The Deterrence Hypothesis and Picking Pockets at the Pickpocket's Hanging

The tenet that harsher penalties could substantially reducecrime rates rests on the assumption that currently active criminalsweigh the costs and benefits of their contemplated acts. Existingand proposed crime strategies exhibit this belief, as does alarge and growing segment of the crime literature. This studyexamines the premise that criminals make informed and calculateddecisions. The findings suggest that 76% of active criminalsand 89% of the most violent criminals either perceive no riskof apprehension or are incognizant of the likely punishmentsfor their crimes.     

A Lost Opportunity: A Reappraisal of the Kennedy Administration's China Policy in 1963

This article explores US policy towards China under President Kennedy. It focuses on 1963, when it is argued a major reappraisal took place under the auspices of State Department Officers Averell Harriman, Roger Hilsman and James Thomson. It concludes that a twin-track approach was developed which gave the President a greater degree of flexibility in his dealing with the PRC and laid the basis for the policy to be followed in a second term Kennedy administration. It also suggests that a close relationship existed between the Kennedy State Department and a group of policy academics that enabled this evaluation of China policy to take place.     

Incumbency effects in political campaigns

In this paper we examine two effects of incumbency. First, an incumbent may have an advantage in creating a favorable image in the eyes of the voters. Second, the incumbent may have to chose a position before the challenger; this second aspect of incumbency is modelled as Stackelberg leadership. In the model two candidates run for election by choosing a position in an ideological spectrum. Voters care about candidates' chosen positions as well as non-policy attributes of candidates, which we call charisma. Charismata are not known when candidates choose policy positions; they are only revealed on election day so that winning is not usually a certain prospect. Candidates care about the probability of winning but they also dislike compromising their own ideals.We find that the incumbent's equilibrium position is closer to his/her own ideal point than the equilibrium position of the game when moves are simultaneous. Also, for sufficiently large charismatic differences a natural leadership regime prevails: the candidate with the large charismatic advantage prefers being a leader to being a follower and the opponent prefers being a follower. If the difference in charismata is small both players prefer to be followers     

Individualization and enamel histology: a case report in forensic anthropology.

The cranium of a native Indian child about six years old was found in 1979 near Taseko River, British Columbia, Canada. While the remains matched the report of a child missing for eight years in terms of race, age at death, locale, and elapsed time since death, the cranium and dentition were basically unidentifiable because of the claimed lack of medical or dental history. There was no dental work, and the parents were unknown or dead. We report the presence, in the dental enamel of the primary and secondary dentition, of stress markers, termed striae of Retzius, whose locations correspond well with anecdotal reports and recently discovered medical records which describe the timing of specific episodes of stress. The enhanced probability of personal identification from dental histological stress markers is evaluated.     

The dimensionality of the social bond

Data from the Youth in Transition study were used to examine issues in the measurement and causal analysis of the social bond as a factor in adolescent delinquency. Using the LISREL technique for simultaneous estimation of measurement and causal models, an eight-factor measurement model is derived. Examination of the independent effects of these eight factors on a measure of overall delinquency shows the importance of parental attachment, general school attachment, conventional beliefs, and involvement in youth subculture activities. An unexpected finding is the higher delinquency for those with higher mobility aspirations (controlling all other factors).