Laws and Roll Calls in the U.S. Congress, 1891–1994

Recent empirical studies of lawmaking activity by legislatures rely heavily on roll call based measures and assume that roll call activity reflects lawmaking activity. We question this assumption for the case of the U.S. Congress. We examine several plausible sources of dissonance between the set of enacted public statutes and the universe of recorded votes in the U.S. Congress, using a comprehensive dataset of public enactments and roll call activity between 1891 and 1994. Because only 11.9% of the bills signed into law receive a recorded vote in the House, only 7.9% receive a recorded vote in the Senate, and only 5.5% receive a recorded vote in both the House and Senate, we provide guidance as to when studying voting behavior is likely a reasonable proxy for lawmaking behavior. There are sometimes important differences between the laws that do and do not receive a roll call that researchers should account for when using roll calls to study lawmaking in the U.S. Congress.     

THE EFFECTS OF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT BLOCK GRANTS ON SERIOUS CRIME*

Research Summary The Local Law Enforcement Block Grants (LLEBG) Program was second only to the Community‐Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Program in its funding levels. Some $3 billion was dispensed to local jurisdictions to reduce crime and improve public safety; yet the effects of LLEBG funding on crime have been all but ignored. Accordingly, panel data from more than 5,000 cities covering a 12‐year period (1990–2001) were collected, and index crime rates were regressed on LLEBG funding and appropriate demographic controls. Additional controls for police levels and other federal grants were also introduced, proper checks for endogeneity of grants (and police levels) were performed, and the models were subjected to an array of robustness checks. A consistent message emerged: LLEBG Program funding was associated with significant reductions in serious crime. Policy Implications Although LLEBG funding seemed to reduce serious crime, the results also revealed that the decrease did not occur through the hiring of additional police officers, even though many funds were used for that purpose. Other mechanisms were thus at work, but the data did not provide insights into what these mechanisms were. In any case, every $1 in LLEBG funding per capita was associated with approximately 59 fewer index crimes per 100,000 people. When combined with the findings from recent studies of the effects of community policing grants on crime, this study suggests additional federal support for local law‐enforcement agencies should be considered.     

The Significance of Marriage: Contrasts between White British and Ethnic Minority Groups in England

It is widely believed that the institution of marriage enhances communal wellbeing, and governments in the United States and the United Kingdom have expressly adopted policies designed to "promote" marriage. These policies, however, are little informed by evidence about how people who marry are using the institution, or how entering or not entering marriage affects people's ideas about the rights and obligations they owe within intimate partnerships. An Oxford study has sought to explore these issues. The study allowed special attention to be paid to the way individuals with differing ethnic backgrounds responded to the investigation, and the current article reveals the results. They show that marriage is used in a variety of ways, and that these uses may vary between ethnic groups. The evidence suggests that the usefulness which people find in marriage may depend on cultural and individual factors that are independent of the goals that government policies seek to promote.     

THE STOOPER: A PROFESSIONAL THIEF IN THE SUTHERLAND MANNER

Sutherland's conceptualization of professional crime, while hailed as a milestone in criminology, has been criticized as excessively narrow, and its applicability to modern criminal activity has also been seriously questioned. Using qualitative data developed during an 18-month investigation, this paper demonstrates that modern-day stoopers, who retrieve discarded winning racetrack tickets, manifest criminal behavior that closely resembles Sutherland 's characterization of professional crime. The characteristics of this small group of determined thieves are delineated by using the j v e criteria of professionalism established by Sutherland. This delineation demonstrates that the Sutherland model remains viable and shouId not be relegated to the status of an historical footnote.