Separated Powers in the United States: The Ideology of Agencies,Presidents, and Congress

Government agencies service interest groups, advocate policies, provide advice to elected officials, and create and implement public policy. Scholars have advanced theories to explain the role of agencies in American politics, but efforts to test these theories are hampered by the inability to systematically measure agency preferences. We present a method for measuring agency ideology that yields ideal point estimates of individual bureaucrats and agencies that are directly comparable with those of other political actors. These estimates produce insights into the nature of the bureaucratic state and provide traction on a host of questions about American politics. We discuss what these estimates reveal about the political environment of bureaucracy and their potential for testing theories of political institutions. We demonstrate their utility by testing key propositions from Gailmard and Patty's (2007) influential model of political control and endogenous expertise development.     

A rapid and sensitive method for the identification of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in oral fluid by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

This paper proposes a new approach for automatic classification of counterfeit Viagra(?) and Cialis(?) tablets using image processing and statistical analysis. A high resolution VSC 5000 is used for image acquisition in a controlled environment, and the combination of a thresholding technique with morphological operators is used to segment the tablet from the background. A statistical model based on the RGB color components of original samples is built, and the detection of counterfeit tablets was performed by checking the adherence of a test sample to the obtained distribution using the Bhattacharyya distance. Our experimental results indicated that counterfeit tablets can be effective detected using the proposed approach.     

Tough-on-Crime Tolerance: The Cultural Criminalization of Bigotry in the Post-Civil Rights Era

This article extends critical scholarship on the problem of hate crimes in the U.S. into the field of cultural criminology. Highlighting the role cultural production plays in reinforcing identity-based social harms, this study analyzes the cultural construction of the figure of the white hate crimes perpetrator, or “the hater.” The article integrates findings from a comprehensive discourse analysis of major U.S. news sources from 1986 to 2010 with insights from the fields of whiteness studies and critical criminology. The study first finds that the figure of the hater embodies modern day bigotry through terse stereotypes about white poverty, masculinity, hate group membership, and criminality. It then argues that these widely distributed discursive performances create rhetorical opportunities to define bigotry as an individualized problem with law enforcement remedies and to further normalize extreme hate crimes cases. Ultimately, a new theoretical construct, “post-difference ideology,” is mobilized to challenge the hater’s prescribed role as folk devil.     

Thinking about the future in criminal justice administration: Trends and implications

This paper utilizes the technology of Futures Research to discuss issues that may confront the criminal justice system in the year 2000. Conceptually, the criminal justice agencies are viewed as a social system which is open to external influence both in terms of organizational design and operation. The specific model of criminal justice agencies is based on the work of Lyman Porter and recognizes three primary factors: 1) contextual factors; 2) structural factors; and 3) behavioral consequences. The specific administrative issues discussed are derived from a series of long term social trends identified by futurist Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute.     

The Process of Leaving an Abusive Relationship: The Role of Risk Assessments and Decision-Certainty

Seventy female residents of an urban domestic violence shelter were interviewed to examine a series of hypotheses concerning two factors relevant to the process of leaving an abusive relationship: risk assessments and decision-certainty. Participants' subjective estimates of their own risk of returning to the batterer were examined relative to their perceptions of the likelihood that most battered women will return to the batterer, their certainty regarding the decision to leave the batterer, and their status on known risk factors for returning to an abusive relationship. As hypothesized, battered women's perceptions of personal risk for returning to the batterer were biased by unrealistic optimism; specifically, personal risk was estimated as significantly lower than the risk of most battered women and was not correlated with actual risk factors. Further, the magnitude of the optimistic bias was significantly greater among women expressing high certainty about their decision to leave than among women who expressed less certainty. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Crime in the streets — A moral panic: Understanding “get tough” policies in the criminal justice system

There is more to the crisis of violent crime in the streets than simply citizens being increasingly victimized, becoming alarmed and demanding that public officials do something about it. The. fear of crime, a central theme in diologue surrounding the movement toward “tough on crime” legislation, may exceed by far the actual threat which exists. preliminary eviddnce suggests that indeed a “moral panic” has developed around violent crime in the united States — a “panic” which cannot be explained by dramatic increases in the crime rate. A social structural explanation is required if this lack of fit between the fear of crime and the crime rate is to be understood.