Books in Brief

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, HEGEMONY & SOCIALIST STRATEGY—TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICS (London: Verso, 1985), trans. by Winston Moore and Paul Cammack.

Chris Rojek, capitalism and leisure theory (London and New York: Methuen, 1985)

Stanley Aronowitz and Henry A. Giroux, education under siege—THE CONSERVATIVE, LIBERAL AND RADICAL DEBATE OVER SCHOOLING (South Hadley: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, 1985).

Bertell Ollman and Edward Vernoff. THE LEFT ACADEMY: MARXIST SCHOLARSHIP ON AMERICAN CAMPUSES, VOLUME 1.

—THE LEFT ACADEMY: MARXIST SCHOLARSHIP ON AMERICAN CAMPUSES, VOLUME 2, (New York: Praeger, 1984).

Alam Blum and Peter McHugh. SELF REFLECTION IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1984).

Bottomore, Tom, with Laurence Harris, V. G. Kiernan, and Ralph Miliband. A DICTIONARY OF MARXIST THOUGHT. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983)

Resnick, Stephen, and Richard Wolff, eds. rethinking marxism: Essays for Harry Magdoff & Paul Sweezy. (Brooklyn, New York: Au‐tonomedia, 1985).

Adam Przeworski, capitalism and social democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985)

Gosta Esping‐Andersen, politics against markets: the social democratic road TO power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985)

CUBA: twenty‐five years of revolution—1959–1984 (New York: Praeger, 1985), edited by Sandor Halabsky and John M. Kirk.

Barry Barnes, about science (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985)     

“What If” History Matters? Comparative Counterfactual Analysis and Policy Relevance

Developing strong, policy-relevant causal explanations for major events in world politics often requires identification and rejection of weak counterfactual claims. Poorly constructed counterfactual arguments reveal serious deficiencies that undercut the necessary condition theories from which they are derived. Stronger explanations of historical events emerge when these weaknesses are weighed against the strengths of competing counterfactuals. Comparing the relative plausibility of competing (weak versus strong) counterfactual claims about the same event is the essence of comparative counterfactual analysis (CCA). When combined with process tracing, CCA can help to generate policy relevant findings by resolving many of the methodological pitfalls researchers confront when each method is applied in isolation.     

Quantitative Analysis of the DNA Distribution on Cigarette Butt Filter Paper*

The distribution of DNA on the filter paper of smoked cigarette butts was quantitatively mapped using real‐time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The filter papers from smoked cigarette butts collected from indoor and outdoor sources were sliced into equal pieces and the amount of DNA on each slice was determined. This study found that the cigarette butt filter papers sliced parallel to the seam of the cigarette had more uniformly distributed DNA on the slices and in most cases, there was enough DNA on each slice to obtain a complete DNA profile. The perpendicular slices had a less uniform pattern of distribution and some slices did not have enough DNA to obtain an interpretable DNA profile. Cigarette butts found indoors also had more DNA per cigarette on average than cigarette butts found outdoors.     

The Effects of Legal and Extralegal Factors on Detention Decisions in US District Courts

The Bail Reform Act of 1984 changed the law dictating release and detention decisions in federal court. Since its passage, few studies have examined judicial decision-making in this context. Legal research enables us to account for the structure and interpretation of federal detention laws and to analyze previously neglected measures of legal factors in our analyses. We use US Sentencing Commission data on a sample of defendants who were sentenced in 2007 (N?=?31,043). We find that legal factors—particularly length of criminal history, having committed a violent or otherwise serious offense, and having committed the offense while under supervision of the criminal justice system—have the strongest relationships with the presentence detention outcome. A defendant’s age, race, and ethnicity have weaker relationships with detention. When we compare defendants who are similarly situated with respect to legal factors, the probability of detention is similar regardless of age, race, and ethnicity.     

Secret seducers

At the end of the 1990s, a moral panic erupted in the Netherlands about the phenomenon of what came to be known as ‘loverboys’. The suspicion was that a growing number of Dutch girls were being groomed by handsome young men who employed all sorts of devious methods to prepare their girlfriends for life as a prostitute. Stories about a new generation of pimps, often of Moroccan origin, regularly appeared in the Dutch media. In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork on pimps operating in the red-light district of Amsterdam, we describe the ways in which these young men operate and how they justify their behaviour. On the basis of empirical research we intend to present a more realistic picture of what goes on in the prostitution industry and highlight the discrepancy between what is reported in the media and what is actually happening in the prostitution sector. We also examine the background to the moral panic about loverboys and the ways in which these young men were supposedly able to induce many young girls into becoming prostitutes.     

After the sunset: the residual effect of temporary legislation

The difference between permanent legislation and temporary legislation is the default rule of termination: permanent legislation governs perpetually, while temporary legislation governs for a limited time. Recent literature on legislative timing rules considers the effect of temporary legislation to stop at the moment of expiration. When the law expires, so does its regulatory effect. This article extends that literature by examining the effect of temporary legislation beyond its expiration. We show that in addition to affecting compliance behavior which depends on statutory enforcement, temporary legislation also affects compliance behavior which does not depend on statutory enforcement, and more generally, organizational behavior after a sunset. When temporary legislation expires therefore, it can continue to administer regulatory and other effects. We specify the conditions for this process and give the optimal legislative response.     

The quality of written expert testimony in alleged child sexual abuse: An empirical study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate written expert testimonies in cases of suspected child sexual abuse in Sweden. A total of 121 expert testimonies were rated with an instrument developed for the study, the SQX-12 (Gumpert et al., 2001) which is a 12-item checklist aimed to reflect consensus-established concepts of quality. Reports from different professional groups were compared, as were reports produced before and after the 1991 publication of national guidelines. The results suggested that the reports produced by professionals using statement analysis generally were of higher quality than reports written by professionals from child- and adolescent psychiatry. There was a slight increase in report quality, as measured by the SQX total score, over the studied years. However, it is concluded that the overall quality of written expert testimony on child credibility still does not reach the recommended level in Sweden.     

Early prevention of life-course personal and property violence: a 19-year follow-up of the Montreal Longitudinal-Experimental Study (MLES)

Objectives

This study assessed the impact of a multi-component prevention program on personal and property violence across three developmental periods (early adolescence, mid-adolescence and late adolescence/early adulthood).

Methods

The preventive intervention targeted disruptive kindergarten boys from low socioeconomic status families when they were 7 through 9 years of age. A randomized control trial was conducted to assess the impact of the preventive intervention relative to a control group.

Results

Two different approaches to data analysis were adopted: an intention-to-treat (ITT) approach and an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Results from the ITT analysis showed that the level of property violence for the intervention group was persistently lower across the three developmental periods compared to the control group. However, the intervention group did not differ from the control group on personal violence throughout adolescence and early adulthood. Results from the IV analysis generally confirmed these findings.

Conclusions

The discussion focuses on the differential effects of the prevention program on personal versus property violence.