Actual and expected deprivation: Northern Mexico in the 1980s. A research note

This paper examines the relationship between objective and subjective effects on household spending in a situation of economic crisis based on data derived from a survey conducted in 1985 in the industrial city of Monterrey in northern México. The analysis focuses first on historical developments in income through a longitudinal study of income distributions since these can be considered to be the historical conditions of the two types of deprivation studied. Using family budgets, we were able to describe actual and expected effects of the crisis in terms of the reductions in spending that it provoked. Finally, using regression analyses, the relations between both kinds of effects and the personal history of the respondents, taken to represent the individual counterpart of historical conditions, are examined. Neighborhood SES and occupational level are found to be significant predictors of both objective and subjective deprivation. The best predictor of subjective effects are the actual ones. The phenomenon of relative deprivation appears to be conditioned by the context of societal development in northern México. Menno Vellinga is a senior lecturer at the Center for Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the State University of Utrecht in The Netherlands. The author and co-author of several books on Latin America, his latest is an edited collection of original works onThe Prospects of Social Democracy in Latin America (Westview, 1992). Hernan Vera is an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Florida. The author of a book on the Profession of Catholic Priests, and several dozen articles, he is currently working in the field of race relations in which a book coauthored with Joe Feagin (Routledge, 1994), is forthcoming. Soon-Rae Lee is a 1993 University of Florida Ph.D. in Sociology. He is currently at the Department of Juvenile Justice of The Korean Institute of Criminology in Seoul, South Korea. His main interests are in the field of deviance and criminology.     

Congress and the political expansion of the U.S. districts courts

Expanding the number of U.S. district judgeships is often justifiedas a response to expanding caseloads. Increasing judgeshipsduring unified government, however, allows Congress and thePresident to engage in political (patronage and ideological)control of the federal district courts. This paper examinesempirically the relative importance of caseload pressure andpolitical motives for Congress to expand the number of federaldistrict judgeships. We demonstrate that politics dominatesthe timing of judgeship expansion in the U.S. District Courts.We also show that both politics and caseload affect the actualsize of those timed expansions. In particular, we find thatbefore 1970, Congress seemed to have strong political motivationsfor the size of an expansion. After 1970, Congress became muchmore attentive to caseload considerations.     

The association of alcohol-induced blackouts and grayouts to blood alcohol concentrations

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the association between measured blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and the presence and degree of amnesia (no amnesia, grayout, or blackout) in actively drinking subjects. A secondary aim was to determine potential factors other than BAC that contribute to the alcohol-induced memory loss. An interview questionnaire was administered to subjects regarding a recent alcohol associated arrest with a documented BAC greater than 0.08 g/dL for either public intoxication, driving under the influence, or under age drinking was administered. Demographic variables collected included drinking history, family history of alcoholism, presence of previous alcohol-related memory loss during a drinking episode, and drinking behavior during the episode. Memory of the drinking episode was evaluated to determine if either an alcohol-induced grayout (partial anterograde amnesia) or blackout (complete anterograde amnesia) occurred. Differences in (1) mean total number of drinks ingested before arrest, (2) gulping of drinks, and (3) BAC at arrest were found for those having blackouts compared with no amnesia; while differences in drinking more than planned were found between the no amnesia and grayout groups. A strong linear relationship between BAC and predicted probability of memory loss, particularly for blackouts was obvious. This finding clinically concludes that subjects with BAC of 310 g/dL or greater have a 0.50 or greater probability of having an alcoholic blackout.     

Criminal organizing applying the theory of partial organization to four cases of organized crime

We explore how the idea of partial organization can provide insights in the study of organized crime. Studying criminal organizing with a theoretical framework used for other social organizing phenomena can help us see the interplay between different forms of criminal collaboration under a single analytical lens, and start a discussion on whether criminal organizing is intrinsically different from other types of social organizing. We analyze four cases of criminal collaboration in Sweden between 1990 and 2015: the Syriac mafia, the Hells Angels Mc Sweden, the street gang Werewolf Legion, and the Hallunda robbery. While the outlaw motorcycle gang, and to a certain extent the street gang, are complete organizations, the mafia is based around and heavily parasitic on other institutions. We have also shown that time-bounded projects are found in the criminal context, with these emerging from strong network relations. Our results show that most of the elements of criminal organizing are not formalized and that partial organization is at least as important and powerful as complete organization.