Search and Seizure, Racial Profiling, and Traffic Stops: A Disparate Impact Framework

In response to nationwide attention to the issue of racial profiling, numerous law enforcement agencies have reexamined their policies and collected data on the racial demographics of motorists stopped and searched by police. This article advocates a "disparate impact" framework for understanding the relationship between race and searches and seizures. Using data on the Washington State Patrol, analysis indicates that disparities in the proportions of racial minorities searched by the Patrol are likely not the result of intentional or purposeful discrimination. Additionally, factors such as age, sex, time of day, and the number of violations that motivated the stop affect the likelihood of a search.     

1992: THE ILLUSION OF CHANGE

Despite all the recent publicity surrounding the benefits of a 'Europe without frontiers' it would be wrong to assume that the attainment of this goal is a foregone conclusion. The 1992 deadline is a political expedient designed to create the impression that European economic integration is an irreversible process. However, the reality is that there is still a long way to go before Europe is truly 'open for business'. Barriers to trade will remain despite the enthusiasm of the Commission for radical change, because it is the member states who finally decide on the shape of new initiatives. In order to achieve agreement compromises have to be made, and this reduces the impact of reforms. The measures taken to complete that internal market of the EC can become exercises in harmonization rather than significant reforms which offer direct benefits to business. This article is concerned with one such exercise in harmonization, the introduction of the Single Administrative Document ( sad ).     

BREAKING THE CYCLE OF DRUGS AND CRIME: FINDINGS FROM THE BIRMINGHAM BTC DEMONSTRATION

Research Summary: We compared 137 felony defendants arrested before the implementation of Breaking the Cycle, a pretrial intervention with felony defendants that included drug testing, supervision, and drug treatment as needed, to 245 BTC participants. We found Significant lower rates of arrest and self-reported drug use and crime among BTC participants during the next year.
Policy Implications: Systematic intervention aimed at all drug-involved felony defendants, not just selected defendants, is effective, but may encounter substantial challenges in achieving collaboration across criminal justice agencies, services providers, and levels/branches of government.     

The Line‐Item Veto in Georgia: Fiscal Restraint or Inter‐Branch Politics?

This article about use of the line‐item veto in Georgia concludes that the item veto has been used not as an instrument for reducing the budget total or the size of state government, but as an instrument for protecting the executive budget. Using appropriations data and drawing upon interviews with participants in the budget process, including seven governors, the authors present evidence that in Georgia the item veto (1) is not frequently used, (2) when used, is more likely to remove legislative language than delete dollar amounts, and (3) enables the spending priorities and fiscal policy preferences of the governor to prevail as state policy.     

Law,language, and the power of ‘invisible threats’ of violence against women

Violence, and the threat of violence, is a pervasive feature of women's lives. From high-profile threats in politics to everyday harms such as domestic abuse, violence, threat, and intimidation control women's behaviour and silence their voices. Yet in many cases the pernicious and harmful effect of threat is not captured by the law. Drawing on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and empirical research undertaken in Northern Ireland, this article analyses the ways in which both objective and ‘incorporated’ social structures generate invisible forces of fear and threat that the law does not see, but that women feel and structure their lives around. The article develops the novel conceptual tool of ‘invisible threats’ to capture threat as harm, to show the relation between threat and gendered (in)securities, and to challenge institutions of the law to respond better to invisible threats as perceived and articulated by women.