A replication of “Contracting out: For What? With Whom?”

In the 1980s, governments around the world adopted New Public Management ideas about inserting competition into government as a way to improve the performance of public organizations. In many nations, contracting out was one method of making governments more businesslike. Yet, there have been few studies of how government contracting behaviors have changed since the early 1980s. We replicate Ferris and Graddy's classic 1986 study of local government production and sector choice to assess how public procurement has changed over the past 35 years. Our findings show that today, contracting out is more commonly used across 25 local government service areas. In contrast to the original study, much of the growth has been in government-to-government contracts. For profit firms are also winning more contracts for high transaction cost work, while nonprofits are receiving fewer government contracts in nearly every service area. Our analysis suggests that contracting out remains of the highest importance in 21st-century governance and that additional research is needed on how to manage contracts to achieve the best value.     

Observer determination of the make,model, and year of questioned vehicles

Often, criminal acts involving a vehicle are caught on digital video surveillance systems. While potentially useful for an investigation, the recording conditions are typically less than optimal for the extraction of key information for the identification of the perpetrator, such as a license plate. Providing the make, model and year of a questioned vehicle is a common request for examiners, to narrow the field of potential suspect vehicles. This study seeks to compare the performance of a nonpeer-reviewed make, model, and year determination between two separate groups, specifically, trained forensic image examiners and nontrained individuals. Results show that even with varied image capture conditions and quality, the trained forensic image examiners more correctly and completely identified the test group of questioned vehicles make, model, and year.     

Emotional labor and employee outcomes: A meta-analysis

While there is agreement among scholars that people-work requires emotional labor, there is still some uncertainty about the consequences of emotional labor for employees. This article conducts a random-effects meta-analysis including 545 correlations across 175 primary studies to explore the relationship between emotional labor, burnout, and job satisfaction. The meta-analysis suggests that emotional labor can be both harmful and beneficial to employees, depending on the emotional labor strategy used, that is, surface acting or deep acting. In addition, the meta-regression shows that effect sizes between emotional labor and employee outcomes (i.e., burnout and job satisfaction) differ in collectivist and individualist cultures. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for research and practice.     

Ethyl Glucuronide Concentration in Hair of Detainees: A Preliminary Study

Through the measurement of ethyl glucuronide in hair (hETG), it is possible to assess chronic alcohol abuse over time. In this paper, we present a study on hETG in Italian prison inmates. Analyses were performed by LC-MS according to a previously published method. Results were evaluated using the cut-offs established by the Society of Hair Testing. Positives samples (ETG > 30 pg/mg) accounted for 6% of all subjects, with concentrations ranging from 42 pg/mg up to 270 pg/mg, abstinent subjects (ETG < 7 pg/mg) accounted for 88%, and moderate alcohol consumption (7 < ETG < 30 pg/mg) for 6% of the subjects. No females displayed ETG values above 30 pg/mg. Among positive samples, only two subjects did not declare heavy alcohol consumption and were found strongly positive at 210 and 270 pg/mg. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first study on ETG hair concentration on prison inmates.     

Is Representation Enough? Racial Disparities in Levels of Force and Arrests by Police

The research in representative bureaucracy that examines the extent to which racial congruence impacts bureaucrats’ decisions is mixed. This study adds to this literature by examining the impact of representative bureaucracy on the level of force that police officers use and whether they make an arrest in use of force encounters, while taking into consideration key situational conditions. Using individual-level data from New Orleans to estimate this impact, the authors find that racial congruence and incongruence impact policing outcomes even in the presence of situational shortcuts that cue decision-making. The findings show that the benefits of representation are conditional on the outcome. Black officers are less likely to use higher levels of force on Black civilians. Yet both Black and White officers are less likely to arrest White civilians in use of force encounters. This suggests that interactions in which bureaucrats have less discretion (e.g., arrests) may offer limited opportunities for active representation.     

Helping to Break the Glass Ceiling? Fathers,First Daughters,and Presidential Vote Choice in 2016

Political Behavior - Throughout her 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton crafted messages intended to appeal to fathers of daughters and to highlight the...     

The Search for “Fred”: An Unusual Vertical Burial Case,

Police witness intelligence stated a murdered adult male “Fred” had been vertically buried in wooded hilly terrain 30 years ago in the Midlands, U.K. Conventional search methods were unsuccessful; therefore, the police requested a geophysical investigation to be undertaken to determine whether “Fred” could be detected. A multiphased geophysical approach was conducted, using bulk ground conductivity and metal detectors, then follow‐up magnetics and ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey profiles on electromagnetic (EM) anomalous areas. A tight grid pattern was used to account for the reduced target size. Relatively high‐resolution EM and GPR techniques were determined optimal for this terrain and sandy soil. Geophysical anomalies were identified and the most promising intrusively investigated, and this was found to be a large boulder and tree roots. Study implications suggest careful multiphase geophysical surveys are best practice and give confidence in cold case searches. This study yielded a no‐body result, effectively saving police time and costs from further investigations.     

When new public management fails: Infrastructure public–private partnerships and political constraints in developing and transitional economies

Amidst calls for more scrutiny of the failure of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs), uncertainty about how we can measure failure remains, and little systematic evidence illuminates its likelihood. Our mixed‐methods design explores the notion of failure and identifies the conditions under which it happens. The first phase of our research employs documentary analysis and semistructured expert interviews, and identifies project cancellation as capturing the most severe occurrences of failure. A second phase statistically analyzes a unique World Bank data set capturing the provisions of over 4,000 infrastructure PPPs launched between 1990 and 2015 in 89 countries. We find robust evidence supporting the theoretical claim that PPPs are less likely to be canceled in countries with more veto points among their political institutions to restrain politicians from intervening in policy implementation. Cancellation is a rare, but valid indicator of failure, and the importance of veto players clarifies how political risk operates in this context.     

Young Adult Unemployment and Later Depression and Anxiety: Does Childhood Neighborhood Matter?

Young adulthood represents a developmental period with disproportionately heightened risk of losing a job. Young adult unemployment has been linked to increased mental health problems, at least in the short term. However, their possible long-term impacts, often referred as “scarring effects,” have been understudied, possibly underestimating the magnitude of mental health burden that young adult unemployment generates. This longitudinal study examined whether duration of unemployment during young adulthood is associated with later mental health disorders, after accounting for mental and behavioral health problems in childhood. Furthermore, the current study investigated whether childhood neighborhood characteristics affect this association and if so, in what specific functional ways. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of developmental outcomes in a community sample in Seattle. Data collection began in 1985 when study participants were elementary students and involved yearly assessments in childhood and adolescence (ages 10–16) and then biennial or triennial assessments (ages 18–39; N?=?677 at age 39; 47% European American, 26% African American, 22% Asian American, and 5% Native American; 49% female). The current study findings suggest that duration of unemployment across young adulthood increased mental health problems at age 39, regardless of gender. Childhood neighborhood characteristics, particularly their positive aspect, exerted independent impacts on adult mental health problems beyond unemployment experiences across young adulthood. The current findings indicate a needed shift in service profiles for unemployed young adults—a comprehensive approach that not only facilitates reemployment but also addresses mental health needs to help them to cope with job loss. Further, the present study findings suggest that childhood neighborhoods, particularly positive features such as positive neighborhood involvement, may represent concrete and malleable prevention targets that can curb mental health problems early in life.