Observer determination of the make,model, and year of questioned vehicles

Often, criminal acts involving a vehicle are caught on digital video surveillance systems. While potentially useful for an investigation, the recording conditions are typically less than optimal for the extraction of key information for the identification of the perpetrator, such as a license plate. Providing the make, model and year of a questioned vehicle is a common request for examiners, to narrow the field of potential suspect vehicles. This study seeks to compare the performance of a nonpeer-reviewed make, model, and year determination between two separate groups, specifically, trained forensic image examiners and nontrained individuals. Results show that even with varied image capture conditions and quality, the trained forensic image examiners more correctly and completely identified the test group of questioned vehicles make, model, and year.     

Harming America: Corporate Crime in a Context of Deregulation

ABSTRACT

Like many Republican presidential candidates before him, Donald J. Trump campaigned on a pro-business, anti-regulation platform, and since his election in November 2016, he has directed his administration to move forward with deregulation in many arenas, including consumer financial protections, environmental controls, and workplace safety among others. Past efforts to roll back regulations governing certain industries, such as the savings and loan and the mortgage industries, have had harmful consequences for the general public or for specific interest groups. In this study, we review what the Trump administration has accomplished with regard to deregulation to date. Then, based on past deregulatory fiascos, we theorize the harmful collateral consequences that may result from this most recent swing of the regulatory-deregulatory pendulum.     

An Honourable Profession: Public Employees and Identity Construction in Chile, 1880–1920

This paper analyses how public employees at two Chilean government offices constructed their occupational identities. In contrast to the vast majority of previous work, which took the 1920s as its starting point, this study focuses on the period between 1880 and 1920. Additionally, the construction of identity is analysed in direct relation to performance in the workplace. The paper asserts that public criticism of their performance prompted public employees to develop an image of themselves based on the concept of their honourability as competent and honest workers.     

A conceptual replication of the Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS)

Objectives

This study was an attempt to replicate the findings from an earlier experimental evaluation of a probation officer training program by Bonta et al. (Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38: 1127–1148, 2011). An experimental design was used with an improvement in the random assignment of clients and was tested with a sample of probation officers from a new jurisdiction.

Methods

Probation officers from the Canadian province of Alberta were randomly assigned to training or probation-as-usual. Officer behavior was measured by audio recordings of supervision sessions and recidivism was defined as a new conviction within 2 years of the initial recording. Attrition resulted in 27 probation officers submitting audio recordings of supervision sessions over a 6-month period (15 in the experimental group and 12 in the control). There were 160 recordings of 81 probationers submitted.

Results

The audio recordings showed inconsistent changes in officer behavior and no differences in recidivism between the clients of the experimental and control probation officers. However, the use of cognitive techniques by the probation officers was associated with a longer time to recidivism. In addition, by 10 months, more than half of the trained officers stopped their involvement in ongoing professional development activities.

Conclusion

Although the study failed to replicate the major findings reported by Bonta et al., it did highlight the importance of cognitive techniques in officer training. The results are interpreted with respect to the replication literature and the difficulties inherent in direct and conceptual replications especially in real-world settings.

     

The effect of outpatient methadone maintenance treatment facilities on place-based crime

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This study evaluates the effect of outpatient methadone maintenance treatment (OMMT) facilities on crime in surrounding areas. Between 2007 and 2017 in...     

The Inefficiency of Quasi–Per Se Rules: Regulating Information Exchange in EU and U.S. Antitrust Law

It is well understood that the exchange of information between horizontal competitors can violate competition law provisions in both the European Union (EU) and the United States, namely, article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and section 1 of the Sherman Act. However, despite ostensible similarities between EU and U.S. antitrust law concerning interfirm information exchange, substantial differences remain. In this article, we make a normative argument for the U.S. antitrust regime's approach, on the basis that the United States’ approach to information exchange is likely to be more efficient than the relevant approach under the EU competition regime. Using economic theories of harm concerning information exchange to understand the imposition of liability in relation to “stand-alone” instances of information exchange, we argue that such liability must be grounded on the conception of a prophylactic rule. We characterize this rule as a form of ex ante regulation and explain why it has no ex post counterpart in antitrust law. In contrast to the U.S. antitrust regime, we argue that the implementation of such a rule pursuant to EU competition law leads to higher error costs without a significant reduction in regulatory costs. As a majority of jurisdictions have competition law regimes that resemble EU competition law more closely than U.S. antitrust law, our thesis has important implications for competition regimes around the world.     

Mobilising the Periphery: Brazil's My House My Life Programme and the Homeless Workers' Movement

Brazil's Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST, Homeless Workers' Movement) has grown dramatically in recent years. This growth was partly provided for by the use of a large government housing programme, Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV, My House My Life), which allowed the MTST to construct housing for its members and swell its ranks with thousands of new members. Yet some have argued that the MCMV programme used by the MTST may compromise the autonomy of civil society organisations. This article, by contrast, argues that while the MCMV programme encouraged bureaucratic practices, it also helped to promote the cultural politics of the MTST.     

Directors’ duties under the 2019 Companies Act of Ghana

The scope of directors’ duties forms perhaps the most important part of corporate governance. This paper considers the trajectory of the regulation of directors’ duties under Ghanaian company law from the Companies Act, 1963 (Act 179) to the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992). Using the 2017 to 2019 financial institutions’ insolvencies in Ghana as a backdrop, it considers whether the scope, formulation and structure of directors’ duties within the new legislation is capable of promoting corporately-beneficial director behaviour. It also discusses whether the framework is apt to deal with similar lapses in corporate governance marked by reckless and opportunistic director behaviour. It discovers that Act 992 places a greater reliance on specific rules while retaining the largely principles-based regulatory technique adopted for regulating director conduct under Act 179. The overall tenor of the framework of directors’ duties under the new Act points to a firmer legislative view of the serious consequences of reckless director conduct. The paper concludes that the language of the framework regulating director conduct is capable of promoting corporately beneficially director behaviour and is also apt to deal with the kind of lapses in corporate governance which led to mass financial sector insolvencies in Ghana.     

The several costs of responding to the threat of terrorism

This paper describes several dimensions of the cost of the U.S. response to the threat of terrorism. Following an evaluation of the nature and magnitude of the threat of terrorism against the United States, the paper describes the restrictions on our civil liberties, the fiscal and other costs of the major homeland security measures, the fiscal cost of programs that make no contribution to the defense against terrorism but are rationalized on that ground, and the effects on our language and the potential for civil discourse of an extended defense against terrorism.