RELIGION AND CRIME REEXAMINED: THE IMPACT OF RELIGION,SECULAR CONTROLS,AND SOCIAL ECOLOGY ON ADULT CRIMINALITY*

Since Hirschi and Stark's (1969) surprising failure to find religious (“hellfire”) effects on delinquency, subsequent research has generally revealed an inverse relationship between religiosity and various forms of deviance, delinquency, and crime. The complexity of the relationship and conditions under which it holds, however, continue to be debated. Although a few researchers have found that religion's influence is noncontingent, most have found support—especially among youths—for effects that vary by denomination, type of offense, and social and/or religious context. More recently the relationship has been reported as spurious when relevant secular controls are included. Our research attempts to resolve these issues by testing the religion-crime relationship in models with a comprehensive crime measure and three separate dimensions of religiosity. We also control for secular constraints, religious networks, and social ecology. We found that, among our religiosity measures, participation in religious activities was a persistent and noncontingent inhibiter of adult crime.     

Reluctant Coalitionists: The Conservative Party and the Establishment of the Coalition Government in May 2010

The Conservative party has been the real awkward partner in the Conservative‐Liberal Democrat coalition government because its backbench MPs have rebelled more frequently than their Liberal Democrat counterparts since May 2010. This reflected the fact that the Conservatives were reluctant coalitionists to begin with: they would have preferred to see a minority Conservative government, they had made far too many concessions to the Liberal Democrats, they had been bounced into accepting a coalition deal by a controlling party leadership, and they had lost out on those ministerial positions now held by Liberal Democrats. There was thus no great enthusiasm for the establishment of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats in the parliamentary Conservative party in May 2010. Conservatives merely resigned themselves to an outcome which they had been given little opportunity to influence and which David Cameron had made it very difficult for them to reject.     

Not just ‘friends and neighbours’: Canvassing,geographic proximity and voter choice

The impact of local campaigning on voter choice has been studied within the theme of mobilisation. Grassroots effort can attract votes efficiently, but campaign contact is (potentially) endogenous, so results showing positive effects could be flawed. Experimental solutions to this problem are possible, but could also have low external validity. Drawing on the electoral geography literature, this article suggests that endogeneity concerns can be addressed through so‐called ‘friends and neighbours voting’. One source of endogeneity is that that candidates may tend to canvass those living close to their own homes, and those canvassed would be expected in any case to be prone to support local candidates. The problem of endogeneity is reframed and treated as an omitted variable bias. Using unique Irish data on the geographic location of the homes of candidates, as well as data on the location of the voters, the analysis confirms that canvassing has a positive impact on candidate choice independent of the effect of geographic distance. More importantly, these two variables interact. The results point to the relevance of the geographic dimension of electoral politics in driving the endogeneity bias in local campaigning studies.     

The Juvenile Drug Court Judge and Lawyer: Four Common Mistakes in Treating Drug Court Adolescents

This article will present information gleaned from anecdotal experience of existing juvenile drug treatment courts regarding several common mistakes often made by those new to the drug court. The mistakes discussed include: 1) Believing the work and role responsibilities in a traditional juvenile court will not change significantly when entering a juvenile drug court; 2) Citing the elimination of drug and alcohol use as a final outcome goal when developing the mission statement for a juvenile drug court; 3) Believing that a juvenile drug court ensures accountability by keeping a close eye on participants and setting immediate consequences for any break in program rules; 4) Using vicarious learning to “teach a lesson”–making an example of an individual participant who has broken program rules in front of the large group. The goal of this article is not only to raise caution to these pitfalls, but also to help incoming judges and lawyers become aware of the changes that working in a juvenile drug court will demand.     

Public Management Policymaking in Spain: The Politics of Legislative Reform of Administrative Structures, 1991–1997

This case study focuses on extending research knowledge about the politics of public management policymaking in Spain. The case involves legislating to change politically sensitive features of the central government and administration. The study explains such analytically significant event conditions as: an agenda‐setting process that made a policy issue of the formal, structural attributes of state administration, an alternative‐specification process that proceeded without complication, and a decisional process that lasted five years and in which political leaders' positions on the issue flip‐flopped. Broadly speaking, the case analysis demonstrates that when policy proposals take the form of legislation, the politics of public management policymaking in Spain are highly influenced by political stream factors, themselves reflecting Spain's parliamentary form of government and relations between statewide and regional political parties.