Community structural predictors of spatially aggregated motor vehicle theft rates: Do they replicate?

Community-level motor vehicle theft (MVT) is not spatially random but is influenced by the structural composition of the community. Work to date did not provide a clear picture of the structural correlates of community-level MVT rates for two reasons. Cross-sectional studies had been limited to a single point in time (one wave design). In addition, studies had not adequately controlled for MVT rates in adjoining communities (spatially autocorrelated rates). The current study addressed these limitations. Drawing on structural correlates highlighted by factorial ecology and past work on motor vehicle theft, it anticipated cross-sectional connections between status, stability, age composition, and racial heterogeneity. It sought to learn if these connections persisted at two points in time spanning a decade. Census block group data from a midwestern city were merged with geocoded vehicle theft data, and a comprehensive spatial lag variable was constructed (Land & Deane, 1992). At both points in time, communities with higher MVT rates had lower socioeconomic status, and were surrounded by other communities with higher MVT rates. Community processes driving the connection between status and vehicle theft were suggested. The strong spatial dependency of MVT rates suggests attributes, events, or longer-term trends located in a section of a city may be affecting the communities located there. Issues for prevention were addressed.     

The Philadelphia predictive policing experiment

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This place-based, randomized experiment explored the impact of different patrol strategies on violent and property crime in microscale predicted crime areas....     

Remaking German democracy in the 1950s: Was the civil service an asset or a liability?

This article offers a new look at the conflicting forces behind decisions on the shape and character of the civil service in the 1950s. It is argued that the controversial measures taken to reaffirm the traditional hierarchical system and reinstate former civil servants were not only the product of policies devised by the Adenauer government and the conservative majority in the Bundestag. The inability of the Western Allies to agree on a clear course of action was also a factor, as was the support for some legislation by the Social Democrats, who were hoping to broaden their electoral appeal and improve relations with the administrative and military elites. Decision makers did succeed in moulding the civil service into an effective tool of government, and in this respect it was an asset in stabilising the new democratic system. Yet the extent to which politically compromised staff members were reinstated was counter‐productive, creating political burdens that outweighed short‐term advantages. Moreover, civil service policy bolstered traditional lines of social and gender stratification, undermining the credibility of a political system ostensibly based on the principle of equal rights and opportunities.     

Indicators of political development

Development implies goals and the positing of goals requires values. Economists have generally agreed that the increase of wealth (or perhaps welfare) is the proper object of economic development. Political scientists, probably happily, have no similar agreement in regard to the appropriate goal for political development. Moreover, it is doubtful that the various aspects of political change are located along a single continuum. This is an empirical question but investigation ought to begin at least with provision for an n‐dimensional space. Finally, political scientists should concentrate on political change that has too often been neglected in favour of economic and purely social change.