Texas Criminal Defense Attorneys’ Perceptions of Crime Victim Involvement in Criminal Prosecutions

The purpose of this study was to test the utility of the Victim Satisfaction Model of the criminal justice system by quantitatively assessing criminal defense attorneys’ perceptions of victims’ involvement in the charging and plea bargaining stages of the criminal process. A cross-section research design was used in this study. Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to defense attorneys who regularly practice criminal law in Texas. The results of this study support the utility of the Victim Satisfaction Model of the criminal justice system and further our understanding of victim involvement in the decision making and have important implications for the American criminal justice system.     

Living with Non-recognition: State- and Nation-building in South Caucasian Quasi-states

The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to the establishment of several non-recognised statelets, three of which—Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh—are located in the South Caucasus. This article sets aside the question of whether these quasi-states ought to be internationally recognised, and focuses on whether they exist as functioning state entities. To what extent are the authorities in these would-be states able to provide the populace with the services expected of contemporary states—like internal and external security, basic infrastructure and welfare? All three insist that they are not only functioning states, but also nation-states that command the allegiance of their population. We thus also discuss their claim to embody real nationhood.     

Counterproliferation Bargaining with the United States: China and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

This article analyzes China’s use of issue-linkage strategies in its approach to nuclear proliferation. It highlights that China has used its ties to nuclear proliferators as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis the United States. The United States is dependent on Chinese cooperation to secure nonproliferation objectives such as a non-nuclear Iran, and China has used this dependency to extract side-payments for its cooperation. Moreover, Beijing has used non-cooperation on nuclear proliferation as retaliation when the US has hurt its interests in unrelated policy areas, such as through arms sales to Taiwan. In contrast with past studies, the article claims that China’s approach to nonproliferation remains partly transactional to this day.     

Intimate Partner Violence: Victims’ Opinions About Going to Trial

Criminal justice officials assume that intimate partner violence victims oppose filing charges against their abusers. In a study of 94 respondents, reluctance actually occurred with the prospect of going to trial. While 70% supported filing charges, only 37% wanted a trial. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses help explain the reasons women gave for their opinions about trials. The strongest quantitative predictor was that as the level of the victim’s injury sustained from the crime increased, their support for a trial increased. Gondolf and Fisher’s (1988) survivor theory predicted factors that influenced victims’ support or opposition to a trial in the quantitative section. The nested ecological model explained approximately half of the open-ended responses to those opposing trials while the goals of sentencing model articulated most victims’ support for trials.