Budget Deficits in the States: Virginia

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THE CASCADING EFFECTS OF ADOLESCENT GANG INVOLVEMENT ACROSS THE LIFE COURSE*

The short‐run deleterious effects of gang involvement during adolescence have been well researched. However, surprisingly little empirical attention has been devoted to understanding how gang involvement in adolescence influences life chances and criminal behavior in adulthood. Drawing on the life‐course perspective, this study argues that gang involvement will lead to precocious transitions that, in turn, will have adverse consequences on the fulfillment of adulthood roles and statuses in the economic and family spheres. Moreover, problems fulfilling these conventional roles are hypothesized then to lead to sustained involvement in criminal behavior in adulthood. Using data from a sample of males from the Rochester Youth Development Study, results from structural equation models support the indirect link between gang membership and noncriminal and criminal outcomes in adulthood. Specifically, gang involvement leads to an increase in the number of precocious transitions experienced that result in both economic hardship and family problems in adulthood. These failures in the economic and family realms, in turn, contribute to involvement in street crime and/or arrest in adulthood. Implications for the criminal desistance process are discussed.     

The Expenses Scandal and the Politics of Electoral Reform

The scandal over MPs' expenses that erupted in 2009 was followed by a surge in discussion of electoral reform. A range of reforms to Westminster's existing electoral system are now high on the political agenda. This article examines the extent and the nature of the scandal's impact on the electoral reform debate and draws out comparative implications for the sorts of conditions that can force politicians to accept electoral reforms that they do not want. It finds that the expenses scandal significantly changed debate about some electoral reform topics, but not about others. It proposes three factors likely to increase the impact of scandal in sparking reform: that the scandal is seen as harming ordinary people in their daily lives; that reforms can readily be understood as likely to mitigate the sources of scandal; and that those reforms do not seriously harm politicians' own perceived interests.     

Space Situational Awareness in Europe: The Fractures and the Federative Aspects of European Space Efforts

ABSTRACT

One part of the massive US intelligence effort to learn about Soviet missile and space programs during the Cold War was acquiring and analyzing Soviet space debris that had returned to Earth. Equally important was retrieving US fragments that had landed in foreign nations to prevent the Soviets from recovering and exploiting them. At times bitter jurisdictional battles among the interested government agencies plagued the undertaking. Additionally the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 limited the ability to obtain foreign debris in some circumstances. Despite these problems, however, the available record shows that in many cases the United States acquired and tested important Soviet fragments and also was able to retrieve its own.     

The Impact of Technology and Communications upon International and Transnational Terrorism

The purpose of this inquiry is to examine the nature of terrorism, primarily in European and Western industrial nations. Specifically the article (1) examines the impact that has resulted from technological advances in communication and weapons and (2) discusses the necessity of international cooperation in the effort to defeat terrorism. The article documents that terrorism is a serious threat to Western democracies including the United States as well as an international threat. The conclusion of the article is that it has become more difficult to counter terrorism due to technological advances which have delivered greater destructive power into the hands of a few fanatics. The primary technological effects discussed are (1) those relating to communication which has enabled terrorists to establish a “world-wide network” and (2) the addition of toxins and nuclear weapons to the arsenal of the terrorist. As an international problem, however, the difficulty of countering terrorism is not rooted in the technological sophistication of the terrorist but in international disputes about the question, “what is terrorism”. Nations appear to be unable to mount an international assault against terrorism due to the great difficulty of arriving at a commonly accepted definition of terrorism. This article discusses the obstacles to defining terrorism encountered by the international community and the role that bilateral and multinational agreements have played in countering terrorism.     

The Integration of Women into West German and United States Police Service

This article describes the West German attitudes toward full employment of women in police service and the results of an experimental study of the successful integration of women into the uniformed police in Hamburg, West Germany. It compares experiences in the United States and concludes that the West German acceptance and use of women in the uniformed service is five to ten years behind the United States but that the German Police have very deliberately sought to create equal opportunities for women over the past decade. Expectations are that more women will be recruited into the German police service, but that it will be eight to ten years before large numbers of females are employed in the uniformed service or in the higher ranks of the German police forces.     

A Framework for Comparison of Intensive and Special Probation Projects

This paper presents a conceptual framework to consider the activities and outcomes of probation projects. It is based on twenty site visits at which probation staffs described how project activities interrelated to produce desired effects. Based upon comparative analysis of these projects, alternative probation strategies are contrasted in six areas: (1) caseload reduction as a means to increase contact time; (2) in-house versus out-house treatment services; (3) helping relationships and tightened surveillance for probationers; (4) ways to enhance community acceptance; (5) usefulness of attempting to change probationer attitudes versus behaviors; and (6) goals of reduced criminal activity during, versus after, probation. The analysis points up underlying assumptions of probation programs and leads to three recommendations. First, contact character is a more superior measure of probation intensity than is caseload reduction. Second, probation projects should prepare conceptual frameworks to better understand the relationship between project activities and desired outcomes, but they should not be subject to elaborate evaluation requirements. Third, multiple measures of criminal activity allow a more balanced appraisal than is possible with single measures such as revocation rate or recidivism.