CREDIBLE RESEARCH PRACTICES TO INFORM DRUG LAW ENFORCEMENT

Chairing the recent National Research Council Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs, I learned that our nation has invested little in research on drug law enforcement and that the limited available research does not provide a credible basis for formation of drug control policy. This commentary conjectures reasons for the distressing status quo and recommends changes in research practices that may improve matters.     

MORALITY,SELF‐CONTROL,AND CRIME*

This paper offers evidence to specify further Self‐Control Theory by investigating its predictive strength relative to morality and its interconnections with morality in accounting for criminal probability. Using random sample household survey data from Lviv, Ukraine, we confirm that self‐control is an important predictor of criminal probabilities in an unusual cultural context. However, morality is also shown to be a strong independent predictor with strength that seems to exceed substantially that of self‐control. In addition, taking morality into account significantly reduces the coefficients for self‐control, sometimes eliminating them entirely, and morality shows little interaction with self‐control in its predictions of the measures of criminal probability. The results suggest that the recently formulated Situational Action Theory, which features (weak) morality as the prime cause of criminal behavior and questions the relative importance of self‐control, should be taken seriously. Overall, the results confirm the importance of self‐control as a factor in misbehavior; yet, they also provide a mandate for greater attention to morality as a potent variable in understanding misconduct.     

RACE,RACIAL THREAT,AND SENTENCING OF HABITUAL OFFENDERS*

As legislatures proliferate novel “enhancements” to criminal sentencing, such as “three-strikes” and related provisions, and as criminologists debate their effects, the role of existing enhancements, such as habitual offender statutes, has received little empirical attention. This article explores the effect of race in the decision to prosecute and sentence eligible defendants as “habitual” offenders. During FY 1992–93, 9,690 males admitted to prison in Florida were statutorily eligible (two prior felony convictions or one prior violent felony conviction) for sentencing as “habitual” offenders. Approximately 20% received that disposition. They will serve at least 75% of their enhanced sentence as compared with the state average of about 40%. Logistic regression, controlling for prior record, crime seriousness, and other relevant factors, shows a significant and substantial race effect. The disadvantage of black defendants is particularly strong for drug offenses and for property crimes that have relatively high victimization rates for whites (larceny, burglary). Race is less consequential for violent and weapons-related crimes. Race effects are more often significant in sentencing contexts that are low in terms of percent black, racial income inequality, drug arrest rates, and violent crime rates. The relevance of these findings for a “racial threat” interpretation of sentencing outcomes is discussed.     

INFORMATION‐SHARING AND CONFIDENTIALITY IN SOCIAL POLICY: REGULATING MULTI‐AGENCY WORKING

In recent years, there has been growing concern in the UK that local services aimed at risky or vulnerable people are ineffective, because of agencies’ persistent failure to share information about their clients. Despite considerable national policy effort to encourage better information‐sharing, previous research indicates that there are many cases where information is still not shared when it should be, or where it is shared when it should not be, with potentially devastating results. This article uses data from the largest empirical study of local information‐sharing yet undertaken to examine four policy sectors where multi‐agency working has come to the fore. It shows that variations in their information‐sharing and confidentiality practices can be explained by neo‐Durkheimian institutional theory and uses insights from this theory to argue that current policy tools, which emphasize formal regulation, are unlikely to lead to consistent and acceptable outcomes, not least because of unresolved conflicts in values and aims.     

Synthesizing Related Rules from Statutes and Cases for Legal Expert Systems

Abstract. Different legal expert systems may be incompatible with each other: A user in characterizing the same situation by answering the questions presented in a consultation can be led to contradictory inferences. Such systems can be "synthesized" to help users avoid such contradictions by alerting them that other relevant systems are available to be consulted as they are responding to questions. An example of potentially incompatible, related legal expert systems is presented here - ones for the New Jersey murder statute and the celebrated Quinlan case, along with one way of synthesizing them to avoid such incompatibility.     

Self-Talk: A New Criminological Theory

A new theory on the causes of criminal behavior is presented in which the authors assert that the reasons for any criminal act can be determined by identifying what the offender was telling him/herself prior to and during the time when the crime was committed. This theory has direct rehabilitative implications as the authors assert that the only way to curb future criminal activity is to change the underlying self-talk of the offender.     

‘Somewhat more disruptive than we had in mind’1: The Boundary Commission for England's 2011 Proposed Redistribution of Parliamentary Constituencies

In February 2011 the UK Parliament passed an Act that both reduced the number of MPs to be elected to the House of Commons and significantly altered the rules for the definition of Parliamentary constituencies. After six redistributions in which organic criteria—MPs representing places with a community of interest—dominated the redrawing of constituency boundaries, the new rules gave precedence to an arithmetic criterion: all constituencies must have electorates within 5 per cent of the national quota (average). Seven months later the Boundary Commission published its initial proposals for a new set of 502 constituencies implementing these new rules. This paper evaluates the amount of change to the country's electoral map that this involves, identifies the main features of the new constituency configurations, and assesses their likely impact on UK political life.