Monitoring high-risk sex offenders with GPS

In response to media attention and public demand, legislation increasingly mandates more stringent surveillance for sex offenders. This trend towards greater supervision resulted in the lifetime GPS monitoring of high-risk sex offenders (HRSO) in California. This study assesses the impact of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s GPS program for HRSOs by employing a quasi-experimental design. The treatment group was drawn from all HRSO who were released from prison and placed on GPS monitoring in California. To identify comparison individuals likely to have pretreatment risk characteristics similar to those in the treatment group, a propensity score matching procedure was performed. The final sample included 516 subjects equally divided between the treatment and control groups. Data was assessed using Cox proportional hazards survival analysis clustering participants by parole district. Results showed the GPS condition was associated with significantly fewer parole registration and arrest violations, arrests, and convictions. These results are discussed in relation to other electronic monitoring research, the policy implications for the increasing use of this technology, and its effectiveness in reducing crime, prison populations, and ensuring public safety.     

The illusory leader: natural resources, taxation and accountability

This paper proposes and tests a mechanism through which natural resources can affect democracy. I posit that, in the presence of high natural resource rents, leaders lower the burden of taxation on citizens in order to reduce the demand for democratic accountability. The theory is corroborated using micro-level data from public opinion surveys across 15 sub-Saharan countries, in addition to country-level data on natural resource rents. Results are robust to a range of alternative specifications. A supplementary analysis reveals that, consistent with the two-period model proposed, the effects are more acute closer to national elections.     

The Nature of Contracting Hazards in Public–Private Partnerships—Evidence from Ireland

The use of public–private partnerships (PPP) for the procurement of infrastructure and related services can be a complex and challenging process. This article adopts a transaction cost regulation perspective to examine two PPP cases from Ireland that encountered significant obstacles to successful procurement. It finds that both procurements met hazards including uncertainty about the viability of the bids and opportunistic behavior by preferred bidders that held quasi-monopoly positions. The public nature of both cases provided a fertile ground for opportunistic behavior by political opponents and other “interested” parties. The analysis shows how the governance of PPPs is shaped by the attributes of the transactions and the interaction of economic and political hazards that create transaction costs.     

Restitution, Rectification, and Mitigation: Negligent Solicitors and Wills, Again

A solicitor, when drafting a will, can owe a duty of care in tort to the intended beneficiary of a bequest under that will. The Court of Appeal has recently confirmed that where a solicitor has misdrafted the will, the intended beneficiary can sometimes rectify it, and recover the intended gift. The pattern of this rectification is restitutionary, raising the question analysed in this article of whether an intended beneficiary can have a direct personal action in restitution to reverse the unjust enrichment of an unintended recipient. It seems that, though fraught, such an action may indeed in principle lie.