Why Do States Commission the Truth? Political Considerations in the Establishment of African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

Although the use of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) has grown considerably over the last 3 decades, there is still much that we do not know concerning the choice and the structuring of TRCs. While the literature has focused primarily on the effects of TRCs, we examine the domestic and the international factors influencing the choice of a commission in sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to 2003 using pooled cross-sectional time series. We find that states which adopted a TRC prior to South Africa were generally repressive centralized regimes which used the truth commission as political cover. However, since South Africa’s TRC, democratizing states have been more likely to adopt a truth commission as a form of transitional justice.

Is Representation Enough? Racial Disparities in Levels of Force and Arrests by Police

The research in representative bureaucracy that examines the extent to which racial congruence impacts bureaucrats’ decisions is mixed. This study adds to this literature by examining the impact of representative bureaucracy on the level of force that police officers use and whether they make an arrest in use of force encounters, while taking into consideration key situational conditions. Using individual-level data from New Orleans to estimate this impact, the authors find that racial congruence and incongruence impact policing outcomes even in the presence of situational shortcuts that cue decision-making. The findings show that the benefits of representation are conditional on the outcome. Black officers are less likely to use higher levels of force on Black civilians. Yet both Black and White officers are less likely to arrest White civilians in use of force encounters. This suggests that interactions in which bureaucrats have less discretion (e.g., arrests) may offer limited opportunities for active representation.     

Designing a Choice Architecture for Regulators

The emergence of behavioral public administration has led to increasing calls for public managers and policy makers to consider predictable cognitive biases when regulating individual behaviors or market transactions. Recognizing that cognitive biases can also affect the regulators themselves, this article attempts to understand how the institutional environment in which regulators operate interacts with their cognitive biases. In other words, to what extent does the “choice architecture” that regulators face reinforce or counteract predictable cognitive biases? Just as knowledge of behavioral insights can help regulators design a choice architecture that frames individual decisions to encourage welfare-enhancing choices, it may help governments understand and design institutions to counter cognitive biases in regulators that contribute to deviations from public interest policies. From these observations, the article offers some modest suggestions for improving the regulatory choice architecture.     

Ideological Competition and Conflict in the Judicial Hierarchy

Circuit splits, or conflicting rules across multiple U.S. Courts of Appeals, have important policy implications and dramatic effects on Supreme Court case selection, yet we know little about the incentives ideological lower courts face when deciding whether to initiate conflict. This article develops a formal model of a judicial hierarchy where lower court judges are subject to review by a high court with distaste for unresolved conflict, termed “split-intolerance,” and with uncertain preferences over policy. Lower courts may compete by investing costly effort in legal quality to make their rules more attractive. In equilibrium, lower courts may initiate conflict even when the odds of success before the high court are remote. Surprisingly, lower courts grow more likely to create conflict as the high court's split-intolerance increases; however, split-intolerance can also incentivize greater lower court effort. I present qualitative evidence illustrating the model's explanatory power.     

Should algorithms be regulated by government?

There has been, and continues to be, an explosion in the use of algorithms across the economy and society. There are growing concerns about how algorithms are being used and whether they are accountable. This article reviews the literature on the issue of algorithms in several key areas, such as fairness, accountability, and transparency. The article examines arguments on why algorithms should be regulated, and it explores the available literature to identify how a potential Canadian regulatory framework may be developed.     

Bargaining for justice: A means to resolve competing justice claims

In many types of social situations, individuals defend their claims to a portion of the rewards by arguing that they are just. Although a great deal of research demonstrates that individuals differ in their distribution preferences and thus their beliefs about what is fair, the literature curiously omits consideration of the consequences of these differences, especially the conflict they may engender. This paper first reviews the few attempts to address such justice conflict. The limitations of these approaches suggest concerns to be addressed in an alternative framework. The paper presents a theoretical discussion of this alternative that integrates assumptions about distribution preferences, justice beliefs, conditions fostering the emergence of justice conflict, and elements of negotiation processes as a basic framework for predictions about the bargaining strategies individuals may employ to resolve competing justice claims.     

The establishment of the features of the blade of a stabbing-cutting weapon by the damages to human skin and to tricot clothing]

Presents forensic medical characteristics of the specific features of stabbed and cut injuries of human skin and jersey. Suggests a complex of signs that will help determine some structural parameters of a knife blade and the conditions of its interaction with the injured site of human body.     

Body packing: the value of modern imaging procedures in the detection of intracorporeal transport media

The necessity of rapid objective appraisal of the suspicion of intracorporeal drug smuggling (body-packing) by effective methods of investigation in the course of the first criminal investigation department measures raises the questions of suitable and admissible methods. The proportion of undetected crimes in intracorporeal narcotic smuggling must be rated as very high according to the data of the Federal Criminal Investigation Department. In the present paper, the suitability of various imaging techniques for drug detection are reported in terms of their risk, practicability and costs. For this purpose, the value of digital radiography, two-spectra radiography and X-ray computer tomography as compared to conventional X-ray investigations is examined in human experiments. A reality-oriented narcotics dummy (glucose pressed hard in preservative) was developed and administered to nine volunteers per os with a variable initial alimentary situation. Four radiograms were taken at fixed times up to 12 hours after administration with each imaging technique. The highest rate of detection was attained with computer tomography. In contrast to the other methods, more than 90% of the body packs could be identified here. Nevertheless, an application in criminal investigation practice cannot be recommended owing to various disadvantages. The recovery rate of the remaining methods is between 20% and 25%.