Systems Ideologies and Street-Level Bureaucrats: Policy Change and Perceptions of Quality in a Behavioral Health Care System

This article examines the stability of street-level bureaucrats' negative perceptions regarding a newly implemented managed care system on quality of care and service delivery in a publicly funded behavioral health care system. Overall findings indicate that the generally negative perception of managed care did not differ between staff in the two programs, indicating a weak effect on attitudes of frontline workers. More proximal variables to the caregiver, such as service type and job title, show more influence on attitudes. The conclusion discusses the implications of these findings for practicing administrators and academic researchers.     

Fiscal Illusion and Political Accountability: Theory and Evidence from Two Local Tax Regimes in Britain

Local tax reform in Britain in 1993 (reinstating a propertytax) may have reversed some intended fiscal illusion reducing,and ``accountability'' improving, features of the poll tax(itself a reform introduced in 1990 with the specific aim ofpromoting accountability). We formalize these features withina median voter model of the demand for local publicexpenditure that distinguishes between accountability andfiscal illusion effects. The model shows that a prioriaccountability effects on expenditures are ambiguous.Available data for England and Wales are used to test themodel. We find strong evidence of grant illusion (the flypapereffect), similar across tax regimes, with evidence of renterillusion and of less accountability under the property tax.The degree of local income inequality appears to affectexpenditure levels only with the property tax.     

Measuring Barriers to Help-Seeking Behavior in Adolescents

To construct and validate an instrument that would measure barriers to help-seeking behavior in adolescents. Method: A 37-item questionnaire based on prior help-seeking literature was constructed to yield a total score indicating strength of barriers to help-seeking behavior. The instrument was given to a sample of 280 high school students following a pilot study of 65 students. Results: The instrument was found to have good test–retest and internal reliability and adequate validity in the tested population. It shows promise in helping to identify adolescents who may be amenable to, and opposed to, therapeutic intervention, and may aid in understanding which barriers to help seeking are most significant in any given population.     

Using the Referral Decision Scale to Screen Mentally Ill Jail Detainees: Validity and Implementation Issues

The prevalence of serious mental illnesses in jail populations is significantly greater than in the general population. Identifying individuals who warrant psychiatric evaluations is important and benefits correctional staff as well as detainees. One widely used screening instrument intended for this task is the Referral Decision Scale (RDS). This paper reviews the development and validation of the RDS. Using data from a multisite study which assessed postrelease outcomes for detainees with mental illness, various types of validity are addressed. The results confirm that the RDS has some inherent characteristics that seriously limit its practical application as a screening instrument for use by correctional staff.     

A Preliminary Study on Vacuum Metal Deposition as a Standalone Method for Enhancement of Fingermarks on Ballistic Brass Materials

In order to assess the efficacy of vacuum metal deposition (VMD) as a technique to develop fingermarks on ballistic metallic surfaces, a preliminary study using six donors (three male & three female) was conducted. Using a sequential metal deposition process, two metal combinations were studied—gold/zinc and silver/zinc. Results indicate the potential of this technique, by developing identifiable fingermarks on brass metal disks aged from a few days up to more than a month old. As the development of fingermarks on fired (brass) cartridge cases is an area of interest, a further study was conducted where a total of 20 fingermarks were deposited on cases. After firing, second level fingermark characteristics were successfully observed on cartridge cases highlighting its potential as a fingermark enhancement method for ballistic brass materials. Further work is required to fully evaluate the VMD process and its reliability as a fingermark enhancing method on ballistic surfaces.     

Aid instability as a measure of uncertainty and the positive impact of aid on growth

This article contributes to the literature on aid and economic growth. We posit that uncertainty, measured as the instability of aid receipts, will influence the relationship between aid and investment, how recipient governments respond to aid, and will capture the fact that some countries are especially vulnerable to shocks. When we account for uncertainty (which is negative and significant), we find that aid has a significant positive effect on growth, largely due to its effect on the volume of investment. The finding that uncertainty of aid receipts reduces the effectiveness of aid is robust. When the regression is estimated for the sub‐sample of African countries these findings hold, although the effectiveness of aid appears weaker than for the full sample.     

The GATT agreement on trade related investment measures: Implications for developing countries and their relationship with transnational corporations

This article addresses three issues. First, it argues that the use of trade related investment measures (TRIMs) by LDCs can only be analysed in the context of their dealings with transnational corporations (TNCs). Second, it considers the applicability of existing GATT rules to TRIMs and shows that they are inadequate and can pose difficulties for LDCs seeking foreign direct investment by TNCs. Third, it suggests a framework for regulating TRIMs as one element of host‐TNC relations. The article concludes with proposals for enhancing the capacity of LDCs in their dealings with TNCs.     

The statistical prediction of violent behavior

Considerable attention in the popular and professional literature has focused on the relative costs and benefits of using public protectionist versus civil libertarian models of social control. In this article, we develop statistical analogs of these models to predict violent behavior among samples of defendants found incompetent to stand trial in New York State. The societal and personal costs (errors of prediction) of each model are compared and their implications for clinical practice and social policy are discussed.This research was supported in part by PHS Grant MH 20367 from the NIMH Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency. The assistance of Thomas Arvanites in data analysis and the comments of Monroe Lefkowitz and Mary Evans Melick on earlier drafts of this paper are gratefully acknowledged.