Book reviews

Barton Whaley, Codeword Barbarossa. Cambridge, Mass, and London: The MIT Press, 1973. x + 376 pp. $10.00 £4.50.

Dietrich A. Loeber, Diktierte Option: Die Umsiedlung der Deutsch‐Balten aus Estland und Lettland 1939–1941. Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz Verlag, 1972. 787 pp. DM 96.—

N. Valentinov (Volsky), The New Economic Policy and the Party Crisis after the Death of Lenin. Reminiscences of my Work at the VSNKh during theNEP (in Russian). Edited by J. Bunyan and V. Butenko. With an Introduction (in English) by Bertram Wolfe. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University, Hoover Institution Press, 1971. (Foreign Language Series 7.) xix + 256 pp. $9.50.

William C. Fletcher, Religion and Soviet Foreign Policy 1945–1970. London. Published for Chatham House by OUP, 1973. x + 179 pp. £3.50.

Paul Dibb, Siberia and the Pacific. A Study of Economic Development and Trade Prospects. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. xxii + 288 pp. £7.25.

Mervyn Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1972. xviii + 366 pp. £3.50.

Roger A. Clarke, Soviet Economic Facts 1917–1970. London: Macmillan, 1972. xi + 151 pp. £3.95.

Alan Abouchar, Soviet Planning and Spatial Efficiency. The Prewar Cement Industry. (Russian and East European Series, Vol. 39.) Bloomington and London: Indiana UP, 1971. x+134 pp. $5.50 (paperback). £2.60 (paperback).

Theodor Berthold, Die Agrarpreispolitik der DDR. Ziele, Mittel, Wirkungen. Osteuropastudien der Hochschulen des Landes Hessen Reihe I. Giessener Abhandlungen zur Agrar‐ und Wirtschaftsforschung des europaischen Ostens, Band 53. Berlin: In Kommission bei Duncker & Humblot, 1972. 295 pp. DM 45.— (paperback).

Geza Peter Lauter, The Manager and Economic Reform in Hungary. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) xv ‐f‐189 pp. £6.25.

T. M. Podolski, Socialist Banking and Monetary Control. The Experience of Poland. London: Cambridge UP, 1973. xiii + 392pp. £9.50. $28.50.

Ryan C. Amacher, Yugoslavia's Foreign Trade. A Study of State Trade Discrimination. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) xii + 185 pp. £5.75.

Institute for the Study of the USSR, Who Was Who in the USSR. Metuchen : Scarecrow Press, 1972. 677 pp.     

Courting the President: How Circuit Court Judges Alter Their Behavior for Promotion to the Supreme Court

We examine whether circuit court judges sacrifice policy purity for career goals. We compare the behavior of contender judges–those most likely to be elevated to the Supreme Court–during vacancy periods with their behavior outside vacancy periods. We also examine the behavior of noncontender judges during those same times. The data show that during vacancy periods, contender judges are more likely to vote consistently with the president's preferences, to rule in favor of the United States, and to write dissenting opinions. Noncontender judges fail to evidence such behavior. These findings provide empirical support for the argument that federal judges adapt their behavior to specific audiences, and provide new avenues for research into judges' goals and the role of audiences in judicial decision making.     

Judicial Decision Making as Knowledge Work

Epstein, Lee, William Landes and Richard Posner. 2013 . The Behavior of Federal Judges: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 440 pp. Cloth, $49.95. Posner, Richard. 2008 . How Judges Think . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 400 pp. Paper, $21.00. I review two recent studies of judicial behavior, Posner's How Judges Think (2008) and Epstein, Landes, and Posner's Behavior of Federal Judges (2013). Epstein, Landes, and Posner's volume, the empirically richer of the two books, builds on the conceptual model for explaining judicial behavior put forward in Posner's How Judges Think. I discuss this conceptual model and argue in outline for an alternative model, complementary in part and antagonistic in part to the behaviorist research agenda. Posner and Epstein, Landes, and Posner argue for viewing the judge as a rational actor in a labor market. I argue that analyzing judicial decisions from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, without axiomatically assuming rationality, will allow us to bring more evidentiary sources to bear on the problem and will allow for a more adequate test of competing theoretical interpretations. Law and society scholars are well positioned to contribute to this line of inquiry.     

Book reviews

Reckless Legislation: How Lawmakers Ignore the Constitution by Michael A. Bamberger. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. Pp.ix + 233. $32 hb ISBN 0 8135 2732 5.

An Accidental MP by Martin Bell. London: Viking, 2000. Pp.230 £16.99 hb ISBN 0 670 89231 9.

Politico's Guide to Parliament by Susan Child. London: Politico Publishing, 1999. Pp.vi + 461 £25 hb ISBN 1 902301 23 4.

The European Parliament by Richard Corbett, Francis Jacobs and Michael Shackleton. London: John Harper, 4th edn, 2000. £37.50 hb ISBN 0 953 62782 9; £14.95 pb ISBN 0 953 62781 0.

The C‐Span Revolution by Stephen Frantzich and John Sullivan. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Pp.xiv + 433. $14.95 pb ISBN 0 8061 3130 6.

Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking by Keith Krehbiel. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Pp.xvi + 258. £39.55 hb ISBN 0 226 45271 9; £13.50 pb ISBN 0 226 45272 7.

Legislative Enterpreneurship in the U.S. House of Representatives by Gregory Wawro. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2000. Pp.xiv+193. $39.50 hb ISBN 0 472 11153 1.     

The Reliability of Swipe/Wipe Classification and Directionality Determination Methods in Bloodstain Pattern Analysis

Swipe and wipe are types of transfer patterns commonly encountered at bloodied scenes. So far, there have been little published data on the reliability of evaluating these patterns. In this study, 36 bloodstain patterns were randomly assigned to 12 analysts in three separate trials, and the analysts were required to evaluate the pattern type and directionality. The results revealed that correct classifications of patterns type were problematic, with an overall error rate of 32%. Wipes created from wet bloodstains were the most difficult to identify due to the absence of signs of alteration. The directionality of swipes made with a gloved finger had a 100% success rate; however, for swipes made with cloth, the analysts mistook the direction in nearly every case, which is of significant concern, considering these are common patterns at crime scenes. This study suggested there is a need for revising the current protocols for interpretation of these pattern types.     

Sexual Assault Case Outcomes: Disentangling the Overlapping Decisions of Police and Prosecutors

The rape reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s was designed to improve the likelihood of prosecution and conviction in sexual assault cases. However, there is evidence that the attrition rate for sexual assaults reported to the police remains high, and that the locus of case attrition is arresting and charging decisions. In this paper, we analyze police and prosecutorial decision-making in sexual assault cases using quantitative data on sexual assaults reported to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2008. We argue that decisions made by police and prosecutors should not be examined in isolation from one another and that researchers who analyze arrest decisions by examining only cases that are formally cleared by arrest or who focus only on charging decisions that follow the arrest of a suspect may be ignoring important aspects of police and prosecutorial decision-making. This is confirmed by the results of our study, which reveal that a significant proportion of cases in which the police appear to have probable cause to make an arrest do not result in the arrest of the suspect and that a substantial number of cases are rejected for prosecution by the district attorney before an arrest is made. Moreover, the factors that predict arrest and charging vary depending upon the way in which the outcome is operationally defined. These results have a number of important policy implications for police and prosecutors handling sexual assault cases.     

Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences,Engineering, and Medicine

This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.

     

‘That's not philosophy’: feminism,academia and the double bind

In this paper I explore the situation of feminist academics, positing a tension between the demands of feminist research and the norms of academia. Feminist research, I suggest, may be subject to de-legitimisation on the grounds of supposed lack of objectivity, to marginalisation from the main body of a discipline and to conceptual hostility when operating within the main body of a discipline. I then show that the situation of feminist academics can be conceptualised as a double bind: a set of circumstances in which an agent is given a set of competing demands, with no possibility of receiving clarification as to which demands to pursue. I argue that this interpretation of the situation of feminist academics is helpful because it prompts constructive ways of thinking. It encourages feminist academics to adopt a non-judgemental attitude towards ourselves and towards others, and it reminds us to fix our sights on long-term strategies. These suggestions in turn lead me to urge a renewed solidarity between feminists in academia. The form of solidarity I advocate is action based and inclusive, spanning disciplines, genders and research specialisms. Such solidarity can enable positive responses to the double bind facing feminist academics.