Assessing the perceived benefits—criminal offending relationship

Deterrence theory has been a centerpiece of theoretical and empirical research in criminology. Largely due to the early work of Beccaria however, much of this research has focused on estimating the effect of the certainty of punishment, or the costs of crime, on criminal offending. Although the benefits/rewards of crime are as important as the costs, conceptualization and operationalization of this portion of the decision-making process has only recently accumulated. In an effort to provide a counterpart to the summary statements available regarding the costs of crime, this paper undertakes a statistical summary of the empirical studies that have examined the benefits/offending relationship, with specific attention paid not only to the overall relationship, but also to several key moderators. Using 40 specific estimates from 13 studies since 1990, the analysis provides evidence of a positive and significant relationship between benefits and offending, but that the overall relationship varies in several ways. Directions for future research are outlined.     

Transgender Family Law

Transgender people face unique issues in parentage, custody, and divorce cases. Many transgender people are raising children or wish to do so. This article examines the main legal issues facing transgender people who become parents by giving birth or impregnating a partner, through assisted reproduction, through marriage, by raising a child, or through adoption. In the past, some courts viewed a parent's gender transition as a sufficient reason to terminate parental rights. Today, the law has shifted to provide much more security for transgender parents, though significant bias still remains, particularly in divorce and child custody cases. In addition, many states have not yet fully addressed how to determine the legal parentage of children born through assisted reproduction. I analyze the legal landscape for transgender parents and spouses and offer critical suggestions to ensure that transgender people are able to protect their families and their parental rights.     

A Prospective Examination of Criminal Career Trajectories in Abused and Neglected Males and Females Followed Up into Middle Adulthood

Objectives

To examine the extent to which there are differences in the developmental course of offending among individuals with maltreatment histories, compared to nonmaltreated controls, and whether these patterns vary for males and females.

Methods

This paper uses data from a longitudinal study in which abused and neglected children (N = 908) were matched with non-maltreated children (N = 667) and followed prospectively into adulthood. Group-based trajectory modeling was conducted using official criminal history records collected through mean age 51. Patterns of criminal offending were first considered for the whole sample, with abuse status and sex included as time-stable covariates, and then separately by subgroup (control females, maltreated females, control males and maltreated males).

Results

Analyses revealed that a three-group model provided the best fit (nonoffenders, low-level chronic offenders, mid-level chronic offenders) for the overall sample. Child maltreatment and sex were significant predictors, with offenders more likely to be male and abused/neglected, compared to non-offenders. Separate analyses for the four subgroups revealed some similarities across groups in the characterization of offending trajectories, although trajectories for abused/neglected females differed significantly from trajectories for control females. Additional analyses suggest that desistance from offending may be largely a function of incapacitation due to early death, rather than imprisonment.

Conclusions

These new analyses provide evidence that child maltreatment affects patterns of offending and that there is an impact on females and males, although the impact differs by gender. Future research should build on this work by examining the mechanisms through which child maltreatment leads to differential patterns of offending throughout the life course.

     

The Responsibility to Protect in Southeast Asia: Can ASEAN Reconcile Humanitarianism and Sovereignty?

Abstract

This article explores how relevant the “Responsibility to Protect” (RtoP) principle is in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is usually thought of as a region that is highly resistant to external “interference” in its domestic affairs and relatively impervious to the influence of externally generated norms. The article explores the potential relevance of RtoP through an analysis of the impact of Cyclone Nargis on Myanmar. Although the military regime in Myanmar was initially resistant to external intervention, pressure from both the United Nations and especially fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) caused the regime to change its behavior. The authors argue that this marks an important shift in intra-ASEAN relations and suggests that even in Southeast Asia where sovereignty is still jealously guarded, external norms and ideas can have a decisive impact in propitious circumstances.     

Regent developments in Anatolia and the Caucasus

Saudi Arabia. By H. St. John Philby. London : Ernest Benn. 1955. Pp. 393 + xix. Ill. 30s.

Representative Government in South‐East Asia. By Professor Rupert Emerson. Institute of Pacific Relations. 1955. Pp. 192. Index. $3.50.

Liang Ch'i Ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China. By Joseph R. Levenson. Harvard University Press. 1953. (Harvard Historical Monographs XXVI.)

Chinese Calligraphy. An Introduction to its Æsthetic and Technique. By Chiang Yee. 2nd edition, with a Preface by Sir Herbert Read. London : Methuen. 1954. Pp. xvi +230; 6 plates and 155 text illustrations. 30s.

Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development: China and Japan. By G. C. Allen and Audrey G. Donnithorne. George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. 1954. Pp. 253.

Shanghai: Key to Modern China. By Rhoads Murphey. Harvard university Press. 1953. Distributed in U.K. by Oxford University Press. Pp. 246, and maps. 36s.

The Prospects for Communist China. By W. W. Rostov and others at the Centre for International Studies, Mass. London : Chapman and Hall. 1954. Pp. 400; inside cover maps and index.

Government and Administration in Communist China. By S. B. Thomas. Institute of Pacific Relations, New York. Pp. 196.

The Wise Man from the West. By Vincent Cronin. Rupert Hart‐Davis. 1955. 300 pp. Ill. 18s.

Stalin's Russia and After. By Harrison Salisbury. London : Macmillan. 1955. Pp. 329. 21S.

The Red Carpet. By Marshall MacDuffie. Cassell and Co. Ltd. 1955. Pp. 330. Ill. Index. 18s.

Muhammad's People. A Tale by Anthology. By Eric Schroeder. The Bond Wheelwright Co., Portland, Me., U.S.A. pp. 838. $10.00.

The Economic Development of Japan. By Professor W. W. Lockwood. Princeton University Press. (London : Geoffrey Cumberledge.) Pp. 592 and Index. 63s.

The Art of Asia in the Francis Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts in Budapest. By Tibor Horváth. Budapest. 1954. 112 plates.

Treasures of Indian Miniatures in the Bikaner Palace Collection. By Basil Gray. Bruno Cassirer, Oxford. Distributed by Faber and Faber. 1955. 12s. 6d.

A Glossary of Chinese Art and Archaeology. By S. Howard Hansford. London : The China Society. 1954. Pp. 104. 15s.

Elizabethan and Yuan: A Brief Comparison of some Conventions in Poetic Drama. By James Liu. London : The China Society. 1955. Pp. 12. 3s.

Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain. By Violet Dickson, M.B.E., F.Z.S. London : George Allen and Unwin. 1955. Pp. 143; maps. Ill. 25s.

The Waterless Moon. By Elizabeth Balneaves. Lutterworth Press. 1955. Pp. 175, with 15 plates and a map. 15s.

Take These Men. By Cyril Joly. Constable. 1955. 8”×5½”. Pp. x +357 and maps. 15s. net.

This is Kashmir. By Pearce Gervis. Cassell. 1954. Pp. 330; 2 colour plates, 24 pp. of photographs, and a map. 25s.

Man of Everest. By James Ramsay Ullman. G. G. Harrap : London, Toronto, Sydney and Wellington. 1955. Pp. 320. 8½” × 6½”. 18s.

An Innocent on Everest. By Ralph Izzard. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954. Pp. 256. 111. Bibl. 16s.

Kanchenjunà Challenge. By Paul Bauer. London : William Kimber. 1955. Pp. 202. 12 illustrations. 9½”×6½”. 18s.

The Savage Mountain. By Charles Houston and Robert Bates. Collins. 1955. Pp. 192; 23 illustrations; maps and line drawings. 8½” x 6”. 25s.

The Narrow Smile. By Peter Mayne. John Murray. 1955. Pp. 254. 111. 18s.

September Monkey. By Induk Pahk. Victor Gollancz. 1955. Pp. 283. 15s.

My Several Worlds. By Pearl S. Buck. Methuen. 1955. Pp. 467. 21s.

Mandarin Red. By James Cameron. Michael Joseph. 1955. Pp. 287 approx. Ill. 15s.

One Man in His Time. By N. M. Borodin. Constable, London. 1955. Pp. 343. 21s.     

Assessing the Performance of a Court System: A Comprehensive Performance Measures Approach

Many court systems suffer from long lead times, poor service quality, and low throughput. In many cases improvements are continuously introduced through various managerial and professional methods. This article proposes a set of measures to assess the effectiveness of court systems. This set of performance measures includes response-time, throughput, and work-in-process. While court systems generate a multitude of statistical data it is difficult to apply them across individual courts.

The article tailors well established generic performance measures to the specific court arena. The individual measures are aggregated into a single figure that assesses the court's performance along the time axis and relative to comparable court systems.

The proposed measure of performance and the aggregate score were validated with real life figures from the Israeli court system.     

Sexual and violent recidivism by offender type and actuarial risk: reoffending rates for rapists,child molesters and mixed-victim offenders

Abstract

The current study examines sexual and violent reoffence rates for a sample of 2474 sexual offenders over an average of 15 years following release from prison. Reoffence rates are reported as a function of the offenders' victim type and level of risk as assessed by the Automated Sexual Recidivism Scale, a computer scored measure of relevant historical risk factors. Observed sexual recidivism rates for offenders with child victims, adult victims, and mixed victims were quite similar. Results indicate that offenders with exclusively female child victims not only showed a lower rate of sexual reoffending, but that the reoffence rates were relatively low across all levels of actuarial risk. In contrast, those with male child victims and adult victims showed a pronounced escalation of reoffence rates as actuarial risk increased. Results also indicated that adult victim offenders are less consistent in the victim type of their reoffences, with 37% sexually reoffending against child victims. Finally, combined rates of sexual and violent reoffending were particularly high for those with adult victim sexual offence histories. Risk assessment and public policy implications are discussed.     

New York city and subsidized housing: Impacts and lessons of the city's $5 billion capital budget housing plan

Abstract

New York City has devoted far more resources to the development and rehabilitation of affordable housing than any other U.S. city, investing more than $4 billion from 1986 to 1997. This article surveys the impact, status, and implications of New York's housing programs. It looks at correlations between publicly funded housing starts and changes in the housing stock, welfare rolls, and crime and at the economic impact of the city's housing investments within low‐income neighborhoods.

New York's housing programs have transformed neighborhoods, replacing large swaths of abandoned shells and vacant land with new housing and preserving thousands of buildings at risk of abandonment. While these housing investments correlate most strongly with reductions in vacant units and vacant lots, they also show significant correlations with reductions in welfare rolls and violent crime, but uneven economic impacts as well. New York's housing programs are important nationally less for the specifics of particular programs than for the institutional collaborations on which they are founded.     

Turning Housing Into Driving: Parking Requirements and Density in Los Angeles and New York

This article examines the idea that residential minimum parking requirements are associated with lower housing and population densities and higher vehicle densities (residential vehicles per square mile). Cities frequently use minimum parking requirements to manage traffic, but parking requirements accommodate vehicles, suggesting they should lead to more driving and congestion rather than less. If parking requirements reduce congestion, they likely do so not by reducing the number of vehicles in an area but by reducing the densities of housing and people. We support this idea by comparing the Los Angeles and New York urbanized areas. We show that differences in housing, vehicle, and population densities across and within these urbanized areas are closely correlated with differences in the share of housing units that include parking, and that the share of housing units that include parking is in turn correlated with the stringency of parking requirements. Compared with Los Angeles, New York shifts less of the cost of driving into its housing market. We further show that within New York City, a 10% increase in minimum parking requirements is associated with a 5% increase in vehicles per square mile, a 4% increase in vehicles per person, and a 6% reduction in both population density and housing density. These relationships remain even after controlling for street layout and proximity to the subway.