Inconsistency in 9 mm bullets measured with non-destructive X-ray computed tomography

Fundamental to any ballistic armour standard is the reference projectile that is to be defeated. Typically, for certification, consistency of bullets is assumed. Therefore, practical variations in bullet jacket dimensions can have far reaching consequences. Traditionally, internal dimensions could only be analysed by cutting bullets which rules out any subsequent ballistic assessment. Therefore, the use of a non-destructive X-ray computed tomography (CT) method is explored in this paper. A set of 10 bullets (9 mm DM11) was taken for analysing both intra and inter bullet jacket thickness variation. CT measurements of jacket thickness were validated with high resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. An image based analysis methodology has been developed to extract the jacket thickness map and the centre of gravity. Thickness variations of the order of 200 μm were found commonly across all the bullets along the length and an angular variation of up to 100 μm was found in a few bullets. Jacket thickness and centre of gravity were also calculated for the same bullets after impact and the variations between the pre- and post-impacted bullets were compared, by establishing a common physical reference. The results show that the proposed CT scanning approach and subsequent image analysis method can bring out the statistical variations in bullet geometry pre- and post impact effectively.     

Addressing identity crime in crime management information systems: Definitions,classification, and empirics

Identity fraud as a term and concept in its formative stages was often presumed to be identity theft and visa versa. However, identity theft is caused by the identities (or tokens) of individuals or organisations being stolen is an enabling precursor to identity fraud. The boundaries of identity fraud and identity theft are now better defined. The absence of specific identity crime legislation could be a cause of perpetrators not classified as breaching identity crimes but under other specific entrenched law such as benefit fraud, or credit card fraud. This metrics overlap can cause bias in crime management information systems. This study uses a multi-method approach where data was collected in both a quantitative and qualitative manner. These approaches are used as a lens for defining different classes of online identity crimes in a crime management (IS) security context. In doing so, we contribute to a deeper understanding of identity crime by specifically examining its hierarchical classes and definitions; to aid clearer structure in crime management IS. We seek to answer the questions: should current law around identity fraud continue to be reinforced and measures introduced to prevent identity crime; should laws be amended; or should new identity crime laws be constructed? We conclude and recommend a solution incorporating elements of all three.     

Sometimes Ignorance is Bliss: Investigating Citizen Perceptions of the Certainty and Severity of Punishment

Deterrence lies at the heart of the criminal justice system and policy. There is a lack of information on citizen??s perceptions regarding a critical element of the deterrence process as it manifests through the communication of sanction threats. This study uses data from over 400 adults to examine their knowledge regarding the probability of detection and the average punishments for DUI, and also assesses the contribution of demographic and theoretical variables in predicting perceptions of detection probabilities and punishment estimates. Results show that persons over-estimate the likelihood of detection and provide higher estimates for average sentence lengths, but very few variables predict deterrence perceptions. An investigation of the resetting effect shows that persons tend to lower the estimated likelihood of punishment after experiencing a punishment. Deterrence may work better if researchers and policy officials understand what influences these perceptions and how they may be modified.     

The Curious Attraction of Wagner's Law

Wagner's ‘law of increasing state activity’ has recently been subjected to intensive use of recondite econometric testing procedures. An examination of the relevant articles reveals ignorance both of Wagner's definition of ‘state activity’ and of his insistence that he was not engaged in prediction. Consequently, the omission of public enterprises contained in Wagner's definition leads to a model misspecification and the object of testing his hypothesiss remains obscure.     

Studying the reach of deterrence: Can deterrence theory help explain police misconduct?

This article reports the first perceptual deterrence study of a sample of police officers. The study investigated the influence of traditional deterrence considerations, extralegal sanctions, and impulsivity on the intention to commit several hypothesized acts of police misconduct. The results were largely consistent with perceptual deterrence findings from samples of college students, experienced offenders, and corporate managers. In particular, this study found that both legal and extralegal sanction threats potentially deter police misconduct. Further, it found that impulsivity diminished the deterrent influence of both sanction forms. The study also found that some of the effects of the explanatory variables depended on whether officers had prior punishment experience. The article discusses the implications of its findings for combating police misconduct and for deterrence research generally.     

Theoretical issues and social indicators: A societal process approach

Well-being involves various levels: the individual, the institutional-distributive, and the societal. These levels are interrelated. Social indicators of well-being must be theoretically based so as to take into account these levels. A societal process model is proposed to describe the levels of society and the nature of well-being at each level. Social indicator types regarding the output and distribution of well-being, the effect of policy manipulatable and nonmanipulatable inputs, and the secondary consequences of inputs are suggested and examples are provided.The ideas presented herein have evolved from the authors' participation in a research project conducted for the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID/csd—3642), but do not necessarily reflect the views of that agency. Thanks are extended to J. Steven Picou, James Copp, Jon Alston, Bill Howard, and Ben Crouch, as well as to the then editor of this journal, Garry Brewer, and several anonymous reviewers who were kind enough to provide both cogent critique and encouragement. Journal Paper No. J-8808 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment station, Ames, Iowa. Project No. 1837.     

Reviews

Archie Brown ed., Political Culture and Communist Studies. London: Macmillan, 1984, xii + 211 pp. £25.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges. The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938. Cambridge, New York, London, Cambridge University Press, 1985, viii + 269 pp. £25.00.

Ronald Tiersky, Ordinary Stalinism: Democratic Centralism and the Question of Communist Political Development, Boston, Mass: George Allen and Unwin, 1985, xiii + 209 pp. £15.00.

Michael Ellman, Collectivisation, Convergence and Capitalism. Political Economy in a Divided World. Academic Press, London, 1984, xii + 332 pp. £35.00, $55.00.

Sarah Meiklejohn Terry ed., Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe, a Council of Foreign Relations Book, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, xiv + 375 pp. £27.50.

Kristian Gerner, The Soviet Union and Central Europe in the Post‐War Era. Aldershot: Gower, 1985, xi + 228 pp. £16.50.

Boris Z. Rumer, Investment and Reindustrialization in the Soviet Economy, Boulder and London, Westview Press, 1984, xvi + 145 pp. £14.50.

David A. Dyker, The Future of the Soviet Planning System, London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, ix + 172 pp. £17.95 h/b.

Andrew Freris: The Soviet Industrial Enterprise; Theory and Practice; London and Sidney: Croom Helm, 1984, 170 pp. £14.95.

Susan J. Linz, ed., The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union. Totowa, N. J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985, ix + 300 pp., $28.50.

Philippe Frémeaux and Christine Durand, Comprendre l'économie soviétique, Syros, Paris, 1985, pp. 139. 39 FF.

Jacques Sapir, Travail et travailleurs en URSS, Editions La Decouverte, Paris, 1984, 127 pp. 31 FF.

Peter Kneen, Soviet Scientists and the State: An Examination of the Social and Political Aspects of Science in the USSR, London: Macmillan, 1984. x + 138 pp. £25.00.

John N. Hazard, William E. Butler, Peter B. Maggs, The Soviet Legal System: The Law in the 1980's. Oceana Publications, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, New York, 1984. xiv + 439 pp. $45.00.

William B. Simons and Stephen White eds., The Party Statutes of the Communist World, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1984, viii + 545 pp. £58.50, Dfl. 230.00.

Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, ix + 331 pp., £29.50.

Marianna Tax Choldin, A Fence around the Empire. Russian Censorship of Western Ideas under the Tsars. Durham, Duke University Press, 1985, xii + 281 pp. $42.50.

Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian Azerbaijan, 1905–1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney. 1985. xiii + 256 pp. £25.00.

Bohdan Krawchenko, Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth‐Century Ukraine. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press, 1985, xix + 333 pp, £30.00.

Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950. London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1984, xix + 251 pp. £25.00.

Nigel Swain, Collective Farms which work? Cambridge UP Soviet and East European Studies, Cambridge, New York, London 1985, 235 pp. £25.00.

C. M. Hann, A Village Without Solidarity: Polish peasants in years of crisis. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985, ix + 208 pp., £12.00.     

Reviews

Jaan Valsiner, Developmental Psychology in the Soviet Union. Brighton, UK: The Harvester Press, 1988, x + 398 pp., £35.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Archie Brown, ed., Political Leadership in the Soviet Union, London: Macmillan, 1989, xi + 245 pp., £35.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

Susan L. Clark, ed., Gorbachev's Agenda: Changes in Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989, xviii + 422 pp., $35.95 p/b.

David Wedgwood Benn, Persuasion and Soviet Politics. London: Basil Blackwell, 1989, x + 243 pp., £25.00 h/b.

Karl‐Eugen Wädekin, ed., Communist Agriculture: Farming in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. London and New York: Routledge, 1989, xviii + 331 pp., £50.00

Gary Bertsch and Christopher T. Saunders, eds., East‐West Economic Relations in the 1990s. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, and Vienna: The Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies, 1989, ix + 305 pp., £45.00.

Carl G. Jacobsen ed., Soviet Foreign Policy: New Dynamics, New Themes. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1989, xv + 214 pp.

Sylvia Woodby, Gorbachev and the Decline of Ideology in Soviet Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989, vii + 127 pp., $25.00 p/b.

Stephen J. Cimbala, Uncertainty and Control: Future Soviet and American Strategy. London: Pinter Publishers, 1990, viii + 183 pp., £28.00.

Alex Pravda and Peter J. S. Duncan eds., Soviet‐British Relations Since the 1970s. Cambridge, London: RIIA/Cambridge University Press, 1990, xii + 260 pp., £30.00.

Kirsten Amundsen, Soviet Strategic Interests in the North. London: Frances Pinter in association with John Spiers, 1990, x + 153 pp., £30.00.

Nicola Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin America, 1959–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, ix + 252 pp., £25.00 or $39.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Ilya Prizel, Latin America Through Soviet Eyes: the Evolution of Soviet Perceptions During the Brezhnev Era 1964–1982. Soviet and East European Studies, 72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, xiii+249 pp., £32.50, $44.50.

Milan Hauner, What is Asia to Us? Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990, xvi + 264 pp., £30.00.

Michael Kirkwood, ed., Language Planning in the Soviet Union. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1989, x + 230 pp., £35.00.

Andrei Gromyko, Memoirs. New York: Doubleday, 1990, pp. 414, $24.95.

Ihor Kamenetsky, ed., The Tragedy of Vinnytsia: Materials on Stalin's Policy of Extermination in Ukraine (1936–1938). Toronto, New York: The Ukrainian Historical Association, 1989, 286 pp., notes, bibliography, index, illustrations, $25.00 h/b.

Dov. B. Lungu, Romania and the Great Powers 1933–1940. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1989, xv + 293 pp., £44.55.

Paul LeBlanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. London: Humanities Press International, 1990, xxxiv + 399 pp., £45.00.

Daniel Rancour‐Lafferiere, The Mind of Stalin: a Psychoanalytic Study. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1988, 161 pp., $17.95.