Stochastic models for analyzing Criminal Careers

The recent National Research Counci! Panel on Research on Criminal Careers (Blumsteinet al., 1986) identified the following as one of its items for future research: ... changes in the model [for analyzing criminal careers] are needed to reflect the consequences of the considerable heterogeneity in the values of A. This paper discusses the range of stochastic models available that take account of variations in A that occur during an individual offender's career, variations in A between different types of offenders, and both forms of variation simultaneously. Together these models are a flexible and powerful tool for studying criminal careers. For completeness, failure rate regression models are also briefly described.     

民法典视野下生计酌减规范的必要性证成

损害赔偿义务的调整存在过失相抵、损益相抵、生计酌减等体系化的规范设置,该等制度相互独立共同实现损害赔偿义务的灵活调整,为权益保护与行为自由的平衡提供了制度的保障。我国民法典制定过程中学界对生计酌减规范的关注不足,忽视了生计酌减的规范作用。实际上生计酌减规范能有效保障加害人的生存发展权,与现代民法的人文关怀精神相符合。无论是完全赔偿主义还是限制赔偿主义均涉及到生计酌减规范的设立问题,我国亦不例外。就生计酌减规范与程序法制的关系而言,强制执行程序只保障了被执行人的生存权而未及于发展权;破产法制虽然能实现债务人生存发展权的保障,但存在诸多限制性规定,强制执行法与破产法制均需要与生计酌减规范形成良好的互动关系,方能实现程序法制与实体规范的互补。因此,我国民法典应当设立生计酌减规范。     

The Resurgence of the Niger Delta Militants and the Survival of the Nigerian State

The 2016 resumption of hostilities in the oil-rich Niger Delta region that is the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, in a dwindling international oil price, has become a subject of controversy. This analysis, which is based on empirical evidence from primary and secondary sources, shows a group of militants—the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), selective anti-corruption crusade, the clamp down on federal government structure in the Niger Delta, amnesty time limit to Niger Delta ex-militants, self–determination and the attempt to single out former President Goodluck Jonathan from Niger Delta, among other former presidents for prosecution, as the core drivers of insecurity in the oil-rich region. It is suggested that the Nigerian government should embrace the power of dialogue that has brought relative peace in the Niger Delta region from 2009 to 2015, as a veritable tool to stop the ongoing hostilities.     

Rearrest probabilities for the 1984–1993 apprehended Western Australian population: A survival analysis

A large population of all persons arrested by police in Western Australia for the first time between April 1, 1984, and June 30, 1993 (n=146,038), were followed up to determine if they have ever been rearrested. Probabilities of rearrest were estimated at 0.52 for male non-Aborigines, 0.36 for female non-Aborigines, 0.88 for male Aborigines, and 0.85 for female Aborigines. Significant variations in the probability of rearrest and/or time to rearrest for different age groups, number of times arrested, occupational status, offense group, place of birth, and bail status were observed. Covariate analysis (Maller, 1993) of non-Aboriginals (n=51,302) found with the offense of driving under the influence (DUI) was also undertaken to test the significance of differences in probabilities of rearrest for subgroups. Probabilities of rearrest were 0.47 forany offense and 0.31 for arepeat DUI for males and 0.34 forany offense and 0.20 for arepeat DUI for females. The results are discussed in the light of estimates of reimprisonment and the utility of offender risk assessment.     

Introduction: The democratic consolidation of Lithuania's State Institutions

What has enabled the Finnic and Baltic slivers east of the Baltic Sea to survive in the midst of a Germanic-Slavic Northern Europe for the last 1000 years? Such an outcome was not foreordained – it is the result of a succession of lucky circumstances, on top of the strength of native cultures. Favorable factors include geopolitical location, worldwide main currents such as Protestantism and Romanticism, competition among would-be assimilators, and the unintentional positive impact of personalities extraneous to the Baltic area, such as Bishop Albert, Martin Luther and Peter the First. The latter occupy only a part of this overview, but as partly counter-intuitive examples they highlight the contradictory vagaries of the process of nation-building east of the Baltic Sea. While the focus is on Estonia and Latvia, some observations apply to Lithuania and Finland as well. Sustainability during the last 1000 years has implications for future national survival, but with marked reservations in a demographically imploding Europe. Nations without children have no future.     

The sent-down youth of China: The role of family origin in the risk of departure to and return from the countryside

Between 1967 and 1978, over 17million urban youths in China systematically migrated to the rural countryside in a massive relocation movement known as the Sent-Down Movement. The youths who relocated—some by choice, though many forcibly—were part of a grand scheme envisioned by the then ruling Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong, who sought to reeducate urban youth by having them live and labor amongst their rural compatriots. Known as the “sent down youth”, these youths' experiences and struggles of moving to and returning from the countryside offer considerable insight into the ideological importance of family origins. Most notably, the revolutionary movement which swept over China at the height of the sent-down movement in the late 1960s reversed the hierarchical order of society; individuals with higher family origins were now criminalized making them prime targets for relocation to the countryside. In this quantitative analysis, I examine the relationship between family origins and the risk of departure to and return from the countryside for urban youth, using a unique longitudinal retrospective dataset, Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China. I analyze how this relationship plays out not only during the height of the movement, but throughout a more expansive time frame under which youths were reportedly sent-down (1957 to 1980). Through discrete-time survival analysis, I estimate that urban youths from higher family origins (rich peasant and landowner classes) experienced a greater risk for being sent-down versus their counterparts from lower family origins. Most interestingly, youths of higher family origins also experienced a lower risk for returning from the countryside; one interpretation of this finding is that even after spending time in the countryside in the pursuit of absolving themselves of their higher family origins, the stigma attached to their higher family origins persisted.     

Imperial Violence: the ‘Ethnic’ as a Component of the ‘Criminal’ Class in Victorian England

This article seeks to identify how, and in what ways, the debate over ethnic identity acquired saliency during the different phases of black settlement in England, especially against the backcloth of the socio-cultural processes and the economics of colonialism. It outlines how the ‘other’ was constituted in different discourses, policies, and practices, and how these constructions were appropriated by the criminal justice agencies. Critically, ethnic identity as subordinate and ‘inferior’ was produced by many of the same mechanisms as was developed with regard to the indigenous ‘criminal’ class in Victorian England. Societal reaction, through criminal and civil statutes, established the identity of the ethnic minorities of early nineteenth century England, not just as subordinate strata, but also by a more complex process, as a variant of the newly emergent ‘criminal’ class. It is argued that, caught in the hub of empire, the ‘ayahs’, the ‘lascars’ and the domestic servants (See R. Visram, The Ayahs, Lascars and The Princes (London: Pluto).) in England’s ports found themselves reconstructed as part of the ‘criminal’ class and subsequently subjected to disciplinary measures of social control and surveillance. The author argues with regard to the indigenous population, conceptions of the threat of the non-Western crystallised around the same popular images of ‘savagery’ and of moral degeneracy, a process reinforced in imperial fiction. A desire to ‘civilise’ and improve the peculiar habits of the non-Western followed directly from indigenous precedent.     

维护个人的尊严与日本障碍者福利法制

二战后,日本残疾人即障碍者福利法制在生存权理念的指引下得以建立与发展。进入21世纪,日本障碍者福利法制在强调生存权理念之同时,更加注重维护个人的尊严理念,并将这一理念贯彻于障碍者福利法制的内容之中,日本障碍者福利法制出现了社会权与自由权相统一的倾向。     

青年群体亚健康——现代化与人类生存危机

亚健康问题，特别是青年群体的亚健康问题是现代化社会中激烈竞争、环境恶化、人际关系弱化、不良家庭环境的负面影响以及个体亚健康的生活方式的后果，关系到人类的生存危机。预防与治疗亚健康，需要从建设生态文明，树立正确的人生观，提倡健康的生活方式和工作方式，加强家庭、社区和社会支持的角度提出社会干预措施。