James Q. Wilson

INCENTIVE SYSTEMS: A THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONS

Organizations distribute incentives to individuals in order to induce them to contribute activity. Aspects of organizational behavior and change are explained by exploring the differing consequences of different incentive systems. Three types of organizations are distinguished on the basis of three kinds of incentives: material, solidary, and purposive. Hypotheses are presented about the characteristic behavior of these types, and the correspondence between the types and certain actual organizations is shown. Changes in organizational activities and purposes are predicted by assuming that the executives function is to perpetuate his group, and by assuming that he alters incentives to adapt to changes in the supplies of incentive-yielding resources. Co-operation, conflict, and other relationships among organizations are explained in terms of competition for autonomy and resources. It is suggested that gradual changes of personal motives within a society have predictable consequences for the character of organizations. Peter B. Clark is assistant professor of political science, Yale University; James Q. Wilson is assistant professor of political science, University of Chicago.

Drugs and Crime

Crime And Justice was founded in 1979 to treat important developments in the study of the criminal justice system. In order to achieve broad coverage, this distinguished series of commissioned essays encompasses topics both within and outside of the accepted core of research on crime and justice, including legal, psychological, biological, sociological, historical, and ethical consideration.

Crime and public policy

1. Introduction, James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia 2. Crime in International Perspective, James P. Lynch and William Alex Pridemore 3. Crime and Biology, Terrie E. Moffitt, Stephen Ross, and Adrian Raine 4. Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice, Peter W. Greenwood & Susan Turner 5. Families and Crime, David P. Farrington 6. Street Gangs: How Research Can Inform Policy, Cheryl Maxson 7. Labor Markets and Crime, Shawn D. Bushway 8. The Community, Robert J. Sampson 9. Race and the Administration of Criminal Justice in the United States, Randall Kennedy 10. Gun Control, Philip J. Cook, Anthony A. Braga, and Mark H. Moore 11. Rehabilitation and Treatment Programs, Francis T. Cullen and Cheryl Lero Jonson 12. Sex Offenders and Sex Offender Policy, Eric Beauregard and Roxanne Lieb 13. Drugs, Crime, and Public Policy, David A. Boyum, Jonathan P. Caulkins, and Mark A. R. Kleiman 14. General Deterrence: A Review of Recent Evidence, Robert Apel and Daniel S. Nagin 15. Prosecution, Brian Forst 16. Sentencing, Kevin R. Reitz 17. Community Corrections: Probation, Parole, and Prisoner Reentry, Joan Petersilia 18. Prisons, Anne Morrison Piehl and Bert Useem 19. Changing Crime Rates, Richard Rosenfeld 20. Democratic Policing on the Evidence, Lawrence W. Sherman 21. Crime and Public Policy, James Q. Wilson Notes and References Index

Public-Regardingness as a Value Premise in Voting Behavior.

Our concern here is with the nature of the individuals attachment to the body politic and, more particularly, with the value premises underlying the choices made by certain classes of voters. Our hypothesis is that some classes of voters (provisionally defined as “subcultures” constituted on ethnic and income lines) are more disposed than others to rest their choices on some conception of “the public interest” or the “welfare of the community.” To say the same thing in another way, the voting behavior of some classes tends to be more public-regarding and less private- (self- or family-) regarding than that of others. To test this hypothesis it is necessary to examine voting behavior in situations where one can say that a certain vote could not have been private-regarding. Local bond and other expenditure referenda present such situations: it is sometimes possible to say that a vote in favor of a particular expenditure proposal is incompatible with a certain voters self-interest narrowly conceived. If the voter nevertheless casts such a vote and if there is evidence that his vote was not in some sense irrational or accidental, then it must be presumed that his action was based on some conception of “the public interest.”

A single-chip CMOS transceiver for 802.11a/b/g wireless LANs

A dual-band trimode radio fully compliant with the IEEE 802.11a, b, and g standards is implemented in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process and packaged in a 48-pin QFN package. The transceiver achieves a receiver noise figure of 4.9/5.6 dB for the 2.4-GHz/5-GHz bands, respectively, and a transmit error vector magnitude (EVM) of 2.5% for both bands. The transmit output power is digitally controlled, allowing per-packet power control as required by the forthcoming 802.11 h standard. A quadrature accuracy of 0.3/spl deg/ in phase and 0.05 dB in amplitude is achieved through careful analysis and design of the I/Q generation parts of the local oscillator. The local oscillators achieve a total integrated phase noise of better than -34 dBc. Compatibility with multiple baseband chips is ensured by flexible interfaces toward the A/D and D/A converters, as well as a calibration scheme not requiring any baseband support. The chip passes /spl plusmn/2 kV human body model ESD testing on all pins, including the RF pins. The total die area is 12 mm/sup 2/. The power consumption is 207 mW in the receive mode and 247 mW in the transmit mode using a 1.8-V supply.

A Longitudinal Study of the Effect of Race on Sentencing

Data covering a ten-year period in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are used to estimate the effect of race and other variables on sentences given to persons charged with armed robbery and burglary. Longitudinal data, coupled with interviews of participants, are used to overcome problems of sample selection bias usually associated with cross-sectional studies of the determinants of sentencing. The research shows that race had a clear effect on both the decision to imprison and the length of prison terms in the earliest period (1967-1968) but not in the two later periods (1971-1972 and 1976-1977). The racial neutrality of sentencing in the later periods appears to be the result of changes in the composition of the judiciary, a greater bureaucratization of the prosecutorial and defense bar, and the rise of decision rules that reduce the effect of judicial ideology on outcomes.

Transglutaminases in mammalian reproductive tissues and fluids: relation to polyamine metabolism and semen coagulation

Unique forms of transglutaminases were found in rat coagulating (anterior prostate) gland and its secretion, and also in dorsolateral prostate but not in the ventral lobe of the gland. These forms of transglutaminases were especially reactive with saline-soluble seminal vesicle secretion proteins and their N,N-dimethylated derivatives as compared with N,N-dimethylcasein as amine acceptor protein substrates, and are electrophoretically separable from both the transglutaminase of rat liver and thrombin-activated Factor XIII of the blood clotting system. Transglutaminases of the type found in coagulating gland and dorsolateral prostate appear to be absent from a large number of other organs in the male rat, and also from the uterus, ovary, vagina, of virgin females and from ovary and the maternal and fetal parts of the placenta of late pregnancy. Studies on the role of coagulating gland transglutaminase in the clotting of seminal vesicle secretion protein that is the basis of semen coagulation are discussed. The aliphatic amines putrescine, spermidine and spermine are among the most active of low molecular weight primary amine compounds in rat tissues in serving as amine acceptor substrates for coagulating gland transglutaminases. Putrescine and related polyamines are incorporated into vesicular secretion proteins in the form of peptide bound γ-glutamyl derivatives, the free primary amine groups of which can then further react with other polypeptide-bound glutamine residues to form bis-(γ-glutamyl)polyamine cross-bridges in transglutaminase-catalyzed reactions.

Political Ethos Revisited

An effort to test the existence and correlates of the “unitarist” and “individualist” political ethos (first discussed in City Politics under the labels “middle-class Anglo-Saxon ethos” and “immigrant ethos”) in a sample of 1,059 mostly male Boston homeowners reveals that about one fifth of the respondents have one or the other ethos when defined by two sets of attitudes and about one eighth have one or the other when defined by three sets of attitudes. In general, the respondents displaying each attitude or two or more attitudes in the predicted combinations have the predicted ethnic, religious, income, and educational attributes. Jewish voters, however, are less likely than predicted to have the good government attitude, whereas Irish and Polish respondents are more likely to have it. Upper-income Yankees were strongly unitarist as defined by all three attitudes.

Reinventing Public Administration

This award has a special meaning for me. When I was an undergraduate the University of Redlands and later a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I took courses on public administration. They had the same soporific effect on me as a speech by the vice-president. Any vice-president. I resolved early that I would be willing to teach or study almost any subject except public administration. I was reinforced in

The strategy of protest: problems of negro civic action

The logical and empirical elements of bargaining are receiving increased attention as the effort proceeds to fashion an analytical tool useful for better understanding the nature of controversy. In many of these discussions, the focus has been on those who enter into the bargaining relationship out of either necessity or hope of gain (4, 9). The notion of bargaining is simplified if one assumes that the need for or desirability of bargaining is given. This is the case when two businessmen, for example, seek goals which are partially incompatible but individually attractive. Each stands to gain if his end can be realized, and to realize it he must deal with the other fellow. There is, in short, an inducement for each to bargain. Equally interesting is the situation in which one party seeks a goal which it can realize without obtaining concessions from a second party. The second party opposes the realization of that goal, but has nothing which the first party needs or wants, and hence finds it difficult to place itself in a position in which the first party must bargain. This might be called the problem of the powerless. It arises, for example, when a disfranchised group seeks a law giving it the right to vote but, lacking the vote, has difficulty recruiting lawmakers who will support its cause. The most important group today which must act from a position of near powerlessness is the Negro. This article will (a) sketch some of the logical elements involved in attempts by the powerless to wield power, (b) relate these elements to certain empirical factors characteristic of the Negro in large Northern cities, and (c) describe the consequences of this situation as revealed by issues implicating Negro interests which were studied in Chicago.