British attitudes on nuclear weapons

• In an increasingly unstable world post‐911, the political landscape seems to be continually shifting, with many of the old certainties around combatants and how to wage war being subject to revision—not least the role of nuclear weapons in a post‐Cold War age. But have our attitudes towards the development and use of nuclear weapons fundamentally changed over the past 50 years? Andy Byrom, Associate Director at Ipsos MORI, examines data from the previous half‐century which lead to some surprising conclusions.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of DNA‐Stained Currency in Gang Robberies within the United Kingdom

Cash‐and‐valuables‐in‐transit (CViT) robberies have become a substantial problem—especially in the current global economy. Over £19.4 million were stolen in 2008 and £17.1 million in 2009 in the United Kingdom alone. The transportation of cash and valuable items between financial institutions has long been a target of robberies in the U.K. After a robbery has occurred, police collect evidence in the form of ink‐stained currency. These stained notes are submitted for analysis. Samples are subjected to polymerase chain reaction in order to amplify any possible botanically derived DNA markers present on the notes. After amplification, capillary electrophoresis allows for the deciphering of the “DNA profile.” The DNA profile is then linked to a particular cash box, and this information is compared with records of whether or not that box had been stolen. The cases below are three such instances where botanically marked currency was used to help solve robberies.     

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Individual Economic Distress and Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships

A continuing debate in sociological criminology involves the association of crime with economic disadvantage at both aggregate and individual levels of analysis. At the aggregate level, data from law enforcement sources suggest that rates of intimate violence are higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Disadvantaged neighborhoods may experience higher rates of intimate violence for compositional or contextual reasons, or rates may only appear to be higher because of differential reporting. Similarly, at the individual level, intimate violence appears more common among couples that are economically distressed, but whether economic distress triggers intimate violence is not certain. Using data from waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households and from the 1990 U.S. Census, we investigate the effects of neighborhood economic disadvantage and individual economic distress on intimate violence against women. Controlling for violence at time 1 and other individual level characteristics, we find that neighborhood economic disadvantage, neighborhood residential instability, male employment instability, and subjective financial strain influence the likelihood of violence at time 2. The relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and intimate violence appears to reflect both compositional and contextual effects.     

Stress in small town and rural law enforcement: Testing the assumptions

Sandy and Devine (1978) theorized that small-town and rural police officers experienced Stressors different from their urban counterparts. They delineated four rural stress dimensions: security, social factors, working conditions, and inactivity. Despite the number of hypotheses annunciated by these authors from their exposure to small-town and rural police, they have never been tested. This study is an attempt to rectify this deficiency in the literature by testing their theory/hypotheses with data derived from a survey questionnaire of West Virginia law enforcement officers. The findings of this study lend support for many of the original hypotheses and all four of the dimensions.     

The Impact of Cooking with Firewood on Respiratory Health: Evidence from Indonesia

The vast majority of households in low-income countries cook with firewood, which is known to produce various airborne toxins. We examine whether cooking with firewood results in poorer respiratory health by using a unique Indonesian household survey that collected direct measures of lung capacity. We find that individuals living in households that cook with firewood have 9.4 per cent lower lung capacity than those that cook with cleaner fuels. This impact is larger for women and children than for men. The results strongly support the international policy focus on facilitating households to switch to cooking with cleaner fuels.     

The Transfer of Small Business Assistance Strategies to Emerging Countries: The Case of Malawi

Malawi, located in Southern Africa, was ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world. Small business development was being emphasised by government and donors to expand employment and income. Numerous agencies, financed by government and foreign donors, existed in Malawi to assist the small business sector expand. The formation and much of the technologic know how used by these agency was originally transferred from donor countries. This paper presents results from a study to determine the capacity of these organisations to carry out national employment objectives. Numerous capacity constraints were identified and suggestions were made to improve agency effectiveness. The diverse source of SME assistance know-how was suggested as one cause of the capacity limitation of the agencies.