the CBA. A conflict between this public availability and the protection of trade secrets arises, if the costs or benefits of a decision depend on information which are trade secrets. As a solution to this conflict, we propose a nonpublic in camera court procedure which leaves little discretion to the agency.     

Analoge Anwendung des § 107 Abs 4 StPO auf erfolgreiche Beschwerden nach § 87 StPO

Die Pflicht, nach einem erfolgreichen Einspruch oder einer erfolgreichen Beschwerde gegen eine Hausdurchsuchung den "entsprechenden Rechtszustand" herzustellen (§ 107 Abs 4 StPO), beinhaltet nicht, die sichergestellten Gegenst?nde wieder herauszugeben. Diese dürfen jedoch nicht dazu verwendet werden, Haftentscheidungen oder die Anklage zu begründen.     

The Influence of Victim Vulnerability and Gender on Police Officers’ Assessment of Intimate Partner Violence Risk

This study investigated the influence of victim vulnerability factors and gender on risk assessment for intimate partner violence (IPV). 867 cases of male and female perpetrated IPV investigated by Swedish police officers using the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER) were examined. For male-to-female IPV, victim vulnerability factors were associated with summary risk judgments and risk management recommendations. For female-to-male IPV, vulnerability factors were more often omitted, and consistent associations were not found between vulnerability factors, summary risk judgments, and risk management. Results indicate that B-SAFER victim vulnerability factors can assist in assessing male-to-female IPV risk. Further research is necessary to examine the use of B-SAFER victim vulnerability factors for female-to-male IPV, as results showed victim vulnerability factors to be less relevant to officers’ decision making, particularly their management recommendations. However, several variables external to the B-SAFER, such as the availability of management strategies may account for these findings.     

Dying to win: Elections,political violence,and institutional decay in Kenya

This paper examines the lessons learned from Kenya's 2007 post election violence and what has happened since then. It notes that the root causes of the violence still persist, have not been addressed, and easily could be reignited. Faced with a situation where institutions and the rule of law have been weakened deliberately and where diffused violence is widespread, both Kenya's transition to democracy and the fate of the nation remain vulnerable. The argument here is that the problems faced in holding and managing elections in conflict situations often are not simply technical. Instead, in Kenya and elsewhere, many difficulties are symptomatic of larger political and institutional questions related to democratic change that are more difficult to analyze in causal terms or to address.     

Adapting the Chumbley Score to Match Striae on Land Engraved Areas (LEAs) of Bullets,

The same‐source problem remains a major challenge in forensic toolmark and firearm examination. Here, we investigate the applicability of the Chumbley method (J Forensic Sci, 2018, 63, 849; J Forensic Sci, 2010, 55, 953) (10,12), developed for screwdriver markings, for same‐source identification of striations on bullet LEAs. The Hamby datasets 44 and 252 measured by NIST and CSAFE (high‐resolution scans) are used here. We provide methods to identify parameters that minimize error rates for matching of LEAs, and a remedial algorithm to alleviate the problem of failed tests, while increasing the power of the test and reducing error rates. For 85,491 land‐to‐land comparisons (84,235 known nonmatches and 1256 known matches), the adapted test does not provide a result in 176 situations (originally more than 500). The Type I and Type II error rates are 7.2% (6105 out of 84,235) and 21.4% (271 out of 1256), respectively. This puts the proposed method on similar footing as other single‐feature matching approaches in the literature.