MEASURING PROTECTIVE HANDGUN OWNERSHIP*

Hill et al. (1985) have suggested a measure of protective handgun ownership that can be implemented in an omnibus survey like the General Social Survey (GSS), which does not ask respondents why they own the gun. Using the 1980 GSS and their refined measure, Hill et al. report (among other things) that fear of crime and prior victimization increase the likelihood that men, but not women, will own handguns for protection. Their analysis, however, is Jawed because (1) they made errors in their analysis and (2) their measure of protective handgun ownership is biased. This paper explains why the measure is biased and shows how the measure alters parameter estimates.     

INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT - A VIEW FROM THE CENTRE

The combination of new public management reforms and 'informatization' is presenting opportunities for the re-engineering of government business activities. Awareness and debate about the implications of this are limited however. Structural reforms to public services need to take account of the notion of information stewardship, and an essential competence of public officials is to manage and use information held in trust. Public service reforms which lead both to fragmentation and to the contract culture have implications for information systems development and implementation. Whilst new technology can be used to alter radically the administrative and service delivery systems of government, technical possibilities must be set alongside issues such as the privacy of the individual and the protection of public interest. The article also discusses the role of the Office of Public Services and Science, and HM Treasury, in stimulating appropriate strategies to cope with these dilemmas.     

MODELS, THEORIES, AND THE THEORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES

… a deliberate attempt to transpose into political science the technique of the 'working model', that is, fundamentally, to restore to favour, in a new guise, the methodical use of hypothesis in science.
MAURICE DUVERGER, Political Parties , p. xiv.     

A More Accountable Press

This independent report for the Media Standards Trust makes the case for urgent reform of the self-regulation of British press content. It focuses on increasing inaccuracy and invasion of privacy by the press, which also suffers declining public trust. These features are linked to major changes in press technology and economics. Unlike comparable trades and professions, the Press Complaints Commission has not updated its structure and procedures to reflect modern standards of transparency, fairness and accountability. The democratic role of the press is weakened. Governments may be tempted to intervene. A later report will propose reforms.     

AN ERRORS-IN-VARIABLE MODEL OF THE EFFECT OF POVERTY ON URBAN HOMICIDE RATES

Inconsistent findings on the relationship between poverty and violent crime have led some authors to question the presence of a structural relationship. There is reason, however, to believe that many of the existing estimates are biased because measures of poverty contain errors which are confounded with disturbances in the estimated models. In this paper we specify and estimate a model which accommodates the measurement error and provides an instrumental variable estimate of the effects of poverty on homicide rates in the 49 largest cities in the U.S. Compared to similar OLS estimates, the instrumental variable estimates are much larger and fit a model in which poverty increases the homicide rate. The results are similar when homicides are divided into four types: family homicides, other primary homicides, robbery homicides, and other-felony homicides