Does Minority Representation in Police Agencies Reduce Assaults on the Police?

Following recent high-profile deaths of unarmed African American suspects at the hands of police, a number of reforms have been proposed, among them improved minority representation in the ranks of law enforcement organizations. Previous research has explored the effects of minority representation on complaints against the police and other behaviors, but very few studies have examined violence toward the police. We merged several data sources together and tested the hypothesis that minority representation within police departments is inversely associated with assaults against the police. In an extension of prior research, we also conducted separate analyses for African American, Hispanic, and Asian officer representation. The results did not support the expectation that diversity within police organizations results in improved police-citizen interactions, as measured by assaults on police. This study is one of the few to examine how different measures of minority representation in police agencies relates to assaults on the police.     

Risky Business: Behavioral Profiles of Sexually-Impulsive Adults in the United States

The goal of the present study is to clarify the heterogeneity of risky behaviors (such as substance use, gambling, and crime) and psychiatric disorders among a large sample of 5304 nationally representative adults who acknowledge engaging in sexually-impulsive behaviors. Participants were selected from more than 43,000 respondents of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Latent class analysis was used to identify subgroups of sexually-impulsive individuals and then multinomial regression was used to identify the relative risk for comorbidity with related impulsive behaviors or psychiatric disorders. Results showed that a four class solution provided the best fit and revealed higher odds of experiencing specific comorbid risky behaviors or psychiatric disorders based on class membership. Results challenge the widely held notion that self-regulatory behaviors are impacted globally, and instead suggest that certain self-regulatory behaviors are more likely to be impacted when other underlying conditions are present in sexually-impulsive individuals. Implications of this heterogeneity and recommendations for health care providers are discussed.     

Tennessee Citizen Police Academies: Program and Participant Characteristics

Citizen police academies (CPAs) are popular programs developed by police departments with the twin goals of educating the public about law enforcement and improving police-community relationships. Citizen police academies can help law enforcement agencies by providing them with graduates who may support police departments through volunteering, crime reporting, advocacy, and crime prevention. CPAs may aid citizens by providing them with opportunities to work with the police to make their communities safer. During the course of the citizen police academy, not only will participants have opportunities to learn more about the police depar'tment and their communities, but they may be given opportunities to patrol with police officers, solve mock crime scenes, or attend moot court. This study examines citizen police academies in Tennessee and provides an exploratory investigation of the programs and its participants. Data obtained from 31 police departments indicate CPA programs with more than a 20 year history in Tennessee. Results of a pretest and posttest of 4 citizen police academies’ participants found that attending these programs significantly and positively changed participants’ familiarity with the police chief, local law enforcement, community crime, and the criminal justice system.     

Compensation for nuclear damage: a comparison among the international regime,Japan and China

Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, how the compensation system for nuclear damage should be improved has obtained broad attention. The compensation system, including liability rules, insurance and government involvement, does not only concern to what extent the victims can be sufficiently compensated, but is also relevant to create incentives for the nuclear industry to enhance safety. International compensation regimes for nuclear damage started to emerge since 1960s, but still fail to engage some (potentially) big “nuclear power” ones. The Japanese and Chinese systems are such ones which received less attention until recently. This paper will, on the one hand, engage in a positive study by giving a comparison between the international regime, the Japanese and the Chinese system; on the other hand, provide a normative analysis by using economic criteria to examine the efficiency of the systems and formulate suggestions for reform.     

Governing international freshwater resources: an analysis of treaty design

International rivers create complex relationships between their riparian states, which can contribute to economic, political, and social losses. Treaties provide a means for states to coordinate their actions in managing international river disputes to minimize these losses. However, there is little knowledge about treaty content and the factors influencing treaty design. We test whether a relationship exists between the challenges of negotiating, complying, and distributing the gains in bilateral, multilateral, and basin-wide negotiation contexts and the depth of cooperation along with the degree of institutionalization. While the great challenges confronting multilateral or basin-wide negotiations can produce treaties that focus on joint gains and shallow cooperation to secure the signature of riparians, we find that they can also provide opportunities for deeper, more behavior-altering, cooperation. To manage the difficulties of maintaining multilateral cooperation, we find a higher degree of institutionalization. We also find that bilateral negotiations provide states with opportunities for deeper cooperation, but a lower degree of institutionalization.     

The efficacy of foot patrol in violent places

Objectives

This study examines the effectiveness of foot patrol in violent micro-places. A large urban police department deployed foot patrol in micro-places (hot spots) for a period of 90 days for two shifts each day. Our objective is to determine whether this activity impacted violent crime in these hot spots and whether spatial displacement of crime occurred.

Methods

Eight eligible foot beat locations were set by examining crime rates for previous years in order to identify micro-places of high criminal activity. We employed a quasi-experimental design comparing the four treatment to the four control areas, estimating panel-specific autoregressive models for 30 weeks prior to and 40 weeks after the treatment.

Results

Time series models revealed statistically significant reductions in violent crime in the micro-places receiving foot patrol treatment, while no such reductions were observed in the control areas. The deterrent effect, however, was short and dissipated quickly. Control areas did not experience any crime prevention benefit during this time period. No evidence of crime displacement to spatially contiguous areas was detected.

Conclusions

This contributes to the growing body of knowledge that focused police strategies within hot spots impact violent crime. Specifically, the implementation of foot patrol in high crime hot spots led to measurable reductions in aggravated assaults and robberies, without displacing crime to contiguous areas.

     

Retrieving administrative data to assess long-term outcomes: a case study of the 23-year follow-up of the Milwaukee domestic violence experiment

Objectives

To describe how social scientists, criminal justice practitioners, and administrative agencies collected administrative data to follow-up a criminological experiment after two decades. To make recommendations that will guide similar long-term follow-ups.

Methods

A case study approach describes the processes of and sociological benefits to collecting administrative data to assess criminal justice and life-course outcomes.

Results

While maintaining experimental integrity, we developed, executed, and verified processes to retrieve arrest, mortality, and residential data for the experimental subjects, which enabled us to complete the longest ever follow-up of a criminal justice experiment.

Conclusions

When experiments have policy implications, administrative data may be preferable to survey data for assessing primary effects. Successful social science research can be conducted in conjunction with multiple administrative agencies.

     

Structuring Judicial Discretion in China: Exploring the 2014 Sentencing Guidelines

In recent years, a range of western jurisdictions has introduced reforms designed to restrict and guide judicial discretion at sentencing. The reforms enacted include mandatory sentencing laws and guiding statutes prescribing sentencing purposes and principles as well as important aggravating and mitigating factors. However, formal guidelines are the most promising and well-studied innovation. We may now add China to the growing list of countries that have recognized the utility of guidelines. Over the past decade, China has slowly developed sentencing guidelines for its courts. The new guidelines contain both general directions with respect to the determination of sentence as well as specific numerical guidelines for common offences. The guidelines do not follow the approach taken by the US schemes, many of which employ a two-dimensional sentencing grid. Instead, China has adopted a strategy consisting of “Starting Point” sentences which are then adjusted by the court to reflect relevant mitigating and aggravating factors. This approach is much closer to the guidelines developed in England and Wales and those proposed but not yet implemented in New Zealand and Israel. In this article, we explore the new Chinese guidelines and provide a limited comparative analysis with guidelines in other jurisdictions. England and Wales is selected as the principal comparator since it has developed and implemented a comprehensive system consisting of both offence-specified guidelines as well as generic guidelines.     

The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh and International Law

The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh was re-established in 2010 in order to hold the perpetrators of the 1971 War accountable for international crimes; namely, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Trial has already begum to operate and has been dealing with various challenges. The basis of the trial proceedings is the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973. The Parliament of Bangladesh enacted the Act in accordance with international law shortly after the War. This paper assesses the key legal issues that arise from the context of the 1973 Act, and will provide a reflection on trial proceedings in light of international law. It concludes that any initiatives to address the impunity of perpetrators and offer redress to the victims of gross human rights violations should be applauded, while any trial proceedings that do not follow appropriate standards for a fair trial and offer the right of due process should be deprecated.     

United Nations Mission to Kosovo: in Violation of the Right to Life?

International organisations are expected to abide to human rights standards in the course of their operations. However, to what standards are transitional regimes held accountable? Should the UN exercising executive powers be held accountable to the same or higher standard than a national government? In this article, the author discusses the legal basis relied upon by a UN internal human rights mechanism, the Human Rights Advisory Panel (HRAP), that declared the UNMIK in violation of its positive obligation to investigate enshrined in Article 2 of the EHRC. A closer look at the opinions issued by the HRAP reveals that it might have misapplied the standard set forth in the relevant jurisprudence of the European Court for Human Rights, and thereby held UNMIK accountable under stricter requirements.