Love Beijing, Love Beijing Not

<正>Arecent three-week visit to the United States after 18 months of working and traveling in China allowed me to get back into an American swing of things.I spent time with friends and     

INCREASING THE PROPORTION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ARRESTS THAT ARE PROSECUTED: A NATURAL EXPERIMENT IN MILWAUKEE*

Research Summary: Mandatory and pro‐arrest policies in domestic violence incidents have increased strains on prosecutorial and court resources. They have also brought to prosecutors many cases in which victims never wanted batterers charged and prosecuted. Prosecutors are faced with the dilemma of (a) screening out difficult cases up front and expending resources on fewer but more winnable case or (b) prosecuting a larger number of cases as adequately as resources will allow. We studied a natural experiment that resulted when the Milwaukee prosecutor liberalized his screening policy to double the number of domestic violence case filings. After the new screening policy was implemented, time to disposition doubled, convictions decreased, the prevalence of pretrial crime increased, and victim satisfaction declined. Policy Implications: The results do not support the idea that domestic violence cases can be readily prosecuted without regard for victim desires. To commit to such a policy would require a substantial commitment of additional staff, resources to collect additional types of evidence, and a willingness to try a substantially larger number of cases.     

CRIME AND THE POLICE A Multivariate Analysis

In an effort to assess the correlates of the variations in the rate of crime aggregated at a city level, data are analyzed using multiple correlation analysis that includes indicators of socioeconomic and social control (police) characteristics of the cities The results indicate that the rate of police and money budgeted to police contributes little to the explained variation in rates of crime. In addition, these indicators of social control variations do not correlate with variations in clearance rates The data are interpreted in terms of their implications for public policy, evaluation of police, and deterrence theory.     

Aggressive Policing and the Deterrence of Crime

Recent analyses of the relationship between crime and an aggressive patrol strategy have led to no single conclusion concerning the deterrent power of aggressive policing. This research adds to that debate by exploring the effects of a variety of aggressive patrol tactics on several different crimes. The empirical analysis, based on cross-sectional data from sixty urban neighborhoods, indicates that there appears to be no stable complex of police actions that constitute an aggressive patrol strategy. However, one form of police action usually included under the rubric of aggressive patrol—suspicion stops—may indeed deter certain types of criminal activity.     

SELF-CONSCIOUS INTEREST AND THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS: The Case of Citizens, Regulatory Agencies, and Federal Courts

Federal courts play an increasingly overt role in the American policy process. The implications of this judicial activism have attracted considerable scholarly attention, with recent literature casting doubt on the capacity of courts to be productive in this role. This article draws out some of these concerns as well as posits a few counterpoints.
After raising both sides of the issue, the article focuses on one complex Supreme Court decision, United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedure (SCRAP I, 1973) and its sequel, Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad v. SCRAP (SCRAP II, 1975), as vehicles for illustrating and evaluating major questions posed by an active judiciary.