非法经营同类营业罪的立案与查处

非法经营同类营业罪是我国刑法中涉及经济犯罪问题的重要内容之一。从非法经营同类营业罪的含义和特征入手,通过对此罪的行为发生的审查和对关联事项审查确定了立案环节的关键及对证据内容和各项证据设计,为非法经营同类营业罪的侦查策略和侦查途径的选择提供了基础,也为此类犯罪案件的查处提供了保障。     

The Prevalence and Types of Gambling Among Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in New York City

Objectives To examine the prevalence of gambling and types of gambling activities in a sample of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Design Non-probability cross-sectional design. Setting New York City. Sample The 431 respondents ranged in age from 18 to 80 (mean age 32), 69.7% were male. Results More than half (53.8%) reported gambling in their lifetime and of those most (43.9%) played scratch and win tickets or the lottery. In multivariate analyses men reported gambling more than women [2.13, 95% CI = (1.03, 4.38)]. The odds of gambling in their lifetime were higher among those reporting sending money to family or friends in the home country [2.65, 95% CI = 1.10, 6.38)], and those who reported 1–5 days as compared to no days of poor mental health in the past 30 days [2.44, 95% CI = 1.22, 4.89)]. Conversely, those who reported entering the U.S. to live after 1996 were less likely to report gambling [0.44, 95% CI = (0.22, 0.89)] as compared to those who had lived in the U.S. longer. Conclusion There is a need to further explore both the prevalence and the severity of gambling amongst the growing population of undocumented Mexican immigrants in the U.S.     

气候变化背景下荒漠草原牧民退牧意愿及其影响因素分析--以张掖市平山湖乡为例

近年来,气候变化对自然生态环境造成了极大破坏,特别是对原本生态环境脆弱,自然灾害频发的荒漠草原更是雪上加霜,严重影响了牧民的生产生活。只有鼓励更多牧民参与退牧还草项目,才能促使当地经济快速发展。基于此,本文利用甘肃省张掖市平山湖乡全乡牧民的调查数据,首先采用Logistic回归模型分析牧民退牧意愿的影响因素,然后运用解释结构模型分析各影响因素之间的关系。研究表明：牧民受教育程度、家庭拥有的饲草地面积、牧民对气候变化的认知、牧民对草原荒漠化的认知、牧民对退牧补贴政策的认知,对牧民退牧意愿呈现出正向影响,而家庭拥有的羊只数量对牧民退牧意愿呈现出负向影响,牧民年龄和外出务工率对牧民退牧意愿影响不显著。其中,文化程度、羊只数量、饲草地面积是深层原因;对退牧补贴政策的认知和对草原荒漠化的认知是间接原因;对气候变化的认知是直接原因。     

Multilevel determinants of collaboration between organised criminal groups

Collaboration between members of different criminal groups is an important feature of crime that is considered organised, as it allows criminals to access resources and skills in order to exploit illicit economic opportunities. Collaboration across criminal groups is also difficult and risky due to the lack of institutions supporting peaceful cooperation in illicit markets. Thus cross-group collaboration has been thought to take place mostly among small and transient groups. This paper determines whether and under what conditions members of different, larger organised crime groups collaborate with one another. To do so we use intelligence data from the Canadian province of Alberta, centering on criminals and criminal groups engaged in multiple crime types in multiple geographic locations. We apply a multilevel network analytical framework and exponential random graph models using Bayesian techniques to uncover the determinants of cross-group criminal collaboration. We find cross-group collaboration depends not only on co-location, but also on the types of groups to which the criminals are affiliated, and on illicit market overlap between groups. When groups are operating in the same geographically-situated illicit markets their members tend not to collaborate with one another, providing evidence for the difficulty or undesirability of cross-group collaboration in illicit markets. Conversely, members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are more likely to collaborate across groups when markets overlap, suggesting the superior capacity and motivation of biker gangs to coordinate criminal activity. Our paper contributes to the understanding of criminal networks as complex, emergent, and spatially embedded market phenomena.     

Migration and stratification

Migration and stratification are increasingly intertwined. One day soon it will be impossible to understand one without the other. Both focus on life chances. Stratification is about differential life chances - who gets what and why - and migration is about improving life chances - getting more of the good things of life. To examine the interconnections of migration and stratification, we address a mix of old and new questions, carrying out analyses newly enabled by a unique new data set on recent legal immigrants to the United States (the New Immigrant Survey). We look at immigrant processing and lost documents, depression due to the visa process, presentation of self, the race-ethnic composition of an immigrant cohort (made possible by the data for the first time since 1961), black immigration from Africa and the Americas, skin color diversity among couples formed by US citizen sponsors and immigrant spouses, and English fluency among children age 8-12 and their immigrant parents. We find, inter alia, that children of previously illegal parents are especially more likely to be fluent in English, that native-born US citizen women tend to marry darker, that immigrant applicants who go through the visa process while already in the United States are more likely to have their documents lost and to suffer visa depression, and that immigration, by introducing accomplished black immigrants from Africa (notably via the visa lottery), threatens to overturn racial and skin color associations with skill. Our analyses show the mutual embeddedness of migration and stratification in the unfolding of the immigrants’ and their children’s life chances and the impacts on the stratification structure of the United States.     

Modelling interactions among offenders: A latent space approach for interdependent ego-networks

Illegal markets are notoriously difficult to study. Police data offer an increasingly exploited source of evidence. However, their secondary nature poses challenges for researchers. A key issue is that researchers often have to deal with two sets of actors: targeted and non-targeted. This work develops a latent space model for interdependent ego-networks purposely created to deal with the targeted nature of police evidence. By treating targeted offenders as egos and their contacts as alters, the model (a) leverages on the full information available and (b) mirrors the specificity of the data collection strategy. The paper then applies this approach to analyse a real-world example of illegal markets, namely the smuggling of migrants. To this end, we utilise a novel dataset of 21,555 phone conversations wiretapped by the police to study interactions among offenders.     

Effect of railway safety education on the safety knowledge and behaviour intention of schoolchildren

This study was designed to evaluate whether railway safety lessons are effective in increasing schoolchildren's safety knowledge and behaviour intention. The railway safety education in schools included a 45-min lesson on safe behaviour in a railway environment directed at 8–11 year old schoolchildren. The lessons were held in four schools located near railway lines in Finland. The effectiveness of this measure was evaluated based on a short survey directed at pupils before the lesson (base level) and around 2–3 months later (post-lesson) based on three variables which are considered as strong determinants of actual behaviour: behaviour intention, estimated dangerousness of the behaviour, and level of knowledge on the legality of the behaviour. The results show that the change in the share of correct answers was positive regarding all questions except for one question in which the difference was not significant. Based on this we can reasonably assume that railway safety education in schools can have a positive effect for all the measured variables, although the effect is not necessarily large. The results indicate that these positive changes can have a positive effect on the frequency of trespassing (i.e. fewer unsafe crossings in the future). We can further assume that reduction in the frequency of trespassing would reduce the frequency of trespassing accidents.     

Welfare effects of illegal immigration

This paper analyzes the welfare effect of illegal immigration on the host country within a dynamic general equilibrium framework and shows that it is positive for two reasons. First, immigrants are paid less than their marginal product, and second, after an increase in immigration, domestic households find it optimal to increase their holdings of capital. It is also shown that dynamic inefficiency may arise, despite the fact that the model is of the Ramsey type. Nevertheless, the introduction of a minimum wage, which leads to job competition between domestic unskilled workers and immigrants reverses all of the above results.

对非法证据排除规则的认识误区

确立非法证据排除规则,首先需要对该规则本身有一个正确的认识,这是保证建构非法证据排除规则的前提。目前我国对非法证据排除规则存在三个方面的认识误区:一是把求真作为建立非法证据排除规则的价值基础;二是对制约该规则有效实施的条件的重要性认识不足;三是对“毒树”与“毒树之果”的关系缺乏正确认识。     

试论侵占罪的客观要件

侵占罪是97刑法中新增设的一种侵犯财产犯罪,对这一新罪名的理论研究相对较少,也缺少相关的司法解释,因而在法律适用的过程中常会遇到一些问题,本文拟就该罪的客观要件,即行为人将他人财物非法占为己有、数额较大、拒不退还等相关情况作浅显分析,以求教于同仁。