American Indians and sentencing disparity: An Arizona test

Although a proliferation of research exists examining the extent to which African American criminal defendants receive more harsh sentences relative to Caucasians, comparatively little research has examined the issue of discrimination in relation to other minority groups. This article examines disparities in sentence length received between American Indian and Caucasian inmates incarcerated in Arizona state correctional facilities. Regression analyses were used to predict the sentences received by American Indian and Caucasian inmates convicted of six crimes (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, assault, burglary, and larceny). After prior felony record and other demographic variables were controlled in these crime-specific models, the crimes of robbery and burglary were the only crimes in which American Indians received longer sentences than Caucasians convicted of the same offense. Caucasian defendants received significantly longer sentences than American Indians for cases of homicide. A defendant's prior felony record was the only variable that consistently increased the length of sentence received by defendants across all types of crime. These findings are discussed and interpreted using various theoretical arguments.     

Rent-seeking with asymmetric valuations: Addition or deletion of a player

We consider an extension of Tullock's (1980) N-player contest under which prize valuations may vary across players. We show that the pure-strategy equilibrium of this contest is unique. We also establish the following results: rent dissipation increases, individual winning probabilities decrease, and individual spending either increases or decreases with the addition of a player.     

The Cultural and Developmental Significance of Parenting Processes in Adolescent Anxiety and Depression Symptoms

This study examined the cultural and developmental significance of maternal and paternal parenting processes (closeness, support, monitoring, communication, conflict, and peer approval) for measures of anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents from Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States (N=6,935). Across all cultural contexts, measures of maternal and paternal support and conflict were most consistently associated with measures of internalizing behaviors. Few differences were observed in the importance of individual parenting processes for anxiety or depression symptoms across cultures. Additionally, with the exception of maternal conflict for anxiety and depression symptoms and paternal closeness for depression symptoms, none of the parenting process dimensions differed in importance for internalizing behaviors across developmental periods (middle versus late adolescence). The investigation provides evidence of great similarity in developmental processes, both across cultural contexts and developmental periods.

Evaluating partnerships for community health improvement: tracking the footprints

Private-public partnerships are increasingly seen as an important mechanism for improving community health. Despite their popularity, traditional evaluations of these efforts have produced negative or mixed results. This is often attributed to weak interventions or an insufficient period of time to observe an impact. This study examines two additional possibilities--the need for a well-articulated shared vision and the governance and management capabilities of the partnership itself. We conducted a midstream process evaluation of twenty-five community partnerships associated with the Community Care Network (CCN) Demonstration Program. We examined how the roles of a common shared vision, strong governance, and effective management influence a partnership's ability to achieve its objectives. The findings, based on both qualitative and quantitative analyses, underscore the importance of membership organizations' perceived benefits and costs of participation and management capabilities to the partnership's progress toward a vision. Based on the qualitative data, six key governance and management characteristics are identified that separate the top performing partnerships from the lowest performing ones. We explore the implications of this research for future evaluations of public-private community health partnerships.     

Successful model of suicide prevention in the Ukraine military environment

The article deals with the problem of suicidal behavior in the Ukraine military environment and gives an example of the successful prevention approach. The model of prevention is based on (1) education of the responsible officers, (2) training of the representatives of the most vulnerable risk groups, and (3) follow-up procedures based on distribution of pocket books for soldiers, educational booklets, and sets of helpful materials for officers. One of the main conclusions is that the prevention activity must be organized as a continuum of actions, seminars, consultations, and materials distribution.     

Litigation Migrants

Civil law is enforced primarily via private litigation. One characteristic of private enforcement is that litigation levels tend to cycle between periods of boom and bust. This article builds a theory for explaining this fluctuation, proposing that plaintiffs’ attorneys can be understood as economic migrants. Just as workers cross borders to find jobs, lawyers “move” across case types and jurisdictions to find profitable claims, and case filing numbers increase as a result. Using the recent wage and hour litigation boom as a case study, this article paints an empirical picture of attorney migration and its influence on case filing numbers.     

“(Mis)interpreting Threats: A Case Study of the Korean War”

During the fall of 1950, many American national security officials concluded that the Chinese Communists would refrain from undertaking full-scale intervention in the Korean War. Contrary to most secondary accounts, however, officials who doubted that Communist China would intervene nonetheless drew increasingly worrisome signs from incoming verbal threats and intelligence signals. A small minority of officials in the State Department expressed considerable concern over the dangers of having United Nations forces cross into North Korea and approach the Yalu River. This growing concern and the minority of opposing voices, however, did not override the prevailing judgment—held by hawkish members of the State Department and the CIA as a whole—that China would more likely increase covert involvement in the Korean War, but would not undertake full-scale military intervention. Theories of biased assimilation and risk-taking practices have divergent success in predicting American reactions to the threat. Only further archival research can shed light on how this case of American strategic surprise comports with these theories.     

Technology transfer in the Americas: common and divergent practices among major research universities and public sector institutions

The present article presents the results of a qualitative study whose purpose was to compare the structure and operation of the programs for intellectual property management and technology transfer, and the mechanisms through which to foster entrepreneurship, in five high-profile research institutions across the Americas. The institutions of focus included Stanford University and the University of California, Davis in the United States; the Universidad Católica and the Universidad de Concepción in Chile; and the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina. The purpose of the study was to elucidate commonalities and differences among these institutions with respect to their technology transfer practices, and to distill methodologies that could be used to establish or refine technology transfer offices in American regions. Research revealed common goals and core activities, shared and implemented in similar ways among all five institutions. However, the analysis also identified divergent areas within the structure and operation of the various technology transfer programs, representing significant differences between the five institutions.