Robert H. Giles, Jr.

A 2-phase procedure for scaling the importance of enforcement objectives and developing seriousness scores for violations of wildlife and natural resource laws is presented. During the first phase, 6 first-order wildlife law enforcement objectives were developed by the authors anil submitted to enforcement personnel of the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries for pair,ed comparisons scaling. An interval scale of importance was established for the 6 objectives. Responses from a sample of 10 individuals indicated that enforcement personnel were consistent when making paired...

An ll-question wildlife law enforcement objectives questionnaire was mailed to all state enforcement divisions during January 1977. Five follow-up reminders mailed at approximately 2-wk. intervals resulted in the return ofquestionnaires from 45 divisions. Twenty-seven of 45 states reported having explicit, written objectives; 7 ofthe 18 states without objectives reported they did not anticipate formulating objectives. Fifteen of the 27 states reporting objectives also reported having 1 or more objectives with associated measurement criteria. Eight of the 15 states reporting 1 or more...

MQnetary fines have been routinely assessed wildlife law violators for almost 2 centuries in the United States. Due to the humanizing of statutory law, sanctions for wildlife law violations have progressed from mutilation and deportation to monetary fines and short-term confinement. Misdemeanor case material compiled in recent years suggests that sanctions may have some deterrent effectwhen the certainty ofimposition is reasonably high. It is suggested that most wildlife law transgressions be referred to as "violations" and not "crimes." The ability to make conceptually feasible and...

A methodology for deciding how to deploy law enforcement personnel is proposed. A workload model is used. The methodology is consistent with the concept of management by objectives (MBO) and could serve as a focal point for achieving improved effectiveness in an enforcement division. Use of this model may require the creation of a statewide information system describing the geographical distribution of wildlife agent workload. Although primarily envisioned as an administrative decision aid at the statewide scale, the workload model could be integrated into deployment planning at the...

The Southeastern Wildlife Law Enforcement Research Project was initiated in 1976 by cooperative efforts and funding among Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the Wildlife Management Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Wildlife Federation, and the wildlife agencies of Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Progress has included staffing, problem analysis, two publications, massive data collection, and initiation of two projects on agent allocation and crimeload prediction. Minor problems encountered are discussed, studies on agent...

A computer-based educationallloit for university and inservice education is described. Students make selections from pre-punched decision cards and present these for computer analyses. They receive a printed output enabling them to improve their "play" orthe game. The units require management of deer in a southeastern U. S. county producing soybeans. The objective is to stabilize the deer population and minimize crop losses. Hunt I is a unit employed independently of past uses. After five uses ofl, students are encouraged to use Hunt II which requires correcting past mistakes as well...

A technique is presented (or delineating regions for improved deer management and planning. A G-value algorithm which maximizes the ratio between inter-county variability and statewide-variability among deer kill at each stage of grouping, was used to delineate most similar counties. The criterion used for preliminary regionalization in Virginia was deer kill per potential huntable land area per number of hunting days. Six regions resulted with an effectiveness rating of 0.9253. Comparisons made with present deer regions and state planning districts suggest a lower effectiveness in present...

Despite the fact that approximately one third of the state wildlife agency personnel and funding is invested in law enforcement, scientific law enforcement studies are comparatively few. A regional program of law enforcement research, to be located at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, can coordinate projects, allow publication of results in many forms, avoid duplication of research projects, and answer more questions for less money in a joint effort than can individual states. The success and benefits of this program relies on funding by all states, since all states will benefit from...