Panopticism and financial controls

This article examines financial controls, including accounting and auditing, as an anti-corruption methodology in public administration. Part I places accounting and auditing in the context of the anti-corruption project, the reformist pursuit of corruption-free government. Part II presents a case study of the evolution of anti-corruption accounting and auditing strategies in New York City. Part III examines the impacts of more comprehensive and intrusive financial controls for contemporary public administration.     

Rethinking the war against hate crimes: A New York city perspective

Francis Allen, The Borderland of Criminal Justice: Essays in Law and Criminology Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964

Francis Allen, The Crimes of Politics: Political Dimensions of Criminal Justice Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974

Francis Allen, Law, Intellect, and Education Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979

Francis Allen, The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal: Penal Policy and Social Purpose New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981     

The Physiology of Political Participation

Political involvement varies markedly across people. Traditional explanations for this variation tend to rely on demographic variables and self-reported, overtly political concepts. In this article, we expand the range of possible explanatory variables by hypothesizing that a correlation exists between political involvement and physiological predispositions. We measure physiology by computing the degree to which electrodermal activity changes on average when a participant sequentially views a full range of differentially valenced stimuli. Our findings indicate that individuals with higher electrodermal responsiveness are also more likely to participate actively in politics. This relationship holds even after the effects of traditional demographic variables are taken into account, suggesting that physiological responsiveness independently contributes to a fuller understanding of the underlying sources of variation in political involvement.     

Social conflict over property rights: the end,a new beginning,or a continuing debate?

The ownership and control of private land is a core social value in the United States. Public planning can be seen as conflicting with this value. The long-standing tension between private property rights and public planning was heightened in the 1990s with the emergence of the so-called private property rights movement. This movement seeks to limit governmental authority over privately owned land through a multi-level strategy of legal, policy, political, and public relations actions. This paper explores the historical basis for this conflict, the legal framework within which it functions, and contemporary policy battles.

The paper concludes that there may be no final outcome to this debate. Property rights activists are impassioned and believe their view of history and law is correct. I argue that it may be best to see debate about land use and property rights as one of the central vehicles for a continual reframing of core values in the American experience.     

Fatalities due to intoxicated arrestees jumping out of moving police vehicles

Fatalities resulting from emergency vehicle crashes are relatively rare. Mortality, particularly in the case of unbelted occupants, is relatively high. Data on drunken (handcuffed) arrestees jumping out of a moving police vehicle or the circumstances of such events have not been published. Two cases of such fatalities are described in this paper. Since these cases should be considered as "death in custody," may give rise to significant covering and speculation in the media, and may raise liability questions, they require an in-depth medicolegal investigation, including investigation of the crime scene, complete medicolegal autopsy/toxicology, and reconstruction of the event in the presence of an experienced forensic pathologist. From the 2 cases described in this paper, it appears that mechanical malfunctioning of the locking device of the door of the police vehicle and lack of controlling the actual lock-tied closing of the vehicle door (instead just assuming that it happened) may precipitate such cases. Auditory control by the police officers of the arrestee tampering with or manipulating the car door may be hampered by the background noise of the police vehicle, the on-board radio, and the use of a siren. Regular visual control and adequate control of the actual locking of the vehicle door are of paramount importance to prevent such mishaps. Reconstruction of the event in the presence of the forensic experts is mandatory to test the different hypotheses of the fatal event.