“Like Butter Scraped over Too Much Bread”: Animal Protection Policy in Mexico1

Over the past fifteen years Mexico has developed a string of comprehensive animal protection regulations designed to address the serious problems that affect both wild and domestic animals in the territory. Yet for all their detailed coherence and despite serious government efforts, the regulations continue to lack effective enforcement and authorities are increasingly overstretched. This study discusses three key areas that obstruct the effective implementation of Mexican animal protection policy, but where advances could be feasibly initiated. The first concerns deficiencies at the political level. The second addresses the awkward relation between government and civil society on the issue. The third examines the scope of the problem in Mexico and some implications this has for international involvement. Finally the study suggests a more collaborative approach for implementing the policy that attempts to address central concerns in each of the three areas considered.     

Googling the requester: Identity‐questing and discrimination in public service provision

Innovating upon previous field experiments and theories of identity‐based discrimination, we test whether public officials are using searches (“identity‐questing”) to profile citizens and acting on latent biases. Pairs of “institutional” and “noninstitutional” requesters send lower and moderate burden freedom of information (FOI) requests—providing no identity cues apart from undistinctive names, e‐mails, and ID numbers—to nearly 700 of Brazil's largest municipalities. Results show institutional requesters receive one‐fifth more responses than noninstitutional comparators. For moderate versus lower burden requests, noninstitutional requesters are 11% less likely to receive a compliant response than their institutional comparators. The only plausible explanation for these results is identity‐questing, a phenomenon that has far‐reaching policy implications. Most of the world's FOI laws, for example, contain vague ID obligations, which translate incoherently from laws to regulation and practice. Results enjoin public service providers to protect the identities of citizens by default or upon request.     

Civil Society,Environmental Security and Knowledge: Forest Governance in Thailand and the Philippines in the Context of ASEAN

In the domain of environmental security, it appears that a strong civil society, one with strong social ingenuity and social capital, is a necessary condition not only for environmental security, but also for regional security in general. This paper will argue that in the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), much can be learned from the empirical experiences of Thailand and the Philippines that have established records of accomplishment in civil society participation in forest governance. Also discussed is the possible role of epistemic communities both within these countries as well as across countries in the ASEAN in harnessing institutions of knowledge to influence domestic and regional governance of forest resources.     

Family Profile of Young Offenders Who Abuse Their Parents: A Comparison With General Offenders and Non-Offenders

This study aimed to explore the family profile of adolescent-to-parent abuse cases. Concretely, this paper examines whether or not there is a different family profile of parent-abuse offenders compared with other types of offenders and with non-offender adolescents. The sample included 90 adolescents who were clustered into three groups (parent-abuse offenders, other type of offenders, and non-offender adolescents). Participants completed measures of quality of communication with parents and parents’ educational styles. They were also evaluated using a brief interview with questions about family structure. Results indicate offenders who assault their parents have a different family structure and dynamics. Differences were found concerning the type of household, family size, and family incomes. In addition, parent-abuse offenders reported a lower quality of communication with both parents perceiving them as less warm, more rejecting, and less inductive than did the other groups.     

Pyrolysis Products of Linear Alkylbenzenes— Implications in Fire Debris Analysis*

Abstract: In this case report, potential interferences from an improvised fire‐extinguishing agent, a dishwashing liquid, containing linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS), was studied. The presence of linear alkylbenzenes (LABs) in the fire debris sample was identified from the summed ion profile (SIP) analysis. It was found that the LAS from dishwashing liquids produce LABs by thermal degradation. Direct pyrolysis of a LAS‐containing dishwashing liquid at 300°C yielded a distribution of LABs in the SIP. LABs began to break down at pyrolysis temperatures between 450 and 500°C and completely break down by 800°C. Observed pyrolysis breakdown products of LABs included toluene, ethylbenzene, meta‐, para‐, and ortho‐xylenes, propylbenzene, indane, naphthalene, and 1‐ and 2‐methylnaphthalenes. These data suggested the presence of LABs in fire debris evidence might complicate subsequent analysis because their breakdown products contained some of the target compounds common to ignitable liquid identification. Therefore, a positive determination of the presence of foreign ignitable liquids should be carefully evaluated when there is a presence of LABs in the SIP.     

A Block-Level Analysis of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and Crime in the City of Los Angeles

The liberalization of marijuana laws may have implications for neighborhood crime insofar as the distribution of marijuana through a dispensary system may provide additional opportunities for criminal behavior to take place. This project fills an important gap in the scant literature on medical marijuana dispensaries and neighborhood crime rates by integrating perspectives from environmental criminology and social organization theories in investigating the dispensary-crime nexus through interaction models and flexibly assessing dispensaries’ relationship to crime at different spatial scales. This study found the placement of a medical marijuana dispensary in the previous year to be associated with crime rate change, in both the block and the surrounding area, over and above predictor variables drawn from social organization theory. And, this study’s interaction models suggest that marijuana dispensaries may increase crime rates on socially organized blocks, with such blocks potentially experiencing a slight perturbation in their ecological continuity from a dispensary’s establishment.     

Exploring psychological features in adolescents who assault their parents: a different profile of young offenders?

This study aimed to explore some psychological features of adolescents who have been reported by their parents for being violent towards them, analysing how they differ from other young offenders and from non-offender adolescents. Concretely, the presence of clinical diagnosis was explored and whether these juveniles received some psychological/psychiatric treatment. Moreover, this study examined substance use and some variables that characterise the social-cognitive style of these juveniles, along with the level of self-esteem. Information concerning clinical diagnosis and psychological/psychiatric treatment was extracted from the young offenders’ legal files. Measures included the social-cognitive subscale from the attitudes and social-cognitive strategies questionnaire (AECS), Rosenberg self-esteem scale, and a structured interview to assess substance use. Results indicated that juveniles who assaulted their parents present a different profile when compared to the other groups, as they showed a higher presence of psychopathology and more social-cognitive difficulties. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the design and implementation of specific treatments with these aggressive adolescents.