Police researchers have long argued that favorable evaluations of the police eventually lead to citizens’ willingness to cooperate with the police. However, this assumption has barely been studied ...empirically. The current study examines the association between attitudes toward the police and crime reporting behavior of victims. Furthermore, the study explores the influence of victims’ characteristics on their decisions to report crime to the police. Using field data originally collected in Ghana, the study found that victims’ levels of confidence in the police and satisfaction with police work positively predict their decisions to report sexual assault and robbery to the police. Moreover, findings revealed that age, marital status, and employment status are important predictors of victims’ reporting behavior. Several practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.
Nanoparticle-based radiosensitization of cancerous cells is evolving as a favorable modality for enhancing radiotherapeutic ratio, and as an effective tool for increasing the outcome of concomitant ...chemoradiotherapy. Nevertheless, delivery of sufficient concentrations of nanoparticles (NPs) or nanoparticle-based radiosensitizers (NBRs) to the targeted tumor without or with limited systemic side effects on healthy tissues/organs remains a challenge that many investigators continue to explore. With current systemic intravenous delivery of a drug, even targeted nanoparticles with great prospect of reaching targeted distant tumor sites, only a portion of the administered NPs/drug dosage can reach the tumor, despite the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. The rest of the targeted NPs/drug remain in systemic circulation, resulting in systemic toxicity, which can decrease the general health of patients. However, the dose from ionizing radiation is generally delivered across normal tissues to the tumor cells (especially external beam radiotherapy), which limits dose escalation, making radiotherapy (RT) somewhat unsafe for some diseased sites despite the emerging development in RT equipment and technologies. Since radiation cannot discriminate healthy tissue from diseased tissue, the radiation doses delivered across healthy tissues (even with nanoparticles delivered via systemic administration) are likely to increase injury to normal tissues by accelerating DNA damage, thereby creating free radicals that can result in secondary tumors. As a result, other delivery routes, such as inhalation of nanoparticles (for lung cancers), localized delivery via intratumoral injection, and implants loaded with nanoparticles for local radiosensitization, have been studied. Herein, we review the current NP delivery techniques; precise systemic delivery (injection/infusion and inhalation), and localized delivery (intratumoral injection and local implants) of NBRs/NPs. The current challenges, opportunities, and future prospects for delivery of nanoparticle-based radiosensitizers are also discussed.
Using data obtained from multiple sources, with more than 40,000 individuals nested in 29 countries, a multilevel analysis was conducted to predict the effects of country-level variables on police ...legitimacy. Results from the unconditional analysis suggest that a significant variation in police legitimacy was at country level. Of the individual predictors included, being employed, being satisfied with democracy, and being an urban dweller showed positive relations with legitimacy. Police illegitimacy was high among the old, people with prior victimisation experience, and those who were fearful of crime. Among the country-level predictors, countries' level of democracy and peacefulness had significant relationship with legitimacy, whereas institutional corruption, impact of terrorism and rate of victimisation did not. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.
Fear of crime has been well studied; however, there has yet not been widespread consideration of the potential impact of both individual- and neighborhood-level factors on residents’ level of fear of ...crime. From a logistic-regression analytical standpoint, the present study empirically explores the contribution of several factors in explaining residents’ propensity for being fearful of crime. Precisely, the study tests the applicability and generalizability of three theoretical perspectives of fear of crime in the Ghanaian context and examines the effects of residents’ attitudes toward the police on their levels of fear of crime. Using large-scale cross-sectional data collected on more than 1,000 residents from 25 neighborhoods in Ghana, the results demonstrate significant predictive effects of both individual- and neighborhood-level factors on citizens’ rate of fearfulness. Findings from this study have both theoretical and practical implications, and provide important insights for the police to reduce levels of fear of crime in the community.
Some criminologists have focused on understanding the role of childhood experiences on an individual’s likelihood of offending during adulthood. Although research has consistently linked these two ...phenomena, little is known about the extent to which childhood victimization influences later criminal behavior. The current study analyzed self-reported data to examine the abused–abuser relationship in the context of intimate relationships. Specifically, the study examined the direct effects of victimization across three types of offending, and whether or not individual characteristics in such a relationship were significant mediators. Using a multivariate OLS regression, a significant relationship was observed between childhood victimization and adulthood offending. Likewise, results revealed that individual characteristics significantly mediated this relationship. Policy implications of these observations are discussed.
The purpose of this study is to examine factors affecting citizens' perceptions of police procedural fairness. More specifically, using data systematically collected from two large metropolitan areas ...in Ghana, the current study examines the independent contributions of three categories of factors - demographic factors, attitudinal factors, and experiential factors - on perceptions of fairness. An ordinal regression analysis conducted to assess the predictive effects of these variables indicates that citizens' assessments of police fairness are largely driven by their experiences with the police, views about police effectiveness, levels of trust in the police, and their own individual characteristics. These observations are noteworthy, and provide a platform for future research, policy formation, and continued debate about the utility of the procedural justice theory in policing.
An ongoing debate exists about the implications of recreational marijuana legalization to public safety. One important public concern is how recreational marijuana legalization may affect crime in ...neighboring states that have not legalized. Based on Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data from 2003 to 2017, this study used difference-in-differences (DID) analysis to examine the potential spillover effect of recreational marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington State, with a special focus on the examination of the changes in the rates of a variety of crimes in the border counties of neighboring states relative to the nonborder counties in these states following Colorado’s and Washington’s legalization. Results provide some evidence suggesting a spillover crime reduction effect of legalization, as reflected by the significant decreases in the rates of property crime, larceny, and simple assault in the Colorado region that includes six neighboring states. Results also suggest that the effects of marijuana legalization on crime in neighboring states vary based on crime type and state.
The current study’s primary goal was to assess the extent to which specific macro-level conditions cause variation in citizens’ levels of trust in courts across 33 African countries. Using an ...advanced analytical technique, results revealed that a country’s levels of democracy has a significant and positive relationship with citizens’ trust in the court. However, institutional corruption and crime (homicide rate) had significant and negative relationship with citizens’ trust in the court. Moreover, findings observed indicate that the relationship between macro-level factors and trust in the court is mediated by region of the country. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.
In this paper, we examine the antecedents of the sanctions of lashing and imprisonment for juveniles in Saudi Arabia.
The current study examined 437 court cases and files across several court systems ...in Saudi Arabia to determine the extent to which justice-involved youth are punished. The data were drawn from hundreds of court files and records received from several court systems in Saudi Arabia spanning 2010 to 2015.
We tested several predictor variables on sentence type, number of lashes, and prison length. We employed binary logistic regression to examine sentence type, while we employed negative binomial analysis to examine the second and third dependent variables, number of lashes and length of prison sentence, respectively.
We found that juveniles processed in juvenile court were more likely to receive more lenient sentences than juveniles tried in the general court system. In addition, older juveniles received harsher sentences (flogging and imprisonment) than younger juveniles (flogging or imprisonment), those who committed multiple offenses received more lashes than those who committed a single offense, and those who had both juvenile and adult criminal associates received more lashes than those who had only juvenile criminal associates. Moreover, the number of presiding judges influenced the severity of punishment: justice-involved youth who were tried by a single judge received fewer lashes than justice-involved youth who were tried by three or more judges. Lastly, justice-involved youth tried by a lone judge were less likely to be sentenced to a longer prison term than those tried by three or more judges. However, justice-involved youth tried by two judges received an even longer prison term than those tried by three or more judges.
About one-half of all rulings examined in the current study were presided over by a lone judge. While punishments imposed by lone judges were not as severe as those imposed by two judges or three or more judges, Saudi judges wield tremendous power over their fellow citizens, more so because there are no jury trials in the Kingdom. We therefore recommend that judicial training emphasize a “do no harm” principle in sentencing. Because a two-judge panel generally imposes a harsher sentence than a panel with three or more judges, we recommend an extensive examination of the country's prior judicial rulings presided over by two judges to understand why they are more likely to issue harsher sentences than lone judges or three- or four-judge panels. The findings would lead to the development of sentencing guidelines to curb arbitrary sentencing and reverse the generally unpredictable sentence lengths imposed on justice-involved youth.
The primary purpose of the present study is to examine the extent to which procedural justice and contacts with police influence people's assessments of their local police in post-colonial societies. ...Specifically, the study aimed to 1) determine whether favorable perceptions of procedural fairness predict individuals' willingness to accept the police as authority Fig. 2) assess the effects of two types of contacts – police-initiated and citizen-initiated contacts – on people's decision to view the police as legitimate and 3) assess the combine effect of fairness and contact on the likelihood of citizens voluntarily accepting their local police as authority figure in the community. Analyzing data systematically collected from two large metropolitan areas in Ghana, results demonstrate significant effects of procedural fairness and police-initiated contacts on citizens' propensity to consider the police as legitimate. Moreover, results further revealed an interactive effect on police legitimacy in Ghana.
•Perceived procedural fairness enhances police legitimacy.•Police-initiated contacts negatively influenced police legitimacy.•Citizen-initiated contact was unrelated to perception of legitimacy.
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