Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12197
Georg Wenzelburger, Pascal D. König
{"title":"The liberal dream of smart detention? Algorithms and the politics of pretrial detention in the US states","authors":"Georg Wenzelburger, Pascal D. König","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12197","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lapo.12197","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the 2000s and 2010s, US states have seen an important wave of change in criminal justice policies toward a “smart on crime” approach. In this context, several states have rolled out algorithmic risk assessment tools for statewide use in pretrial decisions, whereas some others have not, and still others are moving back from using such tools again. The present article examines the explanations for this variance. To this end, it tests competing expectations about the role of functional pressures, including fiscal strain and the party-political balance of power. The findings show that functional pressures, policy diffusion, and politics affect the likelihood that algorithmic tools will be used in criminal justice. Democratic control of both the state executive and legislative branches increases the likelihood that a state will use these tools, indicating that Republicans are reluctant to leave the “tough on crime” paradigm behind and to advance the “smart on crime” approach.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 4","pages":"325-347"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lapo.12197","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114059727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-09-08DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12196
Daanika Gordon, Anthony Davis-Pait
{"title":"Police redistricting reforms and urban governance","authors":"Daanika Gordon, Anthony Davis-Pait","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12196","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lapo.12196","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Police redistricting reforms are surprisingly understudied. While many understand redistricting in other realms as a mechanism of social inclusion and exclusion, police redistricting is often overlooked as merely technocratic. We argue that, in fact, police redistricting reforms are substantively and theoretically important because they articulate urban policy amid the pressures of neoliberal governance. Redistricting defines the functions and activities of the police, responds to political and economic pressures, and redistributes resources across racial spaces. To illustrate, we analyze publicly available materials describing 43 police redistricting reforms in 35 major cities in the United States. We find in these reforms an enduring emphasis on the role of the police as emergency service providers. Urban austerity and growth politics inflect redistricting and impact the distribution of police service across the city. While redistricting can theoretically result in more equitable policing, it can also amplify racial inequities by triaging resources toward downtowns and predominantly white neighborhoods, at the expense of police response in communities of color. We call for more attention to police redistricting as an arena of urban governance.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 4","pages":"302-324"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122628574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12195
Jonas Lund-Tønnesen
{"title":"Regulating emerging technology in times of crisis: Digital contact tracing in Norway during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Jonas Lund-Tønnesen","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12195","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lapo.12195","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In times of crisis, emerging technology can pose major challenges for regulators. They must deal with great uncertainty and urgency related to both the crisis and the technology. To understand such situations, this article studies the revelatory case of privacy regulation of a contact-tracing application called Smittestopp, created in Norway during the COVID-19 crisis. Based on public and organizational documents and 48 interviews, the analysis shows that the Norwegian Data Protection Authority faced several options for regulatory intervention throughout the crisis, and adapted its approach based on intra-crisis experience, regulatees' responses, and different levels of uncertainty and urgency. Building on these findings, the study formulates propositions regarding the regulation of emerging technology during a crisis and regulatory agencies' use of rule-based, idea-based, and norm-based interventions. This study provides insight into how these three types of intervention relate to different aspects of a crisis situation. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of idea-based intervention as a key site of analysis in studying technology that emerges during a crisis.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 3","pages":"278-298"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9353367/pdf/LAPO-9999-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40598115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-07-16DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12194
Nicole Bedera
{"title":"The illusion of choice: Organizational dependency and the neutralization of university sexual assault complaints","authors":"Nicole Bedera","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12194","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12194","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In response to new regulations, universities have created multiple options for managing sexual misconduct complaints. These options are described as maximizing survivors' autonomy through feminist paradigms of choice. This study uses data from ethnographic observation and 76 interviews with survivors, perpetrators, and administrators to examine whether providing options gave survivors control over their complaints. The findings indicate that survivors found the complicated and vague sexual misconduct policies overwhelming and confusing. As a result, they became dependent on university actors in decision-making, giving the university more control over survivors' complaints as institutional actors guided survivors to options that required minimal university action.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 3","pages":"208-229"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lapo.12194","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91912967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12193
Juan R. Sandoval, Sarah E. Lageson
{"title":"Patchwork disclosure: Divergent public access and personal privacy across criminal record disclosure policy in the United States","authors":"Juan R. Sandoval, Sarah E. Lageson","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12193","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Scholars have paid minimal attention to state statutory guidance that allows criminal justice agencies to disclose records that contain personal information about arrestees, defendants, and incarcerated people. We analyze US state policy for police, courts, prisons, and record repositories (<i>N</i> = 200). Most states restrict access to compiled criminal histories, but nearly all allow broad public access to agency records. Divergent policy guidance accounts for these differences, where transparency laws govern agency records while state criminal codes regulate records of arrest and prosecution, otherwise known as RAP sheets. These policy differences contribute to widespread disclosures of non-conviction records, raising questions about due process and inequality in the big data age.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 3","pages":"255-277"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90131776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-05-26DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12192
Hillary Mellinger
{"title":"Interpretation at the Asylum Office","authors":"Hillary Mellinger","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12192","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The United States requires asylum applicants to bring their own interpreters to the Asylum Office. However, asylum officers have discretion to provide interpreters in extraordinary circumstances. When do asylum officers exercise this discretion? Is it exercised uniformly? How do interpreters affect interview dynamics? To explore these questions, I conducted 28 attorney interviews. Interviewees reported that asylum officers inconsistently exercised discretion and provided unaccompanied children with interpreters more often than adults. Interviewees noted that some bilingual officers conducted interviews in a language other than English, and some interpreters exacerbated communication challenges. Since the Asylum Office does not collect interpretation data, this study provides a glimpse into interpretation challenges.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 3","pages":"230-254"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lapo.12192","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91874425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-04-22DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12187
Elizabeth A. Hoffmann, Elizabeth R. Hoffman
{"title":"Law, compliance, and variation: Proximity and preferences regarding workplace lactation accommodations","authors":"Elizabeth A. Hoffmann, Elizabeth R. Hoffman","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12187","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lapo.12187","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Federal law mandates that employers accommodate lactating workers who wish to express breast milk at work. Lactation's physical demands set lactating employees apart from their coworkers, as lactation requires regular breaks and private rooms to express milk. Although longer breaks and convenient lactation accommodations make for more successful workplace milk expression, many lactating workers lack one or both. During their lactation breaks, some lactating workers wish to maintain workplace productivity, while others seek to relax and reconnect with their nurslings. Although the law mandates basic lactation accommodations, additional consideration must be given to location as well as to the preferences of lactating employees.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 2","pages":"128-143"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lapo.12187","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131416772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Law & PolicyPub Date : 2022-04-06DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12186
Maxwell Mak, Andrew H. Sidman
{"title":"The Voting Rights Act and the curious case of three-judge district court panels","authors":"Maxwell Mak, Andrew H. Sidman","doi":"10.1111/lapo.12186","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lapo.12186","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A major avenue through which Voting Rights Act (VRA) cases are adjudicated is three-judge district court panels. These panels mix district and circuit court judges and exist in federal law to force certain important legal questions to be decided in a multimember environment. Using an original dataset of VRA cases decided by three-judge district court panels, we find that these panels do not operate as intended. We find that the circuit court judges on these panels vote their own preferences consistently, unmoved by strategic or collegial considerations. District court judges, on the other hand, appear to defer to their circuit court brethren.</p>","PeriodicalId":47050,"journal":{"name":"Law & Policy","volume":"44 2","pages":"185-203"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133533562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}