An investigation of factors influencing public opinion of property bias in CanadianCriminal Code maximum sentences

TheCriminal Code of Canada (Code) provides many statutory maximum sentences (maxima) that are more severe for property offenses than for offenses, against people. Past research has shown that, at least in the abstract, people consider offenses against the person as more serious and deserving of more severe sentences than property offenses. The present research investigated whether these results would be replicated when peoples' preferences were assessed under specific conditions. Participants (N=181) readCode definitions and crime vignettes for 6 offenses that were varied according to locus (internal versus external) and stability (stable versus unstable) of the cause of the offender's behavior and amount of harm to the victim (severe versus mild). Results demonstrated that offenses against people were considered more serious and deserving of more severe scenario sentences and maxima than property or white-collar offenses. Internal, stable, and severe harm conditions resulted in higher sentences, seriousness ratings, and, somewhat less consistently, maxima. Under no combination of conditions were preferred maxima greater for property or white-collar offenses than for offenses against people. Participants tended to underestimate property offense maxima and overestimate maxima for offenses against people. It is concluded that while the preferred length of maxima may change under different experimental conditions, the relationship between person and property offense preferred maxima does not.     

Sex, Property Rights, and Divorce

This paper examines how differences in sex drives between husbands and wives affect bargaining strengths during marriage and particularly at times when divorce might occur. The basic argument follows from the fact that sex drives vary over an individual's life cycle, and are systematically different for men and women. The spouse having the lowest sex drive at any time in the marriage has a property right over whether or not sexual intercourse will occur, with a consequent increase in bargaining power at the margin. The paper derives a number of testable implications from its model, and, using several data sources, shows empirically how this difference affects marriage, adultery and divorce.     

A Latin last hurrah

He has written on the region for the Miami Herald, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, Strategic Review, Freedom At Issue,and is the author of The Democratic Mask: The Consolidation of the Sandinista Revolutionand A Question for El Salvador: What Does the FMLN Really Want?This article is based on a Freedom House Fact Finding Mission, May 1989.     

Congressional Partisanship and Presidential Success: The Case of the Clinton and Bush Presidencies

Recent scholarship has documented the increased cohesion and influence of the congressional parties. In this new context, the status of the government as either unified or divided should function as an independent variable in determining presidential success rates. Occurring in just such a period, the Bush and Clinton presidencies can be used to test whether presidential success rates vary according to whether the national government is unified or divided. All the relevant data and comparisons confirm the hypothesis. In addition, a comparison of the presidential success rates for Carter and Nixon's first four years indicate that in the preceding period of less cohesive congressional parties there was a much weaker relationship between presidential success and the status of government as either unified or divided.     

Linear programming in criminal justice administration

Most criminal justice administrators can no longer rely on a single problem solving technique. Consequently, effective administrators must become familiar with (though no experts in) various techniqes. Linear programming (LP) is a powerful managerial technique which provides narrow-range solutions to problems in which the impact of key variables is both linear and certain. LP is especially useful when applied to problems involving the allocation of limited resources. This article discusses a simple how-to appraoach to LP, which is a mathematical problem solving computation that provides solutions which can be applied under conditions of certainty. Besides defining the key characteristics of LP, this article illustrates the procedures used to calculate the simplex method, the most widely used method for calculating a set of LP equations. The simplex method is mathematically efficient because it considers only the best solutions with a minimum number of solutions computed. Once the solution is computed, it is relatively easy to interpret the computer output.