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This chapter presents four theories that hypothesize race/ethnicity disparities in sentence outcomes. Empirical studies assessing the relationship between defendant’s race/ethnicity and sentence severity are discussed.

I focus on federal sentencing in terms of support or non-support of the theoretical perspectives.

Sentence disparity linked to defendant’s race/ethnicity are observed as net main effects, as a component in joint-conditioning effects with other extralegal defendant characteristics, and as a variable that conditions the effect of process-related mechanism of discretion, and legally relevant case characteristics, and as indirect effects.

Theories share substantial conceptual overlap in specifying the relationship between defendant’s race/ethnicity and predictions of the effect of defendant’s race/ethnicity on sentence severity.

This study aims to examine whether officers' perceptions of the probability of suffering informal sanctions mediate the relationship between formal sanction threats and attitudes toward misconduct. Most importantly, the study examines whether the potential mediating effect of informal sanction threats varies by the type of rank.

The current study utilizes data collected from a mail survey of 480 police officers over a period of six weeks from 20 police stations across two cities in South Korea.

Officers' fear of legal sanctions on the attitudes toward misconduct was entirely mediated by the fear of extralegal forms of punishment. However, this mediation effect was held only for the officers in supervisory positions.

Probing a moderated mediation between the type of rank and sanction threats on police integrity advances the literature by moving beyond simply exploring the additive effects of sanction threats and adds clarity to existing concerns about exactly how rank-related cultural differences matter.

Purpose – This study seeks to identify the factors that made Hurricane Katrina the worst disaster in American history. Although the inefficiency of the centralized government is often cited as the primary reason for failure in disaster mitigation and recovery, more fundamental reasons are left unexplored.

Design/methodology/approach – This study points out that comparative case analysis is inadequate to substantiate the claim that private actors are better responders to disaster than public agents. Instead, it takes a single case study approach of hurricane response in New Orleans. This method allows for two things: first, extending the temporal scope helps to understand that disaster management is not a single event but a cumulative result of the past responses. Second, one can trace the interplay between public and private agents rather than their separate reactions.

Findings – A series of legal conditions within the federalist framework have discouraged effective disaster management by the federal government. Using both legal and extralegal means, local actors tried to avoid the federal government's involvement in land use and building control that may prohibit local economic activities. Instead, the federal government was pressured into providing structural protection such as levee construction, which is costly yet ineffective in preventing a mega-disaster like Hurricane Katrina.

Originality/value of paper – This study warrants caution in conducting a comparative case analysis in evaluating the role of the federal government in disaster response and recovery. By conducting an in-depth case study of New Orleans hurricane response over the past 50 years, it reveals that the current government failure stems from structural and legal conditions rather than bureaucratic inefficiency.

This study examines the way the government of Kazakhstan confronted informal (squatter) settlements and their property in Almaty in 2006. It argues that the way the state handled the issue as part of a broader state economic strategy was neither appropriate for the aim of creating a functioning property market nor for advancing social justice and welfare. The analysis focuses on the attempted demolition of two informal settlements, Bakay and Shanyrak, and subsequent events, including (a) militant and political responses among the residents and their supporters, (b) the legalization campaign, and (c) the effects of the global credit crunch on construction and property market in Almaty. The goal here is to refine the claim to a connection between formal economy, state practice, and squatters' experiences.

Prior studies of criminal sentencing have largely focused on individual-level predictors of sentencing outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of a variety of theoretically derived community measurements of social threat and disadvantage on the criminal sentencing of convicted felons. This analysis permits an evaluation of whether legal ideals such as equality before the law and policy goals of equal treatment for like offenders are achieved.

The study examines data of individuals sentenced in the state of Florida and community level measurements of racial and ethnic threat and community disadvantage. Hierarchical generalized linear model is used to analyze the effect of these measures on the dichotomous in/out imprisonment variable, and standard hierarchical linear regression analysis is used to model the continuous dependent variable of sentence length.

The results provide support for the racial threat perspective though not for ethnic threat nor community disadvantage. The findings and their implications are discussed in terms of theory, research and policy.

Racial disparity in criminal justice practices is receiving increasing public and policy attention, as evidenced by the growing Black Lives Matter movement. Regarding sentencing, racial disparity remains a major research and policy question. While the current research and theoretical literature on sentencing is not conclusive, it is clear that race matters. As a result, racial disparity in sentencing needs to be a priority in subsequent “transitional criminology” efforts between researchers and policy makers to identify, explain and ultimately predict exactly how race impacts sentencing, and how to reduce it as a consideration from sentencing.

This study contributes to a growing body of literature that examines the social context of punishments by using several community level measurements of threat and disadvantage, while modeling the two-step sentencing outcome of imprisonment and sentence length.

Across the Americas, public discussions of crime and penal practices have become increasingly punitive even as political struggles have resulted in a broad shift toward Constitutional democracy. In this chapter, we suggest that the spread of tough anti-crime talk and practice is, paradoxically, a response to efforts to expand and deepen democracy. Punitive crime talk is useful to political actors seeking to limit formal and social citizenship rights for several reasons. First, it ostensibly targets problematic behavior rather than particular social groups, and thus appears to be consistent with democratic norms. At the same time, crime talk often acquires coded meanings that enable those who mobilize it to tap into inter-group hostility, anxieties, and fear. In addition, the emphasis on the threat of crime and disorder offers those seeking to limit democratic expansion a way to legitimate truncated visions of the rights and entitlements of citizenship. Tough anti-crime rhetoric often resonates with those who have experienced or fear the loss of symbolic and/or material benefits as a result of democratic reform. In short, the broad shift toward hyper-penality is, at least in part, a consequence of struggles over political democracy, citizenship and governance across the Americas.

The purpose of the paper is to shed light on Latino informal immigrant entrepreneurs within a specific border zone in South Texas. Three research questions inform this study: What is the demographic profile of the Latino informal immigrant entrepreneur? What is the occupational profile of the Latino informal immigrant entrepreneur? What is the business profile of the Latino informal immigrant entrepreneur?

In total, 198 Latino informal entrepreneurs in South Texas were interviewed, through a purposive sampling design, between 2005 and 2008.

The major findings establish a benchmark for Latino informal immigrant entrepreneurs.

The value of the research is the provision of empirical insights into an otherwise understudied population.

Recently a study on expectations was published. The researchers went to about 80 different countries and asked, “Do you trust other people?” When they asked this question in Norway, it turned out that about 65% of a region responded, “Yes, I do trust.” So the cultural theorists might come back and say, “Ah, see, trust.”

The results of the elections of July 2, 2000 that defeated the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) for the first time in history may open a new stage in the relations between trade unions and a state ridden with uncertainties. This is evidenced by the behavior of some of the main trade union leaders in Mexico after July 2: erratic behavior; attempts at alliances that would have been unthinkable in the past; and flirting with the presidency. It is the leadership, the strength of the confederations, which is at stake. The powerful may weaken and those who have been marginalized may enter the fray. Other actors, the workers, however, have remained in the background for years. Attention must be paid to them. For the workers, since the early 1980s, neoliberalism has meant reductions in wages and contract benefits, large personnel cut-backs, the disarticulation of the “old working class,” and the emergence of a “new working class” in the maquila. In other words, labor has been restructured in part through modernizing production.