Juvenile Court Clinical Services: A National Description

There have been few studies of the manner in which juvenile courts obtain clinical evaluations and consultation by juvenile court clinicians in order to identify and respond to youths with mental health problems. This study involved a telephone survey of professionals associated with juvenile court clinic (JCC) services in 87 of the largest juvenile court jurisdictions nationwide, providing data on their professional staff, functions, procedures, organizational and financial structures, and methods for providing evaluations to juvenile courts. We identified three models of JCC service delivery systems. Differences between the JCC service models offer hypotheses pertaining to potential differences in efficiency and quality of services and service delivery.     

Books: Comparative Politics and Area Studies

R. Banton, P. Clifford, S. Frosh, J. Lousada and J. Rosenthal, The Politics of Mental Health (London, Macmillan, 1985)
T. Forester (ed.), The Information Technology Revolution (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985
Philip Green, Retrieving Democracy: in Search of Civic Equality (Totawa, N. J., Rowman & Allanheid 1985)
Joseph J. Houska, Influencing Mass Political Behaviour: Elites and Political Subcultures in the Netherlands and Austria (Berkeley, Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1985)
R. Kuhn (ed.), The Politics of Broadcasting (Beckenham, Croorn Helm, 1984)
G. E. Lang and K. Lang, Politics and Television Reviewed (Berkeley, Sage, 1984)
A. Organski, J. Kugler, J. Johnson and Y. Cohen, Births, Deaths and Taxes (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984)
W. E. Styler, Adult Education and Political Systems (Nottingham, Publications Unit, Department of Adult Education, University of Nottingham, 1985)
David Robertson, A Dictionary of Modern Politics (London, Europa Publications, 1985)
J. T. Morley, Secular Socialists: The CCF/NDP in Ontario , A Biography (Toronto, McCill-Queen's University Press, 1984)
H. S. Parmet, JFK: the Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1984)
R. H. K. Vietor, Energy Policy in America Since 1945 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985)
G. T. Mazuzan and J. S. Walker, Controlling the Atom (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984)
A. Figueroa, Capitalist Development and the Peasant Economy in Peru (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984)
Harvey B. Feigenbaum, The Politics of Public Enterprise: Oil and the French State (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1985)
Eckhard Jesse, Wahlrecht zwischen Kontinuitat und Reform 1949–1983 (Dusseldorf, Droste, 1985)
H. Lydall, Yugoslav Socialism: Theory and Practice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984)     

SELF-CONTROL IN A CRIMINAL SAMPLE: AN EXAMINATION OF CONSTRUCT VALIDITY*

Favorable evidence on the validity of the Grasmick et al. (1993) self-control scale has been reported in studies using general population samples. However, the scale has never been tested among persons extensively involved in crime. We assessed the construct validity of this scale, slightly revised, in a heterogeneous sample of drug-using criminal offenders. Factor analyses identified five subscales, mostly congruent with existing formulations of the self-control construct. Also, recent crimes of force and fraud were more frequent among people scoring lower on self-control. However, the five-factor solution was not tenable among women, and the scale was no more closely related to crime than were three subscales representing more specific constructs already established in criminology.     

REVERSE DISCRIMINATION

This paper examines the decisions on reverse racial discrimination made by the Supreme Court, concentrating on Regents of the University. California v. Bakke and Fullilove v. Klutznick. It discovers a distressing tendency on the part of some members of the Court to reason rigidly within categories established by earlier decisions, most notably the notion that "race is an inherently suspect classification"; i.e., any racial discrimination can survive only with "strict scrutiny." The paper traces the development of this rule, arguing that it rests on choices in emphasis that were unnecessary and probably unfortunate. I then examine the history of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and suggest that a better reading is that it primarily condemns racial discrimination which is used to oppress and stigmatize particular groups. Finally, I suggest the replacement of the "suspect classification" rule with a bifurcated test which distinguishes between benign and invidious discrimination.     

Managing the new organization: some problems of institutional transition—a New Zealand perspective

The article presents a policy-maker's view of one of the most radical and most-consistently sustained policy and institutional reforms. It begins by reviewing factors affecting the nature and tempo of New Zealand's reform initiatives, including ‘woodenheadedness’, the political capacity to deliver sustained economic change, the failure of universities and other centres of research and scholarship to generate new ideas; the resistance of entrenched systems; the significance of generating a popular conceptual framework for reform in a literate, articulate society. Issues that are relevant in implementing policy initiatives include: the scarcity of competent managers, particularly associated with the country's small scale; the impact of geography and technology; timing and queuing; loss of institutional memory; the power of communication to fail; and the persistence of ideological, professional ways of thinking, backed by the power of unions and professional associations. This article surveys essential concepts and elements of New Zealand's state sector reforms, focusing on: the guiding philosophy—transparency and consistency; operating principles—the distinction between outputs and outcomes, purchaser and provider, government and departments; the principal instruments—purchase agreements between ministers and chief executives, delegation, performance measures. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)