Religious and Spiritual Support,Reentry, and Risk

Systems and agencies intent on pursuing an evidence-based approach to correctional interventions have widely adopted the risk principle. For a variety of reasons, many studies have found that giving treatment to low risk people has little impact on reducing recidivism and can even increase recidivism. Because of the risk principle, many prison and community correctional systems now target their treatment resources to medium and high risk. This study tests whether the effects of religious/spiritual support on reentry success generalize across offenders as a function of risk. Results from random effects count models suggest that religious and spiritual support does have a strong and robust effect on the likelihood of ex-offenders desisting from substance abuse. Findings also reveal that the risk principle was not supported; religious and social support was associated with significantly lower levels of substance abuse among low risk offenders, but not among higher-risk offenders. On the other hand, religious and spiritual support did not significantly relate to criminal offending at any risk level. Implications for religious programming and services, as well as the study of religion and reentry, are discussed.     

National Medical Support Notice. Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, HHS. Final rule

This rule implements provisions of the Child Support Performance and Incentives Act of 1998 (CSPIA), Public Law 105-200, that require State child support enforcement agencies, under title IV-D of the Social Security Act (the Act), to enforce the health care coverage provision in a child support order through the use of the National Medical Support Notice (NMSN). A proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on November 15, 1999 (64 FR 62074). After consideration of the written comments received, changes have been made in this final regulation, including changes to the NMSN found in the Appendix.     

Differential Social Support,Differential Coercion,and Organized Criminal Activities

Utilizing differential social support and coercion theory, the study examines how levels of social support and coercion lead to involvement in organized criminal activities through the development of anger, low self-control, low social control, and access to illegitimate social support. The findings show that the association between social support and organized criminal activities is mediated through anger, self-control, social control, and access to illegitimate social support. Similarly, the relationship between coercion and organized criminal activities is mediated through anger, self-control, and illegitimate social support. The results also reveal that coercion has a direct effect on crime. The study offers preliminary theoretical support but more theoretical and empirical work is required to clarify the causal continuum of erraticness and consistency of central variables.     

Distrust of Government, the Vigilante Tradition, and Support for Capital Punishment

This study probes the interconnections among distrust of government, the historical context, and public support for the death penalty in the United States with survey data for area-identified samples of white and black respondents. Multilevel statistical analyses indicate contrary effects of government distrust on support for the death penalty for blacks and whites, fostering death penalty support among whites and diminishing it among blacks. In addition, we find that the presence of a "vigilante tradition," as indicated by a history of lynching, promotes death penalty support among whites but not blacks. Finally, contrary to Zimring's argument in The Contradictions of Capital Punishment , we find no evidence that vigilantism moderates the influence of government distrust on support for the death penalty, for either whites or blacks. Our analyses highlight the continuing influence of historical context as well as contemporary conditions in the formation of public attitudes toward criminal punishment, and they underscore the importance of attending to racial differences in the analysis of punitive attitudes.     

Accountability, New Public Management, and the Problems of the Child Support Agency

This paper seeks to evaluate the accountability of Next Steps Agencies through the medium of a case study of the Child Support Agency (CSA). The CSA was widely considered to offer a substandard service to its customers. It was the subject of multiple reports by the House of Commons Social Services Select Committee, the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner, and the Public Accounts Committee. In addition, these committees had at their disposal internal reports from an adjudicator and the Child Support commissioner. The interlock between internal and external machinery for accountability is also considered.     

Child Abuse,Social Support,and Social Functioning in African American Children

This study examined the relationship among child abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual), social support from friends and family, and social functioning in a sample of low-income African American children (N?=?152). With the exception of the association between sexual abuse and peer support, all of the correlations among study variables were significant. The relationship between child physical and emotional abuse and social functioning were mediated by both family and peer support; however, only family (not peer) support was a significant mediator in the sexual abuse-social functioning link. Additionally, there was no difference found in the strength of mediation via family support versus peer support. Results suggest that mental health professionals should inquire about and attempt to increase children’s levels of social support from family and peers when working with abused youth in order to promote healthy psychological and psychosocial outcomes.     

孝、心安与法院判决中的“精神赡养”

传统社会中的孝包含养和敬两方面内容。现代社会,法律主要通过关于赡养费的规定来实现养的部分。近几年法院试图通过判决子女的探望义务,即精神赡养来实现敬的内容。但精神赡养离传统中的敬还有一段距离,因为孝的实现必须有相关制度加以保证。传统社会中,孝具有较强的政治色彩,不仅有礼作为制度化的表现,而且有法为其提供赖以存在的条件。礼和法不仅实现了孝中的养,而且促成了孝中的敬。在不具备这些条件的情况下,精神赡养并不能真正实现孝所要求的敬的内容。     

Social Capital, Rehabilitation, Tradition: Support for Restorative Justice in Japan and Australia

This paper investigates the attitudes and beliefs that the public hold about criminal behaviour in Japanese and Australian society, with a view to uncovering sources of resistance to, and support for, restorative justice. The study draws on a survey of 1,544 respondents from Japan and 1,967 respondents from Australia. In both societies, restorative justice met with greater acceptance among those who were (1) strong in social capital, (2) believed in offender reintegration and rehabilitation, (3) saw benefits for victims in forgiveness, and (4) were advocates for victims?? voices being heard and amends made. The alternative ??just deserts?? and deterrence models for dealing with crime were grounded in attitudes of punitiveness and fear of moral decay, and reservations about the value of reintegrating and rehabilitating offenders. Like restorative justice supporters, ??just deserts?? and deterrence supporters expressed concern that victims?? voices be heard and amends made. Winning public support for competing institutional arrangements may depend on who does best in meeting expectations for meeting the needs of victims.     

Male Peer Support,Hunting, and Separation/Divorce Sexual Assault in Rural Ohio

Male peer support is one of the most powerful determinants of woman abuse across the globe. Still, key gaps remain in rural male peer support literature, such as overlooking the importance of hunting as a public male-bonding ritual that serves to reinforce abusive behaviors against women in private settings. The main objective of this article is to present findings from an exploratory, qualitative, back-talk study of twelve women’s experiences of separation/divorce sexual assault in rural Ohio. The results reveal a relationship between rural hunting subculture dynamics and core elements of male peer support (i.e. frequent drinking with male friends, informational support, attachment to abusive peers, and patriarchal masculine identity). Male peer support in hunting subcultures coupled with the availability and access to ‘legitimate’ weapons creates a fertile breeding ground for woman abuse in some rural communities.     

Support Structures and Constitutional Change: Teles,Southworth, and the Conservative Legal Movement

This essay reviews two recent works in political science on the American conservative legal movement: Steven M. Teles's The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (2008) and Ann Southworth's Lawyers of the Right: Professionalizing the Conservative Coalition (2008). It examines these books in the context of a larger debate over the variables that best explain constitutional change in general and the recent “conservative counterrevolution” in Supreme Court jurisprudence in particular. It shows how these studies build on the scholarship of Charles Epp, who argued in The Rights Revolution (1998) that serious constitutional change requires not only the right cast of characters on the court, but also a strong “support structure” in the legal profession and civil society. Finally, it draws on the author's own research on the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy to illustrate some important avenues for further inquiry.     

Support seeking,system avoidance,and citizenship: Social safety net usage after incarceration

Scholars have long described the American penal state and welfare state as joined by a common logic of social marginalization. But researchers have only recently begun to explore how the individuals who pass through the carceral system also interact with welfare state programs. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, in this article, I explore how formerly incarcerated individuals make claims on the welfare state and how participation varies across social programs and states, as well as by race, drawing on theories of social welfare rights-claiming and system avoidance. In so doing, I provide the first nationwide estimates of the extent to which previously incarcerated adults use social safety net resources. I find that participation in welfare programs varies with incarceration history, program structure, and race. Rather than finding patterns consistent with system avoidance, I find that previously incarcerated White Americans seem to engage in active rights claiming, participating in public assistance programs more than similarly eligible never-incarcerated counterparts. All formerly incarcerated individuals, however, have limited access to more generous social insurance programs, and the shift to an increasingly employment-based social safety net seems likely to further limit access to the welfare state for the growing population of Americans leaving prison.     

In Support of Disciplined Passion

Manuel Eisner (2009) has posed the cynic’s hypothesis to help explain the slippage found between developer-led investigations of preventive interventions and those led by independent evaluators, and he has called for more research on developer self-interest as a possible explanation for this pattern of results. The issue Eisner raises has important implications for the integrity of science and for policy making, but he gives insufficient attention to the challenges of intervention development and effective replication across populations, communities, organizations, and service providers. The challenge he poses needs to be addressed by higher standards for reporting trials, better peer review, improved investigator training, and rigorous, collegial support of those who choose to enter this challenging field, lest we dissuade young investigators from seeking careers that combine their commitment to solve social problems with their commitment to rigorously evaluate their efforts.