The Social Context of Police Lying

This is an analysis of the social context of normal police lies. We define lies as speech acts which the speaker knows are misleading or false, are intended to deceive, and where evidence to the contrary is known to the observer. Lies are relative to a moral context, and what an audience will accept. Lies include excuses, which deny full responsibility for an act, but acknowledge its immorality, and justifications, which accept responsibility but deny blame-worthiness. Police learn to lie and to carefully distinguish normal (or acceptable) lies from unacceptable lies, suggesting that lies are a part of a negotiated occupational order. We show how and why some types of lies are rewarded by police using ethnographic data from an 18 month field study of a large urban force. Lies can be of little issue, or become troublesome. We report and analyze two kinds of troublesome lies: case lies, recognized stories an officer utilizes in a courtroom or on paper to facilitate the conviction of a suspect, and cover stories, lies an officer tells in court, to supervisors, and on the job with the aim of providing a verbal shield or mitigation in the event of discipline. Both excuses and justifications are woven together in these vignettes. An example of a refusal to lie is used to illustrate some of the limits on lying as well organizational factors in lying. Some implications for official lying are also noted.     

‘It's their word against mine’: young people's attitudes to the police complaints procedure in Northern Ireland

One of the central aims of the police reform process in Northern Ireland has been to increase the legitimacy of the policing structures and police officers amongst those who are served and policed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). To meet this aim, structures have been created to ensure that the PSNI is accountable to all sections of the community for its strategy and performance, and in monitoring the attitudes and behaviour of its officers. To that end, the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI), the Northern Ireland Policing Board and 26 District Policing Partnerships have been created. This paper aims to break ground by looking in some detail at young people's attitudes to and experiences of the workings of one of those new bodies, the Police Ombudsman, and to explore issues related to young people's willingness to engage with the PONI.     

Care of the Elderly—A Project,a Protest,a Survey and a Plan

Rehousing of elderly people in Australia has generally not been preceded by research into the kind of assistance that is necessary. An example is given of how an attempt was made to discover the needs of the elderly disabled in a small country community. Assessment by observation of people at home revealed the need for assistance for them to stay where they were. Home Care organized from the district hospital is often a more appropriate answer to this problem than the building of expensive and unnecessary institutions.     

Sign Restrictions,Structural Vector Autoregressions,and Useful Prior Information

This paper makes the following original contributions to the literature. (i) We develop a simpler analytical characterization and numerical algorithm for Bayesian inference in structural vector autoregressions (VARs) that can be used for models that are overidentified, just‐identified, or underidentified. (ii) We analyze the asymptotic properties of Bayesian inference and show that in the underidentified case, the asymptotic posterior distribution of contemporaneous coefficients in an n‐variable VAR is confined to the set of values that orthogonalize the population variance–covariance matrix of ordinary least squares residuals, with the height of the posterior proportional to the height of the prior at any point within that set. For example, in a bivariate VAR for supply and demand identified solely by sign restrictions, if the population correlation between the VAR residuals is positive, then even if one has available an infinite sample of data, any inference about the demand elasticity is coming exclusively from the prior distribution. (iii) We provide analytical characterizations of the informative prior distributions for impulse‐response functions that are implicit in the traditional sign‐restriction approach to VARs, and we note, as a special case of result (ii), that the influence of these priors does not vanish asymptotically. (iv) We illustrate how Bayesian inference with informative priors can be both a strict generalization and an unambiguous improvement over frequentist inference in just‐identified models. (v) We propose that researchers need to explicitly acknowledge and defend the role of prior beliefs in influencing structural conclusions and we illustrate how this could be done using a simple model of the U.S. labor market.     

An Examination of How Supervisors Influence Their Subordinates to Engage in Environmental Behaviors

Employee engagement in environmental behaviors is an important topic in operations management. Drawing upon stakeholder, commitment, and organizational support theories, this study creates and tests an empirical model of how store managers (i.e., supervisors) influence their direct reports (i.e., subordinates) to become engaged in environmental behaviors. Based on a dataset derived from supervisors and their subordinates who are employed at the same grocery store location across a large retail grocery chain, we test our study's nomological model and find support for the linkages proposed. Key research and managerial implications are discussed.     

Keep Your Friends Close? Supply Chain Design and Disruption Risk

In this article, we evaluate the relationship between supply chain design decisions and supply chain disruption risk. We explore two supply chain design strategies: (i) the dispersion of supply chain partners to reduce supply chain disruption risk versus (ii) the co‐location of supply chain partners to reduce supply chain disruption risk. In addition, we assess supply chain disruption risk from three perspectives: the inbound material flow from the supplier (supply side), the internal production processes (internal), and the outbound material flow to the customer (customer side) as a disruption can occur at any of these locations. We measure disruption risk in terms of stoppages in flows, reductions in flow, close calls (disruptions that were prevented at the last minute), disruption duration (time until normal operation flow was restored), and the spread of disruptions all the way through the supply chain. We use seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) to analyze our data, finding that lead times, especially supply side lead times, are significantly associated with higher levels of supply chain disruption risk. We find co‐location with suppliers appears to have beneficial effects to the reduction of disruption duration, and, overall supply side factors have a higher impact when it comes to supply chain disruption risk than comparable customer side factors.     

Eminent Social Scientists’ Views on Immigration Issues: 1985 and 2006

Following up on a research note by Stephen Moore published in 1985, this article compares the results of the survey conducted in 1985 against one carried out in 2006 on the views of eminent social scientists (economists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, historians and anthropologists) on immigration issues. Specifically, the surveys report on whether the respondents are likely to favor an increase in the number of immigrants who are allowed into the United States and other issues such as whether immigrants improve the economy.

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Contraceptive use patterns within females' first sexual relationships: the role of relationships, partners, and methods

This study used the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to assess whether characteristics of females' sexual partners, relationships, and choice of contraceptive methods were associated with contraceptive use patterns within their first sexual relationship. White, black, and Hispanic females under age 25 (N=915) provided retrospective information on sexual activity and contraceptive use for first sexual relationships that occurred between 1991 and 1995. Females with older sexual partners and with same race/ethnicity partners (among Hispanics) had reduced odds of ever using contraception and/or uninterrupted use. Longer sexual relationships were associated with higher odds of ever using contraception but lower odds of uninterrupted use. Females who were older at first sex, who used hormonal methods (among whites), or who switched to more effective methods during their first sexual relationships had higher odds of ever using contraception and/or uninterrupted use. In contrast, switching to less effective methods during a first sexual relationship was associated with reduced odds of uninterrupted use.     

Passing Encounters East and West: Comparing Japanese and American Pedestrian Interactions

This study examined the microinteractions of pedestrians in Japan and in the United States as they walked past a confederate. Specifically, the effects of culture, condition (avoid, look-only, and look plus smile) and sex of confederate on glances, smiles, nods, and greetings by passing pedestrians were examined in a field study on over 1000 participants. The hypotheses of (1) lower responsiveness in Japanese pedestrians than in American pedestrians and (2) increased responsiveness as a function of condition were supported in a series of log-linear analyses of pedestrian glances, smiles, nods, and greetings. Both of these main effects were, however, qualified by Culture X Condition interactions on smiles, nods, and greetings, with the large condition effects present in the American pedestrians, but absent in the Japanese pedestrians. The results are discussed in terms of the functions of glances, smiles, nods, and greetings in these brief encounters and how differing cultural norms affect Japanese and American responsiveness. Finally, the limitations of this study and the broader utility of this research paradigm are discussed.

Gambling Behavior of Student-Athletes and a Student Cohort: What are the Odds?

This study investigated the prevalence of gambling, gambling related NCAA violations, and disordered gambling in student-athletes (n = 736) with a comparison cohort of students (n = 1,071) at four universities. Student-athletes reported similar rates of gambling frequency, use of a bookmaker, and disordered gambling as students. After accounting for demographic differences, student-athletes were less likely to engage in sports wagering than students. Several risk factors for disordered gambling were identified, including being male and reporting at least one parent with a history of gambling problems. These findings suggest that problems associated with gambling are a university-wide issue with student-athletes meriting additional attention because of implications for the integrity of intercollegiate sports. Improved prevention and intervention efforts for collegiate gambling are recommended.