The results of a randomized controlled trial of police body-worn video in Australia

Journal of Experimental Criminology - We report the results of a randomized controlled trial of police body-worn video (BWV) cameras in an Australian context, with a focus on how cameras influence...     

Does contact with the justice system deter or promote future delinquency? Results from a longitudinal study of British adolescent twins

What impact does formal punishment have on antisocial conduct—does it deter or promote it? The findings from a long line of research on the labeling tradition indicate formal punishments have the opposite-of-intended consequence of promoting future misbehavior. In another body of work, the results show support for deterrence-based hypotheses that punishment deters future misbehavior. So, which is it? We draw on a nationally representative sample of British adolescent twins from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study to perform a robust test of the deterrence versus labeling question. We leverage a powerful research design in which twins can serve as the counterfactual for their co-twin, thereby ruling out many sources of confounding that have likely impacted prior studies. The pattern of findings provides support for labeling theory, showing that contact with the justice system—through spending a night in jail/prison, being issued an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO), or having an official record—promotes delinquency. We conclude by discussing the impact these findings may have on criminologists’ and practitioners’ perspective on the role of the juvenile justice system in society.     

Tenderness,Tittle-tattle and Truth in Mother–Daughter Letters: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,Mary Wortley Montagu Stuart,Countess of Bute,and Lady Louisa Stuart

The correspondence of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her daughter and granddaughter is one of the most extensive collections of English mother–daughter letters for the period. Through it one can see the nature of their political and social activity and their sense and construction of their own social identities and responsibilities. But what is most distinct about the Montagu–Bute–Stuart sequence is their reflection on what mother–daughter letters meant.     

‘Utterly Disgraceful’: Social Media and the Workplace

Social media use by Australian public servants has given rise to questions pertaining to their political rights, impartiality and privacy outside of work. Drawing on the recent case Starr v Department of Human Services these issues are explored. The findings suggest that social media use has heightened tensions around public servant's rights to comment on issues of the day, and its use by employees both inside and beyond the workplace remains contested terrain.     

Making Austerity Popular: The Media and Mass Attitudes toward Fiscal Policy

What explains variation in individual attitudes toward government deficits? Although macroeconomic stance is of paramount importance for contemporary governments, our understanding of its popular politics is limited. We argue that popular attitudes regarding austerity are influenced by media (and wider elite) framing. Information necessary to form preferences on the deficit is not provided neutrally, and its provision shapes how voters understand their interests. A wide range of evidence from Britain between 2010 and 2015 supports this claim. In the British Election Study, deficit attitudes vary systematically with the source of news consumption, even controlling for party identification. A structural topic model of two major newspapers' reporting shows that content varies systematically with respect to coverage of public borrowing—in ways that intuitively accord with the attitudes of their readership. Finally, a survey experiment suggests causation from media to attitudes: deficit preferences change based on the presentation of deficit information.     

Means-Tested Public Assistance Programs and Adolescent Political Socialization

In recent years, scholars have pointed to the politically demobilizing effects of means-tested assistance programs on recipients. In this study, we bridge the insights from policy feedback literature and adolescent political socialization research to examine how receiving means-tested programs shapes parent influence on adolescent political participation. We argue that there are differences in pathways to political participation through parent political socialization and youth internal efficacy beliefs for adolescents from households that do or do not receive means-tested assistance. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 536 Black, Latino, and White adolescents (50.8% female), we find that adolescents from means-tested assistance households report less parent political socialization and political participation. For all youth, parent political socialization predicts adolescent political participation. Internal political efficacy is a stronger predictor of political participation for youth from a non-means-tested assistance household than it is for youth from a household receiving means-tested assistance. These findings provide some evidence of differential paths to youth political participation via exposure to means-tested programs.     

Genetic risk factors correlate with county-level violent crime rates and collective disadvantage

Purpose

Social scientists have a rich tradition of uncovering the neighborhood, structural, and ecological correlates of human behavior. Results from this body of evidence have revealed that living in disadvantaged communities portends myriad negative outcomes, including antisocial behaviors. Though it has long been argued that associations between neighborhood factors and individual-level outcomes may, at least partially, reflect genetic selection, a paucity of research has empirically investigated this possibility.

Methods

The current study examined whether known genetic risk factors for antisocial behavior were predictive of exposure to disadvantage and violent crime measured at the county level. Drawing on genotypic data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a dopamine risk scale was created based on respondents’ genotypes for DAT1, DRD2, and DRD4. County-level disadvantage was measured via Census data and violent crime rates were measured via the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports.

Results

Findings revealed that individuals with a greater number of dopamine risk alleles were more likely to live in a disadvantaged county and were more likely to live in a county with higher violent crime rates.     

Recent research: The micro-politics of deliberation: Case studies in public participation

The contemporary emphasis on public participation in policy making derives both from concerns to increase the legitimacy of public decision making and to develop more dialogic forms of governance, and from more 'bottom-up' action intended to ensure that the voices of those excluded from policy making are heard. This has resulted in diverse forms of participative practice, including forums in which social movement organizations meet officials, and forums initiated by officials to which 'the public' are invited. This article examines four case studies of participation, studied as part of research conducted in the ESRC Democracy and Participation programme. It focuses on a micro-level analysis of the dynamics of exchanges within such forums to question the capacity of such forums to generate alternative discourses within which policy problems can be defined and addressed.