The economic transition in Central Asia: Implications for democracy

Ten years have now passed since the August coup of 1991 heralded the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whilst many of these states have successfully navigated themselves through the processes of democratic transition and consolidation, others have not. Although each of the states within the Central Asia region have held elections so that we can speak of some sort of formal democracy having been established, substantive democracy within these states is either absent or falls short of the mark. This article identifies the obstacles to democratic transition and consolidation arising from current economic circumstances and the leaders' appraisal of the political costs of further democratization.     

Psychopathy and instrumental aggression: Evolutionary, neurobiological, and legal perspectives

In the study of aggression, psychopathy represents a disorder that is of particular interest because it often involves aggression which is premeditated, emotionless, and instrumental in nature; this is especially true for more serious types of offenses. Such instrumental aggression is aimed at achieving a goal (e.g., to obtain resources such as money, or to gain status). Unlike the primarily reactive aggression observed in other disorders, psychopaths appear to engage in aggressive acts for the purpose of benefiting themselves. This is especially interesting in light of arguments that psychopathy may represent an alternative life-history strategy that is evolutionarily adaptive; behaviors such as aggression, risk-taking, manipulation, and promiscuous sexual behavior observed in psychopathy may be means by which psychopaths gain advantage over others. Recent neurobiological research supports the idea that abnormalities in brain regions key to emotion and morality may allow psychopaths to pursue such a strategy—psychopaths may not experience the social emotions such as empathy, guilt, and remorse that typically discourage instrumentally aggressive acts, and may even experience pleasure when committing these acts. Findings from brain imaging studies of psychopaths may have important implications for the law.     

Presence of periorbital and conjunctival petechial hemorrhages in accidental pediatric drowning

The pathological findings of drowning are variable and non-specific. Petechial hemorrhages involving the periorbital region and the conjunctiva have been described in many causes of death, but are thought to be exceedingly uncommon in cases of drowning. However, such studies have not specifically addressed the pediatric population. The current study retrospectively examined 79 cases of accidental pediatric drowning for the presence of periorbital/conjunctival hemorrhages and analyzed factors that may have affected their presence. Ten victims had periorbital/conjunctival petechial hemorrhages (13%), with five having periorbital petechiae, three having conjunctival petechiae, and two having both periorbital and conjunctival petechiae. The age and gender of the victim, site of drowning, resuscitation history and the presence of other pathological findings were not significantly associated with the presence of periorbital/conjunctival petechiae. However, as the interval between the drowning episode and autopsy increased, the incidence of periorbital/conjunctival petechiae decreased (28% for <24h; 7% for >24h). The presence of periorbital/conjunctival hemorrhages in a significant proportion of pediatric drowning victims confirms that the pathologist must add this finding to the spectrum of changes seen in pediatric drowning.     

Character-building and freedom in education

Educators, parents, and policy-makers in the United States, as in other countries, are concerned about the apparent inability of many schools to contribute to the development of character and civic virtue in their pupils. The answer, experience shows, is not for government to require a pedagogy of state-defined character education which, in a pluralistic society, would inevitably create new conflicts. Instead, education policy should take advantage of the growing interest on the part of educators in creating autonomous, distinctive schools, and the continuing interest, on the part of parents, in being able to choose what school their children will attend. Schools which exhibit a distinctive character based upon a shared understanding of the goals of education are effective not only in teaching academics but also in developing positive character traits in their pupils. Charter schools and educational vouchers are two means of encouraging and supporting such coherent schools. The article concludes with a series of policy recommendations designed to balance the autonomy of schools against the need for public accountability. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Asian gangs in the United States: The current state of the research literature

Since the late 1980s, criminologists have been interestedin analyzing Asian gangs. Despite the rather sharp increasein books and articles published on the subject in the1990s, there appears to exist no consensus on the nature and etiologyof Asian gangs. This paper describes the current state ofresearch on Asian gangs and assesses whether or not thereis a dominant criminological theory on their cause. Itcompares and contrasts African American and Asian gangs,and closes with research and policy recommendations.     

Profligacy Or Prudence? Changes in Employment and Compensation of State and Local Government Workers

As the 1990s began, state and local governments across the country found themselves in a situation of fiscal stress. That stress has been attributed to several sources. Recently, it has been suggested that governments themselves brought on the fiscal squeeze by their own profligacy —a profligacy rooted in excessive increases in employment and compensation of government workers during the 1980s. After summarizing some arguments presented for and against describing state and local practices of the 1980s as profligate, this article compares its evidence on the growth of employment and compensation and notes some different interpretations. The article concludes that a strong statement of the profligacy position has not been proved.     

Continuous versus Categorical Models of Delinquency Risk

Two groups of participants, one a nationally representative sample with roughly equal numbers of male and female participants (N?=?8,984) and the other a sample of mostly male adjudicated delinquents (N?=?1,354), were used to test whether risk factors for delinquency are organized continuously or categorically. A continuous (variable-centered) model was created using factor scores from a one-factor confirmatory factor analysis and a categorical (person-centered) model was constructed using posterior probabilities from a two-class finite mixture modeling analysis. In both samples the continuous model correlated significantly better with subsequent offending than did the categorical model, a finding that was replicated in males from both samples and in females from the nationally representative sample. The current findings suggest that risk factors are better construed as points along a continuum rather than as properties of distinct groups or types. These results further suggest that the etiology of offending, in the form of risk factors, is general/additive rather than specific/selective. The implications of these results for theory development, clinical practice, and future research are discussed.