THE TRANSFORMATION OF TROUBLE: Police Certification and State Compensation of Sexual Assault Claims

This article is concerned with the transformation of private troubles into social and legal problems. It is argued that this transformation process involves a micro-and macro-politics of claims-making. Data are presented on police certification and state compensation of sexual assault claims in a mid western state. The largest urban area in this state is distinguished by the collective claims-making of antirape activists, and by the resulting presence of a sexual assault treatment center, which we expected would reduce the influence of racial characteristics on police certifications of innocence, while correspondingly increasing the influence of police certifications on the success of compensation claims. Our results confirm the above expectations. An implication of our findings is that black victims of intraracial sexual assaults are more likely to see their compensation claims succeed, and to see their troubles recognized as social and legal problems in those settings where macro-level antirape efforts have been institutionalized in treatment and/or advocacy centers. More generally, our findings suggest that the transformation of private troubles into social and legal problems can be contingent on collective claims-making in the context considered.     

NONSOCIAL REINFORCEMENT AND HABITUAL CRIMINAL CONDUCT: AN EXTENSION OF LEARNING THEORY *

Drawing on a diverse literature, we explain how criminal behavior is maintained through a process of nonsocial reinforcement, and show that some persons find criminal behavior particularly rewarding. We test our assumptions using surveys of 295 incarcerated adult felons and 150 male college students and intensive focus groups with 40 habitual offenders currently serving time. Results suggest that the experience of committing nonviolent and, particularly, violent crime is intrinsically rewarding and tends to reinforce such behavior among habitual criminals. The endogenous rewards identified center on (1) the neurophysiological high such acts produce and (2) the symbolic meaning of the behavior as it relates to self-concept and identity formation. Findings from the surveys and the focus groups suggest that habitual criminality is sustained partly through the positive sensations (physiological and psychological) those crimes activate within the offender and that those sensations are instrumental in the maintenance and reinforcement of criminal careers. Based on what is known in the literature and what has been learned from our research, it seems that an effective way of integrating this knowledge lies in the direction of a nonsocial reinforcement arm of learning theory.     

Varieties of Responsibility and Organizational Crime

Data from interviews at the head offices of Japanese companies are used to illustrate the highly varied ways in which large organizations hold individuals and subunits responsible for corporate wrongdoing. Noblesse oblige, captain of the ship responsibility, nominated accountability and fault-based responsibility are identified as important types of individual accountability all of which can be unjust and ineffective when decisionmaking is more or less collective. In the face of immense diversity in varieties of responsibility for organizational crime, different strategies for bringing law and organizational culture into alignment are tentatively evaluated.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE INFORMATION POLITY

Within the debates in Britain about changes in contemporary public administration insufficient attention has been focused to date upon the significance of new information and communication technologies. In particular, the operational importance of computer networks to government organizations, and of the information flows supported by them, have hitherto been given scant attention. A primary focus for understanding the current transformation processes in both services and organization occurring in public administration should be upon the role and significance of these new information flows. Informational capabilities are increasing throughout government organization and have considerable implications for the reforging of that set of organizations which comprise British public administration and for the relationships between and within them, as well as for the quality of publicly provided services. The shifts occurring in contemporary public administration can be usefully analysed and understood by reference to the new concept of the 'information polity'.     

It's the government's fault! A cross-section study of economic voting in Denmark, 1990/93

Abstract. The relationship between voters' support for the government and thirteen items tapping their evaluation of the economic situation is analyzed. One data set is collected under Conservative rule and another under Social Democratic rule. The answers are first aggregated into three factors. Two are egotropic: the economic situation of the family, and its unemployment situation. One is sociotropic: worry about the economic development in the country. The impact of the first is strongly significant, and greater than found in comparable studies. The impact of the second is mostly significant, while the impact of the third is the least reliable. We have thus found a clear case of pocketbook voting.