Measuring the impact of law enforcement on organized crime

This article explores the possibility of measuring the impact of law enforcement on organized crime in a reliable and accountable manner, both in general terms and with a practical focus on the Canadian context. In considering measures to combat organized crime, a focus on process measurement has obscured the more substantial question of progress as regards the dependent variable itself: the bottom line of reducing the impact of organized criminal behaviour. While outcome measures are more challenging to identify than process measures, this fact alone does not minimize the need to demonstrate the connection between organized crime enforcement and its presumed outcomes to a greater degree of certainty. To date, this has not been realized to any significant degree, as revealed by a review of existing international approaches to measuring the impact of enforcement activity. The article argues that a multidisciplinary focus on community level indicators of crime, if initially less accessible than process measures of impact on organized crime groups, offers promise as a measurement of absolute and relative impact of state investment in enforcement.

The profitability life-cycle of direct investment: an international panel study

In this paper we test competing hypotheses about the shape of the time-profile of foreign direct investment profitability on a panel of countries. Using partial linearization method we derive the time-profile of the cumulative profitability for the stock of direct investment from aggregate macroeconomic data. By testing the non-linearity hypothesis of the cumulative profitability life-cycle of direct investment we find a cubic curve.

Profiles of Victimized Women Among the Child Welfare Population: Implications for Targeted Child Welfare Policy and Practices

Despite the call to address domestic violence along with child maltreatment, little information exists to guide services for victimized women involved with child welfare. Research shows that victimized women contend with multiple problems stemming from violent victimization. Unfortunately less is known about combinations of needs and resources among victimized women, especially for those involved with child welfare. Through an examination of needs and resources among families with child maltreatment and domestic violence, we aimed to help address this knowledge gap. Needs and resources among 1,229 victimized caregivers were examined using the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW). Using latent class analysis, four distinct multivariate profiles of needs and resources among victimized caregivers were identified. Significant differences were found among the profile groups in the family violence they experienced in the 18 months following child welfare investigations. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for tailored practices to enhance the safety of victimized caregivers involved with child welfare. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 9th Annual Conference of the Society for Social Work and Research, Miami, Florida in January 2005.     

Five Words for Assisted Dying

Motivated by Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, but with one eye on any possible future legislation, I consider the justifications that might be offered for limiting assistance in dying to those who are suffering unbearably from terminal illness. I argue that the terminal illness criterion and the unbearable suffering criterion are not morally defensible separately: that a person need be neither terminally ill (or ill at all), nor suffering unbearably (or suffering at all) to have a right to assisted dying. Indeed: I shall suggest that the unbearable suffering criterion undermines the Bill (or any proposal like it) wholesale. On the other hand, the criteria taken together are defensible, and this defence would be built on a concern for the protection of the vulnerable. However, I also claim that this implies that the law might justifiably—and maybe even properly—aim to prevent a person from gaining access to that to which they have a serious moral right. This seems paradoxical, and, towards the end of the paper, I seek to tease apart the paradox.     

Horizontal mergers and efficiencies; theory and anti trust practice

Horizontal mergers can be challenged by anti trust authorities under both the US and EU Horizontal Merger Guidelines. More horizontal mergers are unconditionally approved in the US than in the EU. EU merger policy toughened after 1998 but became more in line with US practices after 2004. Differences in merger policies between the US and the EU can be explained by a greater scope of the efficiency argument in the US. The paper argues that firms only want to merge in oligopoly, if they expect to realize substantial merger specific efficiency gains, which counterbalances the price increasing effect of merger.      

A calculation of the theoretical significance of matched bullets

Abstract:  The comparison and identification of bullets from the striations that appear on their surfaces, after they have been fired from a gun, have been practiced since the 1920s. Although the significance of the correspondences of these impression marks has been empirically justified, there is a conspicuous absence of any theoretical foundation for the likelihood. What is presented here is the derivation of the formulae for calculating the probability for the correspondence of the impression marks on a subject bullet to a random distribution of a similar number of impression marks on a suspect bullet of the same type. The approach to the calculation entails subdividing the impression marks into a series of individual lines having widths equal to the separation distance at which a misalignment of striations between the two bullets cannot be distinguished. This distance depends upon the resolution limit imposed by the microscope as well as by the visual acuity of the examiner. A calculation of the probabilities for finding pairs and triplets of consecutively matching lines on nonmatching bullets, by an examiner with normal perception using a microscope at 40× magnification, produces values that agree well with the empirical probabilities determined by Biasotti in the 1950s and when determined for larger consecutive sequences suggest that they are extremely unlikely to occur. The formulae can be used to determine the probabilities for the random occurrence of any sequence of striae and provide a straightforward way to quantitatively justify the significance of a specific match between any two bullets.     

Rechtsfragen der Bestellung der Mitglieder der Volksanwaltschaft

Nach der Bundesverfassung sind die Mitglieder der Volksanwaltschaft von den drei mandatsstärksten Parteien zu nominieren. Der Beitrag untersucht das Bestellungsverfahren der Volksanwaltschaft, wenn mehr als drei Parteien infolge gleicher Mandatsstärke ein Nominierungsrecht beanspruchen.     

“We really don’t want to move,but...”: identity and strategy in the internationalisation of industrial R&;D

In Norway, as in many other high-cost OECD countries in a geographical and cultural periphery, policy-makers seem to have given up attempts at attracting large numbers of foreign R&D investments. Instead, a major focus of innovation policies is to help companies internationalise yet with an aim to maintain or even increase their level of R&D and other innovation activities nationally. Based on case studies of eight Norwegian companies and their motives for and experiences with internationalisation of R&D, this article questions this policy. From the perspective of the companies, many factors explain how, why and where they carry out their R&D activities.      

Charles Peirce’s Categories and the Growth of Reason

Charles Peirce’s semeiotic is inseparable from his account of the three categories of experience and his metaphysics. The discussion summarizes his account of the categories and considers the way they have ontological implications. These implications are then focused on Peirce’s Apapism, which is his way of referring to a theory of evolution. Finally, some suggestions are offered for a way the semeiotic with the metaphysical implications, especially their relevance for a theory of evolution, propose how Peirce might apply them for questions of jurisprudence.

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Psychological Aspects of Property and Ownership

Although property lawyers and theorists were always interested in the legal doctrinal construction of property rights and in political, moral, or economic justifications of property rights through the course of history, they very rarely looked into possible psychological roots of property rights and the powers they entail. Similarly, psychologists (whether with a focus on individual or social psychology) provide models for the explanation of a person’s behaviour and the social interactions of humans, but they rarely touch upon property rights at all, and if so, only in brief passing comments. The one extensive study on the social psychology of property appeared 75 years ago. This paper looks into modern research of individual and social psychology and assesses whether some of the findings can be used to explain a psychological basis for the existence and importance of property rights. That may also be a starting point for a modern interdisciplinary study in this area.