Cooperatives for “fair globalization”? Indigenous people, cooperatives, and corporate social responsibility in the Brazilian Amazon

Cooperatives and socially responsible corporations are being hailed as possible correctives to the socioeconomic and ecological exploitation of transnational capitalism. AmazonCoop—a cooperative linking indigenous Brazil nut harvesters and the multinational firm The Body Shop through trade and development projects—capitalized on indigenous symbolism to generate significant material benefits for both parties. At the same time, however, it made indigenous people more vulnerable and dependent, failed to promote participatory development, masked the effects of unfavorable state policies, and perpetuated discriminatory distinctions among indigenous people. Furthermore, the cooperative did not provide an organizational framework to ameliorate the vulnerabilities of indigenous identity politics or transform symbolic capital into enduring political-economic change. This case strongly supports arguments that cooperatives must be rooted in participation, democratic member control, and autonomy if they are to promote “fair globalization” or social transformation rather than institutionalize existing patterns of exploitation.     

The Will to Change: Lessons from Canada's Successful Decarceration of Youth

In 1997, Canada's youth custodial facilities held 3825 sentenced youths. Eighteen years later, this number was 527—an 86 percent reduction. Overall youth imprisonment (sentenced + pretrial detention) decreased by approximately 73 percent. This paper uses Canada's successful decarceration of youths to understand what might be learned about decarceration more broadly. By examining the reforms that transpired in Canada's treatment of young offenders since the 1960s and the political/cultural shifts that occurred since the 1990s, we demonstrate that the decline resulted from changes occurring in various parts of the system. Finally, we contrast this decarceration with more than 60 years of relative stability of Canadian adult imprisonment rates as well as Canada's failure to substantially decrease youth pretrial detention in order to identify those factors seemingly necessary to reduce imprisonment more generally.     

The Probabilistic Genotyping Software STRmix: Utility and Evidence for its Validity

Forensic DNA interpretation is transitioning from manual interpretation based usually on binary decision‐making toward computer‐based systems that model the probability of the profile given different explanations for it, termed probabilistic genotyping (PG). Decision‐making by laboratories to implement probability‐based interpretation should be based on scientific principles for validity and information that supports its utility, such as criteria to support admissibility. The principles behind STRmix? are outlined in this study and include standard mathematics and modeling of peak heights and variability in those heights. All PG methods generate a likelihood ratio (LR) and require the formulation of propositions. Principles underpinning formulations of propositions include the identification of reasonably assumed contributors. Substantial data have been produced that support precision, error rate, and reliability of PG, and in particular, STRmix?. A current issue is access to the code and quality processes used while coding. There are substantial data that describe the performance, strengths, and limitations of STRmix?, one of the available PG software.     

Did Post-Floyd et al. Reforms Reduce Racial Disparities in NYPD Stop,Question, and Frisk Practices? An Exploratory Analysis Using External and Internal Benchmarks

Various methodological approaches to constructing external and internal benchmarks have been applied to estimate racial bias in police stop, question, and frisk (SQF) patterns. We apply an external benchmark of the race of the residential population and an internal benchmark of similarly-situated stops to estimate if racial disparities in New York City SQF data were impacted by the Floyd, et al. v. City of New York court settlement. We find that after the settlement, the racial composition of census tracts were no longer significant predictors of the stop rate after controlling for reported crime, socioeconomic factors, and police precincts. We further find that differences in SQF outcomes and hit rates between Blacks and Hispanics and similarly-situated others diminished substantially after the settlement. These findings suggest that court reforms may be an effective method for reducing racial disparities in SQF patterns.