On Punishing Emotions

This paper challenges recent influential arguments which would encourage legislators and courts to give weight to an assessment of the "evaluative judgements" expressed by the emotions which motivate crimes. While accepting the claim of Kahan and Nussbaum and others that emotions, other than moods, have intentional objects ("the cognitive conception"), and are not mere impulses which bypass cognition ("the mechanistic conception"), it suggests the following criticisms of their analysis. First, the concept of an emotional "evaluative judgement" tends to elide the distinction between (misleadingly named) "judgements" that are merely the sense of an emotion, and do not have the character of acts, and deliberative emotional judgements that do resemble acts and so properly fall within the corrective scope of the law. Second, intentional emotions are empowered by pre–intentional psychological resources which are less amenable than intentional states to the agent's conscious supervision: The traditional recognition of "infirmity" in mitigation of crimes uncharacteristic of the criminal's overall conduct towards others is justified by the unpredictable action of these pre–intentional elements and can survive the abandonment of the mechanistic conception of emotion.     

Teenage suicide in King County, Washington. I. Rates of suicide for 26 years

The population-adjusted rate of teenage suicide in King County, Washington, was reviewed for the 26 years from 1959 to 1984. For the entire period, the rate did not change significantly. An abrupt change did occur during the middle of this period, but, for reasons discussed in the text, this may well represent a change in procedures and philosophy of death certification rather than a real change in rate. Reasons for the apparent discrepancy with national statistics are discussed.     

Intellectual Property Theft and Organized Crime: The Case of Film Piracy

This article seeks to understand the processes by which the crime of intellectual property theft is organized, with specific attention given to film piracy. It seeks to identify the structure and function of the criminal enterprises engaged in this crime and assess the degree to which organized crime is involved with film piracy. An analysis of available sources reveals that general conclusions about the relationship of organized crime to film piracy results from a lack of useable and verifiable information in media, government, and industry sources. In the absence of independent, substantive analysis, anecdote and industry interests currently drive public policies and legal developments created to address the role of organized crime in film piracy. In the United States and across the globe, seizures, criminal indictments, civil actions, and public awareness are up considerably. Whether or not these advances can be maintained in the face of technological advances, the evolution of industry economic structures, and consumer indifference to the stigma of intellectual property theft and concern at industry response to such theft remains to be seen. Specific recommendations for future research are offered. The author would like to thank the International Center of the National Institute of Justice for soliciting funding this research through a grant, Intellectual Property and Organized Crime. He also Thanks Jay S. Albanese and his the anonymous reviewers of this work for their helpful comments and criticisms. This article only reflects the findings of the author, not the National Institute of Justice, Dr. Albanese or the reviewers.     

Spatial variation of refractive index in a pane of float glass.

In the statistical interpretation of forensic glass evidence it is standard practice to make the assumption of homogeneity of the refractive index (RI) of the source glass, or of localized homogeneity. However, the work of Locke and Hayes showed that, for toughened windscreen glass, this assumption might not be true. This work is well cited, but there appears to have been little follow-on published research. Furthermore, the toughening process is something known to affect the refractive index, and is a process that float glass does not undergo. Float glass is a major component of casework in New Zealand and for that reason it would be interesting to know whether the findings of Locke and Hayes apply when dealing with float glass. In this paper we describe an experiment similar to that of Locke and Hayes, systematically examining the variation of RI in a pane of float window glass. It was found that, although there were no systematic differences in refractive index, there were observable differences across the pane.     

Public Management 1996: Once More Unto the Breach

Reviewing public administration in Australia was once akin to watching glaciers — you knew there was movement and something was happening beneath the surface, but detection required patient observation over a long period of time.     

A statistical approach to drug sampling: a case study.

In many countries it is left to the discretion of the court to accept or reject conclusions based on sampling procedures as applied to the total drug exhibit. As an alternative to this subjective approach, a statistical basis is presented using binomial and hypergeometric distributions to determine a lower limit for the proportion of units in a population which contains a drug, at a given confidence level. A method for calculating the total weight of a drug present in a population within a given confidence interval is also presented. In the event of no failures (all units sampled contain a drug), a sample size of six or seven units is generally sufficient to state that a proportion of at least 0.70 of the population contains a drug at a confidence level of at least 90%. When failures do occur in the sample, point estimation is used as the basis for selecting the appropriate sample size.