Designing institutions to improve well-being: Participation,deliberation and institutionalisation

Social accountability institutions are at the forefront of democratic reformers’ efforts to improve well-being by harnessing the power of citizen participation. This article builds on recent research identifying a positive relationship between participatory budgeting (PB) and well-being. The article is the first large-N study to identify relationships between specific rules of PB programme design and well-being. A unique dataset of 114 Brazilian municipalities with PB programmes from 2009 to 2016 is constructed to evaluate whether internal mechanisms within PB explain variation in local infant mortality rates – an outcome associated with wellbeing. Hypotheses are tested that correspond to citizen participation, the scope of deliberation and embeddedness within local institutions. It is found that PB programmes are associated with lower infant mortality rates when they broaden participation, expand deliberation and embed the new institutions in ongoing policy-making venues. The results offer a framework for designing PB programmes and other social accountability institutions to maximise impact.     

CONTEXTUAL DISPARITIES IN GUIDELINES DEPARTURES: COURTROOM SOCIAL CONTEXTS,GUIDELINES COMPLIANCE,AND EXTRALEGAL DISPARITIES IN CRIMINAL SENTENCING1

This study examines the theoretical and empirical linkages between criminal court social contexts and the judicial use of sentences that deviate from the recommendations of sentencing guidelines. Individual sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) are combined with county‐level measures of social context to examine predictions about the role courtroom characteristics play in judicial departures. Results from hierarchical analyses suggest that the likelihood of departure varies significantly across courts, even after accounting for variations in individual case characteristics. Several measures of courtroom social context—including the size of the court, its caseload pressure and the overall guidelines compliance rate—are significantly related to the individual likelihood of receiving a departure sentence. Moreover, the social context of the court also conditions the influence of various individual‐level sentencing considerations. Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision making and future directions for research on contextual disparities in criminal sentencing are suggested.     

SENTENCING IN CONTEXT: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

Criminal sentencing is, along with arresting and prosecuting, among the most important of formal social control decisions. In this study we use hierarchical modeling to test hypotheses about contextual level influences and cross level interaction effects on local court decisions. Most of the explanatory "action," our analysis shows, is at the individual case level in criminal sentencing. We also find evidence that local contextual features–such as court organizational culture, court caseload pressure, and racial and ethnic composition–affect sentencing outcomes, either directly or in interaction with individual factors. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications of our findings, and how our study points out some dilemmas among civil rights, local autonomy and organizational realities of criminal courts.     

Better Government with Older Citizens: A Test of Democracy

Better Government for Older People: this ambitious project to involve older citizens in the improvement of policies affecting them, celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2008. Then the Government decided to close it down, setting up an Advisory Forum as an alternative. BGOP's considerable achievements were widely recognised (and acknowledged in the DWP review by John Elbourne) but there were real shortcomings. BGOP's previous history is summarised, with special reference to its work with the Older People's Advisory Group. Some activists and observers believe BGOP's weaknesses could and should have been remedied, but the Government decided to start again. There are strongly opposed interpretations of why this happened. Former BGOP staff and OPAG members have since set up ChangeAGEnts, a Co-operative charity, to continue their work. The specific issue is intrinsically and demographically important, but it also throws light on consultation in many other policy areas.     

SENTENCING HOMICIDE OFFENDERS IN THE NETHERLANDS: OFFENDER,VICTIM, AND SITUATIONAL INFLUENCES IN CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT*

Empirical investigations of criminal sentencing represent a vast research enterprise in criminology. However, this research has been restricted almost exclusively to U.S. contexts, and often it suffers from key data limitations. As such, an examination of more detailed international sentencing data provides an important opportunity to assess the generalizability of contemporary research and theorizing on criminal punishment in the United States. The current study investigates little-researched questions about the influence of prosecutorial sentencing recommendations, victim/offender relationships, and extralegal disparities in sentencing by analyzing unique data on the punishment of homicide offenders in the Netherlands. The results indicate that offender, victim, and situational offense characteristics all exert important independent effects at sentencing and that prosecutorial recommendations exert powerful influences over judicial sentences. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions for comparative sentencing research across international contexts.     

Security and Freedom on the Fulcrum

ABSTRACT

Counterterrorist arguments that justify the erosion of individual rights frequently depend on the claim a balance can—and should—be struck between security and freedom. But this analogy, under both consequentialist and rights-based analysis, is at best misleading and at worst structurally wrong. Calculations from utility resting on the immediate dangers posed by terrorism do not give appropriate weight to (a) the long-term effects of inroads into individual rights, (such as individual harm, blocked political, social, and legal mechanisms), and (b) precedent-setting in a tightly-interwoven structure of individual rights and state power. Constitutive rules further delimit the types of measures that can be introduced, regardless of the “tradeoffs” considered in balancing security and freedom. In the rights-based realm, arguments related to expanded state powers, distributive justice, and practical effect undermine the analogy.