West African Voices

A new literary programme has been started in the West AfricanService of the B.B.C., and this article is a reprint of oneof the talks. The Ibo speaker was formerly in the Customs, andqualified as a barrister last November: he is also the authorof numerous poems in English, and of a novel, The Prince ofUtete. The other two are schoolmasters working as Assistantsat the School of Oriental and African Studies. For technicalreasons, the orthography is not quite complete.     

Routine crime in exceptional times: The impact of the 2002 Winter Olympics on citizen demand for police services

Despite their rich theoretical and practical importance, criminologists have paid scant attention to the patterns of crime and the responses to crime during exceptional events. Throughout the world large-scale political, social, economic, cultural, and sporting events have become commonplace. Natural disasters such as blackouts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis present similar opportunities. Such events often tax the capacities of jurisdictions to provide safety and security in response to the exceptional event, as well as to meet the “routine” public safety needs. This article examines “routine” crime as measured by calls for police service, official crime reports, and police arrests in Salt Lake City before, during, and after the 2002 Olympic Games. The analyses suggest that while a rather benign demographic among attendees and the presence of large numbers of social control agents might have been expected to decrease calls for police service for minor crime, it actually increased in Salt Lake during this period. The implications of these findings are considered for theories of routine activities, as well as systems capacity.     

Zur Berücksichtigung des Denkmal-, Kulturgüter- und Welterbeschutzes in der Novelle des Bundeswaldgesetzes

Der Wald hat für uns ?konomische, ?kologische, soziale und kulturelle Bedeutung. Leider ist in letzter Zeit die kulturelle Bedeutung im Vergleich zur ?kologischen Bedeutung ins politische Abseits geraten. Nun will man das seit 1975 geltende Bundeswaldgesetz novellieren. Dabei sollte zur besseren Berücksichtigung des Denkmalschutzes bei der Definition des Waldes klargestellt werden, dass Park-, Garten- und Friedhofsanlagen kein Wald im Sinne des Bundeswaldgesetzes sind. Die Bedeutung des Waldbodens als Archiv der Natur- und Kulturgeschichte muss betont werden. Nicht zuletzt wegen der angestrebten Eintragung der Deutschen Buchenw?lder in die Liste des Erbes der Welt muss zum Ausdruck kommen, dass Deutschland die europ?ischen und internationalen Bemühungen zum Erhalt des Kultur- und Naturerbes wie das übereinkommen zum Schutz des Kultur- und Naturerbes der Welt von 1972 unterstützt.     

Randomized experiments in criminology: What have we learned in the last two decades?

This paper aims to review randomized experiments in criminology with offending outcomes and reasonably large numbers that were published between 1982 and 2004. A total of 83 experiments are summarized, compared with only 35 published between 1957 and 1981: 12 on policing, 13 on prevention, 14 on corrections, 22 on courts, and 22 on community interventions. Randomized experiments are still relatively uncommon, but there have been more large-scale multi-site experiments and replication programs. There have also been several experiments in which 100 or more places were randomly assigned. Relatively few experiments (only 10 out of 83) were conducted outside the United States. Meta-analyses suggest that prevention methods, correctional therapy, batterer programs, drug courts, juvenile restitution and deterrent policing were effective in reducing offending, while Scared Straight and boot camp programs caused a significant increase in offending.     

JUVENILITY AND PUNISHMENT: SENTENCING JUVENILES IN ADULT CRIMINAL COURT*

The study outlined in this article addressed a key limitation of prior research on the punishment of juveniles transferred to adult court by employing propensity score matching techniques to create more comparable samples of juvenile and young adult offenders. Using recent data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy, it tested competing theoretical propositions about the salience of juvenile status in adult court. Findings indicate that even after rigorous statistical matching procedures, juvenile offenders are punished more severely than their young adult counterparts. We found no evidence that this “juvenile penalty” is exacerbated by an offender's race or gender, but it does vary starkly across offense type and mode of transfer, being driven primarily by drug crimes and discretionary waivers. The import of these findings is discussed as they relate to the future of juvenile justice policy regarding the continued use of juvenile transfer to adult court.     

Pete Maravich's incredible heart

Postmortem examination of a former professional basketball player revealed an abnormal heart, most notably a single coronary artery. The literature on single coronary arteries is briefly reviewed, and the possible mechanism which caused the patient's condition is considered. This case is particularly unusual because of the patient's profession, which is so physically demanding.     

Comparison of fingernail striation patterns in identical twins.

The fingernail ridge patterns of a pair of identical twins were compared to each other, their parents, and an unrelated subject. The patterns of the twins' nails showed regions of strong similarity but were distinguishable from one another. Fewer similarities were found when comparing the nails to those of the parents and the unrelated control. The twins were shown to be monozygotic by means of DNA profiling. This therefore represents the first demonstration of unique fingernail ridge patterns in subjects shown conclusively to be identical twins. When the fingernail ridge patterns were examined with a scanning electron microscope, the backscattered electron (BEI) images were found to have superior contrast when compared to the secondary electron (SEI) images.     

The European Parliament and Comitology: On the Road to Nowhere?

The European Parliament has generally been deeply distrustful of the comitology system, primarily on the grounds that it allows the national administrations to undermine its supervisory role in the area of implementing legislation. Parliament has therefore sought to use the political, budgetary and jurisdictional means at its disposal to counteract the spread of comitology, or at least to promote the less intrusive forms of committee procedure. These initiatives have not, for the most part, been wholly successful; neither the interinstitutional agreements nor Parliament's arguments before the Court of Justice have produced the results it had hoped for. Parliament has been able, however, to use its Maastricht powers to influence the choice of committee procedure included in legislation adopted under codecision, and its budgetary tactics have forced the Commission to rationalise somewhat the annual expenditure on committees of all kinds and to bring a modicum of transparency into their operation. The imminence of the intergovernmental conference led to a suspension of hostilities towards the end of 1996.