Organizational climate,work stress,and depressive symptoms among probation and parole officers

While work environment and stress are important factors for mental health, no studies have assessed whether these factors contribute independently to the psychological well-being of probation and parole officers (PPOs). Using statewide survey data from 825 PPOs, we examine the association between depressive symptoms, work stress, and work environment (using the organizational climate measures of role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload and emotional exhaustion/burnout). Findings indicate that organizational climate and work stress are important predictors of emotional exhaustion/burnout, and that these factors have both indirect and independent associations with depressive symptomotology. Together, models including organizational climate and work stress account for two-thirds of the variability in burnout. Moreover, models incorporating exhaustion/burnout, work stress, and organizational climate account for nearly half of the variability in depressive symptoms. Organization climate measures and work stress contribute to depressive symptoms through their effect on emotional exhaustion/burnout. In addition, emotional exhaustion/burnout, role conflict, and work stress are all directly linked to levels of depressive symptoms. This study demonstrates that organizational climate and work stress contribute substantially to the well-being of PPOs and reveals the potential mental health consequences of working in community corrections.     

Influences on substance use cessation during pregnancy: an exploratory study of women on probation and parole

Research suggests that a lack of family support, low self-efficacy, mental illness, and life stressors increase the likelihood of women using illicit substances during their pregnancies. These risk factors often characterize the lives of women on probation and parole. The current study uses data from a larger study of women on supervision to explore the risk and protective factors of substance use during pregnancy. Results highlight the importance of self-efficacy, mental health treatment, and family support; and suggest avenues for intervention to improve maternal and infant health outcomes.     

Program Evaluation in the Context of Supervision Regime Change: Motivational Interviewing in Colorado

This study assesses the effectiveness of an evidence-based counseling strategy employed by Colorado parole officers called Motivational Interviewing (MI), which aims to reduce parolee recidivism. I employ a quasi-experimental research design in which the caseloads of MI-trained officers are divided into two sub-samples: parolees supervised before the achievement of MI certification and parolees supervised after certification. Regression analyses show that MI is associated with recidivism reduction, but this relationship would not have been revealed without accounting for a high-profile crime that interrupted the study period—the murder of the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections by a high-risk parolee that had absconded from supervision. This crime caused a public relations crisis for the parole agency, which responded by lowering tolerance for misconduct. This reduction in tolerance increased recidivism rates among parolees in Colorado, obscuring the effect of MI on parole outcomes. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

A survival model with dependent competing events and right-hand censoring: Probation and parole as an illustration

Researchers are frequently interested in estimating the elapsed time until the occurrence of an event, such as an arrest following release from prison, dissolution of a marriage, and death following the onset of a disease. Estimation is often hindered by the occurrence of a competing event, which prevents the event of interest from being observed, and by limited follow-up periods. A parametric procedure developed in this paper is suitable for dealing with nonrepeatable competing events when the events are correlated and when independent righthand censoring also exists. Weak distributional assumptions are accommodated by using a Box-Cox transformation and by explicit modeling of heteroscedasticity. The procedure is applied to data pertaining to failure on probabation and parole.     

Supervisory experience and data points: implementation barriers,risk assessment and correctional professionals

Drawing on interviews with 24 correctional practitioners who use risk assessment instruments daily, we examine barriers to the use and implementation of these instruments. Findings reveal that practitioners have confidence in the state of risk assessment generally, but are skeptical about risk assessment on the job due to limited resources. They also point to barriers that inhibit their effectiveness including recognition of population heterogeneity, predictive misspecification due to data lags and overemphasis on stable predictors, and lacking guidance on appropriate use of vast available data. Instruments for measuring risk serve purposes beyond those intended by the social scientists who developed measures. We conclude with lessons for increasing the utility and legitimacy of risk assessments and with a call for incorporating latent uses of assessments into design.     

Supervision Intensity and Parole Outcomes: A Competing Risks Approach to Criminal and Technical Parole Violations

Recent scholarship about parole supervision indicates that higher supervision intensity is associated with an increased risk of parole violations. However, parole violations can take many forms—some minor and some serious—and theory suggests that supervision intensity might have differential effects depending upon the type of violation. We use “competing risks” survival models to identify supervision effects on five types of parole violations among 79,082 individuals released from prison in California: absconding, technical violations, drug use, violent offenses, and sexual offenses. We find that supervision effects are strongest for absconding violations. Past sexual offending also triggers significant supervision effects for technical violations, drug use violations, and violent violations. We conclude that parole violation patterns are influenced by parolee behaviors, the amount of attention the state is paying to those behaviors, and official markers of criminal dangerousness that are attached to particular parolees.     

Shock incarceration and positive adjustment during community supervision

This study examines the adjustment of offenders from shock incarceration programs (boot-camp prisons) during community supervision over a 1-year followup period in five states. Their performance is compared to comparison groups who were eligible for the shock program but did not attend. An index was used to quantify the positive activities of offenders. The results provide little conclusive evidence that the shock incarceration programs had a positive effect on offender behavior. The data do suggest that supervision intensity plays an important role in shaping offenders' activities during community supervision.This investigation was supported in part by Grant 90-DD-CX-0061 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice to the University of Maryland. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, March 1994, Chicago, Illinois.     

Residential Location,Household Composition,and Recidivism: An Analysis by Gender

Although the challenges offenders face when returning home from prison have been well documented, much remains to be learned about the gendered patterns of reentry. This line of inquiry can be further refined by examining the unique effects of residential movement, housing location, and household composition on reentry trajectories. To address these questions, we use a sample of men and women released from prison in Missouri. Consistent with past research, men are more likely to fail overall, but women are more likely to be recommitted to prison for a technical violation. We find that community context had the largest effect in models of technical violations for the male sample. Similar community effects were not observed for the female sample. Family support was a strong protective factor for men and women. We discuss the policy implications of the study for prisoner reentry in general and the import for a gendered understanding of recidivism.     

社区矫正检察监督的理论根基、域外经验与模式选择

社区矫正是为预防犯罪而设计的相互关联的一系列项目,它旨在允许犯了罪的人进行自我改善,并为其提供相应的机会,使其不致再危害公共秩序和安全。对管制、缓刑与假释考验期内的犯罪分子实行社区矫正,检察机关参与这一过程的检察监督,是贯彻实施社会管理创新活动的重要举措。     

Exploring the crime of identity theft: Prevalence, clearance rates, and victim/offender characteristics

Although the crime of identity theft has garnered a great deal of media attention, relatively little empirical research existed on the prevalence of the crime, its clearance rate by arrest, or the demographic characteristics of the victims and the identifiable offenders. The purpose of this article is to expand the knowledge of this growing crime. Using data from a large municipal police department located in Florida as a database, the findings suggested that the number of reported incidents of identity theft appeared to be growing at a greater rate than other theft-related offenses and the clearance rate for identity theft appeared to be declining. The typical apprehended offender was African American, female, unemployed, working alone, and was unknown to the victims, who tended to be White and male.     

Employment,age, race,and crime: A labor theoretic investigation

The fundamental objective of this paper has been to reinvestigate the relationship between employment and crime, while taking account of deterrence, age and race effects. The data, a sample of Brooklyn arrestees, was collected by the Vera Institute of Justice simply to explore, with individual data, the relationship between employment and crime. In this research, a labor theoretic formulation is used incorporating a model that views the problem as one of rational choice between legitimate work and participation in crime. Factors affecting the diminution of crime participation with age are investigated. Changes at age 18 in economic opportunities and in deterrence effects from moving from juvenile to adult status are found to have a significant impact on crime participation. The results are important because they tend to confirm with official crime report data, results found in earlier studies using self-report data, i.e., (1) when the process is appropriately modeled, previous contacts with police are found to cause some experimenters with crime to become desisters, (2) prior work experience and economic opportunities tend to reinforce this tendency to desist, (3) even though blacks are found to have a greater prevalence of involvement in crime, when the data are standardized for all of the aforementioned factors and educational attainment, there is no significant difference between blacks and whites in their tendency to recidivate.     

劳动违约责任:归责原则、构成要件及立法完善

由于用人单位履行劳动合同一般要承担劳动法和劳动行政规章所规定的强制性法定义务,而劳动者履行劳动合同则一般承担合同约定的义务。因而劳动立法在设定劳动违约责任时,对劳动者应以过错责任,对用人单位应以严格责任为归责原则确定违约方的法律责任。用人单位违约,不仅应对劳动者承担违约补偿责任,而且应承担劳动行政责任。劳动者违约,则应根据劳动者违约时的主观过错状态以及用人单位由此所受实际经济损失等情形,确定其应承担的经济赔偿责任。     

人权、公正、效率：价值博弈、权力制衡与制度观效——试析诉讼监督机制的完善

诉讼监督价值目标的实现是检验立法、司法、执法、守法效果的标尺。诉讼监督的价值目标主要有保障人权、公平正义、诉讼效率等，诉讼监督的目的即保证立案、侦查、审判、执行过程中公权力为实现上述价值而正确施用，诉讼监督的价值目标间存在博弈。因此，巩固并拓展检察机关诉讼监督职能，细化诉讼监督程序、明确诉讼监督责任，同时对检察机关诉讼监督进行二次监督，有助于化解诉讼监督价值目标间的冲突，推动诉讼监督价值目标的最大化实现，推进法治社会与和谐社会的全面建设。     

服务期协议：概念、本质及其法律效力分析

服务期协议是用人单位在为劳动者先履行或承诺先履行相应给付义务或为劳动者提供了某种特殊待遇的情况下，要求劳动者对其承诺为本单位工作满一定年限作为补偿并在该期限内不另谋职业的特定契约。它是劳资双方以劳动合同为基础所形成的特殊约定，需要我们借助劳动法和民法的双重思维，结合服务期协议的不同约定进行具体处理。     

Work Roles,Domestic Roles,and Marital Quality: Perceptions of Fairness Among Dual-Earner Couples

Previous studies on the role of spouses' perceptions of fairness within marriage have typically dealt with the effects of those within the realm of the division of household labor. Using data from the 1993 National Survey of Families and Households, this study posits that the predominance of dual-earner couples necessitates the consideration of perceptions of fairness in both spouses' paid labor and domestic roles. Issues of fairness are shown to significantly affect husbands' and wives' evaluations of marital quality, yet these effects are limited to a noncomparative form (e.g., wives' evaluations of marital quality are not substantially affected by husbands' perceptions of unfairness). Implications of these findings for contemporary couples are discussed.     

来华留学生教育治理:困境、模式与出路

近70年来,来华留学生教育制度发展历经了政府直接干预到走向规则治理的历史转型,但仍面临立法和实践背离社会政策功能、高校自主权有待提升以及粗放发展模式下的监督和问责制度供给不足等现实困境。完善来华留学生教育治理,可借鉴元治理理论,在框定政府与高校各自作用的基础上,构建以分权和监督为核心的权责配置制度。具体而言,应坚持社会公共政策和人权保障原则,健全分权、自治、监督和问责机制;以社会政策功能为指引纠正现行规章和实践中存在的偏差,扩大高校招生自主权,构建留学生培养全过程监督制度,坚持趋同管理和权利保障相结合,改革政府奖学金年度评审规则,落实留学生教育问责机制。     

Licensed firearm dealers,legal compliance,and local homicide: A case study

Research summary

This study uses a combination of tract-level and street network-level analyses to examine: (1) the overall association between federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) and homicides, (2) the relationship between dealers with serious violations (such as selling to prohibited buyers or failing to record sales) and homicide, and (3) whether the dealer–homicide association is moderated by community disadvantage. Results replicate and confirm a relationship between dealers and homicides in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Importantly, however, we also find that proximity to noncompliant dealers specifically elevates the risk of lethal violence.

Policy implications

We detail how a coordinated effort between federal, state, and local agencies to regulate firearm dealers and ensure that legal compliance can be instrumental in reducing gun violence. There is a clear need for increased oversight of gun dealers and more robust policies that hold negligent dealers accountable, including the necessary funding and regulatory manpower to enable regular auditing and support consistent follow-up for noncompliant dealers. A comprehensive policy framework that supports supply-side gun violence reduction should include additions to state-level laws that require record keeping, videotaping and store security, and regular inspection for firearm dealers.     

Property Crime Victims' Decision to Notify the Police: Social,Cognitive, and Affective Determinants

Previous research suggests that 3 general processes underlie the decision of property crime victims to notify the police: One that is cognitively driven by reward/cost considerations, one that is affectively driven, and another that is socially driven. This study is the first to employ a community sample of crime victims to compare the 3 processes within a single study. Computer-assisted interviews were conducted with 422 property crime victims (n = 129 burglary, n = 293 theft) located via a random digit dialing procedure. Logistic regression analyses showed that each process independently accounted for a significant amount of the variance in victim reporting, and that there were no interactions among the three processes in predicting reporting. Of the 3 processes, social influence was the best predictor of reporting. Analysis of the affect-driven process showed that reporting was primarily a function of the level of fear rather than anger or the level of generalized arousal upon discovering the crime.