Perceived effects of concealed handgun ownership by private citizens among law enforcement officers in Texas

On January 1, 1996, a new law took effect in Texas granting certain state citizens the privilege to carry a concealed handgun on their person for the first time since 1871. As a result of this dramatic shift in state law, Texas is now among the growing number of states across the nation who have adopted similar statutory provisions in one form or another. While at least one empiricals study of citizen’s attitudes toward concealed handgun ownership was conducted prior to the law’s effective date, no similar efforts were undertakens to assess the beliefs, perceptions and attitudes of the state’s law enforcement officers about this important social policy. The present study was therefore undertaken in response to the lack of serious attention which the issue of concealed handgun ownership among private citizens has received as it directly relates to the law enforcement profession. Subjects for this study (N=327) were drawn from four Texas law enforcement agencies representing various organizational sizes and missions. While the responses of officers who participated in the study indicate optimism about the law’s potential to deter various types of crime, they also reflect a certain degree of concerns about concealed handgun ownership among private citizens especially as this policy directly relates to perceive inadequacies in statemandated requirements and issues affecting officer safety.     

Organization and Management of Executive Departments: Executive Summary

From the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, the executive department has been the primary vehicle through which the government of the United States has administered its programs. Their organization and effectiveness are therefore matters that demand constant attention.     

Predicting patrol officer performance from a psychological assessment battery: A predictive validity study

The psychological assessment battery is an integral part of the selection process used to select patrol officer applicants. Unlike all other procedures used in the selection process, the psychological assessment has not been adequately validated. The purpose of this study was an attempt to provide validation data for a psychological assessment battery. The battery consisted of the Nelson-Denny, Shipley-Hartford, MMPI, and the Motivational Analysis Test (MAT). Performance measures included various measures of training academy performance and field training performance. A stepwise regression and MANOVA/Discriminant Analysis indicated that the psychological tests did predict performance, although an exact predictive equation could not be developed due to the high intercorrelations between predictor variables. This research was sponsored in part by a grant from the School of Applied Arts and Technology, Southwest Texas State University.     

I volunteer to kidnap Oliver North

“I Volunteer to Kidnap Ollie North”, is an exercise in following our government's sometimes criminal, often bizarre and always hypocritical actions in the war on drugs during the Reagan-Bush years to their logical conclusion. The Supreme Court has indicated in its June, 1992 decision in U.S. v Machain, that American law enforcement officers can now enter the sovereign territories of other nations to legally abduct violators of U.S. drug laws. Iran immediately proclaimed that they had the same right for violations of Islamic law. What might happen if kidnapping becomes a recognized “tool” of international law enforcement? What prominent Americans might wake up in South American jails with bags over their heads?     

Federal labor protetons and the privatization of public transit

Federal transportation officials assert that labor protections in the Urban Mass Transportation Act inhibit the propensity of local transit agencies to contract with private firms for services. The authors present results from a survey of a large sample of transit managers and econometric analysis to support their conclusion that labor protections do not appear to reduce the incidence of contracting. The labor protections, however, may be costly to transit management in other ways. The authors recommend actions, aside from repeal of labor protections, to increase contracting by local transit agencies.     

Linking self- and social control with deviance: Illuminating the structure underlying a general theory of crime and its relation to deviant activity

The present paper operationalizes and empirically tests the most recent theoretical speculations of Hirschi and Gottfredson regarding an individual level characteristic of self-control and its relation to earlier specifications of control theory as well as the literature on personality. Linkages are drawn between their broad delineation of self-control and personal disorders of hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention deficits, and minor conduct problems. Psychologists disagree about whether such disorders represent single or multiple traits and whether both behavioral and cognitive measures can appropriately depict personality characteristics. Employing structural equation techniques, support for several propositions derived from Gottfredson and Hirschi's thesis is found: Self-control subsumes several personality disorders and is significantly comprised by early behavioral indicators of aggression and fighting, is inversely related to other elements of the social bond, is moderately stable over a short period of time, and significantly predicts criminal convictions. However, questions remain regarding the ubiquity of self-control, the magnitude and meaning of stability, and the power of this perspective to explain all forms of self-reported delinquency.