POLITICAL CRIME, POLITICAL JUST1CE, AND POLITICAL PRISONERS

Few attempts have previously been made systematically to define or interrelate the concepts of political crime, political criminal, political justice, and political prisoner. To establish a more adequate conceptual base for research, political crime and political criminals are herein defined in terms of motiwtions underlying criminal acts, regardless of the nature of the acts themselves; political justice is defined in terms of the state's reaction to perceived threat; and political prisoners are defined as those incarcerated because of either political crime (politico1 criminals) or political justice (victims of repression). Dimensions for a taxonomy of political crime are suggested.     

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND LETHAL ASSAULTS AGAINST POLICE

This investigation provides a multivariate analysis of the deferrent effect of the death penalty on the rate of lethal assaults against the police. Examining statelevel data for the period 1961 to 1971, we hypothesize a significant inverse relationship between the rate of police killings and (1) the statutory provision for capital punishment and (2) the execution rate of convicted murderers. Contrary to the deferrence hypotheses, no support is found for the argument that the provision and use of the death penalty provides an added measure of protection for the police. Rather, variation in police killings rates, like the general homicide rate, would appear to be largely a function of various sociodemographic factors.     

INTERPREIING OFFICIAL RECORDS AS INDICATORS OF RECIDIVISM IN EVALUATING DELINQUENCY PREVENTION PROGRAMS

Evaluations of crime reduction and prevention programs often use information from official law enforcement or judicial records as ostensibly “objective” indicators of criminal or delinquent activity. However. we of data from official police and court records in assessing the effectiveness of a delinquency prevention program in King County. Washington, yielded divergent conclusions regarding program “success,” depending upon choices in interpretation of records used and the data presentation format adopted. these choices also determined which socio demographic and service-related variables appeared to be related to delinquency. The article calls into question the reliability and validity of official record data as indicators of recidivism, calls for rethinking the selection and use of indicators of program effect in evaluation studies, and calls for further research to explore the possible existence of consistent relationships among available delinquency measures.