THE PUBLIC SERVICE ORIENTATION: ISSUES AND DILEMMAS

The public service orientation sets service for the public as the key organizational value, providing motivation and purposes both for the local authority and its staff. This article describes the public service orientation before focusing on the major issues which this orientation raises. In particular, it examines service for, not to, the public; the ways in which the public service Orientation differs from consumerism; and the relationship to the political process. Finally, the article surveys the dilemmas posed by the public service orientation.     

THE IMPACT OF SENTENCING GUIDELINES ON JAIL INCARCERATION IN MINNESOTA*

Although available empirical evidence suggests that Minnesota's Determinate Sentencing Law has had little effect on prison incarceration, it is still uncertain whether the sentencing guidelines affected jail use. A few recent studies imply that the guidelines have had a positive effect on jail incarceration rates. Accounts have pointed to preexisting trends, more severe sanctioning of repeat property offenders, and judicial concern with prison overcrowding as possible underlying causes of this observed increase. Using longitudinal data and an ARIMA study design, we investigate the validity of these competing explanations. Our findings show that the onset of the sentencing guidelines increased judicial use of the jail sanction beyond the effect of preexisting trends. In addition, the effect of mitigated dispositional departures from the no prison/prison outcome on jail use is salient only when prison population levels are high. This latter finding supports the thesis that judicial concern with prison overcrowding motivated judges to circumvent the guidelines in order to shift the burden of incarcerating offenders from the state to the local level. The policy implications of these results for determinate sentencing reform are discussed.     

CYNICAL STREETS: NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL PROCESSES AND PERCEPTIONS OF CRIMINAL INJUSTICE*

Studies have found that African Americans are more likely to perceive racial biases in the criminal justice system than are those from other racial groups. There is a limited understanding of how neighborhood social processes affect variation in these perceptions. This study formulates a series of hypotheses focused on whether perceived racial biases in the criminal justice system or perceptions of injustice vary as a function of levels of moral and legal cynicism as well as of adverse police–citizen encounters. These hypotheses are tested with multilevel regression models applied to data from a sample of 689 African Americans located in 39 neighborhoods. Findings from the regression models indicate that the positive association between structural disadvantage and perceptions of injustice is accounted for by moral and legal cynicism. Furthermore, adverse police encounters significantly increase perceptions of injustice; controlling for these encounters reduces the strength of the association between cynicism and injustice perceptions. Finally, the findings reveal that cynicism intensifies the association between adverse police encounters and perceptions of criminal injustice. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for research regarding perceived biases in the criminal justice system and neighborhood social processes.     

Electoral Registration: Time for Change

Electoral registration is the key building block for the administration of elections. It is the gateway to voting: people cannot vote at elections in the UK if their name is not on the register. In recent times there has been much debate in media and Westminster circles about current arrangements for electoral registration and the related issue of the future of postal voting.
This article presents new research published by the Electoral Commission in September 2005 investigating non-registration and its causes. It reviews the case for reform, considers the current policy debate and outlines some of the challenges involved in maximising registration rates. It summarises the Commission's policy recommendations and the reasoning behind them, focusing in particular on the suggested move from the current household-based system of registration to a system of individual registration     

INCORPORATING ROUTINE ACTIVITIES,ACTIVITY SPACES,AND SITUATIONAL DEFINITIONS INTO THE SOCIAL SCHEMATIC THEORY OF CRIME

Simons and Burt's (2011) social schematic theory (SST) of crime posits that adverse social factors are associated with offending because they promote a set of social schemas (i.e., a criminogenic knowledge structure) that elevates the probability of situational definitions favorable to crime. This study extends the SST model by incorporating the role of contexts for action. Furthermore, the study advances tests of the SST by incorporating a measure of criminogenic situational definitions to assess whether such definitions mediate the effects of schemas and contexts on crime. Structural equation models using 10 years of panel data from 582 African American youth provided strong support for the expanded theory. The results suggest that childhood and adolescent social adversity fosters a criminogenic knowledge structure as well as selection into criminogenic activity spaces and risky activities, all of which increase the likelihood of offending largely through situational definitions. Additionally, evidence shows that the criminogenic knowledge structure interacts with settings to amplify the likelihood of situational definitions favorable to crime.     

THE CODE OF THE STREET AND INMATE VIOLENCE: INVESTIGATING THE SALIENCE OF IMPORTED BELIEF SYSTEMS

Scholars have long argued that inmate behaviors stem in part from cultural belief systems that they “import” with them into incarcerative settings. Even so, few empirical assessments have tested this argument directly. Drawing on theoretical accounts of one such set of beliefs—the code of the street—and on importation theory, we hypothesize that individuals who adhere more strongly to the street code will be more likely, once incarcerated, to engage in violent behavior and that this effect will be amplified by such incarceration experiences as disciplinary sanctions and gang involvement, as well as the lack of educational programming, religious programming, and family support. We test these hypotheses using unique data that include measures of the street code belief system and incarceration experiences. The results support the argument that the code of the street belief system affects inmate violence and that the effect is more pronounced among inmates who lack family support, experience disciplinary sanctions, and are gang involved. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

THE VICTIM–OFFENDER OVERLAP IN CONTEXT: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD STREET CULTURE*

Although numerous studies have found a strong relationship between offending and victimization risk, the etiology of this relationship is not well understood. Largely absent from this research is an explicit focus on neighborhood processes. However, theoretical work found in the subculture of violence literature implies that neighborhood street culture may help to account for the etiology of this phenomenon. Specifically, we should expect the magnitude of the victim–offender overlap to vary closely with neighborhood‐based violent conduct norms. This research uses waves 1 and 2 of the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) to test the empirical validity of these notions. Our results show that the victim–offender overlap is not generalizeable across neighborhood contexts; in fact, it is especially strong in neighborhoods where the street culture predominates, whereas it is significantly weaker in areas where this culture is less prominent. These results indicate that neighborhood‐level cultural processes help to explain the victim–offender overlap, and they may cause this phenomenon to be context specific.