Uncertainty and political participation

The minimax regret model of decision making under uncertainty, which was proposed by Ferejohn and Fiorina (1974) as a model of the voting decision, is here generalized to encompass forms of political participation (such as contributing money or time to a campaign) in which the range of alternatives is continuous. A principal implication of the model is that aggregate campaign contributions may be substantially increased by limiting the amount that any one individual can contribute. The conditions under which the behavior of a minimax regret decision maker can be unambiguously distinguished from that of an expected utility maximizer are also specified.     

STATE REGULATORY REFORM AND FEDERAL REGULATION

In the current political climate, it seems likely that a "New Regulatory Federalism" will push for deregulation at the federal level, with more regulatory responsibilities for the states. During the 1930s, economic regulatory responsibilities were assumed by the federal government. Protective regulation moved to the federal level in the 1960s. Dissatisfaction with centralized regulation has led to attempts at regulatory reform and decentralization. It is expected that these reforms will lead to greater flexibility, and responsiveness to regional differences.     

Ecological considerations in victim reporting to the police

A review of recent criminological literature suggests that different systems of social control operate across the urban-rural dimension. Specifically, it is expected that victims in urban areas will report crimes to the police at a higher rate than victims in surburban and rural areas. Moreover, it is anticipated that urban, suburban, and rural victims will have different reasons for not reporting the crime. In this paper these issues are examined empirically using the National Crime Survey victimization data. These data show that, contrary to theoretical expectations, the extent of victim reporting does not vary across the urban-rural dimension for the crimes of rape, robbery, assault, and personal larceny. Characteristics of the offense, notably seriousness, are shown to be more important in victim reporting than the extent of urbanization. In addition, these data indicate that victim residence in conjunction with type of crime and victim-offender relationship has an influence on the reasons selected by victims for not reporting the crime to the police.     

Training prison inmates as paralegals: An experimental project

A program to train inmates as paralegals was established at a large state prison in the Midwest. Qualified inmates were randomly assigned to the training or to a control condition. Both groups were administered measures assessing legal knowledge, the use of legal knowledge, attitudes about the criminal justice system, and self-perceptions before and after training. The trainee group showed a significant increase in its amount of legal knowledge after training. Members of the trainee group also reported a significant increase in the number of other inmates requesting aid from them on legal problems. In addition, interviews were conducted with two random samples of the general inmate population, before and after the paralegal training program. These interviews revealed strong support for the training program, and this support increased over the period of the program. Limited data on longer-term effectiveness of the paralegal's performance in the prison legal aid clinic and in paralegal jobs following parole supported the positive, shorter-term results.