The need for performance auditing in the public sector and the best-practice frontier

The article is organized as follows. In Section 2 the arguments for performance auditing in the public sector are reviewed along the lines of the public-choice approach. An international comparison of the functions of supreme auditing institutions (Section 3) reveals that the BelgianRekenhof-Cour des Comptes lags behind, lacking a mandate for performance auditing. In Section 4 the notions of efficiency and effectiveness are clarified. Section S compares the concept of the best-practice frontier with a standard production function. In the public sector one is often confronted with a weak knowledge of the underlying technology. This poses problems of specification for a parametric estimation. Therefore a nonparametric frontier may be recommended. In Section 6 the Farrell method and the free disposal hull are presented. Moreover, when several inputs are transformed into a multiple output (instead of one single homogeneous output), data-envelopment analysis offers a solution (Section 7). These latter methods are also illustrated by an international empirical comparison of the efficiency of public enterprises: postal services in Section 6 and railway companies in Section 7. Some conclusions are reported in the final Section 8.     

Course,Co-Occurrence,and Longitudinal Associations of Emotional Disturbance and Delinquency from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: A Six-Year Three-Wave Study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Three questions were examined in this study: (a) What is the course of emotional disturbance and delinquency during adolescence and young adulthood? (b) To what...     

Conceptual Analysis and Measurement of Adolescent Autonomy

The aim of the present study was to examine the concept of adolescent autonomy. A conceptual analysis of different theoretical perspectives has resulted in an integrative model of attitudinal, emotional, and functional autonomy. Attitudinal autonomy refers to the cognitive process of choosing and defining a goal. Emotional autonomy refers to the affective process of feeling confident about one's own choices and goals. Functional autonomy refers to the regulatory process of developing a strategy to achieve these goals. The empirical value of this model was tested by developing a questionnaire assessing adolescent autonomy. Subjects were 400 adolescents between 12 and 18 years old. Confirmatory factor analyses (LISREL 8) provided evidence for the 3 hypothesized dimensions.     

Assessment of violence risk in youth for juvenile court: relevant factors for clinical judgment

BACKGROUND: Assessment of violence risk in youth for juvenile court needs to be improved. AIM: To determine which items of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) are recorded in pre-trial mental health evaluations and which of these items are associated with the clinical judgment of the risk of violent recidivism. METHOD: A total of one hundred forensic diagnostic juvenile court files were rated with regard to the presence or absence of the thirty SAVRY risk items: ten historical, six contextual and eight individual items, and six protective items. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to examine the relationship between SAVRY risk items and the clinical judgment of violence risk. RESULTS: Most SAVRY-items had been recorded in the files. However, five historical items and the contextual item 'rejection by peers' did not appear in 25-62% of the files. Especially SAVRY items like 'negative-attitudes' and 'psychopathic traits' were the most powerful predictors for clinical judgment of high violence risk. Unexpectedly, historical items played a minor role in clinical judgment. CONCLUSION: Prospective research is needed with the use of SAVRY-items to improve evidence based violence risk assessment in court ordered mental health evaluations of youngsters.     

A Two-Step Econometric Estimation of Covariates of Side Selling: The Case of Coffee Cooperatives in Southwest Ethiopia

Despite their apparent economic benefit to smallholder farmers, cooperatives are vulnerable to the problem of side selling. Using cross-sectional household data and Cragg’s regression model, we identified the determinants of side selling by coffee cooperative farmers in southwest Ethiopia. The bootstrapping technique was applied to extract average partial effects from the model coefficients. Certified, elder and educated farmers who have off-farm income and trust in the cooperative leadership have been found to side-sell significantly less. Nonetheless, cooperative group size and late payment favoured more side selling. Based on these findings, possible interventions are highlighted for improving cooperative members’ commitment and the performance of coffee cooperatives in the region.     

Location Choice of Snatching Offenders in Chennai City

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - We aim to test the applicability of crime pattern theory in an Indian urban context by assessing the effects of offender residence, prior offending locations...     

Fast quantification of 11-nor-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (THCA) using microwave-accelerated derivatisation and gas chromatography–triple quadrupole mass spectrometry

A rapid and sensitive determination of cannabinoids in urine is important in many fields, from workplace drug testing over toxicology to the fight against doping. The detection of cannabis abuse is normally based on the quantification of the most important metabolite 11-nor-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (THCA) in urine. In most fields THCA needs to be present at a concentration of exceeding 15 ng/mL before a positive result can be reported.The method described in this paper, combines a 4 min GC–MS/MS method with a fast sample preparation procedure using microwave assisted derivatisation in order to complete the quantification of THCA in urine in 30 min, using only 1 mL of urine.The method is selective, linear over the range 5–100 ng/mL and shows excellent precision and trueness and hence, the estimated measurement uncertainty at the threshold level is small. The method also complies with applicable criteria for mass spectrometry and chromatography. Therefore the method can be used for rapid screening and confirmatory purposes.     

Forensic Comparison of Soil Samples Using Nondestructive Elemental Analysis

Soil can play an important role in forensic cases in linking suspects or objects to a crime scene by comparing samples from the crime scene with samples derived from items. This study uses an adapted ED‐XRF analysis (sieving instead of grinding to prevent destruction of microfossils) to produce elemental composition data of 20 elements. Different data processing techniques and statistical distances were evaluated using data from 50 samples and the log‐LR cost (C_llr). The best performing combination, Canberra distance, relative data, and square root values, is used to construct a discriminative model. Examples of the spatial resolution of the method in crime scenes are shown for three locations, and sampling strategy is discussed. Twelve test cases were analyzed, and results showed that the method is applicable. The study shows how the combination of an analysis technique, a database, and a discriminative model can be used to compare multiple soil samples quickly.     

More Places than Crimes: Implications for Evaluating the Law of Crime Concentration at Place

Objectives

The crime and place literature lacks a standard methodology for measuring and reporting crime concentration. We suggest that crime concentration be reported with the Lorenz curve and summarized with the Gini coefficient, and we propose generalized versions of the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient to correct for bias when crime data are sparse (i.e., fewer crimes than places).

Methods

The proposed generalizations are based on the principle that the observed crime concentration should not be compared with perfect equality, but with maximal equality given the data. The generalizations asymptotically approach the original Lorenz curve and the original Gini coefficient as the number of crimes approaches the number of spatial units.

Results

Using geocoded crime data on two types of crime in the city of The Hague, we show the differences between the original Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient and the generalized versions. We demonstrate that the generalizations provide a better representation of crime concentration in situations of sparse crime data, and that they improve comparisons of crime concentration if they are sparse.

Conclusions

Researchers are advised to use the generalized versions of the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient when reporting and summarizing crime concentration at places. When places outnumber crimes, the generalized versions better represent the underlying processes of crime concentration than the original versions. The generalized Lorenz curve, the Gini coefficient and its variance are easy to compute.