Science cannot fix this: the limitations of evidence-based practice

The use of evidence-based practice as a guide for correctional investment is widely lauded as a positive shift away from punitive approaches to criminal justice. The value-neutral language of science, however, supplants a more fundamental and necessary dialog about core principles of our justice system. We raise concern that the discourse of evidence-based practice serves to avoid accountability for the dominant correctional regime which remains overwhelmingly invested in the imposition of punishment. Furthermore, evidence-based practice privileges academic expertise and de-legitimizes the knowledge base within affected communities stifling grassroots innovation and creativity.     

Coping and Resilience during the Food,Fuel, and Financial Crises

This article aggregates qualitative field research from sites in 17 developing countries to describe crisis impacts and analyse how people coped with the food, fuel, and financial crises during 2008–2011. The research uncovered significant hardships behind the apparent resilience, with widespread reports of food insecurity, debt, asset loss, stress, and worsening crime and community cohesion. There were important gender and age differences in the distribution of impacts and coping responses, with women often acting as shock absorbers. The more common sources of assistance were family, friends, community-based and religious organisations with formal social protection and finance less important. The traditional informal safety nets of the poor became depleted as the crisis deepened, pointing to the need for better formal systems for coping with future shocks.     

(Gendered) War

Kurzman (2004) Kurzman, C. 2004. “Conclusion: Social movement theory and Islamic studies”. In Islamic activism: A social movement theory approach, Edited by: Wiktorowicz, Q. 289–303. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.  [Google Scholar] argued that social movements research and Islamic studies “followed parallel trajectories, with few glances across the chasm that have separated them.” This article will illuminate one influential process that has relevance to both these areas, the use of small groups for the purpose or radical mobilization. Specifically, it examines the impact of the use of small Islamic study groups (usroh and halaqa) for fundamental and radical Islamic movements. Although small-group mobilization is not unique to Islam, the strategic use of these study groups empowered by the Islamic belief system has yielded significant returns in capacity building for high-risk activism.     

Recrafting the national imaginary and the new “vanguardism”

An opportunity exists to assess the limitations in building long-term peace in post-conflict states, particularly given the extent to which negotiated settlements incorporate demands for democratic mechanisms. By assessing how post-conflict governments construct new majorities through policy tools as well as assessing how they are constrained by the structural realities of negotiated settlements, we gain some purchase on the reasons why some post-conflict state projects succeed while others fail. This has potentially transformative implications for our understanding of how social contracts, and their attendant issues of consent, dissent, and legitimacy, operate in the modern world and the ways they impact such critical discussions as democratic transition, post-conflict reconciliation, and nation-building. We use the case of post-apartheid South Africa to analyse how post-conflict states are limited in terms of forging social contracts among citizens and between citizens and governments. Of specific interest is the way that post-conflict social contracting compels nation-builders to eschew the uncertainties of viable electoral democracy in favour of dominant party regimes or electoral authoritarianism. We suggest that this tension is less a result of pecuniary interest on the part of nation-builders and more a consequence of the imperfections of the modern social contracting process.     

Discouraging Disadvantaged Fathers’ Employment: An Unintended Consequence of Policies Designed to Support Families

Substantial declines in employment and earnings among disadvantaged men may be exacerbated by child support enforcement policies that are designed to help support families but may have the unintended consequence of discouraging fathers’ employment. Disentangling causal effects is challenging because high child support debt may be both a cause and a consequence of unemployment and low child support order compliance. We used childbirth costs charged in unmarried mothers’ Medicaid‐covered childbirths, from Wisconsin administrative records, as an exogenous source of variation to identify the impact of debt. We found that greater debt has a substantial negative effect on fathers’ formal employment and child support payments, and that this effect is mediated by fathers’ prebirth earnings histories.     

Examining the Impact of Duration,Connection, and Dosage of Domestic Violence Services on Survivor Well-Being

Journal of Family Violence - Survivors of domestic violence (DV) have a wide range of needs when they seek help from DV programs. While there is growing evidence that advocacy and other supportive...