IMPROVING OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES OF POLICE

Despite advances in measurement and the sophistication of statistical technique, quantitative studies of police behavior seems to have reached the limits of their capacity to explain variance, develop and test theory, and inform policy choices. This paper suggests that further advances in observational studies of police behavior require that researchers account for the cognitive decision processes police use in exercising their discretion. A method for debriefing officers after encounters with the public is described. The results of a preliminary test of the method indicate that valuable in formation can be obtained with quite limited reactivity effects.     

GENDER ROLES AND FEMALE CRIMINALITY Some Critical Comments

This paper investigates the recent claim that women are becoming increasingly involved in aggressive or serious criminal activities. On the basis of an a priori classification of aggressive crimes, a review of three different types of data reveals no unambiguous pattern of change in women's criminality. Several theoretical problems which hove inhibited the systematic development of the relationships between gender roles and criminality are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the lack of conceptual precision that characterizes the use of the terms gender and aggressive 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.     

No Place Like Home？

IT was in January 1961 that I first fell in love. I had already been traveling for four years by then. Our family preferred the "paquebots," or ocean liners-Ferdinand de Lesseps and Jean Laborde of the French Messageries Maritimes line, and would ride the steamers from Mombasa, through the Suez Canal or round the Cape of Good Hope to Marseille.     

Want to Learn Chinese？ No Problem!

I have the privilege of visiting China four or five times a year,usually for business meetings in Beijing,but with the occasional opportunity for a purely social outing.Always,there are surprises.Always,I encounter something new and fascinating.And always,someone observes that still, after all this time,I speak very little Mandarin.My response is     

The Future of Eritrea

The fate of Eritrea was left open in the 4-Power talk in Paris,and this articles may help to explain the reasons. It is anabridgement of a lecture at a meeting with the Royal EmpireSociety of the 29th May. Brigadier Longrigg was Administratorbetween 1942–4, and he has written a History of Eritrea,which was reviewed in our last number.