Preventing construction deaths: The role of public policies

Are stronger direct financial incentives or regulatory enforcement effective in reducing fatalities in the construction industry? We examine two important policies—state workers' compensation (WC) programs and federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) activities—which embody those strategies. We examine their impact by looking at state-level fatality rates in the construction industry from 1992 to 2016. Setting aside highway crashes and violence, the majority of employee deaths occur in construction. We find that states which exempt small firms from the requirement to buy WC insurance have higher fatality rates. When eligibility for compensation is restricted by longer waiting periods, fatality rates are substantially higher. More frequent federal or state OSHA inspections and, especially, consultation visits are associated with lower fatality rates, but higher average penalties are not. Limited variation in these policies over our sample period, especially for WC, makes these results suggestive rather than definitively causal.     

A Bridge Too Far? Examining Bridging Assumptions in Common-Space Estimations

While most common-space estimations rely upon members who served in both the House and Senate as “bridges” to scale the remaining members, this assumes that these “bridge members” do not change their preferences when they change chambers. Such an assumption conflicts with standard notions of representation, that is, that legislators’ votes reflect (at least to some degree) the wishes of their constituents. We examine the constancy of this common-space voting assumption by focusing on a subset of House members who move to the Senate: those who come from statewide House districts. Using these members as the bridge actors—and thus bridging by constituency explicitly—in a one-dimensional item response theory model, we find that the standard assumption of chamber switchers in common-space estimations is technically, but immaterially, false. While there are statistically distinguishable differences in House and Senate voting records for chamber switchers, they are not sufficiently large to meaningfully undermine bridging.     

Pragmatic implication in the interrogation room: a comparison of juveniles and adults

Journal of Experimental Criminology - Pragmatic implication is the phenomenon that individuals process information “between the lines” and hear things that are implied but not asserted....     

Introduction: rising powers and the future of global governance

There has been much debate over the extent to which the rising powers of the global South are challenging contemporary global political and economic governance. While some observers see an emancipatory potential in the redistribution of power among states, others see the rising powers as firmly located within the Western-centred neoliberal world order. This collection of papers seeks to go beyond the state-centrism of existing approaches by examining how challenges to global governance by rising powers are rooted in specific state–society configurations. Through studies of Brazil, India, China and other important developing countries within their respective regions, such as Turkey and South Africa, the papers examine the way domestic structures, arrangements, actors and dynamics influence the nature of the international interventions and behaviour of rising powers. They ask how their increased political and economic enmeshment in the international system impacts upon their own internal societal cohesion and development. By examining these issues, the papers raise the question of whether the challenge posed by the rising powers to global governance is likely to lead to an increase in democracy and social justice for the majority of the world’s peoples.     

Identity and democracy in the Baltics

The purpose of this essay is to consider the probable impact of issues related to ethnic and cultural identity on democratization in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Particular attention will be given to the demographic make‐up of the Baltic states, which are home to a high percentage of Slavs (mostly Russians but also Belarusians, Poles, and Ukrainians), and to those factors which affect how these Slavs and the majority Baits: (1) identify themselves; and (2) identify with the new states in which they find themselves. The key question is the degree to which civic democracy can prosper in a newly emerging multi‐ethnic state. The answer is important not only for the Baltic states but also for the other new multinational states that have emerged from the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe in the past few years.     

The Quantitation of Cocaine on U.S. Currency: Survey and Significance of the Levels of Contamination

It has long been suspected that the illicit distribution of cocaine in the United States has led to a large‐scale contamination of the currency supply. To investigate the extent of contamination, 418 currency samples (4174 bills) were collected from 90 locations around the United States from 1993 to 2009. The extent of their cocaine contamination was quantitated via gas chromatography/mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. The level of cocaine contamination was determined to average 2.34 ng/bill across all denominations ($1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100). Levels of cocaine contamination on currency submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in criminal cases over the 1993–2001 timeframe had significantly higher contamination than currency in general circulation. A mathematical model was developed based on the background survey that indicates the likelihood of drawing a bill in specific concentration ranges. For example, there is a 0.8349 likelihood that random bill will have contamination less than 20 ng.     

The Analysis of Gun‐Cleaning Oil as Long‐Distance Gunshot Residue and Its Implications for Chemical Tags on Bullets

Using a BB gun, it was shown that a gun‐cleaning oil (GCO) can be wiped from the barrel by a projectile and carried much longer distances than those usually associated with solid gunshot residue (GSR). Analysis of GCO subsequently deposited on a target was performed using pentane extraction and gas chromatography. (Hoppe's GCO was used here as a model.) When a 0.45 caliber handgun was used, analysis reveals that most of the GCO wiped from the barrel does not survive, owing to the elevated temperatures encountered. However, two components of the GCO, a long‐chain fatty acid and its ethyl ester, do survive and can be detected in the bullet wipe. This suggests that GCO may be considered as GSR, uniquely detectable at long distances, and that other chemical compounds could either be added to a GCO or directly to bullets, to serve as identifying chemical tags.     

Restorative justice and reconviction

Proponents of restorative justice have suggested that its practices have the potential to reduce reoffending by those responsible for a harm. This article examines these claims using the results of two separate studies of the reconviction of offenders dealt with by processes that had restorative characteristics. The first study examines reconviction rates over'a'period'of'six years for a sample of young people who took part in family group conferences. The second study examines outcomes for samples of 100 offenders involved in each of two different community panel pre-trial diversion schemes for adults. One scheme involved offenders and victims meeting together with community panel members to determine outcomes that would repair harm to the victim and contribute to preventing reoffending. The second scheme involved Maori offenders meeting with representatives of their tribe in a setting with spiritual meaning for Maori. Those participating in both the community panel schemes were less likely to reoffend than matched samples of others who had committed similar offenses. There were also economic savings to the criminal justice system when offenders were dealt with by the panels compared to those dealt with by traditional methods. Taken together, these projects indicate that restorative processes and practices can have a positive impact on helping people to avoid reoffending.     

Urgent issues and prospects in reforming interrogation practices in the United States and Canada

The current article presents a series of commentaries on urgent issues and prospects in reforming interrogation practices in Canada and the United States. Researchers and practitioners, who have devoted much of their careers to the field of police and intelligence interrogations, were asked to provide their insights on an area of interrogation research that they believe requires immediate attention. The submitted independent commentaries covered a variety of topics – from police recruitment, interrogation training, use of proper interrogation practices, and the treatment of confession evidence in court. Common concerns from the contributions pertained to the lag between scientific knowledge on interrogations and the application of such knowledge in the justice system, and the glaring disparity between the treatment of similar issues in the interrogation context versus other criminal justice contexts. A primary intent of this collection of commentaries is to serve as a resource pointing researchers in the direction of the fundamental areas that require immediate consideration and encouraging them to simultaneously pursue solutions to the overarching concerns that emerged from this project.