Fathers as carers in UK law and policy: dominant ideologies and lived experience

This article explores how working fathers are conceptualised within the UK’s work-family law and policy framework and whether a dominant ideology of fatherhood can be discerned. The socio-legal literature on men and masculinities is considered alongside established feminist theory on families, paid work and unpaid care to provide a backdrop to the analysis of current policy provision in this area. Three ‘ideal’ type ideologies of fatherhood are identified (‘absent’, ‘involved’ and ‘active’) which are used to critically examine the current legal framework. Despite claims to the contrary, the current framework supports and reaffirms the gendering of care so that the intransigence on the part of men and women to rebalance related responsibilities is unsurprising. The authors argue for a more care-centric approach to work-family policy in place of gender-specific normative modelling. A legal framework which enabled and encouraged all care providers to participate regardless of gender and biological relationship would not only improve the workplace experiences of women, but also enable men to develop and fulfil their care-giving aspirations and potential.     

Crime-minimizing drug policy

Objective

To identify changes in drug abuse control measures that would reduce non-drug crime.

Method

Policy analysis.

Results

Expanding current anti-drug efforts in the conventional triad of enforcement, prevention, and treatment (including drug courts) holds out little hope of reducing non-drug crime. Routine drug law enforcement risks increasing crime by raising drug prices and creating incentives for violence among dealers. Low-arrest crackdowns to break up flagrant markets promise better results.Even good prevention programs have modest effect sizes, and most prevention programs are not based on proven models.The overlap between the population of heavy illicit drug users and the population of frequent non-drug offenders presents a problem and a policy opportunity that current programs largely fail to grasp.Drug treatment, except for opiate substitution, has difficulty recruiting and retaining clients, and weak sanctions systems render treatment mandates largely nominal. Abstinence-mandate programs such as HOPE and Sobriety 24/7 have shown superior results in reducing re-offending and incarceration.Raising alcohol taxes reduces heavy alcohol use and crime due to intoxication without generating any offsetting criminogenic effects.

Conclusion

Current drug policies are not optimally designed for the control of non-drug crime. Improvements are within relatively easy reach.     

Prescriptions for punishment: Official ideologies and jall overcrowding

This study assesses key actors’ “worlds of fact” regarding jail overcrowding in California through an examination of their perceptions of causes and effects, support for different solutions, and adherence to major punishment ideologies. How policymakers define and structure a specific problem Gail overcrowding), can influence how policy options are differentially weighed as well as how existing policy processes can be improved. A mail survey was sent to two key decision making groups who largely regulate the intake and outflow of local jails: sheriffs and chief probation officers of the 58 California counties. Group differences in responses were predicted from the perspectives of blame avoidance, domain dissensus, and punishment theory. Relationships were examined among perceived causes, effects, solutions, and punishment ideologies. While both sheriffs and probation chiefs advocated highly similar “control-oriented” punishment ideologies, probation chiefs advocated more “progressive” solutions to jail overcrowding. Perceived causes and effects of jail overcrowding, along with support for deterrence ideology, were strongly related to elite support for three potential solutions: building more institutions, passing tougher laws to deter potential offenders, and using shorter sentences for low-risk offenders. Implications of these results for understanding jail overcrowding and policy processes are discussed.     

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。     

Lifting the cover on drug courts: evaluation findings and policy concerns

Drug treatment courts emerged in 1989 as a court-based solution to an enormous increase of drug-related arrests. Since their inception, drug treatment courts have been subject to empirical and process evaluations to provide quantitative and qualitative data regarding their effectiveness. This article reviews the extant literature on the effectiveness of drug treatment courts and discusses findings regarding various components of the criminal justice system. It is argued that based on empirical evaluation findings, drug treatment courts have achieved success in lowering rates of recidivism among drug offenders, despite problematic methodological and analytical concerns. This article also presents key components and agents of drug treatment courts and discusses their impact and relevance to policy creation and adaptation. It is suggested that when combined with empirical evaluations, process evaluations provide great insight into the drug-treatment-court dynamic. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of drug treatment courts for justice policy.     

Health care policy issues in the drug abuser treatment field

As we enter the 1990s drug abuse has once again become a major health concern, and for the first time the drug treatment field has had to address many of the policy, regulation, and planning issues resulting from cost inflation that have become commonplace in other parts of the health care field. To avoid serious errors and confusion, drug abuse health policies must recognize the very different needs of the public and private sectors. The public sector, where poor addicts receive drug treatment provided or purchased by the government, has long suffered from chronically inadequate funding. Although responses to several epidemics (heroin, crack, and AIDS) have produced periods of increased allocations for drug abuse treatment, more often than not long waiting lists at programs have rationed treatment to lower-income addicts seeking care. Low salary levels have limited the quality of public treatment services, and the absence of resources has hindered the development of programs that respond to new technical developments and drug abuse problems, such as the crack epidemic. Despite severe resource shortages, the public drug treatment system has sometimes used resources inefficiently, with little attention to appropriateness of admissions, lengths of stay, ambulatory treatment modalities, or varying levels of care. Public sector goals for the 1990s should include filling current shortages in drug treatment services, developing adequate long-term funding for treating addicts who lack third-party coverage, modernizing the treatment system, developing new patterns of practice that use existing resources more efficiently, and developing a plan for treating intravenous drug users infected with the AIDS virus. In the private sector, the advent of working- and middle-class demand for drug treatment in the 1970s and 1980s has produced a new drug treatment system that suffers from many of the policy problems common to the rest of health care. Drug abuse in the workplace has resulted in much wider coverage of substance abuse services by insurance companies and HMOs. The availability of third-party funds has spawned a for-profit chemical dependency treatment industry. The high cost of private residential treatment services has caused significant cost inflation. Cost-containment measures, which are a new phenomenon for this field and are inappropriate for the public sector, have led to the same confusion and debates that they have produced in other areas of health care.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

I.v. drug use and AIDS: public policy and dirty needles

Users of intravenous heroin, cocaine, and amphetamines risk the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) through the sharing of contaminated injection equipment. Although most users are aware of this risk, the scarcity of sterile needles and syringes, combined with various social and cultural factors, fosters dangerous sharing practices. This paper examines the legal and political contexts of proposals to ease access to sterile needles and injection equipment. The author seeks an explanation for the continued reluctance to institute such programs in the United States, while similar programs have been instituted in other countries where intravenous drug use has also contributed to the spread of HIV infection and AIDS.     

简议范仲淹的司法改革思想

文章集中论述了北宋改革家范仲淹在庆历新政中推行司法改革 ,提出加强司法监督 ,强化刑部职能 ,重命令 ,准律文 ,慎选司法官吏等重大指施 ,充分地反映了范仲淹的司法改革思想     

Problem solving as reinforcement in adolescent drug use: Implications for theory and policy

The problem of adolescent drug use received a great deal of attention both in criminological theory and public policy. Predominant among theories was Akers' social learning theory which examined the role of learning through a process of imitation, modeling, and reinforcement. Public policy led to the development of programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) that aimed to warn youths of the dangers of drug use. In line with research findings, both theory and policy gave a central role to peers in understanding adolescent drug use. Less attention was given to another important finding in the literature, that those who used drugs often perceived the drugs as solutions to problems. Using social learning theory, the role of perceptions of drug use as an effective problem solver was examined. Results indicated that a more explicit recognition of the use of drugs to deal with problems might inform both theory and policy.     

Orphan drug incentives in the pharmacogenomic context: policy responses in the US and Canada

Advances in pharmacogenomic research and increasing industry interest in personalized medicine have important implications for the way that orphan drug policies are interpreted and applied. Concerns have been raised about the potential impact of pharmacogenomics and new genomic technologies on our understanding of how disease categories are delineated, and subsequently, how the concept of rare disease should be defined for the purposes of orphan drug policies. This article considers whether orphan drug legislation can be drafted in a way that will maximize benefits and minimize concerns relating to the impact of pharmacogenomics on orphan drug research and development. After reviewing the issues that may arise at the intersection of orphan drug policies and pharmacogenomics, this article will discuss the potential impact of pharmacogenomics at two critical points: orphan designation and approval of the drug product. At each of these points, the relevant aspects of current US orphan drug legislation are examined, focusing on the extent to which recent amendments may address concerns that have been raised previously. This analysis will then provide the foundation for a critical review and recommendations regarding the proposed new Canadian orphan drug framework.     

Can the United Nations support "objective" and unhampered illicit drug policy research?

Policies towards mind-altering drugs are controversial and vary among countries and cultures. Many nations feel that the United Nations should be a forum where anti-drug issues can be discussed openly and `objectively'. During the 1990s I participated frequently in U.N. sponsored research projects. This essay summarize what has been a challenging and exciting experience and raises many questions about the U.N.'s capacity to do and or fund `objective' drug research. This is so because of pressures on the U.N. from drug-policy setting countries, lack of independent funds for the U.N. drug policy agencies, the structure and internal dynamics of the U.N. bureaucracies, and the background of the involved U.N. staff. As a result of these factors, the U.N. has promoted a repressive anti-drug agenda and does not allow open debate of many of key anti-drug issues currently discussed in many coutries. This is unfortunate because the UN. has the largest amount of information about illicit drugs anywhere in the world and can play a key role improving anti-drug policies that currently are unsatisfactory to both, drug hawks and doves.