Legitimacy in corrections

Research Summary
To extend research on legitimacy to the correctional system, we study a sample of 202 adult inmates randomly assigned to serve their 6-month sentence at one of two institutions—a traditional prison or a military-style correctional boot camp. Findings show that perceptions of justice system legitimacy changed during the course of incarceration, that the prison (but not the boot camp) proved delegitimizing, and that certain regime characteristics explained why.
Policy Implications
Across academic disciplines, studies continue to link compliance with perceived legitimacy. Compliance with the law, for instance, is related closely to the legitimacy of the justice system and its actors. These findings suggest implementing legitimacy-building policies such as procedurally fair treatment and decision making by police officers and judges. This article, by finding legitimacy to be malleable even at the final stage of the justice process, proposes the efficacy of similar policies in the correctional system. As research from England and Wales has shown, legitimizing strategies in this context could increase compliance both during and after incarceration.     

Identification of 1‐(2,3‐dihydro‐1H‐inden‐5‐yl)‐2‐(ethylamino)pentan‐1‐one (bk‐IVP) in a Seized Drug Exhibit

To circumvent the law by evading regulation and obscuring their identities in routine analyses, numerous substituted cathinones have entered the illicit drug market. These compounds have been coined “bath salts” by users. In the described case, the laboratory received an unknown white powder for controlled substances identification. The sample could not be immediately identified using standard methods and procedures. Ultimately, the structure was elucidated using GC‐MS, NMR, FTIR, GC‐SPIR, UV, and color tests to be 1‐(2,3‐dihydro‐1H‐inden‐5‐yl)‐2‐(ethylamino)pentan‐1‐one (bk‐IVP), a cathinone analog with a rarely observed nonoxygenated bicyclic ring system. Features of spectra and chemical tests are reported that distinguish this class of cathinones from heterocyclic analogs.     

Majority representation and legitimacy: Survey-experimental evidence from the European Union

What can policy makers do in day-to-day decision making to strengthen citizens' belief that the political system is legitimate? Much literature has highlighted that the realization of citizens' personal preferences in policy making is an important driver of legitimacy beliefs. We argue that citizens, in addition, also care about whether a policy represents the preferences of the majority of citizens, even if their personal preference diverges from the majority's. Using the case of the European Union (EU) as a system that has recurringly experienced crises of public legitimacy, we conduct a vignette survey experiment in which respondents assess the legitimacy of fictitious EU decisions that vary in how they were taken and whose preferences they represent. Results from original surveys conducted in the five largest EU countries show that the congruence of EU decisions not only with personal opinion but also with different forms of majority opinion significantly strengthens legitimacy beliefs. We also show that the most likely mechanism behind this finding is the application of a ‘consensus heuristic’, by which respondents use majority opinion as a cue to identify legitimate decisions. In contrast, procedural features such as the consultation of interest groups or the inclusiveness of decision making in the institutions have little effect on legitimacy beliefs. These findings suggest that policy makers can address legitimacy deficits by strengthening majority representation, which will have both egotropic and sociotropic effects.     

穴位埋线疗法治疗支气管哮喘的系统评价

目的 评价穴位埋线疗法治疗哮喘的临床疗效。方法 根据Cochrane系统评价方法,全面收集穴位埋线治疗哮喘的随机对照试验,运用RevMan 5.20版进行Meta分析。结果 共纳入15篇研究,纳入病例1 579例。Meta分析显示：穴位埋线与西药、针刺比较在总有效率、第一秒用力呼气量、喘息等方面可能具有优势。结论 现有证据显示穴位埋线治疗哮喘与其他疗法比较在疗效、改善预后方面有一定优势,但还需要高质量的随机对照试验进一步证实。     

单用口服中药治疗成人病毒性心肌炎随机对照试验的Meta分析

目的 对单用口服中药治疗成人病毒性心肌炎的疗效进行评价。方法 在中国期刊全文数据库（CNKI）、中文科技期刊数据库（VIP）和万方数据库中检索2000年1月至2016年4月发表的单用口服中药治疗成人病毒性心肌炎的随机对照试验文献,对文献进行二次筛选并进行Jadad评分,采用RevMan 5.2软件进行Meta分析。结果 口服中药治疗在改善成人病毒性心肌炎临床症状方面具有明显疗效（OR值为3.32,OR值的95% CI为2.42～4.57, P<0.000 01,I2=0%）;在治疗心电图（或动态心电图）异常方面较单独西医常规疗法无明显优势（OR值为1.94,OR值的95% CI为0.98～3.85,P=0.06, I2=71%）。结论 单用口服中药治疗成人病毒性心肌炎可能具有一定的疗效。     

“Forward to David the Builder!” Georgia's (re)turn to language-centered nationalism

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment (n?=?792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe.     

Shaping Political Preferences: Information Effects in Political-Administrative Systems

Information is at the heart of politics. However, since information is always sent by someone who is more or less powerful, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of information from the power of the sender. Drawing on a standard model of attitude formation, we argue that presenting information can affect preferences of politicians regardless of the power of the sender. We test this proposition in a survey experiment with 1205 Danish local politicians in which the experimental groups were presented with varying levels of cost information but where sender remained constant. The experiment shows that even in a setting where the information is not disclosed by a powerful sender, information may have a stronger impact on political preferences than other well-known determinants such as committee and party affiliation. Our findings speak to learning theories, knowledge perspectives and the literature on the determinants of politicians’ preferences.     

受控承运人制度研究

受控承运人 ,即美国所监管的国有承运人。受控承运人制度是冷战的产物 ,目前受其影响最大的就是我国国有承运人。本文就受控承运人制度的历史、特征、监管、豁免、执行机构以及该制度下的我国国有承运人进行了研究 ,并对受控承运人制度进行了展望和思考。     

不同集卵方法收集的抗苯并咪唑捻转血矛线虫卵的发育试验

用饱和盐水、饱和糖水漂浮法获得抗苯并咪唑(benzimidazole)的捻转血矛线虫(Hae monchus contortus)虫卵,在实验室进行了在不同浓度的苯并咪唑药液中保存不同时间的虫卵发育试验。结果显示,用2种集卵方法获取的虫卵在虫卵发育试验中仅有不足以影响虫卵发育的微小差异,对整体试验也没有实质性的影响,表明2种集卵方法都可以作为该试验获取虫卵的方法;不同保存时间的苯并咪唑药液的试验结果也差别不大,对试验也没有实质性的影响。     

The impact of program developers as evaluators on criminal recidivism: Results from meta-analyses of experimental and quasi-experimental research

Using meta-analysis, we report on an investigation of the evaluator's influence in the treatment setting on criminal recidivism outcomes. Many evaluators and users of evaluation of social interventions worry that mixing of the roles of program developer and program evaluator may bias results reported in intervention studies in a positive direction. We first review the results of prior investigations of this issue across 50 prior meta-analyses, finding 12 that tested the impact of investigator influence in the treatment setting. Eleven of these reported that effect size increased positively, sometimes substantially so, when evaluators were influential or involved in the treatment setting. We followed this with a meta-analysis of 300 randomized field trials in individually focused crime reduction, also finding intervention studies in which evaluators who were greatly influential in the treatment setting report consistently and substantially larger effect sizes than other types of evaluators. We discuss two major views — the ‘cynical’ and ‘high fidelity’ theories — on why this is consistently the case, and conclude with a further agenda for research.