Extralegal factors and the sentencing of organizational defendants: An examination of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines were developed to provide uniform and standardized punishments for eliminating sentence disparities based on legally irrelevant factors. While research at the individual level showed that extralegal factors continued to affect sentence outcomes, no such research determined if these factors influenced sentencing of organizational offenders. This article extends the unit of analysis beyond the individual and toward organizational offenders to determine if total fine amounts are affected by extralegal organizational characteristics. Relying on post-1991 organizational defendant's data, the findings indicated both legal and extralegal factors significantly affected fine outcomes for organizational offenders. As expected, several legal factors significantly affected fine outcomes. At least two extralegal variables, economically solvent and closely held organizations, however, exerted significant effects in predicting the total fine amount imposed. Similar to research at the individual level, this study indicated that extralegal or legally irrelevant factors had some level of impact upon sentencing under the guidelines.     

Parliament,printed petitions and the political imaginary in seventeenth-century England

ABSTRACT

Building on recent scholarship relating to the emergence of printed petitions in Britain in the seventeenth century, this article concentrates on those printed petitions that were designed for more or less discreet or limited circulation in order to lobby parliament. It draws on two collections of such material gathered by the MPs Bulstrode Whitelocke (in the 1650s) and Sir Michael Wentworth (in the 1680s and 1690s). Because print facilitated novel ways of engaging with parliament – not least as problems went unresolved and cases dragged on – printed petitions provide a useful window into the aspirations and frustrations of supplicants, and indeed into their political thinking, however rudimentary this may have been. In tracing what might be called the ‘political imaginary’ of contemporary petitioners, this study recovers evidence of radicalization, but also suggests that the art of petitioning could involve the deliberate avoidance of ideological issues that nevertheless underpinned specific interventions.     

John Howard's “Use” of the Anzac Legend: Applying an Epideictic Lens

While many have remarked upon Prime Minister John Howard's “use” of the Anzac legend for political purposes, our understanding of the nature and dynamics of such use remains fragmented and underdeveloped. Using the area of foreign policy as a case study, this essay approaches Howard's Anzac Day and related ceremonial rhetoric as examples of the epideictic genre, which presents speakers with a combination of unique rhetorical opportunities and strict generic constraints. While often perceived as apolitical and inconsequential, the genre embodies a form of argumentation that serves not only to increase the “intensity of adherence” to certain values, thus laying the groundwork for later deliberative appeals, but also creates a “disposition to act at the appropriate moment”. This paper will argue that Howard's employment of Anzac was bounded and defined by the nature and dynamics of the epideictic genre, of which Howard proved to be a savvy user.     

Reviews

Lyndall Ryan (ed.), ‘Secret Women's Business: The Hindmarsh Island Affair’, Special issue of Journal of Australian Studies (University of Queensland Press) Brisbane, no. 48, May 1996.

Gisela Kaplan, The Meagre Harvest: The Australian Women's Movement 1950s～1990s (Allen & Unwin) St Leonards, 1996.

R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash and Lesley Noaks (eds), Gender and Crime (University of Wales Press) Cardiff, 1995.

Deborah Oxley, Convict Maids: The Forced Migration of Women to Australia (Cambridge University Press) Melbourne, 1996.

Elizabeth Grosz and Elspeth Probyn (eds),’ Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Feminism (Routledge), London and New York, 1995.     

Political parties and political shirking

Using ADA roll call voting scores for the 1947–2006 period, I find that senators shirk in their last term. The degree of shirking is limited by political parties, which constrain the politician in his last term, and varies by post-Senate career choices. The results highlight the importance of political parties in the repeated game that is electoral politics.     

Reforming election dates in Canada: Towards an explanatory framework

Since 2001, ten governments in Canada have passed fixed election date legislation. The typical assumption in the literature is that governments did so as a way to address public concerns about the undemocratic nature of calling and timing elections. This argument, however, does not explain the timing (that is, when the legislation was passed by each jurisdiction) of this policy change. We approach this puzzle deductively by applying the theoretical insights of multiple streams theory to the Canadian experiences. Our findings suggest that although all three streams were important, the political stream is crucial for explaining the timing of the legislation.