By blurring the boundary between art and financial assets, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have created regulatory ambiguity and criminogenic vulnerabilities in digital markets. The article applies the Howey Test to an original dataset of NFT-related cases that involve financial crime. As it turns out, functionally NFTs often resemble securities: they are characterized by information asymmetries, speculative dynamics, and weak oversight. These structural gaps make NFTs attractive to facilitate fraud, money laundering, wash trading, and nefarious exploitation on decentralized platforms and incidentally by way of traditional auction houses. NFTs highlight systemic limitations of analog regulatory frameworks to contain criminogenic risk posed by virtual assets. To enhance transparency, accountability, and consumer protection in evolving digital economies, the article concludes on a paradigm shift toward an adaptive, outcomes-based regulatory approach.
Punitive policy approaches toward individuals convicted of sexual offenses (ICSOs) remain popular despite limited evidence of their effectiveness. Science communicators face substantial challenges in shifting public opinion on these issues, and prior research suggests that advocating for less punitive but more effective policies can undermine perceived expert credibility. This study reports results from a survey experiment with U.S. adults examining whether experts’ use of empathetic in-group qualifiers mitigates credibility losses and increases belief in their claims. Bayesian structural equation models indicate no systematic effects of qualifier use on credibility or belief, underscoring persistent barriers to communicating about stigmatized justice populations.
Frontline-administrator misalignment in general evaluations of health can undermine efforts to improve correctional officer well-being. This study examined optimization bias in correctional leadership—administrators’ overestimation of officer well-being. Using paired surveys from ( n = 308) officers and ( n = 104) administrators, cross-role perceptions regarding relational access and well-being revealed disparities between both groups. For example, all administrators indicated staff could approach them when experiencing problems, whereas only 31.9% of officers felt the same. Administrators also rated staff physical health higher than officers. Additional discrepancies concerned health interventions, with administrators favoring communication-based programs, while officers emphasized structural conditions as conduits to improved well-being. Strategies to align these perceptual outcomes are proposed in light of these findings.
The objectives of this study were to analyze the prevalence of firearm safety training and secure gun storage practices among American gun owners. We used nationally-representative survey data to estimate the impact of previously untested predictors of secure firearm storage. Findings show that older gun owners, gun owners living in metropolitan statistical areas, and low-SES gun owners are less likely to use secure firearm storage methods. Gun owners who receive formal, informal, or both forms of safety training are more likely to store firearms securely than those who receive no training. Additionally, results indicate that state-level secure gun storage laws have little influence on gun owners’ use of mechanisms to securely store their firearms. Findings suggest that firearm safety training has a demonstrable impact on improving gun owners’ use of secure firearm storage mechanisms.
This study examines the relationship between community incarceration rates and medical debt in the United States using annual county-level data from 2012 to 2019. We account for stable and varying county-level dynamics through fixed effects regression models with controls for demographics, socioeconomic status, insurance coverage, health, and crime rates. Nationally, we find increased incarceration is associated with reduced median medical debt and has no effect on the share of the population with medical debt, but we find that these patterns vary by racial and ethnic composition. Non-white communities experience worsening medical debt as incarceration rises while white communities do not. Our results suggest incarceration has a complicated relationship with medical debt and is detrimental for communities of color.
