INEQUALITY IN THE TYPES OF SENTENCES RECEIVED BY NATIVE AMERICANS AND WHITES

A comparison of the distribution of the types of sentences imposed on native American offenders and Write offenders by the district courts of a western state reveals that the native American offenders were more likely to receive sentences involving incarceration in the state prison and were less likely to receive sentences which would have allowed them partially to escape stigmatization as a “convicted felon.” The introduction of a number of test factors revealed that these ethnic differences in the sentence received could only slightly be explained by ethnic differences in the kinds of offenses involved or in other differences in the legal and personal background characteristics of the offenders. A number of possible explanations of the discrepancies in the sentencing of native Americans and whites are suggested. However, regardless of the best explanation of these discrepancies, there are reasons to believe that these discrepancies in themselves may have contributed to an increased probability that the native American offenders would engage in future criminal activity and that these offenders would continue to receive harsher sentences than would similar White offenders.     

The Social and Scientific Role of C.E.P.S.I.

The Belgian Centre d'Etudes des Probleémes Sociaux Indigènesis, so far as we know, unique in Africa, and one that deservesto be even more widely known than it is. The following abridgedaccount has been translated by Mary Hicks from pp. 5–11and pp. 78–85 of the C.E.P.S.I. Bulletin No. 10 (1949).M. Albert Gille is Provincial Commissioner, Coquilhatville,and M. F. Grévisse, Assistant District Commissioner,Elisabethville.     

Judicial Reform and Rationalization: The Diffusion of Court Reform Policies Among the American States

Explaining the diffusion of judicial reform policies among the American states is an elusive task. Are such policies simply part of the larger policy process revealed in the comparative state policy literature? Or b court reform a policy arena unto itself, responding to factors uniquely legal or professional in nature? Our inquiry begins with Max Weber's sociology of law from which we adopt his concept of rationalization as a schema of policy development. According to Weber, the “rationalization” of legal institutions would accompany the advancement of capitalism in modernizing nations. Thus, we might expect specific judicial reform policies expressly aimed at rationalizing the structure and process of state court systems to be closely associated with each other and with commonly accepted indicators of economic development among the states. As part of our investigation, we relate court reforms to broader policy innovations among the states, drawing on earlier “diffusion of innovations” research. Our data indicate a strong connection between judicial reform and more general patterns of innovation diffusion among the states, but provide only modest support for Weber's assertions about the rationalization of legal systems under advancing capitalism. Three of the selected reforms cluster together and are largely explainable by indicators of economic development. Two other reforms do not fit this pattern, and their “behavior” requires additional discussion and research. Thus, the diffusion of judicial reform policy is partly accounted for by factors found in explanations of general policy innovations across states, but other, as yet unidentified, factors apparently influence certain aspects of judicial reform. The connection between Max Weber's legal sociology and policy development among the American states might at first blush seem remote or tenuous. However, this article attempts to use Weber's insights into modern legal systems to (1) examine a specific area of state policy making–judicial reform–and (2) establish a connection between policy development in the court reform area and the larger literature on general policy innovation in the American states. This inquiry is inspired by the lack of theoretical integration apparent in the literature on court reform, on the one hand, and the absence of empirical analyses connecting court reform data with “diffusion of innovation” policy studies, on the other.     

Book Reviews

MARY SHELLEY &; FRANKENSTEIN; THE FATE OF ANDROGYNY by William Veeder. (The University of Chicago Press, 1986), Cloth, $22.50

THE FEMALE MALADY: WOMEN, MADNESS, AND ENGLISH CULTURE, 1830–1980 by Elaine Showalter. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 312 pp., 29 illustrations.

PATRIARCHAL STRUCTURES IN SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMA by Peter Erickson. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1985) xii + 209 pp. $22.00

RECLAIMING A CONVERSATION: THE IDEAL OF THE EDUCATED WOMAN by Jane Roland Martin. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); ALMA MATER: DESIGN AND EXPERIENCE IN THE WOMEN'S COLLEGES FROM THEIR 19TH‐CENTURY BEGINNINGS TO THE 1930s by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz. (New York: Knopf, 1984); IN THE COMPANY OF EDUCATED WOMEN: A HISTORY OF WOMEN AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA by Barbara Miller Solomon. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).     

Japanese Society and Delinquency

Juvenile crime rates in Japan have been increasing as adult rates decline. The rise is produced mainly by an increase of minor offenses in the youngest (aged 14–16) age-group of offenders. To some extent this reflects a real change in the behavior of Japanese children. To a greater extent, we believe, it reflects a change in the behavior of the agents of juvenile justice, who are increasingly assuming jurisdiction over behavior that was formerly the responsibility of family, community, and school.     

1981 Review—Current Criminal Justice Projects Here and Abroad

The study of transnational environmental harm demands appreciation of specific methodological and conceptual issues that impinge upon the data collection process. Some of these issues include the ethics and politics of ‘outsiders’ researching other people's territory, the differential availability and types of data in different jurisdictions, the ways in which state denial and corporate resistance impede the research process, and the importance of utilising a wide range of data sources as a means to substantiate claims about harms and the causes of harms. The paper presents an exploration of methodological issues in the study of harms that are global, cross‐national, and/or localised, but which are intrinsically transnational in nature regardless of scale and scope. By understanding the challenges presented to those working in this area, we are also able to identify directions for future methodological development.