Criminal Justice Policy Review

This article examines the news media's role in federal criminal justice policy-making. Specifically, we examine how news coverage of cele brated events affected the gun control policy-agenda over a twenty-five year period by linking the presentation of gun issues in the New York Times to corresponding changes in the number of congressional hearings on gun control. Moreover, we examine the implementation of two pieces of federal gun legislation as case studies to more clearly identify the role of the media in federal criminal justice policy-making. Our results indi cate that the media affect the federal policy process in three ways: first, the media can open a window of opportunity to consider policy change; second, the media can promote a limited range of policy alternatives; and third, the media can promote the interests of policy entrepreneurs.

Criminal sentencing is such a fundamental power of government that variations in its use can be linked to political culture. Using Daniel Elazar's typology of American political culture, three-hundred counties in 49 states were classified in terms of the prevailing political culture. This data was matched with sentencing data gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In the bivariate analysis traditionalistic political cultures administered harsher sentences; as for rates of incarceration, particularly in jails, moralistic political cultures incarcerated a higher percentage of individuals. In the multivariate model, many attributes closely related to political culture, such as conservatism, income distribution, and the over all crime rate, help to explain sentencing variations. However, political culture was significant only for larceny, and the results paralleled the bivariate analysis. This article concludes with a discussion of the advan tages and disadvantages of using political culture to study sentencing and the relevance of political culture to criminal justice policy.

The Battered Woman Defense has been gaining acceptance in recent years. This note reviews the legal theory and issues relating to the use of the defense and presents the results of a Battered Woman Defense. While the judges are willing to admit expert testimony on the Battered Woman Defense, older and more experienced the judges were the less receptive to the use of the Battered Woman Syndrome as a defense and the more cases the judges have heard the less likely they were to consider traumat ic psychological abuse as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Using official data records, this study examined differences in recidi vism - defined as fingerprinted rearrest - among participants in two wide ly used intermediate sanctions, electronic house arrest (N=331) and boot camp prison (N=309). Logistic regression was used to identify predictors of recidivism. Participation in the boot camp program, as opposed to electronic house arrest was consistently associated with avoiding rearrest, and race (African-American) was associated with being rearrested for several categories of offense. The conclusion was that although techno logical advances may be of significant assistance to correctional practi tioners, such advances alone are not the magic bullet that will insure future compliance with the law.

During 1993-1996, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety participated in a national study of convenience store robbery. In order to understand victim perceptions and actions during these crimes, personal semi-structured interviews were conducted during with 20 employees robbed in Boston. Most subjects were owners or managers, and tended to be entrenched in the convenience store industry. The inter view instrument contained over 80 items, and solicited a range of infor mation on the criminal event, as well as post-victimization experiences.