Police Body-Worn Cameras: Perceptions of Law Enforcement Leadership

Many people are enthusiastic about the potential benefits of police body-worn cameras (BWC). Despite this enthusiasm, however, there has been no research on law enforcement command staff perceptions of BWCs. Given the importance that law enforcement leadership plays in the decision to adopt and implement BWCs, it is necessary to assess their perceptions. This is the first study to measure law enforcement leadership attitudes toward BWCs. The study relies on data collected from surveys administered to command staff representing local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in a large southern county. Among the major perceptual findings are that command staff believe BWCs will impact police officers’ decisions to use force in encounters with citizens and police will be more reluctant to use necessary force in encounters with the public. Respondents also believe that use of BWCs is supported by the public because society does not trust police, media will use BWC data to embarrass police, and pressure to implement BWCs comes from the media. Perceptions of the impact of BWCs on safety, privacy, and police effectiveness are also discussed.     

Bidding behavior in the department of defense's commercial activities competitions

From 1978 to 1994, the Department of Defense conducted more than 2,000 competitions in which private contractors and the government's in‐house team bid to provide a service performed in‐house before the competition. A three‐equation model is constructed, which is used to estimate the in‐house bid, the minimum contractor bid, and the in‐house team's baseline cost. The model accounts for the fact that the in‐house bid is constrained not to exceed its baseline cost. The estimates are used in simulations of the savings from the completed competitions ($1.55 billion annually, 35 percent of the baseline cost) as well as the savings from various alternative policies, including competitively tendering all the functions on the Department of Defense's list of potential candidates ($7.58 billion annually). © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Postmortem pink teeth.

A series of cases is reported in which pink teeth were observed during the postmortem period. Most cases were associated with decomposition in a moist environment. Experimental procedures led to the extraction of pink material from dentin and demonstration that hemoglobin and serum proteins were present. The pink-tooth phenomenon was duplicated in human teeth by instilling into the pulp chambers whole blood and blood with the red cells hemolyzed. The change was manifested in teeth of dogs after freezing, heating, and decomposition in a moist environment. The authors postulate that pink teeth occur as a result of breakdown of red blood cells in the pulp chamber of the tooth and diffusion of hemoglobin and other serum proteins into the dentin via the dential tubules. Histochemical studies show that the brown or gray material in some teeth subjected to postmortem aging is probably hemoglobin and serum proteins. Factors of age, vascularity of the pulp chamber, and postmortem conditions are discussed in relation to the postmortem development of pink teeth.     

The effects of modeling and cognitive induction on the moral reasoning of adolescents

In this investigation of the effects of modeling and cognitive induction on moral reasoning, 87 junior high school students were exposed to moral reasoning, characteristic of either one stage above (+1) or one stage below (?1) their dominant stage, as determined by pretesting. The presented reasoning was attributed to a model of either high, neutral, or low status/relevance to the content of the moral dilemmas used. A multiple-choice adaptation of the Kohlberg moral development interview was used at pretesting, at intervention/posttesting, and at delayed posttesting. Analyses of changes in moral reasoning included examination of direct and indirect effects on both an immediate and a delayed posttest. Results indicated significant and stable change in moral reasoning associated with the developmental stage of the message (+1 produced advances, but ?1 failed to induce significant regression) and significant temporary change associated with the characteristics of the model (high status/relevance models had greater influence than did neutral models). It is suggested that future research and educational efforts give attention to both the moral stage of the intervention and the nature of the source to which it is attributed.     

Governing Economic Globalisation: Global Legal Pluralism and European Law

How is globalisation governed? The following article tries to answer this question. Focusing on economic globalisation, it presents the case of the international commodity chain in toys, identifies its various segments or boxes, and then gives examples to illustrate how the chain is governed. The article argues that economic globalisation is governed by the totality of strategically determined, situationally specific, and often episodic conjunctions of a multiplicity of sites throughout the world. These sites include, for example, EU law, United States law, Chinese law, multinational corporation and trade association codes of conduct, international customs conventions, and WTO law. Each of these sites has institutional, normative, and processual characteristics. Though the sites are not isolated from each other, each has its own history, internal dynamics, and distinctive features. Taken together, they represent a new form of global legal pluralism.