Mortgagee Powers Rhetoric

This article addresses the rhetoric of land law's interpretive community at the time of, and following, the House of Lords' decision in Boland . It is argued, contrary to the views of other commentators, that the decision was not strongly motivated by a concern to see social justice done between commercial lenders and wives but, rather, was a sensible and socially realistic application of clear statutory provisions understood within the context of land law orthodoxy. Furthermore, decisions following Boland which have been said to have sapped its strength also cohere comfortably within that community's stable rhetoric. Consequently, it cannot be argued that proportionality in human rights law requires a return to the supposed 'high point' of Boland – when considered carefully, the evidence, both from Boland itself and from land law's wider interpretive community, shows that such a high point did not exist.     

Politics and the Adoption of Legislative Television: An Analysis of the U.S. House Vote on C-SPAN

The present study extends the work of Crain and Goff (1988) by examining the political determinants of the earliest decision to adopt legislative television on a permanent basis at the national level in the United States. Data on legislator and district characteristics are used to explain the 1977 vote to adopt C-SPAN coverage of proceedings in the U.S. House of Representatives. Logit regression results suggest that length of service and extremity of political views/ideologies had clear and significant effects on politicians' votes concerning the adoption of legislative television. As with Crain and Goff (1988), these measures capture some element of legislator self-interest.     

Assessing Criminal Justice Practice Using Social Justice Theory

In this article, I introduce two of the leading theories of social justice put forth by John Rawls and David Miller. Then, I assess criminal justice practice, from law-making to corrections, in terms of ways in which it is consistent and inconsistent with these theories of social justice. Throughout the article, I also identify ways in which criminal justice practice is inconsistent with social justice. Finally, I make recommendations for reforming criminal justice to make it more consistent with social justice.     

Outsourcing in US cities, ambulances and elderly voters

This paper develops a public choice model of city service provision, and uses empirical analysis to pin down some of the model’s key assumptions. Many of the largest cities in the United States outsource emergency medical services, and analysis of data from the 200 largest US cities finds that a number of variables are significant determinants of emergency ambulance outsourcing, including the fraction of a city’s voters over the age of 65. This finding provides evidence that elderly voters are important in policy determination, and suggests a particular shape for the model’s contracting cost curve.     

Wither Criminal Justice? An Argument for a Reformed Discipline

The American criminal justice system fails to achieve justice, reduce crime, and provide equal protection to Americans regardless of their social class, race, and gender. But, criminal justice as an academic area of study has become a popular and fast growing liberal arts major in the United States, churning out tens of thousands to work in the criminal justice system. Given the demonstrable harms caused by criminal justice, which are suffered disproportionately by the least powerful people, academic criminologists and criminal justicians have the obligation to promote a reformed discipline. This article briefly summarizes the evidence of bias in the criminal justice system and then turns to how these biases relate to criminal justice as an academic discipline. Using the war on drugs as an example, I argue that the practice of criminal justice as an academic endeavor runs counter to the goal of promoting social justice in America. One of the ironic conclusions of this article is that criminal justice as an academic discipline must get smaller if we are to achieve larger goals of social justice outlined here. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Civilizing Space or Criminalizing Place: Using Routine Activities Theory to Better Understand How Legal Hybridity Spatially Regulates “Deviant Populations”

Critical Criminology - The combining of administrative, civil, and criminal law has broadened modern crime control mechanisms and greatly increased the legal authority and discretion of law...     

Assessing the validity of white-collar crime definitions using experimental survey data

Journal of Experimental Criminology - We examine the extent to which the characteristics of offenders, the circumstance of offending, and offense characteristics affect public willingness to label...     

The Road to Reengagement and Beyond

The Shanghai Communiqué, a pathbreaking accord signed by U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on February 28, 1972, marks a defining moment in the history of both the United States and the People’s Republic of China;50 years on, its significance endures.