Bringing Principles and Fairness to the Sentencing of Murder

The authors take a closer look at the current sentencing laws for murder and argue the need to change them. Expanding on the proposals described in the recently published book, Exploring the Mandatory Life Sentence for Murder, the authors provide a more detailed explanation for the new framework. The proposals suggest a new method of sentencing, and discuss how primary and secondary mitigating and aggravating favors can play a role in forming the suggested scheme. This article suggests that this method would constitute a more principled approach compared to mandatory life sentencing, by achieving higher levels of proportionality, greater consistency and restraint in the use of custody. While these proposals focus on the sentencing regime in England and Wales, the authors argue their relevance for other countries that also impose a mandatory life sentence framework.     

The influence of sample type,presentation format and strength of evidence on juror simulation research

Abstract

Recent research has indicated that treatment of psychopaths in therapeutic communities is problematic in terms of high rates of attrition, low levels of motivation and increased reconviction. However, there has been little previous research investigating in detail how the behavioural diffculties posed by psychopaths in therapeutic community settings could be systematically monitored is order to assess change. This paper reports on the development of a checkilst completed by prison officers designed to measure behaviours association with a poor adjustment to a prison based therapeutic community. Behaviour checklist accores showed statistically significant correlations with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R, Hare 1991), patticularly with Factor 1 scores measuring intarpersonal aspects of psychopathy. The potential for developing this method as a type of dynamic assessment for psychopaths undertaking treatmant is discussed.     

Books received

Male Bias in the Development Process. Edited by Diane Elson. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1991. Pp.215‐ + viii. £29.95. ISBN 07190 2555 9.

Beyond the Family: The Social Organization of Human Reproduction. By A.F. Robertson. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991. Pp.231. £35 and £10.95. ISBN 07456 0885 X and 6 0886 8.

Gender and Population in the Adjustment of African Economies: Planning for Change. By Ingrid Palmer. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1991. Pp.xiv +187. 27.50 Swiss francs (paperback). ISBN 92 2 107739 X.

Economic Theories of Development: An Analysis of Competing Paradigms. By Diana Hunt. Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989. Pp.363. £10.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7450 0237 4.

Economic Development and Environmental Protection in Latin America. Edited by Joseph S. Tulchin with Andrew I. Rudman. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers (Woodrow Wilson Center Current Studies on Latin America). Pp.vii + 143. $9.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 55587 288 3.

Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino. By Thomas W. Walker. Third Edition, Revised and Updated. Boulder, CO: Oxford: Westview Press, 1991. Pp.xvi + 202. $44 and $17.95. ISBN 0 8133 1089 X.

Dependence and Autonomy. By Hilary Standing. London: Routledge, 1990. Pp.x + 198. £10.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 415 04839.

Turtle Bogue: Afro‐Caribbean Life and Culture in a Costa Rican Village. By Harry G. Lefever. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992. Pp. 249. £29.95. ISBN 0 945636 23 7.     

The Structure and Direction of Contemporary China Studies

Abstract

Since fall 1969, a subcommittee of the Columbia University CCAS has been researching the institutional structure of the Asian studies field, with special reference to the development of Chinese studies in the U.S. since 1959. Our first findings, under the title Report on an Investigation of the American Asian Studies Establishment, were presented at the 1970 CCAS National Convention. Research continued the following year and led to an invitation to participate in the 1971 AAS Presidential Panel Impact of American Organizations on Asian Studies. For that occasion some 400 copies of a revised Report were distributed. Although the Report was intended to be a file of “preliminary working papers”, since it is the subject of Professor Fairbank's Comment, we have asked the Editor to reprint it here for the convenience of the reader.     

Democratization,Elite Transition,and Violence in Cambodia, 1991-1999

This article is concerned with elite management of democratic transition in Cambodia between 1991 and 1999. Itsurveys the manner in which various elites, dominated by Hun Sen in particular, have viewed the legitimacy of opposition in a political culture characterized by elite authoritarianism, narrow vested interests, and deeply entrenched systems of patronage and clientelism. This view is then located in the wider context of external pressures and mechanisms for the pluralization of their political society. While the paper reveals cultural insights drawn from primary material, it is also framed by a debate on when, why, and how elites do and do not reform away from self-interest and self-aggrandizement and move to fair and impartial representation of wider interest groups.     

Book reviews

Magocsi has held the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto for three decades during which he has devoted himself to both Ukrainian and Rusyn history. Critics of Magocsi, particularly in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America, focus on his Rusyn publications while ignoring his great contribution to Ukrainian history which remains unparalleled among other Western historians of Ukraine and other Chairs of Ukrainian History and academic institutions.     

Comment on Jean L. Cummings and Denise DiPasquale's “The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit: An Analysis of the First Ten Years”

Abstract

The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (housing credit) that Cummings and Di‐Pasquale portray is effective, efficient, and healthy. However, rapid changes in the industry have turned some of their data stale, and the absence of suitable context and information invalidate some key analyses and findings. Moreover, the researchers sometimes seem to see the glass as 10 percent empty instead of 90 percent full. A practitioners’ perspective is more positive.

The housing credit generates an array of public benefits while harnessing private investors’ business discipline. Genuinely low‐income tenants occupy the housing. The housing revitalizes low‐income communities. Properties are in good financial and physical condition. The housing credit is also cost effective. The economic fundamentals of producing low‐income rental housing, not the housing credit, necessitate substantial subsidies. A remarkably high proportion of the federal tax‐credit subsidy goes into the housing, and investor returns are modest. Nonprofit‐sponsored production appears to cost more because nonprofits are prominent in high‐cost locations and for other similar reasons, not because nonprofit developers are inefficient.     

Herbert Simon’s Forgotten Legacy for Improving Decision Processes

ABSTRACT:

Public administration scholarship could benefit from a return to its Simonean roots for distinctively managerial insights about decision processes. Though Simon is often juxtaposed with Dwight Waldo and portrayed as a rationalist focused on the limits of human cognition, a full understanding of his work reveals a rich understanding of the decision context that managers face. Simon argued that decisions should (1) account for norms and values; (2) link means to ends; (3) identify feasible alternatives; and (4) automate processes where automation improves transparency and evaluation. To date, economics and psychology have exploited these insights to a greater degree than has the study of management and administration in the public sector. We use one example of a structured decision process in a salmon fishery and another in a case of religious and cultural conflict in schools as illustrations of the potential for Simon’s decision principles to improve public sector decision making.     

Variation in nuclear DNA concentrations during urination

This study examined the cellular origin and concentration of nuclear DNA in human urine. Ten subjects provided two entire, first-morning voids: one as a single specimen and one as a consecutive series of samples. The serial samples were centrifuged, organically extracted, and quantified by slot-blot analysis. Total DNA concentrations ranged from 0.02 to 21.3 ng/mL for the males and 25.0 to 96.9 ng/mL for the females. The female samples were found to contain numerous vaginal epithelial cells. DNA was detected in all of the serial samples of nine subjects; however, the DNA concentrations varied considerably. With six subjects, the DNA concentration of the first serial sample was at least three times greater than that of the entire void. DNA was only detected in the first 21% of the void from one male subject. The results of this study have implications for the collection of urine samples.