Detention Patterns of Successful and Unsuccessful Insanity Defendants

This study examines the detention patterns of the insanity defendant who is successful with the plea and hospitalized, or unsuccessful and incarcerated. Further comparisons are made with felony defendants who never entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). From existing data it is unclear to what extent detention may vary if the plea is successful as compared to if it is not successful. Of all defendants who entered a plea of NGRI in Erie County, New York (Buffalo) between 1970 and 1980, 128 were institutionalized as a result of their disposition. Sociodemographic, institutionalization histories, arrest, and disposition information were collected and analyzed for all 128 individuals. The research evaluates differences in the likelihood and length of either institutionalization or incarceration and in the rates of release between successful NGRI defendants, those who entered the plea unsuccessfully, and those who did not plead NGRI. From the findings reported here the authors conclude that pleading NGRI in Eric County may not be quite as advantageous for a defendant as commonly is believed.     

The Economic Sources of Congressional Approval

Abstract Models of congressional approval have, in both theory and specification, often imitated models of presidential approval. Through their modeling decisions, researchers have implicitly assumed that the economic determinants of presidential and congressional approval are identical. Such assumptions have discouraged other researchers from testing competing hypotheses about the economic determinants of congressional approval. Using aggregate‐level time‐series analysis, this study investigates the question of whether or not the economic determinants of approval vary by the target of political judgment. I find that presidential approval is driven largely by sociotropic prospections, a result consistent with previous research. In contrast, I find the public relies most heavily upon egocentric retrospections when judging the U.S. Congress.     

The President as Institution Builder: The Reagan Case

Every president bestows upon his successors a "legacy" that will have an impact on both policy issues and institutional operations. Although attention is commonly focused on the president's role as a policymaker, he serves as an institution builder, as well, leaving a legacy that is manifested in long-term developments, in technical details of managing the job, and in patterns of interaction with other actors in the political environment. Reagan's institutional legacy has been the subject of intense debate and is addressed here in relation to five vantage points as they were employed during his eight years in office: personnel, structure, standard operating procedures, modes of exercising influence, and norms. These dimensions are examined in relation to the presidency, the bureaucracy, Congress, and the judiciary.
Reagan's departures in the selection and management of executive and judicial branch personnel were the most distinctive features of his legacy. Important changes were also made in the regulatory review and budgetary processes. Politicization and centralization, two long-term developments in the presidential office, gained renewed vigor, and Reagan elaborated a judicial strategy for achieving policy goals while refining the administrative strategy pioneered earlier by Nixon. Serious damage may well have been done to the norms of public service and justice under the rule of law. The framework introduced here promises to help scholars deal more systematically with the institutional impacts of both past and future presidents.     

GEEKING UP AND THROWING DOWN: HEROIN STREET LIFE IN DETROIT

This paper reports the results of a field study of 15 street-level heroin dealers in Detroit, Michigan. The techniques used by these heroin dealers are different from those described in most previous literature. The Detroit dealers do not conform to the traditional "hustling" model. They operate within a bureaucracy, do not generally sell heroin to fund their own habit, are relatively young, and largely lack an approval ideology for their activities.