The role of violence in street crime: a qualitative study of violent offenders

Studies on the motivation for violent street crime, such as robbery and assault, have tended to draw on either the rational choice or the subcultural perspective. This study explores the extent to which violence on the street can be explained by rational factors associated with the successful commission of the offence or social factors related to street culture. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 55 violent street offenders who were serving sentences for street robbery and assault in six prisons in the United Kingdom. The findings, based on accounts of 101 incidents of street violence, identified four main explanations for street violence: (a) successful offence enactment, (b) buzz and excitement, (c) status and honor, and (d) informal justice. The article concludes that there might be benefits in combining the insights of both perspectives by generating an integrated theory that would properly explain both the rational and the seemingly irrational components of street violence.     

Does neighborhood watch reduce crime? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Neighborhood watch grew out of a movement in the USA during the late 1960s that promoted greater involvement of citizens in the prevention of crime. Recent estimates suggest that over a quarter of the UK population and over 40% of the US population live in areas covered by neighborhood watch schemes. The current paper presents the results of a recent systematic review of evaluations of neighborhood watch. The main findings of the narrative review were that about half of the schemes evaluated showed that neighborhood watch was effective in reducing crime, with most of the other evaluations having uncertain effects. The main findings of the meta-analysis were that 15 of the 18 studies provided evidence that neighborhood watch reduced crime. While the results of the review are encouraging, it was concluded that more high-quality research needs to be done to help explain why study variations exist.

Stealing Thunder as a Courtroom Tactic Revisited: Processes and Boundaries

Stealing thunder refers to a dissuasion tactic in which an individual reveals potentially incriminating evidence first, for the purpose of reducing its negative impact on an evaluative audience. We examined whether it was necessary to frame the negative revelation in a manner that downplayed its importance, and found that stealing thunder successfully dissuaded mock jurors even without framing. We also sought to determine the mechanism by which stealing thunder operated, and found that stealing thunder led mock jurors to change the meaning of incriminating evidence to be less damaging to the individual. We also found that stealing thunder's effectiveness did not hinge on whether or not opposing counsel also mentioned the thunder evidence, and that the stealing thunder tactic was no longer effective when opposing counsel revealed to the mock jurors that the stealing thunder tactic had been used on them.     

Military origins of third world dictatorship and democracy

This article argues that a central element of capitalist development, especially in its neo-liberal form, has been the configuration of a rationalised and individuated conception of work that helps to maximise capitalist efficiency. As the capitalist system has become globalised there has been an attempt to export this conception of work to the Global South by means of liberalisation programmes, many of them sponsored by the World Bank. These have entailed repression of organised labour in the attempt to force workers to adopt the role allocated to them by neo-liberalism, that of individual rational maximisers of utilities. It is argued that this attempt to globalise a neo-liberal conception of work must confront an Asia wherein local values (notably a preference for communitarian rather than individualistic values) and conditions have led both state and civil society to frame the concept of work as having collective rather than just individual significance.     

DNA‐Based Identification of Forensically Important Lucilia (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in the Continental United States*

Abstract: Correct species identification is critical when dipteran larvae are used for inference of the postmortem interval. To facilitate DNA‐based identification of forensically important flies of the genus Lucilia in the continental United States, we develop a vouchered reference collection and DNA sequence database. A total of 122 specimens were collected for nine of the 10 species of Lucilia reported to occur in the continental United States. Using the polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing, data were obtained for an 1100‐bp region of the mitochondrial gene encoding cytochrome oxidase I (COI). We consider a species suitable for DNA‐based identification if it is exclusively monophyletic in >95% of bootstrap pseudoreplicate phylogenetic analyses. Seven of the nine species meet that criterion. Two species (Lucilia coeruleiviridis and Lucilia mexicana) share COI sequence and cannot be distinguished using our reference database. We conclude that DNA‐based identification is likely to be successful for the other seven species.     

Committees and Legislative Strengthening: The Growing Influence of Committees in Ukraine's Legislative Process

The Ukrainian legislature is in the process of transforming from a ‘rubber stamp’ institution of the Soviet type into an ‘institution that matters’ in a new democratic state. The practice of democratic institution building in the post-Soviet countries presents multiple examples of powerful executives who gained dominance in legislative processes. What path has Ukraine taken and what can explain its specific characteristics? This article charts the growth of committees here as a marker of legislative institutionalisation in Ukraine. The study finds that Ukrainian legislative committees defy prevalent regional trends and, contrary to expectations, have asserted independent roles. It then discusses factors that may account for this unique regional development – the role of a dual executive structure and the Ukraine party system.     

Campaign Contributions and U.S. Foreign Policy Outcomes: An Analysis of Cuban American Interests

To what extent are ethnic minority interest groups able to influence U.S. foreign policy? Current case study research has identified several factors that may condition the ability of diasporic groups to influence foreign policy toward ancestral “homelands.” To this point, existing studies have been unable to isolate the impact of campaign contributions from other factors that may influence U.S. foreign policy decision making. The current study uses a combination of conditional and standard logistic regression to examine the impact of Cuban American interest group and individual campaign contributions on a series of votes on key amendments in the 108^th and 109^th Congresses. Results from the study support the idea that the Cuban diasporic community in the United States has had an impact on U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba. However, there are significant limits to this influence conditioned in part by issue salience.