Attitudes toward the criminal legal system: Scale development and predictors

The purpose of this study was to assess attitudes toward the criminal legal system and determine how they are related to rule-violating behaviors and experiences with the criminal legal system. To this end, the Attitudes Toward the Criminal Legal System Scale (ATCLS) was developed and five studies were conducted with participants from New England, including college students, high school students, and the community. Studies 1 and 2 found support for the reliability and validity of the ATCLS, and a relation between the ATCLS and authoritarianism and belief in a just world. Study 3 examined the test–retest reliability of the ATCLS. Studies 4 and 5 were conducted primarily to uncover the relation between the ATCLS and law- or rule-related behaviors with a community and high school sample, respectively. Generally, results suggested that there were no sex differences on the ATCLS, but attitudes toward the criminal legal system might function differently for men and women with regards to authoritarianism and behavior.     

Mother teresa meets Genghis Khan: The dialectics of hierarchy-enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating career choices

We replicated and extended earlier work showing the connection between social dominance orientation and the perceived attractiveness of hierarchy-enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating careers using data from two large and independent samples of UCLA students. Consistent with expectations, the data from both studies showed that the greater the students' level of social dominance orientation, the more attractive hierarchy-enhancing careers such as criminal prosecutor, police officer, and FBI agent were perceived to be. Similarly, the greater the students' social dominance orientation, the less attractive they found hierarchy-attenuating careers such as public defender, civil rights lawyer, and human rights advocate. These conclusions held even after controlling for the effects of socioeconomic status and political conservatism. Canonical correlation analysis disclosed that the attractiveness of these career paths within the general domain of law made only one, bipolar and unidimensional projection within social dominance space. The nature of this bipolar dimension reproduced the hypothesized distinction between hierarchy-enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating social roles. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed.     

British Columbia's Capital Asset Management Framework: Moving from transactional to transformative leadership on public‐private partnerships,or a “railroad job”?

Abstract: The Liberal government of British Columbia has had more success in terms of the number of public‐private partnerships they have managed to initiate than any other provincial government in Canada. Observers (whether they believe that this outcome is positive or negative) agree that part of this success is attributable to the Capital Asset Management Framework. Introduced in the spring of 2002, this is a province‐wide set of guidelines that all ministries, agencies and other public organizations seeking a provincial capital contribution must follow. Adherents of the New Public Management (such as the Liberal government) frequently state that public managers ought to be empowered to produce results, and judged by these results, not tied to rigid procedures. With this in mind, this article examines the Capital Asset Management Framework guidelines. The article also explores how the introduction of the Capital Asset Management Framework shifted government leadership on the issue from a transactional to a transformational basis, potentially helping to alleviate the previous difficulties the government had with this issue. Evidence for this analysis is derived from documents, newspapers and trade, interest group and think‐tank publications, as well as interviews that the author conducted with public‐ and private‐sector executives in the summer and fall of 2005. Sommaire : Le gouvernement Libéral de la Colombie‐Britannique a remporté plus de succès que tout autre gouvernement provincial au Canada, en termes du nombre de partenariats publics‐privés qu'il a réussi à lancer. Les observateurs (que ceux‐ci pensent que ce résultat soit positif ou négatif) conviennent que ce succès est en partie attribuable au «Cadre de gestion des immobilisations». Lancé au printemps de 2002, ce projet est un ensemble de lignes directrices pour la totalité de la province que doivent respecter tous les ministères, toutes les agences et autres organismes publics cherchant à obtenir des contributions provinciales pour leurs dépenses en capital. Les adhérents à la Nouvelle gestion publique (comme le gouvernement Libéral) déclarent fréquemment que les gestionnaires publics devraient être habilités à produire des résultats, àêtre jugés sur ces résultats, et non pas être liés par des procédures rigides. C'est dans cet état d'esprit que l'article examine les lignes directrices du Cadre de gestion des immobilisations. L'article étudie également en profondeur comment l'introduction du Cadre de gestion des immobilisations a fait basculer l'approche des dirigeants gouvernementaux sur la question d'une base transactionnelle à une base transformationnelle, en aidant éventuellement à alléger les difficultés précédentes que le gouvernement avait rencontrées à cet égard. Les éléments de preuve de cette analyse proviennent de documents, de journaux et de revues spécialisées, de publications de groupes d'intérêts et de groupes de réflexion, ainsi que d'interviews que l'auteur a menées auprès du personnel de direction des secteurs public et privé au cours de l'été et de l'automne 2005.     

Even criminals take a holiday: Instrumental and expressive crimes on major and minor holidays

Based on routine activity (RA) theory, the authors hypothesized that crime rates would vary with both the type of crime and the type of holiday, with violent crimes occurring more frequently and property crimes occurring less frequently on major holidays that brought families together in the home. It was also hypothesized that minor holidays would have little or no impact on crime rates. These hypotheses were tested by subjecting data on calls for service in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1985, 1987, and 1988 to time series analyses. After controlling for time of day, day of week, month, four weather variables, the first day of the month, linear trend, and autocorrelation, regression analyses indicated that both violent and property crimes were significantly related to major (or legal) holidays, whereas neither type of crime was more likely to occur on minor holidays. Crimes of expressive violence were significantly more prevalent on major holidays, whereas property crimes were less frequent on those days.     

Analysis of the stages of change model of drug and alcohol treatment readiness among prisoners

A classification and regression tree (CART) analysis was applied to data for 237 male participants (M = 31.93 years, SD = 7.64) in a prison-based substance abuse treatment program to study the integrity of the Stages of Change model of treatment readiness. Using the Stages of Change Questionnaire (STOCQ), participants were assigned to Contemplation (102), Action (118), or Maintenance (17) groups. A CART analysis then examined differences in the overall group profiles on the basis of scores on the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking, the Situational Confidence Questionnaire, and the Carlson Psychological Survey. The assumption of discrete stages of change was not supported. Alternative models are suggested: one based on states of change and one on personality characteristics. A focus on equal attention to both cognitive and behavioral aspects of substance abuse treatment readiness is suggested.