Clarity of responsibility and economic evaluations

Convincing scholarly evidence shows the economy directs the mass public's support for parties and leaders. But the extent of economic voting depends on a country's “clarity of responsibility.” According to several scholars, political clarity is important because it determines whether people link national economic performance to the parties in government. This study explores a potential second role, which involves how clarity moderates the strength of partisan-motivated reasoning. Clarity of responsibility makes the economy more or less central to party politics. It could therefore moderate people's motivation to rationalize economic facts in a biased direction. Using cross-national survey data, this study tests this possibility by examining economic disagreement between people who support a party in government and those who support the opposition. Results from a Bayesian multilevel regression show that partisan disagreement varies systematically with clarity of responsibility. This finding raises new questions about cross-national differences in economic voting.     

Empathy and Expertise: Case Workers and Immigration/Asylum Applicants in London

Under recent reforms, the UK government has eroded state funding for civil legal aid. Funding cuts affect asylum and immigration law as produced, practiced, and mediated in the course of interactions between case workers and their clients in legal‐aid‐funded Law Centers in South London. The article explores the contradictory character of one‐on‐one relationships between case workers and clients. Despite pressure to quantify their work in “value for money” terms, the empathy that often motivates case workers drives them to provide exceptional levels of aid to their clients in facing an arbitrary bureaucracy. Such personalized commitment may persuade applicants to accept the decisions of that bureaucracy, thus reinforcing a hegemonic understanding of the power of the law. The article, however, challenges the assumption that, in attempting to shape immigrant/refugees as model—albeit second‐class—citizens, case worker/client interactions necessarily subscribe to the categories and assumptions that underpin UK immigration and asylum law.     

Tape Lift Sampling of Chemical Threat Agents

Commercial‐off‐the‐shelf (COTS) materials were evaluated as surface samplers for the Department of Homeland Security Chemical Forensics Program. The program helps evidence collectors identify trace chemical residues at incident scenes. COTS items are widely available, produced in large lots, and with strict controls. Chemical attribution signatures were collected from common surfaces. Eight tape lift candidates were considered, five were chosen based on performance and tested for analytical interferences and extraction efficiencies with 14 chemicals. Three products (duct tape, print lifters, command strips) were evaluated for uptake from common interior surfaces (glass, tile, ABS plastic). Duct tape provided highest recoveries across all surfaces. Even the most volatile analytes were detected in the ABS plastic samples (nondetections in others), regardless of tape lift material used. The porous plastic substrate provides better target retention than glass and tile surfaces. Forensic field operators should sample surfaces made of ABS plastic (keyboards, remotes, phones, etc.) whenever possible.     

Assessing the Validity of the Law of Crime Concentration Across Different Temporal Scales

Objectives

The present study examined if Weisburd’s (Criminology 53(2):133–157, 2015) law of crime concentration held across different theoretically relevant temporal scales.

Methods

The cumulative percentages of Philadelphia, PA USA street blocks and intersections experiencing 25 and 50 % of street robberies by hour of the day, days of the week, and seasons of the year were compared to the bandwidth percentages established by Weisburd (2015). Different analyses were used to determine the stability of the micro-places’ street robbery levels within the three temporal scales.

Results

We found that the cumulative percentages of street blocks and intersections experiencing 25 and 50 % of street robberies at each of the three temporal scales closely matched the bandwidth percentages expected from Weisburd (2015) and some micro-places experienced street robberies across all temporal periods while others had more isolated temporal concentrations.

Conclusion

Weisburd’s (2015) law of crime concentration holds across different theoretically relevant temporal scales, and future criminology of place studies should not ignore temporal crime patterns. Further, it may be possible to refine hot spots policing approaches by incorporating spatial–temporal crime concentrations.