Prosecuting Juveniles as Adults

In Minnesota, the 1980 legislature statutorily defined a class of juvenile offenders presumed on the basis of age, alleged offense, and record of prior felony offenses to be unfit for treatment in the juvenile court. In this article we evaluate the effect of Minnesota's revised waiver statute by comparing cases in which waiver proceedings were initiated and in which transfer occurred for two time periods, before and after adoption of the legislatively defined presumptive criteria. Our findings suggest that the objective criteria adopted by the Minnesota legislature are not, in themselves, an adequate means for selecting juveniles for transfer to adult court. The criteria identify many juveniles whose records on close examination do not appear to be very serious and fail to identify many juveniles whose records are characterized by violent, frequent, and persistent delinquent activity.     

Where Has Child Protection Gone?

The government introduced its ambitious plans to transform children's services as its response to the tragic death of Victoria Climbie, the victim of child abuse. However their scope is far more than improving child protection services. The aim is to develop preventive services, responding to low level concerns, so that all children are helped to achieve their potential. This article asks what the impact of this shift in emphasis will be for child protection work. It argues that the refocusing carries the risk of taking resources and professional time away from investigating serious cases of abuse and fails to address the problems in professional practice identified in the Climbie report.     

The social dimension of the Single European Market: National versus transnational regulation

Abstract. Labour market regulation in the 1980s was subject to transnational pressures for deregulation, especially in the form of 'flexibilisation'. The 'Single European Market' project (SEM) promises further development in this direction. At the same time, proposals for a 'Social Charter' are meant to introduce a European level of regulation to counteract the SEM's potential destabilizing consequences. However, regulatory disputes and pressures contrary to convergence are likely to be intensified by the SEM. Still further uncertainty will be created by changes in Eastern Europe, as well as by greater opportunities for cross-border production shifts. Neoliberal and neocorporatist variants of the 'competition state' will be increasingly at odds at both state and Community level, with the future of 'social Europe' at stake. To the extent that market integration means a globalisation of the European economy, it may effectively disintegrate its component parts, dividing those which have more solid foundations for growth - the well-regulated, high pay/high productivity areas - from those which do not. The market logic of the Single European Market programme will manifestly contradict the efforts of the Community to avoid this future.     

The first supranational policy in the European Union: Competition policy

Abstract. Competition policy has become a salient issue in the last decade. The purpose of this article is to widen discussion amongst political scientists of an issue that has been dominated by the disciplines of economics and law. The concept of a competition policy is the foundation stone of the entire European Union. It lies at the very heart of efforts to establish a common market and within the EU competition policy arena the decision making powers have laid firmly with the supranational institutions. This article provides an overview of the issue; it traces the constitutive foundations of policy and discusses the functions of the core EU competition policy actors. It is primarily concerned with the European Commission, in particular, DGIV. The paper accounts for DGIV's metamorphosis in the 1980s and the myriad of problems now confronting its procedures and efficiency in the 1990s. Whether these defects can be resolved will ultimately determine the fate of DGIV. Arguments for institutional reform are raging through the European institutions and DGIV provides no exception. The paper concludes with a discussion on the plausibility of the creation of an independent European Competition Office, modelled on the role of the German Federal Cartel Office.     

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR AND THE GAINS FROM CRIME

A number of economists recently have applied tools of economics to analysis of crime. The resulting models of criminal activity typically postulate that crime is positively related to gains porn crime and inversely related to the probability of punishment. While empirical studies have confirmed this latter effect, the relation between gains from crime and criminal activity has not been satisfactorily examined. This paper specifically tests the empirical relation between criminal behavior and the gains from crime. The unsettling possibility that decreases in the gains from crime my lead to increases in the number of crimes is discussed.