Prison size,overcrowding, prison violence,and recidivism

Contrary to a widespread belief about the undesirability of relatively large prisons, a review of the criminological literature yields no empirical evidence that prison size influences behavior inside or after leaving prison. The English prison statistics show that prison offenses, and more specifically assaults, are less likely in larger prisons. However, it was impossible in these analyses to control for the kinds of inmates in each prison. In a more controlled analysis of correctional effectiveness (defined as the difference between predicted and actual reconviction rates), there was a strong tendency for the more overcrowded prisons to be less effective. Size was only weakly related to effectiveness, and this association was reduced further after controlling for overcrowding. It was concluded that an important priority for governmental agencies should be to reduce overcrowding in prisons.     

A MUNICIPAL LAND POOLING PROJECT IN PERTH

Planning control of urban land use in most of the Australian States is by the planning scheme system and is authorized by legislation based on the English Town and Country Planning Act, 1932. Under this system each planning authority prepares a land use zoning and reservation plan designed to accommodate the forecast urban growth. It then reviews and regulates the proposals for urban development projects as they are brought forward to ensure that they conform to the plan.     

THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND SENTENCING The Importance of Race in the Military

Data on incarcerated Navy and Marine Corps personnel are examined to determine the impact of offender's race on sentence length. The literature on sentencing in the civilian sector has long suggested that under certain circumstances blacks (or whites) receive unjustifiably long sentences. It is argued here that much of the variation in senate is due not just to characteristics of the offender, but also to characteristics of the sentencing process. The military forms a more state sentencing environment than the civilian setting; hence one should expect less variation due to the sentencing process. Analysis revealed that blacks and whites showed no statistically significant differences in sentence length, in both the Navy and Marine Corps. When small differences did exist. whites were usually recipients of the longer sentences.     

Police attitudes toward the utilization of civilian employees

Given that the disposition of patrol officers significantly affect the implementation of policy, the attitudes of patrolmen toward utilization of civilian personnel in two department differing in their rate of civilianization, were compared in this study. Based on a random sample, consisting of approximately 25% of the patrolmen from each department, attitudes toward each of three examined aspects of civilianzation were more positive among officers from the more civilianized department. After controlling for socioeconomic variables, it was also determined that younger, more educated and less experienced patrolmen, respectively, held motte positive belief about civilian usage.