bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Culture‐independent analysis of the gut microbiota in colorectal cancer and polyposis
Authors: Scanlan Pauline D. , Shanahan Fergus , Clune Yvonne , Collins John K. , O'Sullivan Gerald C. , O'Riordan Micheal , Holmes Elaine , Wang Yulan , Marchesi Julian R.
Published: January 2008

A role for the intestinal microbiota is routinely cited as a potential aetiological factor in colorectal cancer initiation and progression. As the majority of bacteria in the gut are refractory to culture we investigated this ecosystem in subjects with colorectal cancer and with adenomatous polyposis who are at high risk of developing colorectal cancer, using culture‐independent methods. Twenty colorectal cancer and 20 polypectomized volunteers were chosen for this analysis. An exploration of the diversity and temporal stability of the dominant bacteria and several bacterial subgroups was undertaken using 16S rRNA gene denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (RISA). Metabonomic analysis of the distal gut microbiota's environment was also undertaken. A significantly reduced temporal stability and increased diversity for the microbiota of subjects with colorectal cancer and polyposis was evident. A significantly increased diversity of the Clostridium leptum and C. coccoides subgroups was also noted for both disease groups. A clear division in the metabonome was observed for the colorectal cancer and polypectomized subjects compared with control volunteers. The intestinal microbiota and their metabolites are significantly altered in both colorectal cancer and polypectomized subjects compared with controls.
Actinorhodopsins: proteorhodopsin‐like gene sequences found predominantly in non‐marine environments
Authors: Sharma Adrian K. , Zhaxybayeva Olga , Papke R. Thane , Doolittle W. Ford
Published: January 2008

Proteorhodopsins are light‐energy‐harvesting transmembrane proteins encoded by genes recently discovered in the surface waters of the world's oceans. Metagenomic data from the Global Ocean Sampling expedition (GOS) recovered 2674 proteorhodopsin‐related sequences from 51 aquatic samples. Four of these samples were from non‐marine environments, specifically, Lake Gatun within the Panama Canal, Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay and the Punta Cormorant Lagoon in Ecuador. Rhodopsins related to but phylogenetically distinct from most sequences designated proteorhodopsins were present at all four of these non‐marine sites and comprised three different clades that were almost completely absent from marine samples. Phylogenomic analyses of genes adjacent to those encoding these novel rhodopsins suggest affiliation to the Actinobacteria, and hence we propose to name these divergent, non‐marine rhodopsins ‘actinorhodopsins’. Actinorhodopsins conserve the acidic amino acid residues critical for proton pumping and their genes lack genomic association with those encoding photo‐sensory transducer proteins, thus supporting a putative ion pumping function. The ratio of recA and radA to rhodopsin genes in the different environment types sampled within the GOS indicates that rhodopsins of one type or another are abundant in microbial communities in freshwater, estuarine and lagoon ecosystems, supporting an important role for these photosystems in all aquatic environments influenced by sunlight.
A molecular phylogeny of apple snails (Gastropoda, Caenogastropoda, Ampullariidae) with an emphasis on African species
Authors: Jørgensen Aslak , Kristensen Thomas K. , Madsen Henry
Published: January 2008

Ampullariids are widespread in Africa, Asia, South‐ and Central America, and the Caribbean Islands. Basal phylogenetic relationships of the African genera Afropomus and Saulea have been inferred based on anatomical evidence. Until recently the Viviparidae was regarded as the sister‐group of Ampullariidae, but recent molecular data infer a sister‐group relationship with Campanilidae. We have used members of both families as outgroups in the present investigation on ampullariid phylogeny. We have used data from portions of five molecular loci, that is, the nuclear genes 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA and H3, and the mitochondrial genes 16S rRNA and COI. Our data most often infer a basal position of Afropomus. The West African species Saulea is inferred as the basal member of a clade including the South American Marisa and Pomacea. We hypothesize that evolutionary lineages leading to Saulea and the American genera were isolated from each other by vicariance events (Gondwanaland break‐up 130–110 Mya). Our individual gene analyses inferred two major clades of the African Lanistes. However, in some analyses they were not inferred as sister‐groups making Lanistes paraphyletic. The African and Asian genus Pila is most often inferred to be monophyletic (except for the generally unresolved 28S). Our analyses most often inferred a sister‐group relationship between Lanistes and Pila. The very low genetic diversity of the endemic radiation of Lanistes in Lake Malawi suggests that the morphological divergence has happened much faster than the molecular divergence as is also evidenced from the cichlid radiations.
Attractive Physical Appearance vs. Good Academic Characteristics: Which Generates More Earnings?
Authors: Tao Hung‐Lin
Published: January 2008

This study uses the entry‐level wage of Taiwanese female college graduates to ensure a clear causality between the wage and physical appearance. It is found that height raises the entry wage, and that there exists an optimal BMI. Graduates who are satisfied with their looks earn 3.4% more than the average. The wage premiums for a good college grade and for all advantageous physical characteristics are significantly lower than that for admission to a selective college. Graduates who are satisfied with their looks are more likely to become full‐time workers and are less likely to be unemployed shortly after graduation.
What Did All the Money Do? On the General Ineffectiveness of Recent West German Labour Market Programmes
Authors: Wunsch Conny , Lechner Michael
Published: January 2008

We provide new evidence on the effectiveness of West German labour market programmes by evaluating training and employment programmes that have been conducted 2000–2002 after the first large reform of German labour market policy in 1998. We employ exceptionally rich administrative data that allow us to use microeconometric matching methods and to estimate interesting effects for different types of programmes and participants at a rather disaggregated level. We find that, on average, all programmes fail to improve their participants' chances of finding regular, unsubsidised employment. Rather, participants accumulate 2–13 more months of unemployment than nonparticipants over the 2.5 years following programme start, which, in addition to direct programme costs, induces net costs in terms of benefit payments and wage subsidies amounting to, on average, 1500–7000 EUR per participant. However, we show that there is some scope for improvements in mean employment rates as well as potential for considerable cost savings by a reallocation of participants and nonparticipants to the different programmes.
THE MORAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN KILLING AND LETTING DIE IN MEDICAL CASES
Authors: ASSCHER JOACHIM
Published: January 2008

In some medical cases there is a moral distinction between killing and letting die, but in others there is not. In this paper I present an original and principled account of the moral distinction between killing and letting die. The account provides both an explanation of the moral distinction and an explanation for why the distinction does not always hold. If these explanations are correct, the moral distinction between killing and letting die must be taken seriously in medical contexts.

Defeasibly, when an agent kills she takes responsibility, but when an agent lets die she does not take responsibility. Therein lies the moral distinction between killing and letting die. The distinction, however, is defeated when an agent is already responsible for the surrounding situation. In such cases, killing does not involve taking any further responsibility and letting die does not avoid taking any responsibility. Medical examples are frequently complicated because patients’ autonomous choices impact upon medical practitioners’ surrounding responsibility.
SOCIALIZING THE LEGAL PROFESSION: Can Redistributing Lawyers' Services Achieve Social Justice?
Authors: ABEL RICHARD L.
Published: January 2008

Redistributing laywers' services is a principal focus of efforts to reform contemporary legal systems. Such reforms generally attempt to modify the market distribution in oneof two ways: by subsidizing lawyers for the unrepresented, or by rendering lawyers unnecessary through deprofessionalization. This essay analyzes the contribution that redistribution could make to social (rather than formal) justice by extrapolating the consequences of the greatest conceivable redistribution: a socialization of the profession that would withdraw lawyers from those who presently purchase lawyers' services, while simultaneously subsidizing lawyers for the unrepresented. It then turns to the political prospects forsocialization. Concluding that socialization appears either feasible nor likely to attainsocial justice if it were possible, the essay reflects on the implications of continued pursuit of reformist goals.
RESEARCHING THE SUPREME COURT IN A DEMOCRATIC PLURALIST SYSTEM: Some Thoughts on New Directions
Authors: ULMER S. SIDNEY
Published: January 2008

The political processes which invite research and the investment of associated resources are those identified as signiscant by the political theories to which we give credence. Though Democratic Pluralism is the most popular explanation of the political system in the United States, its ability to explain Supreme Court behavior cannot be evaluated, for observation of the processes by which Court agendas for national policy making purposes are constructed is not encouraged. The remedy lies in a new and broader perspective which directs attention to a number of institutional actions and incumbent behaviors until now slighted, if not ignored.
POLICE MISCONDUCT AS ORGANIZATIONAL DEVIANCE
Authors: LUNDMAN RICHARD J.
Published: January 2008

The aim of this paper is to extend and clarify the organizational deviance perspective by focusing on police misconduct. Toward that end the paper defines organizational deviance and police misconduct, illustrates the linkages between natural persons and deviant departments, and considers the public policy implications of viewing police misconduct as organizational deviance.
THE PREAPPEAL CONFERENCE AND EFFECTIVE JUSTICE
Authors: GOLDMAN JERRY
Published: January 2008

Appellate courts—both state and federal—have experienced dramatic increases in court business since 1960. A popular policy to meet this demand has been to encourage litigants to end their appeals short of decision by the judges. Few of these programs have been evaluated; and of those few the evidence is either insufficient to support claims of effectiveness, or demonstrate that some preappeal procedures do not work.
ADVOCACY AND REHABILITATION IN WOMEN'S PRISONS
Authors: NOBLIT GEORGE W. , ALPERT GEOFFREY P.
Published: January 2008

The effect of legal aid on disadvantaged groups and particularly on prison inmates has rarely been investigated. The few existing studies suggest it has a more systematically positive effect than other prison services. This paper examines this effect on women inmates and finds that the provision of legal services seems to promote rehabilitation.
PLEA BARGAINING AND THE RESEARCH DILEMMA
Authors: BALDWIN JOHN , McCONVILLE MICHAEL
Published: January 2008

Plea bargaining has been traditionally assumed to play no part in the administration of criminal justice in England. Research conducted by the authors casts serious doubts on this assumption. Their report on this research provoked a vituperative response from leaders of the English legal profession who attempted to suppress its publication. Some implications of this reaction for the independent conduct of research are examined in this article.
THE SOCIETAL IMPACT OF LAW: An Assessment of Research
Authors: BROWN DON W. , CROWLEY DONALD W.
Published: January 2008

In the current climate of skepticism about the capacity of law to ease social problems, legal impact research can perhaps add to our understanding of the limitations of using legal initiatives to produce social change. This article assesses the descriptive and explanatory knowledge provided by legal impact research over the last decade, identifies the primary obstacles that impact researchers have faced, and suggests promising paths that students of legal impact might take. While impact studies no more demonstrate that law is ineffective in achieving policy goals than they do the reverse, the former interpretation is most likely to be made given the dominant tenor of contemporary political discourse. To reduce the chance of erroneous interpretations, it is proposed that researchers take several steps to make their analyses more “context‐sensitive.”
THE SUPREME COURT AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A Quest for Balance between Legal and Societal Morality
Authors: SCHWARTZ RICHARD D.
Published: January 2008

The interrelationships of legal and societal morality are examined through an analysis of judicial opinions in the Supreme Court's review of the constitutionality of the death penalty. Neither community standards nor considerations of utility provided the justices with a satisfactory basis for rejecting or regulating the death penalty. Resting their decisions instead on grounds of fairness, the justices endorsed a mode of jury guidance and monitoring that potentially facilitates citizen participation in the process of “evolving standards of decency.” Legal morality thus is used as the justification for a decision that affects societal morality in a manner likely to limit rather than to expand the gap between the two moralities.
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND DEATH PENALTY CASES: Reflections on Change and the Empirical Justification of Constitutional Policy
Authors: DANIELS STEPHEN
Published: January 2008

This article investigates the use of social science and empirical data in the justification for declaring the death penalty unconstitutional. It does so by analysing the use of such materials in the briefs presented to the Supreme Court and the Court's response in major death penalty cases. The article finds that social science played a prominent role in the arguments of both the challengers and defenders of capital punishment. Applying concepts from decision‐making theory, after analyzing the Court's decisions, the article concludes that social science will not provide a justification for the constitutional change requested.
NATIONAL VICTIM COMPENSATION: Its Cost and Coverage
Authors: GAROFALO JAMES , McDERMOTT M. JOAN
Published: January 2008

In recent years, numerous states have established programs to compensate victims of violent crime, and efforts to enact a national victim compensation law continue. One of the major obstacles to positive legislative action on victim compensation programs has been the lack of reliable estimates of the potential costs of such programs. In this article, a series of compensation program models with varying eligibility criteria are examined. Data from a variety of sources—victimization surveys, the Uniform Crime Reports, and existing state compensation programs—are brought together to determine the effects of differing statutory criteria on the coverage and costs of possible national victim compensations programs. Program model recommendations are made and policy issues are discussed.
DETERRENT EFFECTS OF FORMAL AND INFORMAL SANCTIONS
Authors: JACOB HERBERT
Published: January 2008

This article reports a random telephone survey of Evanston, Illinois, residents in the spring of 1978 probing knowledge of legal sanctions, perceptions of the certainty of their imposition, feelings about their legitimacy, and approval of peers for violating the law. It focuses on traffic offenses, marijuana smoking, and shoplifting and uses self‐reports of actual or potential violations. The data indicate that knowledge of the severity of legal sanctions and perceptions of the certainty of their imposition are not related to imputed violation; feelings that the law is legitimate and that peers disapprove of violations are related to imputed violation.
COERCION TO RESTITUTION: Criminal Processing of Civil Disputes
Authors: ZEMANS FRANCES KAHN
Published: January 2008

Growing efforts to achieve social control through noncoercive means need to be evaluated for the role played by the implicit threat of coercion. This article examines restitutive settlements of selected criminal violations through the active efforts of a county prosecutor's office. The study reveals that it is the threat of coercion underlying the execution of remedies that facilitates efficient processing of commercial disputes in the criminal justice system.
PERSONALITY THEORY AND JUDGING: A Proposed Theory of Self‐Esteem and Judicial Policy‐Making
Authors: ATKINS BURTON , ALPERT LENORE , ZILLER ROBERT
Published: January 2008

Although a variety of explanatory models have been used in recent years to explain and describe individual and aggregate judicial policy‐making, little attention has been devoted to how a judge's personality may affect his or her policy choices on the bench. In fact, psychological models are important for understanding twentieth‐century jurisprudence as well as for conceptualizing the conditions under which an individual decision maker will exercise policy‐making discretion. This article uses a theory of self‐esteem to propose how a judge's personality configuration is related to those role orientations affecting decisional outcomes. The authors also discuss how differential levels of self‐esteem may affect a judge's sentencing policy.
UNIQUE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LIMITED JURISDICTION TRIAL COURT JUDGES
Authors: BRODER JOSEF M.
Published: January 2008

An examination is made of the extent to which limited jurisdiction trial court judges make unique contributions to court policies. The methodology and political implications of minor court research differs from those in higher courts. Analysis of variance found that minor court judges in multiple‐judge courts differed in the level and uniformity of fines and costs assessed in misdemeanor cases. Binary tests for regression discontinuity found that judges in single‐judge courts initiated policy changes upon entering office. Such knowledge of unique judicial contributions would enable citizens and court officials to make informed decisions in judge selections and court reforms.
NEGOTIATION AND PLEA BARGAINING MODELS: An Organizational Perspective
Authors: MATHENY ALBERT R.
Published: January 2008

This article assesses the contributions to our understanding of plea bargaining made by economic and decision‐theory models of criminal justice decision‐making. The author introduces an organizational interpretation of plea bargaining and critiques two of the more prominent attempts at formal modeling of the criminal process. Empirical evidence, gathered by others, is reanalyzed to compare the relative explanatory power of these formal models in determining patterns of choice among negotiative and adversary dispositions in two urban felony jurisdictions. The article concludes with the assertion that economic and decision‐theory models present an insightful but essentially distorted view of criminal justice decision‐making. An appreciation for contextual factors, emphasized in organization theory, is necessary for grasping the reality of the criminal process and for shaping meaningful reform.
MODELING COURT DELAY
Authors: FLANDERS STEVEN
Published: January 2008

Quantitative modeling using operations research and related techniques has much less promise for mitigating court delay than proponents anticipate. Results to date have been discouraging, largely because trial court process is exceptionally difficult to model. There is no consistent sequence or path, and critical discretionary decisions are made by professionals based on individualized criteria that are hard to code. Also, participants (litigants and lawyers) are not part of the organization in any normal sense: Their very purpose is conflict, and they are as likely to try to subvert the court operation as support it. Manipulating court incentive structures is a more promising management approach.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF “CAREER CRIMINALS” FROM “CHRONIC OFFENDERS” IN A COHORT
Authors: BLUMSTEIN ALFRED , MOITRA SOUMYO
Published: January 2008

The findings by Wolfgang et al. that 6.3% of their cohort had 52% of the recorded police contacts is well known. This retrospective analysis has been used to suggest that imprisoning these “chronic” offenders will avert a correspondingly disproportionate amount of crime. On prospective analysis of the arrest histories, however, the recidivism probability is found to be constant after the third contact, suggesting that prior record has little predictive value regarding future criminality. These observations raise important questions about the benefits of “career criminal” programs and their incapacitative effects.
PROTECTIVE SERVICES FOR THE ELDERLY: Do We Deal Competently with Incompetence?
Authors: PARMELEE PATRICIA A.
Published: January 2008

Protective services are conceptualized as legal safeguards for aged individuals who are incapable of prudent financial or personal self‐determination. Despite this protective intent, conservatorship, personal guardianship, and involuntary hospitalization may in fact work against elders' best interests as a result of their limitation of avenues for expressing autonomy and self‐worth. In this article, psychological theories of effectance or control are applied to analyzing the effects of protective legal intervention upon older persons. The rationale of parens patriae is examined in terms of its conceptual appropriateness for application to the aged; social and legal sources of bias in protective philosophy are enumerated and discussed. Statutes and procedural conventions governing competency and commitment cases are similarly evaluated, and found from an effectance‐theoretical perspective to pose substantial threats to older individuals' psychological and physical well‐being. Although recommended statutory and procedural revisions would be helpful in ameliorating these negative effects, they are not sufficient to eradicate them. A conceptual reanalysis not only of the courts' responsibility and role in caring for the infirm, but of social policy in general as it is presently applied to the elderly, is therefore recommended.
ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND THE LIMITS OF LAW
Authors: GROSSMAN JOEL B. , SARAT AUSTIN
Published: January 2008

This article examines the relationship between persistent demands for “access to justice” and the relatively low yield of court‐oriented social reform strategies. Access to justice has a symbolic attraction which is impossible to deny. Access may not insure justice or social reform, but it is an important political resource from which strategic bargaining advantages may flow. But the importance of the right to participate may be inversely related to its utilization. Beyond a certain level, expanded access may be costly. Its deterrent qualities may be diminished, and the legal system, when overloaded, may be unable to insure delivery of justice.
THE EVOLUTION OF LAW AND WIFE ABUSE
Authors: OPPENLANDER NAN
Published: January 2008

For over 2000 years, laws have allowed husbands to beat their wives. Until the last century, American law conformed to this tradition. This article traces the roots of American law to English and Roman law, the latter giving husbands life‐and‐death authority over wives. In the nineteenth century American state courts permitted husbands to beat their wives for misconduct. Pioneering women in the temperance, abolitionist, and women's rights movements first attacked the common law ofwife‐beating and restrictive divorce policies. By the 1870s, wife‐beating became outlawed. Earlier in the nineteenth century, legislatures had expanded the grounds for divorce, opening an avenue of escape for physically abused wives. But the law still gives limited protection to assaulted spouses, who are more often wives than husbands.
WHO SHALL HAVE CUSTODY?: A Case for the Equal Consideration of Fathers
Authors: SPEAL GERALD KENT
Published: January 2008

Current statutes and case decisions formally declare that fathers and mothers should be treated equally in child custody dispute awards. Outcomes of actual court awards, however, favor mothers, presumably because this is viewed by judges as being in the best interests of the child. A review of research derived from child and animal studies suggests there is no basis for favoring mothers over fathers in awarding child custody.
BLINDFOLDED JUSTICE LED BY AN INVISIBLE HAND: Criminal Justice as a Variable of Exchange Transactions
Authors: NOAM ELI M.
Published: January 2008

The article argues that instead of viewing the criminal justice process as determined by judicial or prosecutorial discretion, it should be seen as the outcome of exchange transactions that are designed to adjust resource constraints between case inflows and outflows. These exchanges, over which judges and prosecutors have only little control in the aggregate, generate changes in the criminal justice system in an unplanned or “invisible hand” fashion. They alter the sentence level, affect the standard of proof and the rules of evidence, and transform the function of trials. Several of the analytical conclusions are confirmed by an empirical investigation.
STATE AND LEGAL AUTHORITY
Authors: VILLMOARE ADELAIDE H.
Published: January 2008

The idea of authority lies at the conceptual heart of much legal policy analysis. This essay discusses three perspectives on state and legal authority—the liberal‐constitutional, the corporatist, and the technocratic—as a broad political framework for understanding major issues of judicial policy‐making in the United States today. The essay examines recent literature on judicial legitimacy and capacity within the context of the three perspectives and raises research questions which derive from this approach to judicial policy. This framework provides a theoretical basis for seeing not only a decline, but changes in patterns of judicial authority and their relationship to any existing crisis of authority in the state in general.
CIVIL LITIGATION IN ILLINOIS TRIAL COURTS
Authors: DANIELS STEPHEN
Published: January 2008

This article analyzes civil litigation in Illinois trial courts for the years 1965, 1970, and 1975 using county‐level data. Of particular interest is the relationship between civil litigation on one hand and socioeconomic and political culture indicators on the other. Borrowing from the idea of a social development perspective, the analysis emphasizes rural‐urban differences. It shows that higher rates of litigation tend to be characteristic of more urbanized, somewhat more culturally modern, and slightly more industrialized counties; and that lower rules tend to be characteristic of more rural, agricultural, and somewhat more traditional counties. Although the data are limited, the analysis also finds some broad rural‐urban differences in trial court business. Overall, socioeconomic indicators appear to be more important, with political culture playing only a secondary or tertiary role.
THE EFFECTS OF SELECTION SYSTEM ON JURY COMPOSITION
Authors: ROWLAND C. K. , MACAULEY W. A. , CARP ROBERT A.
Published: January 2008

The Supreme Court and judicial scholars have argued that the demographic composition of grand and petit juries is important. To the extent that composition is a function of the selection system used, this suggests that the method of selecting grand and petit jurors is important. This article tests the link between selection system and composition by comparing the representation of blacks, Mexican‐Americans, and women on grand juries selected by commissioners with the same three classes' representation on grand juries selected at random from the voter registration lists. For these jurisdictions, only female representation is consistently higher under random selection procedures.
“TOO MANY LAWYERS, NOT ENOUGH PRACTICAL PEOPLE”: The Policy‐Making Discretion of the Federal Trade Commission
Authors: BOYER BARRY B.
Published: January 2008

Contemporary legal theory recognizes three primary methods of controling administrative discretion: confining through substantive standards, structuring through procedural requirements, and checking through bureaucratic review. It is sometimes assumed that these techniques operate independently and that their effects are additive. This article reports on a study of Federal Trade Commission policy‐making and concludes that in some instances there can be complex interactions among the legal techniques for controlling discretion, and between the legal techniques and political or bureaucratic forces shaping policy‐making discretion.
REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT: An Economic Study of the British Factory Inspectorate
Authors: VELJANOVSKI CENTO G.
Published: January 2008

The British Factory Inspectorate is the body responsible for enforcing occupational health and safety legislation in the manufacturing industries. The concept of economic efficiency is used to link the compartmentalized disciplines involved in regulation. Many enforcement practices in social regulation can be seen as attempts to minimize social costs of disobeying regulations subject to institutional, political, and budgetary constraints.
RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN LEGAL SERVICES: Individual Attorney Decisions in Work Priorities
Authors: MENKEL‐MEADOW CARRIE , MEADOW ROBERT G.
Published: January 2008

This article explores the issues of professional decision‐making in legal resource allocation by examining theoretical models of professional decision‐making, and applying them in the provision of legal services for the poor. Data collected from time sheets completed by attorneys in an urban legal services program suggest the relative importance of bureaucratic, external, client‐centered, ideology, personal, and role concept factors in allocating time for practice routines. The implications of these findings for the rational (i.e., cost benefit) determination of the value of legal services are discussed.
FIREARMS OWNERSHIP, GUN CONTROL ATTITUDES, AND NEIGHBORHOOD ENVIRONMENT
Authors: McCLAIN PAULA D.
Published: January 2008

Consensus has not been reached on whether a relationsip exists among violent crime, fear of crime, and firearms ownership. The questions addressed here are how, if at all, the neighborhood environments of urban blacks and whites affect their patterns and levels of gun ownership, what their attitudes are toward gun regulation, and whether there is a relationship between gun regulation attitudes and firearms ownership. Data collected through a mail questionnaire from white and black residents of high and low homicide risk neighborhoods in Detroit were used to test the questions. Results indicate, for the most part, that blacks and whites hold different attitudes toward gun regulation, that gun regulation attitudes affect gun ownership patterns, and that only in one instance did neighborhood environment explain gun ownership relatively well.
GUN CONTROL AND POLITICAL POWER
Authors: KESSLER RAYMOND G.
Published: January 2008

Most of the debate over gun control policy has slighted the possible relationship between such policies and the distribution of political power. Five political functions of firearms control laws are discussed and examples are provided.
SENTENCING REFORM AND THE CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM: A Case Study of the Implementation of Minnesota's Determinate Sentencing Law
Authors: GOODSTEIN LYNNE
Published: January 2008

In recent years, various determinate sentencing models have been proposed to promote equity in sentencing and prisoner release certainty. This article examines the implementation of Minnesota's determinate sentencing law as it relates to prisoners and the state correctional system, It reviews the extent of the reform's success in achieving predictability in prisoner release dates and equity in sentencing. Organizational, political, and transitional problems in the implementation of the determinacy concept are discussed. In particular, resistance to change among parole board and correctional treatment staff members and a prisoner movement for retroactivity are highlighted. Conditions that could lead to replications of Minnesota's experience in other states are reviewed.
The Effect of Curfew Laws on Motor Vehicle Crashes
Authors: PREUSSER DAVID F. , WILLIAMS ALLAN F. , ZADOR PAUL L. , BLOMBERG RICHARD D.
Published: January 2008

Twelve states in the U.S. have curfew laws, which prohibit young drivers from operating motor vehicles during late evening or early morning hours. The effect of such laws on motor vehicle crashes was studied in four of these states. In each state the laws were found substantially to reduce the crashes of sixteen year olds. Sixteen year old driver crash involvements during curfew hours were reduced by an estimated 69 percent in Pennsylvania, 62 percent in New York, 40 percent in Maryland, and 25 percent in Louisiana. Except in Maryland, the percentage of the sixteen year old population licensed was lower in curfew than comparison states. It is possible that curfew laws reduce early licensure, in which case reductions in crash involvements resulting from curfews are greater than shown above.
PRACTITIONER FRAUD AND ABUSE IN MEDICAL BENEFIT PROGRAMS: Government Regulation and Professional White‐Collar Crime
Authors: PONTELL HENRY N. , JESILOW PAUL D. , GEIS GILBERT
Published: January 2008

Physicians who defraud and abuse medical benefit programs provide a unique group of lawbreakers for scientific study. They could be considered to epitomize white collar criminals given their exceedingly high socioeconomic status and power as a professional group. Using official reports and documents, as well as interviews with enforcement and program personnel at both state and federal levels, this study examines the problem of physician fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. Major areas relevant to understanding this phenomenon and its control are presented and policy implications of present knowledge in the area are discussed.
The Law Union of Ontario
Authors: MARTIN ROBERT
Published: January 2008

The Law Union of Ontario is an attempt by a small group of lawyers in an advanced capitalist society to engage in organized progressive political and legal work. This has not been easy nor has it been entirely successful.
Varieties of Responsibility and Organizational Crime
Authors: BRAITHWAITE JOHN , FISSE BRENT
Published: January 2008

Data from interviews at the head offices of Japanese companies are used to illustrate the highly varied ways in which large organizations hold individuals and subunits responsible for corporate wrongdoing. Noblesse oblige, captain of the ship responsibility, nominated accountability and fault‐based responsibility are identified as important types of individual accountability all of which can be unjust and ineffective when decisionmaking is more or less collective. In the face of immense diversity in varieties of responsibility for organizational crime, different strategies for bringing law and organizational culture into alignment are tentatively evaluated.
Litigating Scientific Creationism, or “Scopes” II, III,…
Authors: McINTOSH WAYNE V.
Published: January 2008

This paper is concerned with the institutional role of courts in dealing with long term political conflict. Such conflict is likely to involve group mobilization on both sides; the analysis therefore utilizes a judicial interest group approach, presenting evidence from the on‐going policy debate surrounding presentation of the Darwinian theory of evolution in public schools. The findings demonstrate the importance of courts in developing public policies, not only by articulating policy, but also by affecting subsequent moves by interest groups to promote their agendas elsewhere in the system. Many extended conflicts may not be resolved in institutional settings, but they may be repetitively reformulated and translated to engage the decisionmaking process of specific forums in on‐going activities. In successive moves, each adversary attempts to shift the balance of power to its respective advantage, where, paradoxically, the parties may change sides as the debate travels full circle. The analysis also illustrates the advancement of the creation science advocates' game plan, beginning with a publicity‐oriented strategy, which is a hallmark of the relatively “amateurish” litigant, and eventually moving to a result‐oriented position, a more “professional” approach to the courts.
Mediator Settlement Strategies
Authors: SILBEY SUSAN S. , MERRY SALLY E.
Published: January 2008

Settling cases poses a challenging task for the mediator. Most disputes are hotly contested by both parties or they would not have progressed to the point of entering the court arena or mediation. Yet, despite differences in the nature of their cases, the organization of each program we have studied, and the style of mediation predominating in each, striking similarities exist in the techniques used by the mediators to settle cases. Observation of over 40 different mediators in 175 mediation sessions in three programs suggests that in order to do the job which they are charged with accomplishing—bringing mediation cases to settlement—mediators develop a repertoire of strategies employing a variety of sources of power. Mediator strategies fall into four principal categories: presentation of self and the program, control of the process of mediation, control of the substantive issues in mediation, and activation of commitments and norms. Mediators empower themselves by claiming authority for themselves, their task, or the program based upon values external to the immediate situation, or manipulate the immediate situation so that settlement is more rather than less likely. Based upon their differential use of these strategies, mediator styles fall along a continuum between two types: bargaining and therapy. Mediation seems to range between a bargaining process conducted in the shadow of the court to a communication process which resembles therapy in its focus upon exploring and enunciating feelings.
Indian ‘Compensatory Discrimination’ and American ‘Affirmative Action’: Some Parallels—A Review of Galanter's Competing Equalities*
Authors: WASBY STEPHEN L.
Published: January 2008

What importance does Galanter's Competing Equalities have for non‐Indianists or, more specifically, for American students of law and social change with respect to racial and ethnic discrimination? To engage in understatement, much.
Law and the Protection of Cultural Communities: the Case of Native American Fishing Rights
Authors: ANDERSON MICHAEL R.
Published: January 2008

This essay explores the Salish peoples' quest for protection of traditional culture through the legal protection of traditional fishing practices. Through a history of political confrontation, the politically symbolic and culturally significant issue of fishing rights came before the courts. In one case, the courts came to recognize the cultural import of traditional fishing and made provisions for enhanced fishing opportunities based on treaty rights. Paradoxically, implementation of the decision exacerbated internal divisions in Salish society and the integrity of the cultural community continues to disintegrate at an accelerated pace.
“Friends as Foes: The Amicus Curiae Participation and Effectiveness of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Effective Law Enforcement in Criminal Cases, 1969–1982”*
Authors: IVERS GREGG , O'CONNOR KAREN
Published: January 2008

Scholars have long recognized that interest groups realize the importance of the courts as policymakers and as vehicles of social and political change. We examined the amicus curiae participation of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Effective Law Enforcement in criminal cases before the Burger Court from 1969–1982. We found that AELE, a conservative law‐enforcement organization, has been the most successful interest group as participant as amid. Moreover, we found that criminal law is yet another area of law in which interest groups are using the Supreme Court to achieve and protect their policy interests.
Grass‐Roots Activism and the Drunk Driving Issue: A Survey of MADD Chapters
Authors: WEED FRANK J.
Published: January 2008

A survey of the local grass roots chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) revealed that local chapter officers are primarily married, moderately educated, women who are active participants in other community organizations, and are often victims or have had family members killed in auto crashes. The chapter officers of MADD come from the traditional social base of community grass‐roots activism and believe they have the support of other community groups. MADD's agenda for local activism resembles a moral crusade in that public awareness and youth education are given high priority in local chapters, with “legal advocacy” and victim assistance activities receiving less emphasis. Finally, chapter officers seem to adhere to a traditional moral belief in individual responsibility in their commitment to public awareness and stiffer penalties as “solutions” to the drunk driving problem.
Monopoly in the Marketplace: The Ideological Denial of Visas
Authors: MANN SUSAN
Published: January 2008

The McCarran‐Walter Act mandates the exclusion of nonimmigrant aliens from entry into the United States. Hundred of detentions and exclusions occur yearly under the Act, and Latin Americans appear to be disproportionately likely to be excluded.

This article argues that the Act, a Cold War statute, ignores current political reality and American self‐interest. The exclusionary subsections provide no more protection from terrorists and other genuine internal security risks than is available from other statutes. But they reduce the exchange of people and ideas, including foreign policy issues; fuel a negative image abroad of America; and impermissibly burden the first amendment and equal protection rights of American citizens. This article proposes that the subsections in question be repealed and replaced with narrower statutes.
Minority Voting Equality: The 65 Percent Rule in Theory and Practice
Authors: BRACE KIMBALL , GROFMAN BERNARD N. , HANDLEY LISA R. , NIEMI RICHARD G.
Published: January 2008

In order to provide minorities with a realistic opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, an apparently obvious step is to create districts in which the minority equals half the population. A number of factors, however, make this a false equality. As a consequence, courts have used a “65 percent” rule, suggesting that equality of the voting population is achieved only when the overall population of a district is nearly two‐thirds minority. We distinguish between this “equalization percentage” and the percentage needed to create a “safe” seat. We show that for blacks “equalization percentages”: 1) are almost never as high as 65 percent; 2) vary widely across time and space; 3) have declined somewhat in the 1980s; 4) vary sharply between primaries and general elections; 5) are affected most heavily by the proportion of minority populations that is of voting age (or noncitizen) rather than by differences in registration and turnout. Election results further caution us that even when numerical equality in the voting population is appropriately calculated, such a population proportion is not always sufficient to elect minority candidates because of incumbency effects and differentially polarized voting. We argue that both packing blacks into overwhelmingly black districts and ignoring less tangible factors that hinder black electoral success are extremes to be avoided.
Plant Closings and Public Policy: Achieving an Optimal Level of Plant Closings
Authors: KUHN DENNIS R. , ZECH CHARLES E.
Published: January 2008

A severe problem confronting the Northeast portion of the United States has been the closing of plants. In making the decision to close a plant, firms tend to consider private benefits and costs. However, there are significant external costs to the community and workers which an appropriate public policy should require firms to consider. The law has dealt with the plant closing issue in several ways, including the collective bargaining process through the National Labor Relations Act, court challenges, and state and local legislation. This study examines each of these and concludes by calling for comprehensive federal legislation.
The Ideologies of Mediation: The Movement's Own Story
Authors: ADLER PETER , LOVAAS KAREN , MILNER NEAL
Published: January 2008

This paper has three aims. First, it describes the ideologies of six organizations that have been and continue to be prominent in the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement in the United States. These organizations all feature the use of mediation as a central component of their work and as a solution to larger social problems.

Second, it elaborates some points of similarity and difference in these ideologies in light of a debate that emerged in the late 1970's between “community” and “agency” models of mediation, that is, between programs that chose to closely affiliate with the formal justice system and those that chose not to. Several years after the start of this debate, we believe there are important points of convergence and divergence that have not received enough attention by those who advocate for or against alternative dispute processing.

Finally, the authors wish to use the opportunity this study provides to speculate more openly on the contemporary meaning of legal informalism and the ways in which formal and informal legal structures now seem to be linked.
Families and The State: An Historical Perspective on the Public Regulation of Private Conduct
Authors: DINGWALL R. , EEKELAAR J. M.
Published: January 2008

This paper examines the history of the debate between advocates of the regulation and the deregulation of family life through a case study of English social policy for children in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It introduces the generational order as an issue worthy of consideration alongside that of the gender order. It considers the nature of the relationship between private and public spheres of social action and questions the adequacy of rigid formulations of this distinction. Successive attempts to develop technologies of intervention are discussed and the limitations imposed by liberal political theory are identified. It is argued, nevertheless, that the generational order is of such importance that some form of social regulation is inescapable.
The Contradictions of Immigration Lawmaking: The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
Authors: CALAVITA KITTY
Published: January 2008

This paper argues that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 is a composite of contradictory measures. On one hand, employer sanctions are meant to curtail the employment of undocumented workers and preserve the U.S. labor market for legal residents and citizens; on the other hand, special foreign worker programs are designed to enhance the supply of immigrant workers. In an effort to make sense of these contradictions, the author places the legislation in historical context and proposes a dialectical model of immigration policymaking.