Towards rational and evidence-based crime policy

Rational crime policy constitutes a basic goal for society. If, however, evidence-based, cost-efficient crime prevention is the standard, there is little indication that current policies—including programs, laws, and court decisions—are rational. To support that assessment, this article uses an evaluation research perspective to highlight five prominent problems with extant crime policies: (1) a lack of empirical assessment of the need for them; (2) a range of design issues, including gaps between crime theory and policy, and, most notably, the pursuit of silver bullet solutions; (3) a range of implementation issues, including disjunctures between ideal and actual practice; (4) the lack of rigorous impact evaluations and the sometimes misplaced emphasis on them; and (5) a scarcity of cost-efficiency analyses for guiding investment decisions. It then discusses the implications of these problems and suggests steps that can be taken to place crime policy on a more evidence-based foundation.     

Entrepreneurship and innovation: public policy frameworks

The purpose of this paper is to identify and unravel the disparate views toward innovation prevalent within the economic community and to link them to the various public policy approaches. These various schools of thought, or ways of thinking about the economy in general and the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in particular, not only shape how innovation and entrepreneurial activity are valued, but also the overall policy debate concerning innovation and entrepreneurship. Unraveling of these views highlights the disparate way in which entrepreneurial activity leading to innovation is valued.     

Behavioral economics and health policy: understanding Medicaid's failure

This Article employs a behavioral economic analysis to understand why Medicaid has failed to improve the health outcomes of its beneficiaries. It begins with a formal economic model of health care consumption and then systematically incorporates a survey of psychosocial variables to formulate explanations for persistent health disparities. This methodology suggests that consulting the literature in health psychology and intertemporal decision theory--empirical sources generally excluded from orthodox economic analysis--provides valuable material to explain certain findings in health econometrics. More significantly, the lessons from this behavioral economic approach generate useful policy considerations for Medicaid policymakers, who largely have neglected psychosocial variables in implementing a health insurance program that rests chiefly on orthodox economic assumptions. The Article's chief contributions include an expansion of the behavioral economic approach to include a host of variables in health psychology, a behavioral refinement of empirical health economics, a behavioral critique of Medicaid policy, and a menu of suggested Medicaid reforms.     

Linking innovation,productivity, and competitiveness: implications for policy and practice

A country’s competitiveness is a complex concept that has been widely studied from different perspectives. Given that the competitive performance depends on the formation of intellectual capital and society’s capacity to innovate, economic research has identified innovation and productivity as key engines for the increase of competitiveness. There are several alternatives approaches for measuring innovation, productivity, and competitiveness. These approaches lead to different assessments, since there is no universally accepted definition and measuring technique of the aforementioned concepts. Moreover, these definitions appear to have several overlaps and this complicates the analysis of their relations. The aim of this paper is to present a methodological framework for studying the dynamic linkage among innovation, productivity, and competitiveness and explore the implications for policy and practice. For each one of these measures, an overall score is estimated, using a regression-based model that follows the principles of multi-objective mathematical programming. For the purpose of the analysis, a database containing a set of 25 indicators for 19 countries for the period 1998–2008 has been developed. The most important results include a series of contour maps and gap analysis diagrams that illustrate the evolution of the overall innovation, productivity, and competitiveness indices and compare the performance of the examined countries. These results show that, by average, there are no significant gaps among innovation, productivity, and competitiveness, although several variations may be found for particular countries. The motivation for this research from a policy and management perspective, is to explore whether, how and why certain combinations of competitiveness, productivity and innovation levels for a given country as well as across countries reveal any particular set of intrinsic strengths or weaknesses as well as more effective entry points regarding public sector (policy) interventions. A systematic profiling and comparison of competitiveness, productivity and innovation competence levels may reveal guidelines and insights for private sector (management) choices and initiatives as well.     

The importance of recidivism research in understanding criminal behavior

Robert Martinson believes that a new epoch in criminology research has arrived, “the essence of which is a change in the dependent variable from recidivism to crime rate (combined with cost).” However, no study or evaluation should be discounted simply because it measures recidivism as a parameter of criminality. If adhered to, the Martinson thesis could retard scientific inquiry and clog the normal processes of data generation and theory construction. The new epoch of criminology research will involve the construction and testing of higher-order theories derived from more basic facts and empirical generalizations.     

关于知识产权促进医药创新的政策思考

为建立创新型国家这一奋斗目标,根据我国尤其是医药领域自主创新及其知识产权保护的现状,探讨利用知识产权促进创新的政策调整的目的、原则及必要性,并对医药领域创新类别及相应政策调整提出若干具体设想。     

A comparative evaluation of competition law, policy, and innovation

‘A book may be good for nothing; or there may be onlyone thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through?’(Samuel Johnson) This section is dedicated to the review of ideas, articles,books, films and other media. It will include replies (and rejoinders)to articles, the evaluation of new ideas or proposals, and reviewsof books and articles both directly and indirectly related tointellectual property law. Keeping apace with technological development, while simultaneouslyproviding a sound legal framework that ensures both legal     

Targets of partner violence: the importance of understanding coping trajectories

Partner violence causes many negative outcomes for the target of the violence. Preventing negative outcomes in part hinges on altogether preventing the violence from occurring. There have been advances in violence prevention that the authors briefly review. However, some of the most notable advances focus on dealing with partner violence once it occurs. We now have a better understanding of different types of violence, and this has led to better interventions for perpetrators. But preventing the negative consequences of partner violence involves more than ending the violence itself; it also involves helping the targets of violence heal. The authors propose that the next decade of research on partner violence should focus on developing precise models of target coping and appropriate interventions for targets. The authors describe key variables that characterize the coping process but highlight limitations in knowledge of how these variables are related. The authors also outline several benefits of focusing on helping targets.     

Translational criminology and its importance in policing: a review

ABSTRACT

Translational criminology is a decision-making perspective that emphasizes the dynamic coproduction of evidence by researchers and practitioners, focusing on obstacles to and facilitators of evidence generation and utilization. It incorporates several other data-driven decision-making models, including evidence-based policy making. This review suggests that the availability of empirical research is no longer the most significant impediment to evidence-based policing. Rather, translating and implementing knowledge about ‘what works‘ in policing has arisen as the field’s primary barrier to securing the effectiveness and efficiency improvements of research and data utilization. This article orients readers to translational criminology’s various components and explores their applications. Focusing on four central considerations, this review explores the roles of researcher practitioner partnerships, policy, technology, and government in developing and sustaining translational efforts in policing. The review concludes by acknowledging challenges to fostering a translational perspective in policing, and offers examples of where it has been applied with success.     

Crime,criminology and human rights: Towards an understanding of state criminality

This paper explores issues related to the analysis of a type of criminality frequently ignored in criminological literature: crimes of the state. It explores the potential of critical criminology to deal with state criminality via investigation of such issues as state interventions, overlapping activities of criminal versus non-criminal organizations and the distinction between individual and state actors. The paper specifically examines state criminality via analysis of the activities of the CIA and FBI in the United States. These activities include methods of surveillance, wiretapping, mail tampering, and the use of agents provocateurs. It also examines issues related to relativity in the definition of terrorism and the use of terrorism by the state. It is argued that, unless criminologists begin to address these issues, criminologists may find themselves in the awkward position of aiding the criminalization of non-criminal peoples around the world.     

Assessing a moral panic relating to crime and drugs policy in the Netherlands: Towards a testable theory

Using criteria from recent work by Goode and Ben Yehuda, this article tests the hypothesis that a moral panic relating to (youth) crime has been going on in the Netherlands since 1990. Most of the criteria are met. There is concern about the problem of crime and a consensus on solutions. There are also indications that public disquiet grew out of proportion compared to trends in crime and victimization, and that the panic erupted fairly suddenly. It is not possible to identify a clearer scapegoat than a diffuse image of “the” criminal. It is unclear what caused this panic. It seems unlikely that the panic started as a reaction to public problems, but nor is it possible to state that elites started it or that it was caused by bureaucratic processes at an intermediate level. Several methodological problems connected with the testing of the criteria are discussed. It is recommended that one criterion be added: that of misdirection of reactions to a social problem. It is also recommended that future research should be comparative, either comparing several minor local panics, or comparing panics or non-panics related to equivalent social problems. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Glocal targeted open innovation: challenges,opportunities and implications for theory,policy and practice

In line with the growing number and type of innovation sources and partners, companies’ institutional set up to manage the potential problems of multiple sources and partners for innovation is increasingly challenged to develop and maintain effective and efficient corporate innovation activities. The paper highlights recent developments of open innovation in companies. Findings are based on company case studies involving companies from different industries and company representatives. It shows that open innovation is actually a paradigm long practised but the main efforts are targeted to continuously developing the organization and managerial model of companies to meet the new innovation challenges.     

The ongoing debate over Medicare: understanding the philosophical and policy divides

This Article examines the evolution and status of Medicare, as well as the myriad current efforts to reform this longstanding entitlement. The author analyzes why healthcare financing for the elderly follows an administered pricing, fee-for-service model, while the working population generally obtains its insurance under a competitive market model. As a non-means-tested program modeled after Social Security, Medicare embraces both a universal entitlement philosophy of government-provided basic health services, and a need-based entitlement philosophy of caring for the Medicare-eligible elderly.     

当代公务员制度创新的发展趋势及其启示

随着信息化与全球化时代的到来,西方各国对韦伯官僚体制以及传统公务员制度普遍感到不满,为了应对新的行政生态环境的挑战及各种批评与诘难,西方主要国家对公务员制度进行了一系列创新活动。经过多年的创新实践,西方公务员制度创新呈现出一些明显的发展趋势,这些发展趋势对我国公务员制度创新路径选择与发展方向具有重要的参考价值与启示作用。