DOING TIME IN THE NEW GENERATION JAIL: INMATE PERCEPTIONS OF GAINS AND LOSSES

Observations of New Generation, podularldirect supervision jail operations indicate that the innovative architectural design and inmate management style provide a safer, more humane environment for inmates while concurrently reducing opportunities for inmates to illegitimately fulfill their needs. In the first part of this paper, we demonstrate how differences in New Generation and traditional jail architecture and operations influence the legitimate and illegitimate means by which inmates seek to fulfill their needs. Using data collected from New Generation and traditional jails, we then compare inmate perceptions of need fulfillment, evaluations of the environment and levels of stress.     

IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: FROM TRADITIONAL TO NEW GENERATION JAIL OPERATIONS

The recent introduction of the New Generation, podular/direct supervision philosophy of jail architecture and inmate management dramatically changes the nature and design of the work performed by custodial staff. In particular, the new philosophy has the potential to "enrich" the job of correctional officers. Using before and after data gathered a t one institution, we address whether job enrichment is an outcome of the transition from traditional to podular/direct supervision detention facility design, and whether enrichment of the job affects employee perceptions of the work and of the organization.     

INADEQUACIES IN THE PROCESSES OF POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN AUSTRALIA

Abstract: Policy and policy development have received considerable attention in Australia over the last decade or more. This attention has resulted in many recommendations on policy in the series of major public service inquiries of the 1970s, in a number of books and journal articles on varied aspects of public policy, and in the considerable strengthening of the policy development capacities of many government agencies. This attention has to date been inadequate, because it has in almost all cases concentrated on the questions of where within the bureaucratic structure policy development should occur and what procedural mechanisms are needed to allow ministers or cabinet to choose between alternative policies and to facilitate the coordination of policies. These questions are of course important, but questions of how a well-considered policy option that can be considered by a cabinet or a minister is actually developed appear to have been almost totally ignored. In the public service inquiries, in the published literature, and in public accounts of the work of policy units, there appears to be virtually no analysis of the process of policy development. There is little or no discussion of how the standard formal models of policy development match or fail to match the techniques used in Australia, and although there have been many individual case studies of policy issues, there are no comparative case studies from which general observations might be drawn. Lastly, there are very few positive suggestions as to how policy development in Australia could be improved. Overcoming these inadequacies provides a major challenge to Australian policy workers.     

ANGELS IN PLASTIC: THE LIBERAL SURGE IN 1974

Abstract. Before the Liberal surge in 1974, survey research stressed that the Liberal vote was electorally volatile, socially representative, and negative in character. Data from 1974 indicates that the volatility of the Liberal vote owes more to the absence of a large core of stable Liberal voters than to any difference among parties in their ability to retain the votes of recent converts. Moreover, the small core of regular Liberal voters is unusually middle-aged and middle-class, socially very different from the larger and socially representative body of occasional Liberal voters. In the eyes of the electorate, the Liberal Party continues to have a diffuse image, largely devoid of any specific policy content. The Party benefited from dissatisfaction with the state of the country, but there is no evidence that an image of classlessness contributed to its electoral success. Moreover, while most Liberal voters did so for some positive reason, many of their reasons had more to do with style than policy, and the personalities of party leaders appear to have had much to do with moving people to consider—if not actually vote for—the Liberal Party.     

GOVERNMENTS IN BUSINESS

Books reviewed in this article
Neil W. Hamilton and Peter R. Hamilton. Governance of Public Enterprise: A Case Study of Urban Mass Transit
R. Joseph Monsen and Kenneth D. Walters. Nationalized Companies: A Threat to American Business
Lloyd Musolf. Uncle Sam's Private, Profitseeking Corporations
W.T. Stanbury and Fred Thompson (Eds.). Managing Public Enterprises