Computer Power and Legal Reasoning: A Case Study of Judicial Decision Prediction in Zoning Amendment Cases

While social scientists have long advocated the use of statistical methodology in legal analysis, its practical application has not been tested. Statistical models based on social science theories have been used to predict judicial decisions and explain court behavior, but the legal profession has failed to develop statistical models based on traditional legal theories and using data familiar to the lawyer. This article seeks to demonstrate by practical application of statistical methodologies, coupled with traditional legal research methods, that such research can produce important insight into a court's decision making and provide a useful model for predicting the probability of a favorable decision. The zoning amendment decisions of the Connecticut Supreme Court are the data base of this study, which also provides a comprehensive explanation of zoning amendment law in Connecticut as a backdrop against which to evaluate the insights gained by statistical analysis.     

Educational Research and the Protection of Human Subjects

Educational research is increasingly subject to legal restrictions designed for the protection of human subjects of research. In this article the author discusses legal restrictions–both in the courts and under HEW regulations–on educational research, comparing these restrictions with those on biomedical research. He finds that although educational research in particular instances may give rise to suits for damages for invasion of privacy or intentional infliction of psychological distress, the legal issues relating to educational research will most often be resolved in proceedings before institutional review boards charged by HEW with the responsibility for passing upon proposals to conduct research on human subjects. He argues that the interests protected in proceedings before institutional review boards are not limited to those that have received judicial recognition in suits for damages. The author finds that the requirement that the informed consent of subjects be obtained presents difficult issues for educational research. He notes in particular the problems presented by research proposals that as an element of the research design contemplate the observation of subjects without their knowledge and the use of children as research subjects.     

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS AND PRIVATE MARKETS IN REEMPLOYING DISPLACED WORKERS

This paper is about the reemployment difficulties of "mainstream" workers dislocated in mid-career by structural economic change. Contrary to popular assumptions, empirical evidence suggests that most workers in this category do not encounter extraordinary reemployment difficulties.
For those that do, the root problem is not dislocation per se but rather such well-known failures of the private labor market as geographic immobility, underinvestment in training, and inefficient labor exchange institutions. Public policy should be structured in terms of correcting these market failures, not in terms of dislocated workers as atarget group.     

Violent crime and modernization in Colombia

This paper assesses violent crime in Colombia by focusing on police arrest data from 1938 to 1967. Social and political conditions provide the cultural context from which the effects of modernization on crime are examined. Shelley's modermization perspective claims that violent crime increases when a country modernizes, but property crimes increase after relative wealth and prosperity are achieved. Regression results support Shelley's perspective for the crimes of robbery and theft, whereas her theory gamered weaker support for the crimes of homicide and assault. Theoretical implications for modernization theory in light of the findings are discussed.