TARGET CHOICE DURING EXTREME EVENTS: A DISCRETE SPATIAL CHOICE MODEL OF THE 2011 LONDON RIOTS

Riots are extreme events, and much of the early research on rioting suggested that the decision making of rioters was far from rational and could only be understood from the perspective of a collective mind. In the current study, we derive and test a set of expectations regarding rioter spatial decision making developed from theories originally intended to explain patterns of urban crime when law and order prevail—crime pattern and social disorganization theory—and consider theories of collective behavior and contagion. To do this, we use data for all riot‐related incidents that occurred in London in August 2011 that were detected by the police. Unlike most studies of victimization, we use a random utility model to examine simultaneously how the features of the destinations selected by rioters, the origins of their journeys, and the characteristics of the offenders influence offender spatial decision making. The results demonstrate that rioter target choices were far from random and provide support for all three types of theory, but for crime pattern theory in particular. For example, rioters were more likely to engage in the disorder close to their home location and to select areas that contained routine activity nodes and transport hubs, and they were less likely to cross the Thames River. In terms of contagion, rioters were found to be more likely to target areas that had experienced rioting in the previous 24 hours. From a policy perspective, the findings provide insight into the types of areas that may be most vulnerable during riots and why this is the case, and when particular areas are likely to be at an elevated risk of this type of disorder.     

How husbands and wives vote

This article uses economic theories of voting behavior and household decision making to analyze the role of own and spouse earnings in determining political voting behavior. The main predictions from these models is that earnings is one of the factors that has an impact on political preferences and in households who share resources, voting behavior will be influenced more by the most representative labor income in the family. I investigate empirically the importance of individual vs household income, and find that the importance of individual income on voting behavior is contingent on employment. On average women earn less than their husband and vote according to their husbands income. If the wife is the maximum earner of the household or works fulltime, she votes more according to her own earnings.     

对2005年英国《意思能力法》的再解读——以社会工作为视角

2005年英格兰和威尔士颁行的《意思能力法》将判例法的大部分实践奉为准则以保护丧失决策能力的成年人,促进个人自主性以及确保个人能够提前做出拒绝治疗的相关决定.它在需要替欠缺行为能力成年人做主要的身体和福利决定的情形下引入了新的替代决策方式以满足这些需求以及相关特殊主张.2005年《意思能力法》的适用范围从不同的角度得到再次解读,此法与在既定领域以新角色与他人进行合作的社会工作者之间的密切关系得到考察,社会工作者的部分责任得到阐明,研究结论指出：社会工作者具备完美实践的潜力,而这也需要专业的反思与服务监督的支持.     

法官判决的知识基础

通过两个有关法官判决的司法文本的对比阅读,力求揭示“常识”这一知识形态自身内部结构因素的流变以及逻辑基础和知识谱系的转化,进而动态地展现其与司法知识之间的微观内在勾连;并在此基础上,努力在社会转型、权力分工以及司法知识形态的流变三者之间建立起一定意义的内在关联,进而揭示出当下中国司法知识专业化建设所可能面临的问题,从而指出解决问题的可能的司法模式或司法改革道路。     

Who do you believe? Assessing student and community member perceptions of bystander and victim witnesses

ABSTRACT

Eyewitness identifications provide critical evidence as they are often persuasive to jurors, but documented misidentifications have led to wrongful convictions . Researchers have examined how jurors evaluate multiple eyewitnesses, but not different types of eyewitnesses, such as bystanders and victims. Additionally, none of this research has examined jurors’ ability to evaluate bystander and victim identifications that vary in quality. Two studies examined student and community members’ perceptions of bystander and victim witnesses. Study 1 participants read about a good or poor-quality identification made by a bystander or victim. Study 2 participants read about both bystander and victim identifications that varied in quality. Both studies found jurors were sensitive to identification quality as demonstrated by a variety of legal decisions, including verdict, though the quality of a second identification in Study 2 did not change any legal decisions. Multiple differences between student and community member samples emerged across both studies suggesting that community members are more likely to trust witnesses and convict. Reliance on student samples may overestimate jurors’ ability to evaluate multiple eyewitnesses and underestimate the likelihood of conviction based on flawed eyewitness evidence.     

Firearm examination: Examiner judgments and computer‐based comparisons

Forensic firearm examination provides the court of law with information about the source of fired cartridge cases. We assessed the validity of source decisions of a computer‐based method and of 73 firearm examiners who compared breechface and firing pin impressions of 48 comparison sets. We also compared the computer‐based method's comparison scores with the examiners' degree‐of‐support judgments and assessed the validity of the latter. The true‐positive rate (sensitivity) and true‐negative rate (specificity) of the computer‐based method (for the comparison of both the breechface and firing pin impressions) were 94.4% and at least 91.7%, respectively. For the examiners, the true‐positive rate was at least 95.3% and the true‐negative rate was at least 86.2%. The validity of the source decisions improved when the evaluations of breechface and firing pin impressions were combined and for the examiners also when the perceived difficulty of the comparison decreased. The examiners were reluctant to provide source decisions for "difficult" comparisons even though their source decisions were mostly correct. The correlation between the computer‐based method's comparison scores and the examiners' degree‐of‐support judgments was low for the same‐source comparisons to negligible for the different‐source comparisons. Combining the outcomes of computer‐based methods with the judgments of examiners could increase the validity of firearm examinations. The examiners' numerical degree‐of‐support judgments for their source decisions were not well‐calibrated and showed clear signs of overconfidence. We suggest studying the merits of performance feedback to calibrate these judgments.     

行政决策听证及其存在问题、对策初探

现行听证会给公众造成了听证走过场的不良印象;对策是制定行政程序法典,扩大听证范围,公开征求民意渠道,延长听证时间,建立代表意见回应机制,分离听证组织机构与决策机关。     

Sentencing disparity: An analysis of judicial consistency

This paper reports the results of an analysis of judicial disparity in the sentencing of persons represented by legal-aid lawyers. Because the socioeconomic characteristics of legal-aid clients are fairly uniform, the analysis of such cases made it possible to explore the influence of case facts, system factors, and the judicial disparity of the sentences given in relatively similar situations. The analysis finds that case facts and offender characteristics, particularly prior record, are good predictors of sentence type and excellent predictors of sentence length. While there was some indication of judicial inconsistency in sentence-type decisions, that is, unexplained variation from case to case, there was little indication of strong individual judicial bias across the cases used in the analysis.     

我国公共决策主体多元体系的建构与完善

本文基于系统理论的研究视角,认为我国的公共决策主体体系包括核心层决策主体、中间层决策主体、外部层决策主体,并从各个子系统的角度提出了优化公共决蓑主体体系并提升其能力的途径与方法,以期实现科学的公共决策多元参与,提升公共决策体系整体能力,实现公共决策主体体系总体功能的最大化。