Young people with cognitive disabilities and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system: service provider perspectives on policing

Young people with cognitive disabilities (YPWCD) are overrepresented as offenders in the criminal justice system. However, most existing research on this topic examines overrepresentation in courts and corrections rather than at the police gatekeeping stage of the criminal justice process. Furthermore, while the views of other groups have been documented, the perspectives of service providers – who often bear witness to YPWCD’s interactions with police – have yet to be examined. This research addresses this gap by analysing qualitative interviews with service providers from Queensland, Australia, using the three most common theoretical explanations for the overrepresentation of PWCD (the susceptibility, differential treatment and psychosocial disadvantage theses) as an analytic framework. A number of implications emerged from the study. There is a need to take a critical and intersectional lens to YPWCD’s experiences, as well as to equip police to work with YPWCD to de-escalate interactions with this group.     

An Analysis on the Path of Floating Population Service and Management from the Perspective of Social Integration——A Case Study of Yuyao

The rapid increase of migrant population provides sufficient labor resources to the economic and social development. At the same time, it brings the social management with a new topic. Zhejiang Yuyao city conducted an analysis on the path of service management of the floating population from the perspective of social integration, and formed some basic experience. These experiences can be summarized as: the construction of system security system, improve public services, strengthen the positive publicity, and establish the multiple social organizations. The experience of Yuyao and some institutional innovation not only has the enlightenment significance to the service management of the floating population, also produces beneficial enlightenment on the building of a harmonious society: take the specific work, adhere to the principle of "justice" concept, promote the construction management system, and strengthen the multiple governance subjects cooperation. It is the way to construct active governments.     

“580”情绪转化站的创业机制研究

着眼于转变大学生的培养模式、提高大学生社会适应能力、增强大学生就业竞争力的大学生创新创业训练计划是国家创新体系建设的重要组成部分。四川省省级创业训练项目"580情绪转化站"以自主研发的www.qxzhz580.icoc.cn网站为创业平台,在对客户负性情绪在线调查后提供咨询、倾诉、疏泄、转化等系列在线问诊的专业服务,最终将客户的负性情绪转化成正能量,提高客户的幸福指数,从而产生良好的社会效益和可观的经济效益,成功实现创业计划。     

Cooperation,not cost savings: explaining duration of shared service agreements

Among local governments, inter-municipal cooperation is the growing reform; but the literature is silent regarding the determinants of longer-term shared service agreements. We conducted a survey of all local governments in New York State in 2013 to assess the level of sharing across 29 public services. The duration of shared service agreements varies from 1 to 80 years. What explains this difference? Our hierarchical linear model shows that service sharing agreements fall along a cooperation continuum, where cost savings are a determinant of shorter agreements, while the public values of service quality and cross-jurisdictional coordination explain longer-term agreements. We also find that positive past experience with sharing partners increases the duration of sharing agreements. Our analysis lays the foundation for new theories of shared services that build directly from the benefits of improved regional coordination, inter-municipal reciprocity and service quality, not from theories based solely on competition and costs.     

Competition and switching in public service markets: Can they reduce inequalities?

Regulatory reforms to public infrastructure services across European Union (EU) countries were aimed at increasing consumer welfare by introducing competition and choice into service markets. However, empirical evaluations have questioned whether these reforms have benefitted all consumers, suggesting that vulnerable groups of service users (especially those with lower levels of formal education), might be locked into poorly performing services. We assess the relationship between the level of competition in electricity and fixed telephony markets in EU countries and evaluate the affordability of these services for different socio‐educational layers. Our findings show that – although in countries where there is a relatively high frequency of switching, inequalities between socio‐educational groups are smaller and eventually disappear – competition as such does not play a part. These results suggest that demand‐side regulation that successfully enables consumer switching has the potential to equalize social welfare, thereby reflecting a possible convergence of regulatory instruments and the central aims of the welfare state in this context.     

政府促进公平分配权力的体系性思考

对社会财富分配规则进行研究,从中提炼能够统辖所有分配规则的抽象的权力范畴,可以提升有关优化收入分配结构、促进收入公平分配的法律问题的理论研究深度。散见于社会财富三次分配中的货币发行权、公共投资收益权、政府采购决定权以及劳动力定价权、征税权、财政补贴决定权、社会保障支出权、税式支出权等一系列权力,可以提炼为公平分配促进权,包括基础性权能和调控性权能的二重结构,各种权力协调运行有助于促进社会财富公平分配。     

PAKISTAN’S CRISIS OF GOVERNANCE AND THE RESURGENCE OF TERRORIST VIOLENCE SINCE AUGUST 2016

Fifteen years since joining the US-led anti-terrorism coalition, Pakistan’s response to the challenges of terroristic violence and extremist indoctrination and propaganda remain military-centric and kinetic. Since August 2016, after a brief lull, Pakistan has experienced a resurgence of terrorist activity and violence that has struck all of its provinces and placed its capital on high alert. The re-escalation in the level of terrorist violence began with the August 8, 2016, attacks in Quetta, which left over 70 dead and more than 100 injured. The lack of response from the provincial and federal governments to this carnage, led the Supreme Court of Pakistan to exercise its authority under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and establish an Inquiry Commission to examine the state of the investigation and report on the challenges faced in the struggle against terrorism and extremism. This inquiry assumed the form and substance of an audit of the performance of Pakistan’s institutions and exposed the link between the country’s crisis of governance and its incoherent response to terrorism and extremism at all levels of government. The implications of the inquiry report are both broad and deep, and reveal that Pakistan’s trajectory remains that of civilian administrative breakdown and institutional exhaustion. This indicates that Pakistan’s civilian-military balance continues to shift in structural terms in favour of the latter and that beneath a veneer of constitutional democracy, the arbitrary, unwise, and inefficient, exercise of power by the political class continues to hollow out the country’s administrative institutions.     

公共服务供给机制转型中的公益性岗位研究

我国自2002年起开始施行公益性岗位的政策,这一政策对拓宽就业渠道、缓解失业压力起到了一定的作用。但目前依靠政府进一步开发和购买公益性岗位的难度很大。本文对国内外公共服务供给机制转型进行了比较分析,在此基础上提出以下建议:我国应进一步完善公共服务的供给机制,以社区为平台,通过推动购买服务的方式,调动社会组织服务社区和吸收就业的功能,以推动公益性岗位的增加。     

New directions for public service reform in developing countries

This paper argues that recent developments in practice and theory provide a more promising basis for public service reform in developing countries than we have had since at least the turn of the century. There have been significant instances of large‐scale reform success, such as Nepal's Public Service Commission and Malaysia's delivery unit, Pemandu, and also “pockets of effectiveness” in individual agencies in many countries. They contribute to a more fruitful and diverse repertoire of reform approaches than generally realized. Policymakers can draw on all those instances and types of reform, together with relevant rich country experiences, as they improvise and tailor responses to their always unique reform problems. Proceeding in this way helps reformers to expand the “reform space” available within the political economy. Donors can help reformers if they facilitate reform in the spirit of the Busan Partnership rather than impose their preferred models. In short, the new direction which this paper identifies can be stated as creative problem solving by local actors facilitated by sympathetic donors, building on examples of reform success and drawing on a repertoire of poor and rich country reform approaches.     

The Investment Approach to Public Service Provision

The investment approach to public service provision is now receiving considerable attention worldwide. By promoting data‐intensive assessments of baseline conditions and how government action can improve on them, the approach holds the potential to transform policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Recently, variations on the investment approach have been applied in Australia to explore the effectiveness of specific programs in employment training, criminal justice, and infrastructure development. This article reviews the investment approach, presents a Public Investment Checklist to guide such work, and discusses three examples. It concludes by considering the implications of investment thinking for the work of policy designers and public managers.