Corruption and the Mexican political system: Continuity and change

Thanks to the nature of its political system, Mexico has had a long history of political corruption. Yet recent changes in the patterns of corruption and broader political changes have seemingly altered the equation. Anger over rampant corruption under President Carlos Salinas contributed to the stunning electoral defeat of the PRI in July 1997, while the outcome, the PRI's loss of majority control of the Chamber of Deputies, will add to the structural pressures that have mounted in recent years against institutionalised corruption. This article explores these trends. It sets out the historical and theoretical foundations of corruption in Mexico, examines changes in the incidence and patterns of corruption, and discusses the impact of recent political changes on this aspect of the system. Though cautiously optimistic regarding the impact of Mexico's political breakthrough on efforts to deal with the problem of corruption, the essay concludes on a cautious note, highlighting the difficulties other Latin American countries have encountered in strengthening the rule of law and reining in corruption.     

Integrated Theory and Crimes of Trust

The integrated theory first proposed by Elliott et al. (1979), combining strain, social control, and social learning (and sometimes social disorganization) theories, has been repeatedly tested and consistently supported for a wide range of behaviors including licit and illicit substance use, violence, and other forms of illegal behavior. It has not, however, been tested for a class of illegal behaviors best described as crimes of trust, which include different types of fraud, workplace theft, and income tax evasion. This category of offending includes offenses commonly regarded as white collar crime, and also offenses that have been more or less marginal to the study of white collar crime. The present paper tests the integrated theory specifically for crimes of trust in the National Youth Survey Family Study, a national, multigenerational sample of individuals whose focal respondents were 11–17 years old in 1976–1977, and who are now in middle adulthood. Relying on structural equation modeling (SEM), parallel tests are performed for two generations, the focal respondents in early middle age (ages 38–45) and their adult offspring (ages 18–24) for the period 2002–2004.     

An Improved Version of a Tool Mark Comparison Algorithm

Chumbley et al. (2010) described a statistically based algorithm for comparing pairs of tool marks. They presented empirical evidence that the algorithm produces well‐separated similarity score values for “matching” and “non‐matching” pairs of tool marks. However, the algorithm has two substantial weaknesses. First, it is “uncalibrated” in the sense that error rates can be determined only through empirical investigation. Second, it relies on a randomized test and can lead to different similarity scores when the algorithm is repeatedly applied to the same pair of tool marks. We present an improved version of the procedure, which eliminates the randomized scores and yields more consistent and predictable error rate control. This is accomplished by replacement of a random sampling step from the original algorithm with a deterministic process. We demonstrate the improved algorithm and compare its performance to the original by applying to known “matching” and “non‐matching” pairs of tool marks.