Low Self‐Control and Contact with the Criminal Justice System in a Nationally Representative Sample of Males

Prior research on law enforcement and court system actions suggests that offender demeanor influences practitioner decision making. However, few studies have examined a key implication of this body of work—namely, criminogenic factors associated not only with offending but also with demeanor may result in a greater likelihood of contact with and formal processing by law enforcement and the courts. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we test the hypothesis that low self‐control, which is associated with a range of characteristics that might influence practitioner perceptions of individual offenders’ demeanors, will predict greater contact and formal processing. Briefly, we found that low self‐control was consistently related to criminal justice system involvement as measured by police contacts, arrests, age at first police contact, and arrest onset. The implications of the findings for theory and research are discussed.     

Strain,Crime, and Contingencies

Hypotheses from General Strain theory are addressed using data from a random sample of adults in Raleigh, NC. Analyses examine three issues: (1) whether strain predicts self‐projected criminal behavior; controlling for past self‐reported crime; (2) whether negative emotions mediate the relationship between strain and projected crime; and (3) whether social support and criminal peers serve as contingencies or mediators for strain in predicting criminality. Results are generally consistent with previous studies focusing on youth. Three of four measures of strain are found to predict the crime measures. However, that relationship is not mediated by negative emotion and the measures of social support and criminal peers do not act as contingencies or mediators. The results suggest that strain may not operate through negative emotions and that theoretical refinement is needed to identify which potential contingencies are likely to be operating under various circumstances.     

Juvenile Court Context and Detention Decisions: Reconsidering the Role of Race,Ethnicity, and Community Characteristics in Juvenile Court Processes

The relationship between race/ethnicity, community dynamics, and juvenile court processes has long been established. Prior research has relied on city‐ or county‐level measures of community characteristics (e.g., racial composition, poverty) to examine how racial groups are processed within juvenile courts. To date, no study has utilized finer scale measures of geographic areas to examine how characteristics of juveniles’ communities impact court decisions. By utilizing official juvenile court data from a city in the southwest, this study draws upon attribution theory to examine how economic and crime community‐level measures directly and indirectly influence detention outcomes. Findings reveal that the effect of race and ethnicity in detention outcomes varies across communities, and the effect of ethnicity in detention decisions is mediated by economic community‐level measures. The theoretical and policy implications of the study findings are discussed.     

未来我国民法典不宜采用“一般人格权”概念

"一般人格权"是民法"生出"的宪法权利,它不像人格权那样可以以具体化的形式作为民法中的权利样态。无论是以演绎法还是以归纳法来构建我国人格权体系,都会得出"一般人格权"与现有的人格权体系相龃龉。未来我国民法典应以"一般条款"替代"一般人格权",使人格权体系变成以具体人格权为主体,辅之以一般条款的立法模式。     

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat in the twelfth Malaysian parliament, 2008–12, and parliamentary behaviour on the budget process

In the post-2008 Malaysian general election, the opposition political parties the Parti KeADILan Rakyat, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and the Democratic Action Party started to gain currency, especially when the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government was denied its two-thirds of the majority in parliament. The 2008 result indicated that there was a substantial shift in support from the incumbent BN to the opposition parties. The opposition later on was formed into a coalition known as Pakatan Rakyat (PR). The minor victory of the PR in the 2008 election suggested that it had secured a considerable number of seats in the twelfth Malaysian parliament. This article argues that the 2008 electoral outcome exhibited substantial competitive parliamentary behaviour despite the authoritarian nature of Malaysia. The article examines PR behaviour in the twelfth parliament with reference to the budget process. Besides elections, the Malaysian parliament is a very crucial indicator of the development of democratic governance in Malaysia. This article argues that the opposition PR is still relevant in the way in which it has fully exercised its legal parliamentary capability, especially its de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, in questioning and posing constraints on the ruling BN policies concerning the budget process.     

Criminal thinking as a moderator of the perceived certainty–offending relationship: age variations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the perceived certainty of punishment and general criminal thinking interact and whether the effect varies as a function of age. Data from all 1354 members (1170 males, 184 females) of the Pathways to Desistance study were used to test whether perceived certainty, general criminal thinking, and their interaction predicted subsequent offending during late adolescence (16–18 years of age) and emerging adulthood (20–22 years of age). The results showed that while perceived certainty and general criminal thinking failed to interact at age 17, general criminal thinking moderated the effect of perceived certainty at age 21. During emerging adulthood, offending was more common and varied in young adults with low certainty perceptions and high criminal thinking than it was in emerging adults with high criminal thinking and high certainty perceptions or low criminal thinking and either high or low certainty perceptions.     

环保督察与空气质量改善:立足城市情境的效应异质性分析

作为生态环境保护领域的一项重大制度创新,中央环保督察已经成为党和政府推动生态文明建设的重要政策工具。然而,对于中央环保督察能否改善空气质量,尤其是其效果的可持续性,尚存在诸多争议。立足于匹配后的地级市数据评估中央环保督察对空气质量改善的平均效应,结果表明中央环保督察尽管在短期内显著改善了空气质量,其长期效应并不显著。然而,借助基于模型的递归分解法和随机森林法进一步发现:中央环保督察的长期效应存在显著的情境差异性:中央环保督察对于空气污染较重的城市具有长期改善效应,且东部城市尤为明显;一个城市的经济发展水平越高,中央环保督察效应越具有长效性;政府规模和财政自主性对中央环保督察效应起到截然相反的调节作用:前者的扩张会削弱长期效应,而后者的提升则会强化长期效应。揭示城市情境对督察效应的调节作用,有助于深化学界对中央环保督察长效性的条件认识,也为进一步完善该制度、提升其效能提供了重要的思路。     

From polls to votes to seats: Forecasting the 2015 British general election

This paper develops a three-stage method to forecast parliamentary election results from vote preferences in British opinion polls: (1) adjusting and aggregating vote-intentions from different polling organizations; (2) forecasting how public support for parties will change in the period before election day; and (3) translating, through simulations, the forecast of election day vote shares into seat totals while incorporating constituency-level information, including local vote-intention polls. Overall, this approach seeks to combine relevant national, regional and local information, and uncertainty about that information, to better reflect the fragmentation and diversity of political contexts found in the new era of five/six-party British politics.     

Economic globalisation,the perceived room to manoeuvre of national governments,and electoral participation: Evidence from the 2001 British General Election

Recent macro-level research argues that economic globalisation negatively affects electoral turnout by constraining the leeway of national governments and thereby rendering elections less meaningful to voters. This article analyses the link between perceptions of the national government's room to manoeuvre and turnout on the individual level. Drawing on the 2001 British General Election, it is shown that citizens who believe that economic globalisation leaves the national government with less influence on the economy are less likely to report to have voted. Further findings also support the proposed theoretical model according to which room to manoeuvre perceptions affect turnout via views on the importance of elections and matter specifically for citizens that tend towards the left side of the left-right scale.