Foxhunting and the Conservatives

The Conservatives are pledged to have a free vote in Parliament on legislation in Government time to reverse the 2004 Hunting Act. This Act bans hunting with dogs. The Countryside Alliance has opposed the Hunting Act as part of campaigns to defend its notion of rural interests. The Countryside Alliance's success in gaining the Tory pledge could be underscored by a Tory hope that hunting supporters give decisive support for Tory candidates in marginal Parliamentary constituencies. However, the Tory leadership may find it politically difficult to give early priority to legislative attempts to repeal the Hunting Act. Moreover, it is likely to require a large Tory majority and years of waiting before a Tory government is able and willing to complete a repeal of the hunting ban.     

Before There Was Enron,There Was Orange County: A Study of Local Government Financial‐Oversight Committees

Recent financial scandals in some of America's largest corporations have prompted popular speculation that a similar crisis may occur within the public sector and, therefore, that government and nonprofit organizations should be required to adopt financial oversight practices similar to those that are mandated of publicly‐traded corporations in the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002. One of those mandated practices—the use of financial‐oversight committees—is already a common practice in public organizations, though little is known about its effectiveness. This study uses a national sample of local governments to examine whether financial‐oversight committees improve financial control and strengthen stakeholder confidence in financial reporting. The findings provide preliminary support for the use of financial‐oversight committees as an effective tool to improve financial accountability in local government.     

Of ‘Misguided Notions’ and Misguiding Nations: The Growth Report,Poverty and Climate Change

The Growth Report neither addresses the issue of growth and poverty, nor considers the implications of binding constraints on global carbon emissions, which invalidate the argument for global growth as a positive‐sum game. The polarisation of the debate on growth and poverty reflects different perspectives and priorities between economists, environmentalists and development professionals, and the absence of constructive dialogue between them. “Growth or no growth?” is the wrong question. Reconciling poverty eradication and tackling climate change requires us rather to ask what our ultimate objectives are, and how economic policy can best achieve them.     

THE IMPRISONMENT PENALTY PAID BY YOUNG, UNEMPLOYED BLACK AND HISPANIC MALE OFFENDERS

A recent study of sentencing decisions in Pennsylvania (Steffensmeier et al., 1998) identified significant interrelationships among race, gender, age, and sentence severity. The authors of this study found that each of the three offender characteristics had significant direct effects on sentence outcomes and that the characteristics interacted to produce substantially harsher sentences for one category of offenders—young black males. This study responds to Steffensmeier et al.'s (1998:789) call for "further research analyzing how race effects may be mediated by other factors." We replicate their research approach, examining the intersections of the effects of race, gender, and age on sentence outcomes. We extend their analysis in three ways: We examine sentence outcomes in three large urban jurisdictions; we include Hispanics as well as blacks and test for interactions between ethnicity, age, and gender; and we test for interactions between race/ethnicity, gender, and employment status. Our results are generally—although not entirely—consistent with the results of the Pennsylvania study. Although none of the offender characteristics affects the length of the prison sentence, each has a significant direct effect on the likelihood of incarceration in at least one of the jurisdictions. More importantly, the four offender characteristics interact to produce harsher sentences for certain types of offenders. Young black and Hispanic males face greater odds of incarceration than middle-aged white males, and unemployed black and Hispanic males are substantially more likely to be sentenced to prison than employed white males. Thus, our results suggest that offenders with constellations of characteristics other than "young black male" pay a punishment penalty.     

THE MYTH OF SOCIAL CLASS AND CRIME REVISITED: AN EXAMINATION OF CLASS AND ADULT CRIMINALITY*

Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is highest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematically the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population. The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequacies of the class‐crime research. Self‐report data were collected from a general population of adult residents in a large, midwestern city and were analyzed to assess the effects of a wide range of class measures on crime measures. The overall results produced from a sample of 555 adults demonstrated that regardless of how class or crime were measured, social class exerted little direct influence on adult criminality in the general population. Consistent with research findings from nonself‐report studies, social class was related to criminal involvement for nonwhites.     

Aggressive Patrol: A Search for Side-effects

Recent interest in the possible deterrent effects of aggressive or proactive policing raises the issue of such strategies' consequences for individual liberties and police-community relations. This study examines the latter—specifically, the effects of four neighborhood-level measures of an aggressive patrol style on citizens' evaluations of police and citizens' propensities to report crimes. The results suggest that, for most citizens, aggressive patrol has almost no effect on either evaluations or reporting behavior. Surprisingly, one form of proactive patrol, the neighborhood rate of suspicion stops, seems to have a positive effect on the evaluations of police made by young black men.     

Gun Availability and Robbery Rates: A Panel Study of Large U.S. Cities, 1974–1978

This paper examines the hypothesis that crime rates and the availability of firearms form a "vicious circle," so that increases in one lead to increases in the other. Two waves of panel data are used to estimate the relationship between rates of robbery and the relative availability of guns in a sample of large U.S. cities. The results indicate that total robbery rates and gun availability had no influence on each other, but that weapons choice in robbery and gun availability did form a mutually reinforcing cycle. Some implications of these findings are considered.