A SENSE OF INJUSTICE?:

The literature on the impact of processing a defendant through the criminal justice system has long assumed that this experience created a “sense of injustice” for defendants which militated against rehabilitative efforts within correctional settings. The current research examined this assumption with data collected from a sample of inmates in a medium and a maximum security institution within a midwestern state. The findings serve to question the assumption of the development of a sense of injustice, as most inmates perceive themselves as having been treated fairly by the criminal justice system. It is also found that there is little relationship between attitudes toward the preprison criminal justice system and measures of prisonization. The results are discussed in reference to their relevance to the functional and importation models of prisonization.     

PLAYING THE TRANSPARENCY GAME: CONSULTATION AND POLICY-MAKING IN THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

The recent unveiling of a package of measures designed to make the work of the European Commission more‘transparent’is part of a wider effort to make EU decision-making more open and accessible. Yet, the Commission's transparency package was designed above all to cope with its chronic management problems. These include rigid lines of division between different spheres of the Commission, the strong loyalties of policy-concerned Directorates-General (dg s) to their specific‘clientele’, unclear rules governing access to information, and intense rivalries between dg s and the private offices of individual Commissioners. This article dissects the transparency package and uses case study material to highlight ways in which the transparency initiative seeks to provide antidotes to the Commission's management problems. It offers an early assessment of the transparency package's impact and examines the prospects for reform of the Commission under Jacques Santer.     

INVESTIGATING THE NORMATIVE ASPECTS OF PUBLIC POLICY

This article challenges the idea that political philosophy must be of peripheral concern in the study of public policy through an exploration of the concept of harm and the debate over aggressive police patrol. This exploration begins with a brief discussion of the ways the concept of harm figures in the justification and administration of police work. It proceeds through an exposition of differing ways the concept of harm can be defined, the normative overtones of these varying definitions, and some of their policy ramifications with regard to police work. Finally, the way conceptual variation figures in policy debate is explored in the context of the debate over aggressive police patrol—the policy of maximizing the surveillance and criminal interception aspects of police activity as a patrol strategy.     

VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE AND REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT

Enforcement strategies that encourage "voluntary compliance" can improve regulatory efficiency by reducing unnecessary enforcement and compliance costs associated with legal confrontation between firms and agencies. This article analyzes the enforcement dilemma that causes confrontation and describes a "Tit for Tat" strategy capable of increasing socially beneficial cooperation. The strategy requires agencies to be reasonable toward cooperative firms, vengeful toward cheaters, unrelenting in pursuit of chronic evaders, but conciliatory toward repentant firms. Reforms in this neglected and poorly understood part of the regulatory process could yield considerable social benefits.