bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Death Penalty and Gender Discrimination
Authors: Rapaport Elizabeth
Published: June 2006

Despite the paucity of research on the death penalty and gender discrimination, it is widely supposed that women murderers are chivalrously spared the death sentence. This supposition is fueled by the relatively small number of women who are condemned. This article argues that women are represented on contemporary U.S. death rows in numbers commensurate with the infrequency of female commission of those crimes which our society labels sufficiently reprehensible to merit capital punishment. Additionally, preliminary investigation suggests that death-sentenced women are more likely than death-sentenced men to have killed intimates, although the explanation for this disparity is not yet at hand. It is further argued, on the basis of a content analysis of state capital statutes, that there is a form of gender bias inimical to the interests of women in our capital punishment law: The death penalty is a dramatic symbol of the imputation of greater seriousness to economic and other predatory murder as compared with domestic murder.
Legal Cultures and Punishment Repertoires in Japan, Russia, and the United States
Authors: Sanders Joseph , Hamilton V. Lee
Published: June 2006

Several years ago we conducted surveys in one American (Detroit) and two Japanese (Yokohama and Kanazawa) cities exploring the nature of responsibility and sanctioning judgments. Recently we were able to replicate a portion of those surveys in Moscow, and here we compare the results of the Moscow survey with the earlier findings. The fundamental question is whether socialist societies, at least as they have existed in the republics of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, have created a contextual legal culture like that of Japan, or whether their legal culture is more like the individualistic model of the United States. Our data indicate that when presented with situations of wrongdoing, Moscow residents' punishment preferences more nearly resemble the individualistic preferences of Detroit residents than they do the contextual preferences of Japanese residents. However, unlike Japanese and U.S. residents, the Moscow residents also expressed a preference for quasi-criminal educative sanctions.
Situational and Attitudinal Explanations of Police Behavior: A Theoretical Reappraisal and Empirical Assessment
Authors: Worden Robert E.
Published: June 2006

This paper reappraises the value of situational and attitudinal variables as parts of a theory of police behavior. That situational factors affect officers' decisions to make arrests is well supported by empirical evidence; that officers' behavior is shaped by their attitudes and values is a common assumption even though it is supported only by weak empirical evidence. This analysis indicates that the theoretical utility of situational variables is limited for the most part to the arrest decision: Situational factors have modest effects on officers' choices among informal actions. Furthermore, the analysis shows that attitudinal variables fail to account for more than a very small part of the variation in behavior. A theoretical perspective on police behavior as administrative decisionmaking is consistent with these findings, and might redirect future research along more fruitful lines.
The Management of Disputes: Automobile Accident Compensation in Japan
Authors: Tanase Takao
Published: June 2006

We often ask why the Japanese are nonlitigious and look into the unique culture that may explain it. It is more appropriate to ask why Japan has maintained a complex industrialized society without much reliance on law. For the nonlitigious society does not come about spontaneously. Instead, it was made possible only by careful management. I elaborate this process of management through the detailed analysis of automobile accident compensation disputes in Japan.
To Confront or Not to Confront: Measuring Claiming Rates in Discrimination Grievances
Authors: Kritzer Herbert M. , Vidmar Neil , Bogart W. A.
Published: June 2006

This note reexamines the generally accepted belief that persons with discrimination-related grievances are much less likely to complain about their problem than are persons with grievances arising from consumer purchases, torts, or other common kinds of personal problems. We find that previously reported analyses greatly overstate the gap between complaining in discrimination problems and other kinds of problems. Drawing on data from three surveys, each conducted in a different country (the United States, Canada, and Australia), we find that for some types of discrimination problems the level of complaining in fact equals or exceeds complaining in other arenas.
The Rationality of Sexual Offending: Testing a Deterrence/Rational Choice Conception of Sexual Assault
Authors: Bachman Ronet , Paternoster Raymond , Ward Sally
Published: June 2006

Using a combination of hypothetical scenarios and survey-type questions, this study investigates the effect of the context of the offense, formal sanctions, informal sanctions, and moral beliefs on self-reported projections to commit sexual assault. Male college students read and responded to five scenarios each describing a hypothetical sexual assault by a male. Respondents were asked to estimate the certainty of formal and informal punishment for the scenario male, the extent to which they believed the male's actions were morally wrong, and the likelihood that they would do what the male did under the same circumstances. We found that projections to commit sexual assault were affected by two circumstances of the incident, the likelihood that the male would be formally sanctioned (dismissed from the university or arrested) and the respondent's moral beliefs. The significant deterrent effect observed for formal sanction threats was not invariant, however. The fear of formal sanctions had no effect when respondents were inhibited by their moral evaluation of the incident. The deterrent effect of formal sanction threats did not vary by the level of social censure for the scenario male's actions. The implications of these finding for previous and subsequent deterrence research are discussed.
Language, Law, and Society: Policy Implications of the Kennedy Smith Rape Trial
Authors: Matoesian Gregory M.
Published: June 2006

In this article I examine the applied relevance of trial talk for rape shield legislation and attempts to evaluate the impact of such legal reforms. Using linguistic data from the Kennedy Smith rape trial, I argue that attempts to progressively implement rape shield have thus far failed and that research evaluating its impact has been more or less misguided because reformers and researchers have consistently failed to scrutinize empirically the interactional object to which rape shield legislation is applied: the language of evidence in testimony. Looking at the social construction of rape's legal facticity, I propose new methods of interpreting and evaluating legal reforms based on an understanding of language use and the performance of knowledge in context.
Stratification in the Legal Profession: Sex, Sector, and Salary
Authors: Dixon Jo , Seron Carroll
Published: June 2006

There is a long-standing debate over the role of human and social capital in explaining the gender gap in the earnings of professionals. Expanding on current research on sex differences in the incomes of male and female lawyers, we show how the process of earnings determination varies by sex and organizational sectors differing in sex composition and bureaucratization of decision making. Using data from a random sample of lawyers, we demonstrate that the effects of human and social capital on income vary among males and among females practicing law in private, corporate and government organizational sectors of the legal profession. We also show that there are sex differences in the effects of human and social capital on income within these sectors. Together, these findings suggest that stratification processes in the legal profession are based on both sex and organizational segmentation.
Mediation and Adjudication in the Small Claims Court: The Effects of Process and Case Characteristics
Authors: Wissler Roselle L.
Published: June 2006

Research examining the relative effectiveness of mediation and adjudication has raised questions about whether the apparent benefits of mediation can be attributed to differences in the two dispute resolution procedures or, instead, are due to differences in the characteristics of the disputes or disputants. Litigants in four small claims courts provided multiple comparison groups that enabled us to examine case and process effects. Disputes and disputants in mediation and adjudication differed on few attributes. The process, outcomes, and impact of mediation and adjudication differed in ways generally consistent with their theoretical differences. Although the degree of liability admitted by the defendant played a role, overall, differences in the effectiveness of mediation and adjudication were due more to differences in the processes themselves than to differences in the disputes and disputants using each procedure.
Implications of “Third-Party” Involvement in Enforcement: The INS, Illegal Travelers, and International Airlines
Authors: Gilboy Janet A.
Published: June 2006

This article is part of a larger study about the factors shaping the exercise of discretion by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) inspectors. It focuses on an infrequently examined topic: how agency behavior is affected when government depends on private enterprise to help enforce legal requirements. My examination of the INS's relationship with international airlines reveals that airlines are part of a third-party liability system. Airlines are mandated by law to screen foreign travelers prior to transporting them to the United States, in order to ensure foreign travelers' admissibility to the country, as well as required to remove all inadmissible travelers at airline cost. The study shows how third-party liability requirements generate a complex system of exchange relations and dependence between the INS and international airlines, a system that affects in important ways how the INS handles the cases of suspected inadmissible travelers.
Do Fair Procedures Matter? The Effect of Procedural Justice on Spouse Assault
Authors: Paternoster Raymond , Bachman Ronet , Brame Robert , Sherman Lawrence W.
Published: June 2006

In a reanalysis of the Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment, we examine whether the use of fair procedures on the part of police officers called to the scene of a domestic assault inhibits subsequent assault. Consistent with expectations, we found that procedural justice did suppress subsequent violence, even in the face of adverse outcomes. When police acted in a procedurally fair manner when arresting assault suspects, the rate of subsequent domestic violence was significantly lower than when they did not. Moreover, suspects who were arrested and perceived that they were treated in a procedurally fair manner had subsequent assault rates that were as low as those suspects given a more favorable outcome (warned and then released without arrest). The suppression effect of procedural justice did not depend on the personal characteristics of suspects.
Dissonance and Contradictions in the Origins of Marihuana Decriminalization
Authors: DiChiara Albert , Galliher John F.
Published: June 2006

The movement for removal of criminal penalties for possession of marihuana in the United States provides an important case study of the causes and process of decriminalization. Between 1973 and 1978, 11 states reduced criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the drug, but the reform movement was fragile, brief, and limited to a few states. This case study suggests that reform was driven in part by “moral dissonance” resulting from the arrest of high-status offenders. Although public opinion has always been deeply divided on decriminalization of marihuana possession, a narrow “policy window” was created in the 1970s by the expressed concern of political leaders about the effect of arrest on high-status youths and the support of law enforcement agencies interested in efficient use of limited resources. Even after the window for reform closed at the end of the 1970s with a shift in national leadership, deep moral ambivalence renders criminalization symbolic and police place a low priority on marihuana arrests.
The Impact of Employment Discrimination Litigation on Racial Disparity in Earnings: Evidence and Unresolved Issues
Authors: Burstein Paul , Edwards Mark Evan
Published: June 2006

What is the relationship between employment discrimination litigation and the relative earnings of blacks and whites in the United States? Do victories in court affect blacks' relative earnings? Are gains in earnings associated with legal victories enduring or temporary? Can litigation be an effective tactic in efforts at social reform? Data on plaintiff victories in employment discrimination cases decided by U.S. appellate courts from 1965 through 1985 show that victories are associated with significant and enduring increases in blacks' relative earnings. One implication is that at least in this area, the courts may bring about social reform.
Speculations on Legal Informality: On Winn's “Relational Practices and the Marginalization of Law”
Authors: Upham Frank K.
Published: June 2006

At the end of the 1980s in an effort to increase the effectiveness of its development loans, the World Bank's legal staff began to address what it calls governance issues in borrowing countries. Concerned that the way power is exercised in Third World countries may contribute to the inefficient use of World Bank funds but constrained by its Articles of Agreement from considering “political” criteria in its lending, the General Counsel of the Bank, Ibrahim F. I. Shihata, drafted a memorandum that distinguished “governance” from “politics” and identified the former as a legitimate consideration in the award of Bank loans. At his most general, Shihata equates governance to “good order”; in more specific terms, he calls it “the rule of law,” which he defines at one point as a “system based on abstractruleswhich are actually applied and on functioninginstitutionswhich ensure the appropriate application of such rules” (emphasis in original).
Watchman and Community: Myth and Institutionalization in Policing
Authors: Crank John P.
Published: June 2006

The author uses a conceptual framework grounded in theory of institutional process to assess developments in the theory of community-based policing. He suggests that two contemporary myths in policing—the myth of the police watchman and the myth of community—provide core elements the theory. Both liberal and conservative advocates for reform have drawn on these myths to support reinstitutionalizing police as community protectors with broad authority, including authority to arrest, unconstrained by law enforcement or due process considerations. He also discusses fundamental differences in the ways in which liberal and conservative reform advocates perceive the relationship between the myths.
Competing Institutions: Law, Medicine, and Family in Neonatal Intensive Care
Authors: Heimer Carol A.
Published: June 2006

To understand the varying impact of law, we must compare the effects of legal institutions with the effects of rival institutions and the impact one law with the impact of another. We must also ask how the setting in which institutions compete and laws are implemented—very often an organization—shapes outcomes. Using the competition between legal, medical, and familial institutions in infant intensive care units as an example, this article elaborates a theory of institutional competition and therefore of the influence of law in organizations. I show that institutions, including legal institutions, gain influence by working through internal organizational processes. Thus, the impact of law on medical decisionmaking varies with whether legal actors have learned how to be present when decisions are to be made, make legal issues into organizational problems, introduce choice points that require action, and alter the possibility space of eligible solutions. Using variations among the major categories of laws that govern the practice of infant intensive care, the article also shows how organizational and institutional theories help explain why some laws have more impact than others.
The Social Origins of Plea Bargaining: Conflict and the Law in the Process of State Formation, 1830-1860
Authors: Vogel Mary E.
Published: June 2006

One striking feature of American courts is the widespread practice of plea bargaining. Paradoxically, the practice rewards precisely those who appear guilty. Contrary to popular perception of plea bargaining as an innovation or corruption of the post-World War II years, this study shows the practice to have emerged early in the American republic. Amid social conflict wrought by industrialization, immigration, and urbanization during the Age of Jackson, politicians acutely realized the potential for revolution in Europe. Local political institutions being spare and fragmentary, the courts stepped forward as agents of the state to promote social order necessary for healthy market functioning, personal security, and economic growth. Plea bargaining arose during the 1830s and 1840s as part of a process of political stabilization and an effort to legitimate institutions of self-rule—accomplishments that were vital to Whig efforts to reconsolidate the political power of Boston's social and economic elite. To this end, the tradition of episodic leniency from British common law was recrafted into a new cultural form—plea bargaining—that drew conflicts into courts while maintaining elite discretion over sentencing policy.
Judicial Rhetoric, Meaning-Making, and the Institutionalization of Hate Crime Law
Authors: Phillips Scott , Grattet Ryken
Published: June 2006

In this article we examine how the concept of hate crime has been transformed in judicial discourse from a broad ambiguous category, which generated substantial controversy and opposition, to a focused determinate legal construct, which has been largely accepted as a legitimate legal practice. We track changes in judicial rhetoric across 38 appellate court opinions that consider the constitutionality of hate crime cases (1984-1999), and we propose a theoretical framework for analyzing the “settling” of legal meaning. A qualitative interpretive analysis demonstrates that the meaning of hate crime that emerges across the series of cases is much richer and nuanced than the collection of words contained in the statutes, and that the domain of hate crime has expanded across the series of cases to include a broader range of behaviors and mental precursors. Quantitative analysis shows that, over time, judges have developed a more economical and formulaic rhetoric for responding to petitioners' constitutional challenges to hate crime statutes and have converged around sets of arguments for negotiating challenges. We discuss the implications of these findings for traditional jurisprudential analyses, sociolegal research on judicial decisionmaking, and research on the social construction of deviance.
National Politics as International Process: The Case of Anti-Female-Genital-Cutting Laws
Authors: Heger Boyle Elizabeth , Preves Sharon E.
Published: June 2006

Looking at power struggles primarily within national boundaries reifies the nation-state and misses larger issues of control in the international system. Using the example of female genital cutting (FGC), we consider the relative importance of local constituencies versus international normative influence in creating national policies. We find that the occurrence of anti-FGC legislation in countries where many individuals support the procedure, the timing and character of national legal action directed against FGC, and the uniformity of political action all lend weight to the importance of international norms. At thenationallevel, we find (1) reform is often a top-down process in which national laws are developed to change rather than reflect local attitudes, and (2) African states tend to work around local communities by adopting bureaucratic policies to combat FGC (Western countries, in contrast, tend to adopt formal laws). At theinternationallevel, our findings suggest (1) the structural position of international actors influences whether they deploy assimilative or coercive reform strategies, (2) contradictions among international ideals limits Western hegemony, and (3) international ideals can simultaneously empower (by offering options) and disempower (by disengaging states from local constituencies) local individuals.
Protestantism and the Rationalization of English Law: A Variation on a Theme by Weber
Authors: Likhovski Assaf
Published: June 2006

Attending to an underdeveloped lacuna in Weber's sociology of law, this essay examines the relationship between Protestant theology and the emergence of modern, rational legal systems. The essay argues that radical Protestantism inspired demands for the rationalization of English law, and while not successful in bringing about the concrete changes advocated, that central features of Weber's notion of rational legal thought were also central in the theology of the radical Protestants. Examining the legal thought of two groups that appeared during the English Revolution—the Levellers and the Diggers—the essay shows how theology provided these groups with a model for a more predictable law, offered them a source for the norms of their proposed legal system, and motivated the desire for law reform.
Selective Memory: How the Law Affects What We Remember and Forget about the Past—The Case of East Germany
Authors: Markovits Inga
Published: June 2006

This is an essay about public memory and about the ways in which the law selects and shapes our recollections of the past to fit the purposes of those who dominate the present.
The Precedent That Wasn't: College Hate Speech Codes and the Two Faces of Legal Compliance
Authors: Gould Jon B.
Published: June 2006

This article undertakes an empirical investigation into the development and persistence of college hate speech codes, asking why so many elite institutions of higher learning either retained or created speech policies that contradicted a national series of court cases. The method is both quantitative and qualitative, looking for broad patterns of response among the schools and also explaining why individual institutions did or did not comply with the court decisions. In the end, the article not only teases out thewhyof compliance decisions but also provides a greater understanding of the relationship between legal compliance and judicial impact.
The Sociology of Sentencing: Reconceptualizing Decisionmaking Processes and Outcomes
Authors: Mears Daniel P.
Published: June 2006

Research on juvenile and adult sentencing has been characterized by theoretical, methodological, and empirical limitations that preclude adequate description, prediction, or assessment of decisionmaking processes and outcomes. Five limitations are prominent: emphasis on atheoretical, empirical attempts, generally unsuccessful, to increase predictive accuracy; limited conceptualizations of dependent variables (e.g., incarceration versus nonincarceration); overreliance on individual, offender-level data with minimal reference to victims, practitioners, or contextual factors; failure to incorporate analytically multiple research methods; and inattention to intended and unintended uses and effects of sentencing. These limitations can be highlighted by focusing on a context—-juvenile justice—in which the goals of sentencing are varied, conflicting, and, due to recent reforms, changing. Using interview and survey data, the present research examines juvenile sentencing reform in Texas to highlight these limitations and to oudine an analytical framework for improved description, modeling, and assessment of sentencing.
Impact of hospitalization and antimicrobial drug administration on antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of commensal Escherichia coli isolated from the feces of horses
Authors: Dunowska Magdalena , Morley Paul S. , Traub-Dargatz Josie L. , Hyatt Doreene R. , Dargatz David A.
Published: June 2006

Objective—To evaluate antimicrobial susceptibility of commensal Escherichia coli strains isolated from the feces of horses and investigate relationships with hospitalization and antimicrobial drug (AMD) administration.

Design—Observational study.

Animals—68 hospitalized horses that had been treated with AMDs for at least 3 days (HOSP–AMD group), 63 hospitalized horses that had not received AMDs for at least 4 days (HOSP–NOAMD group), and 85 healthy horses that had not been hospitalized or treated with AMDs (community group).

Procedures—Fecal samples were submitted for bacterial culture, and up to 3 E coli colonies were recovered from each sample. Antimicrobial susceptibility of 724 isolates was evaluated. Prevalence of resistance was compared among groups by use of log-linear modeling.

Results—For 12 of the 15 AMDs evaluated, prevalence of antimicrobial resistance differed significantly among groups, with prevalence being highest among isolates from the HOSP–AMD group and lowest among isolates from the community group. Isolates recovered from the HOSP–AMD and HOSP–NOAMD groups were also significantly more likely to be resistant to multiple AMDs. Resistance to sulfamethoxazole and resistance to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole were most common, followed by resistance to gentamicin and resistance to tetracycline. Use of a potentiated sulfonamide, aminoglycosides, cephalosporins, or metronidazole was positively associated with resistance to 1 or more AMDs, but use of penicillins was not associated with increased risk of resistance to AMDs.

Conclusion and Clinical Relevance—Results suggest that both hospitalization and AMD administration were associated with prevalence of antimicrobial resistance among E coli strains isolated from the feces of horses.
Treatment with continuous intrasynovial antimicrobial infusion for septic synovitis in horses: 31 cases (2000–2003)
Authors: Lescun Timothy B. , Vasey James R. , Ward Michael P. , Adams Stephen B.
Published: June 2006

Objective—To determine clinical findings, complications, and outcome of septic synovitis in which continuous intrasynovial antimicrobial infusion (CIAI) was used for local antimicrobial delivery in horses.

Design—Retrospective case series.

Animals—22 adult horses and 9 foals (horses < 1 year of age).

Procedures—Records of horses with septic synovitis that had CIAI during treatment were reviewed. The association between clinical variables and whether horses performed their intended use following treatment was determined.

Results—42 synovial cavities were treated via CIAI. Twenty-nine cases were chronic (> 7 days) in nature, 15 had been refractory to standard treatments, and 13 synovial infections had associated osteomyelitis. Mean duration from infection to initiation of CIAI was 19.7 days, and mean duration of CIAI was 6.1 days. Temporary discharge from the catheter site at the time of removal was evident in 8 horses. Dysfunction of the infusion system occurred in 2 horses and was corrected during the course of treatment. No long-term complications were reported. Thirty-nine (93%) synovial infections in 29 (94%) horses were resolved. Twenty adult horses and 8 foals were discharged from the hospital, and 19 of 24 horses with long-term follow-up performed their intended use.

Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—CIAI was a useful adjunctive treatment for septic synovitis and allowed intrasynovial antimicrobial delivery into a variety of synovial cavities.
Dynamic Analysis of a Hub‐Beam System by a First‐Order Approximation Coupling Model
Authors: Cai Guo‐Ping , Hong Jia‐Zhen
Published: June 2006

In this paper, a first‐order approximation coupling (FOAC) model is investigated to analyze the dynamics of the hub‐beam system, which is based on the Hamilton theory and the finite element discretization method. The FOAC model for the hub‐beam system considers the second‐order coupling quantity of the axial displacement caused by the transverse displacement of the beam. The dynamic characteristics of the system are studied through numerical simulations under twos cases: the rotary inertia of the hub is much larger than, and is close to, that of the flexible beam. Simulation and comparison studies using both the traditional zeroth‐order approximation coupling (ZOAC) model and the FOAC model shows that when large motion of the system is unknown, possible failure exists by using the ZOAC model, whereas the FOAC model is valid. When the rotary inertia of the hub is much larger than that of the beam, the result using the ZOAC model is similar to that using the FOAC model. But when the rotary inertia of the hub is close to that of the beam, the ZOAC model may lead to a large error, while the FOAC model can still accurately describe the dynamic hub‐beam system.
Transition to Plasticity in Continuum‐Atomistic Modelling
Authors: Sunyk R. , Steinmann P.
Published: June 2006

Continuum‐atomistic modeling denotes a mixed approach combining the usual framework of continuum mechanics with atomistic features like e.g. interaction potentials. Thereby, the kinematics are typically characterized by the so called Cauchy‐Born rule representing atomic distance vectors in the spatial configuration as an affine mapping of the atomic distance vectors in the material configuration in terms of the local deformation gradient. The application of the Cauchy‐Born rule requires sufficiently homogeneous deformations of the underlying crystal. The model is no more valid if the deformation becomes inhomogeneous. By virtue of the Cauchy‐Born hypothesis, a localization criterion has been derived in terms of the loss of infinitesimal rank‐1 convexity of the strain energy density. According to this criterion, a numerical yield condition has been computed for two different interatomic energy functions. Therewith, the range of the Cauchy‐Born rule validity has been defined, since the strain energy density remains quasiconvex only within the computed yield surface. To provide a possibility to continue the simulation of material response after the loss of quasiconvexity, a relaxation procedure proposed by Tadmor et al. [1] leading necessarily to the development of microstructures has been used. Alternatively to the above mentioned criterion, a stability criterion has been applied to detect the critical deformation. For the study in the postcritical region, the path‐change procedure proposed by Wagner and Wriggers [2] has been adapted for the continuum‐atomistics and modified.
Damage Mechanics Modeling of Concurrent Thermal and Vibration Loading on Electronics Packaging
Authors: Gomez Juan , Lin Minghui , Basaran Cemal
Published: June 2006

The problem of concurrent thermal and vibration loading has not been thoroughly studied even though it is common in electronic packaging applications. Here we attempt to address such a problem using a damage mechanics based constitutive model. Damage mechanics constitutive model for eutectic Pb/Sn solder alloys is used to simulate the damage effects of concurrent cyclic thermal loads and vibrations on Ball Grid Array (BGA) packages. The model is implemented into the commercial finite element code ABAQUS through its user defined material subroutine capability. For the integration algorithm we have used a return mapping scheme, which dramatically improves the convergency rate as compared to previous implementations of the same model. Results are examined in terms of accumulation of plastic strain within the solder connections. It is shown that the simplistic Miner’s rule can not accurately account for the combined effect of both loadings acting concurrently.
The Turkish Standardization of the Meadow-Kendall Social-Emotional Assessment Inventories for Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Students
Authors: Polat Filiz
Published: June 2006

The article present results of standardization of the Meadow-Kendall Social-Emotional Assessment Inventory for Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Students (Meadow, 1983), school-age version, for use in Turkey. The SEAI is a 59-item measure for assessing socioemotional adjustment of school-age deaf and hearing impaired students. A sample of 1,097 deaf students (609 boys, 488 girls), age range 7–19 years, was rated by their teachers (275 teachers: 149 female, 126 male) using the SEAI. Data were drawn from four types of educational settings: residential, day, special class, mainstream schools. Exploratory factor analysis of the data revealed three main factors of interest, which corresponded to the hypothesized constructs in the original American standardization: Social Adjustment, Self-Image, Emotional Adjustment. The data suggest high reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the SEAI relative to the original American version. Implications of adapting the SEAI for use in Turkey are discussed.
Gone But Not Forgotten: Should Judges Be Allowed to Remedy by Re-sentencing?
Authors: Campbell Mary E
Published: June 2006

Dans le rapport de la Commission d'enqueöte sur certains �v�nements
survenus � la Prison pour femmes de Kingston (1996), la juge Arbour a
formul� 14 recommandations g�n�rales. Or, meöme si les instances ont
accept� et mis en oeuvre plusieurs d'entre elles, une recommandation en
particulier n'a toujours pas �t� rejet�e ou accept�e de facüon d�finitive.
L'auteure de ce commentaire passe en revue les raisons qui ont motiv�
cette recommandation
(n� 8), analyse les facteurs qui expliqueraient l'inaction
des instances � cet �gard et essaie d'envisager le sort �ventuel
de la recommandation.

Justice Louise Arbour made 14 omnibus recommendations in her 1996 Report on Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston. While many of the recommendations have been accepted and implemented, one in particular has been neither conclusively rejected nor accepted. This commentary will review the reasons for Recommendation 8, explore possible reasons for the lack of uptake, and comment on what its future might now be.
Obstacles a la surveillance du systeme penal en pays andins: l'exemple bolivien
Authors: Langlois Denis
Published: June 2006

A brief tour of a few penitentiaries in the Andean region of South America brings out the stark contrast between the well-equipped prisons of Canada, the United States, and Europe and the generally run-down facilities to which prisoners in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are subjected. Despite constitutional and legislative provisions in line with international law, prisoners in these countries sometimes face inhumane conditions and multiple violations of their most basic human rights. In such a context, opportunities for any real monitoring of the correctional system come up against major structural shortcomings. That being said, the work of public institutions such as the Defensor del Pueblo (Ombudsman) helps to mitigate the ongoing arbitrariness of penitentiary administration. In addition, the fact that there are constitutional tribunals and that agencies such as the Defensor del Pueblo and NGOs can seek help from international prisoners' rights bodies strengthens actual recognition of those rights. The author hopes that the implementation of national action plans will prompt the governments concerned to meet their obligations regarding prisoners' rights.
Une simple visite de quelques centres p�nitentiaires de la r�gion andine
convainc tout observateur de la diff�rence marquante entre la prison �quip�e
que nous connaissons au Canada, aux � tats-Unis ou en Europe et celle
trop souvent v�tuste que doivent supporter les personnes d�tenues de Bolivie,
de Colombie, d'� quateur ou du P�rou. Malgr� l'existence d'un cadre
constitutionnel et l�gislatif conforme au droit international, les prisonniers
de ces pays font face � des conditions de d�tention parfois infrahumaines
et subissent nombre de violations � leurs droits les plus �l�mentaires.
Dans ce contexte, les possibilit�s effectives de surveillance du syst�me
p�nal se heurtent � des d�ficiences structurelles importantes. Cependant,
l'action d'institutions publiques telles le Defensor del Pueblo contribue �
att�nuer la part d'arbitraire toujours existante dans la gestion de ces
p�nitenciers. L'existence de tribunaux constitutionnels ainsi que le recours
par les institutions publiques comme le Defensor del Pueblo et les
organisations non-gouvernementales (ONG) � des instances internationales
de protection des droits des personnes d�tenues renforce �galement la
reconnaissance effective de ces meömes droits. Il est permis d'esp�rer que
la mise en oeuvre de plans d'action nationaux entraõöne les � tats concern�s
� s'acquitter de leurs obligations en mati�re de droits des personnes sous
la responsabilit� du syst�me p�nal.
A Reply to Carson Strong
Authors: Gert Bernard
Published: June 2006

Carson Strong's reply to my response to his article demonstrates what happens when there is unacknowledged disagreement about the facts of a case or about the meaning of the terms used to describe those facts. I hope that our dialogue will help reduce this disagreement.
Inequality Near and Far: Adoption as Seen from the Brazilian Favelas
Authors: Fonseca Claudia
Published: June 2006

Focusing on child circulation among the urban poor in Southern Brazil, this article considers the parallels and divergences between local practice, national legislation, and global policy involved in legal adoption. Following a brief ethnographic account of child circulation among working-class families in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the analysis focuses on adoção à brasileira (clandestine adoption) as one of the ways in which the Brazilian poor bypass legal bureaucratic procedures in order to adjust the State apparatus to their needs. Finally, the comparative analysis of Brazil and North America centers on the evolution of adoption law and policies. Our approach highlights the variant experiences of family and legal consciousness according to class and national identity, while at the same time considering the political inequality implied in the hierarchization of different cultural repertoires.
The U.S. Supreme Court's Incorporation and Interpretation of Precedent
Authors: Spriggs James F. , Hansford Thomas G.
Published: June 2006

What explains how and why the Supreme Court interprets precedent? We contend that Justices incorporate precedents into their opinions to maximize the extent to which the Court's legal policy reflects their own policy preferences and to increase the likelihood that their opinions will be efficacious. Thus, we expect the interpretation of precedent to be influenced by the Justices' policy preferences, the norm of stare decisis, and certain characteristics of precedents. To test this idea, we examined how, in all cases decided in the 1991 and 1995 terms, the Court's majority opinions chose to legally interpret the set of available Supreme Court precedents. While our results are not uniformly supportive of our hypotheses, they lend general support to our theoretical argument. First, we demonstrate that the Court is more likely to positively interpret (rather than not interpret) a precedent that is ideologically proximate to the Court, that is legally relevant, or that was previously positively interpreted by the Court. When considering negative treatment broadly construed, our data only demonstrate that the legal relevance of a precedent exerts any influence. However, when we restrict our analysis to “strong” negative interpretation of precedent, we uncover reasonable support for the influence of stare decisis in that both the legal relevance of precedent and prior negative interpretation of precedent affect strong negative treatment. Thus, one implication of this study is that, contrary to the attitudinal model's prediction, the Court's prior treatment of precedent does appear to influence the way Justices make decisions.
Discrimination by Specification Statistically Considered and Illustrated by the Standard Specification for Portland Cement
Authors: Wilsdon B. H.
Published: June 2006

Read before the Industrial and Agricultural Research Section of the Royal Statistical Society, May 31st, 1934, DR. E. C. Sxow in the Chair.
The Replacement of Perishable Members of a Continually Operating System
Authors: Campbell N. R.
Published: June 2006

Suppose that a series of street-lighting posts has to be kept supplied with lamps. Is it cheaper to replace the lamps individually as they fail, or to replace all the lamps at regular intervals, replacing only those that fail between these intervals, and thereby to save labour but to sacrifice some lamps that have burnt only a short time ?

That question, and some variants of it, is discussed in Part I. Precisely similar problems obviously arise when other systems are substituted for street-lighting and other perishable members for lamps.

In Part II computations are performed for one particular example.

In Part III a subsidiary problem is discussed which is of no great practical importance, but leads to some remarkable algebraic identities.
Analysis of Data on the Connecticut Speeding Crackdown as a Time-Series Quasi-Experiment
Authors: Glass Gene V
Published: June 2006

In late 1955 in Connecticut, the number of fatalities per 100,000 population in motor vehicle accidents reached a record high for the 1950s. On December 23, 1955, Governor Abraham Ribicoff took unprecedented action to reduce traffic fatalities. Ribicoff announced that persons convicted of speeding would have their licenses suspended for thirty days at the first offense, for sixty days at the second offense, and for an indefinite period (subject to a hearing after ninety days) at the third offense. Data on traffic fatalities before and after the Connecticut crackdown on speeding can be regarded as a time-series quasi-experiment with some significance for the social sciences. When supplemented with traffic fatality data for the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey, the collection of observations can be viewed as a multiple-group time-series experiment.
Knowledge of the Law in Texas: Socioeconomic and Ethnic Differences
Authors: Williams Martha , Hall Jay
Published: June 2006

In his recent book, Charles E. Silberman underscores the role of the law as an educating institution. “Since means shape ends, the kinds of legal procedures the society develops shape the goals and values and indeed the whole character and ethos of the society” (Silberman, 1970: 42). He convincingly argues that the attempts in recent years to provide legal services to the poor have necessitated radical changes in the conception of the lawyer's role. “For one thing, he becomes an educator in a much more specific way, since the first (and perhaps most important) part of his job may be to educate the poor to what their rights are” (Silberman, 1970:43). Yet it is not only the poor who have difficulty when it comes to understanding the laws of society, and many people have been confronted with situations in which they have, after the fact, discovered that what they have done was illegal. The My Lai trials may be simply an extreme case in point. In the defense of Lt. Calley, the lawyers in the case were expected to argue that the defendant did not know the difference between a legal and illegal order and such an argument was used successfully in the similar Diener case. Yet the old adage has it that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” In many lesser situations citizens are unsure as to what their legal responsibilities are or what others legally have the right to do or not do.
The Impact of Formal Selection Processes on the Characteristics of Judges — Reconsidered
Authors: Canon Bradley C.
Published: June 2006

Students of the judicial process have focused considerable attention on the relationship between judges' background characteristics and their voting behavior on collegial courts. The argument for such a focus is that background characteristics are usually indicative of particular socialization processes and that these processes produce certain attitudes which are often responsible, directly or indirectly, for the judges' votes. Thus these characteristics can be viewed, in the aggregate, as predictive of judges' behavior — at least in certain types of cases.
Negotiations as a Mode of Dispute Settlement: Towards a General Model
Authors: Gulliver P. H.
Published: June 2006

In a previous essay I sought to make a distinction, not an original one, between two processes of dispute settlement: adjudication, and negotiations (Gulliver, 1969: 17). This was not intended as an absolute distinction, for clearly there are certain features common to both. But I was emphasizing what seems to be a key factor: the existence or absence of a third-party adjudicator. Whilst recognizing that this distinction is not acceptable to some scholars in the sociology of law, and that some would not wish to give such importance to that key factor and to other associated processual characteristics, it is nevertheless worthwhile to examine further the processes of negotiation. There are at least two reasons for this. First, anthropologists have given rather little attention to the description and analysis of negotiations in the variety of societies and cultures which is their concern. Secondly, processes of negotiations occur in all societies, including of course our own Western ones, and I believe that there are common patterns to them, cross-culturally, which merit attention.
The Indian Patrol in Minneapolis: Social Control and Social Change in an Urban Context
Authors: Cohen Fay G.
Published: June 2006

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of voluntary citizens' patrols (hereafter called citizens' patrols) in the urban areas of this country (Brown, 1969; Knopf, 1969; Marx and Archer, 1970 and in press). Many of these groups were shortlived responses to situations of social unrest and upheaval. They frequently were based on the premise that community residents could do more to prevent an area from burning to the ground than could the regular police, who were envisioned as an invading army. When the riot or disturbance was over, and the rationale of the citizens' patrol as an agent of social control became less obvious, such groups tended to disappear.
The Labeling Process: Reinforcement and Deterrent?
Authors: Thorsell Bernard A. , Klemke Lloyd W.
Published: June 2006

The labeling theory approach to the analysis of deviance depicts stable patterns of deviant behavior as products or outcomes of the process of being apprehended in a deviant act and publicly branded as a deviant person. The involvement of an individual in this process is viewed as depending much less upon what he does or what he is than upon what others do to him as a consequence of his actions. Deviant persons are regarded as having undergone a degradation ceremony with the result that they have been relegated to membership in a deviant group. In the process, they are thought to have come to acquire an inferior social status and to have developed a deviant view of the world and all the knowledges, skills, and attitudes associated with that status.
Strategies of Research Design in the Legal Impact Study: The Control of Plausible Rival Hypotheses
Authors: Lempert Richard
Published: June 2006

A legal impact study represents an attempt to ascertain how a particular law affects the conduct and attitudes of those individuals, groups or other relevant units located in jurisdictions where that law is in force. By its very nature such a study involves one essential comparison; the comparison between actual behavior patterns in jurisdictions having the law in question and the behavior patterns which would have existed in those same jurisdictions had the law in question never been enacted. Since this comparison is one which by definition cannot actually be made, the problem for the legal impact theorist is how to estimate best what the behavior patterns would have been in a certain jurisdiction had the law in question never existed there. The legislator or court seeking to determine the actual or probable effects of a law faces a similar problem.