Empowering local government or just passing the austerity buck? The changing balance of central and local government in welfare provision in England 2008–2015

This paper asks two questions: first, how did the balance of decision-making between central and local government in welfare policy in England change between 2010 and 2015? Second, to what extent has that led to divergence in the extent and manner of such provision? It finds significant areas of policy where local flexibility has been increased (such as council tax benefit, crisis loans, and funding for specialist housing), either through a change in the tier of government responsible, or ‘unringfencing’ of grants allowing local authorities greater discretion in whether to deliver particular services, although in other important areas decisions on welfare remain firmly centralized. It also concludes that in areas where responsibility has been localized, divergence has been immediate and substantial. Localization may well reduce entitlements where local authorities enjoy a financial reward for so doing and political costs are low.     

What Small Spatial Scales Are Relevant as Electoral Contexts for Individual Voters? The Importance of the Household on Turnout at the 2001 General Election

For many years, scholars of voting behavior have been thwarted in their attempts to identify micro spatial variations in turnout by data limitations. This has meant that most analyses have been ecological, which has implications for valid inference. Here, for the first time, a hierarchical approach is used to show the relative importance of several micro spatial scales, including the household, on voter participation. The findings highlight the importance of the household context. While those who live together often turn out together, the relative level of clustering within households as opposed to between geographical areas is found to be more important for two-person households compared to other households. Even after taking account of whether individuals are likely to self-select others from similar social backgrounds or with similar political attitudes, there is strong evidence of large and significant household effects on voter participation.     

Consistency and reproducibility in fingermark deposition

A review of the available literature and previous research has suggested that there are several factors associated with the deposition of friction ridge skin marks that can affect the quality of the resultant marks, including the quantity of force applied, the angle of friction ridge and surface contact and the duration of friction ridge and surface contact. A device referred to as a fingerprint sampler was designed and constructed to facilitate the deposition of fingermarks for research projects. Fingermarks were deposited with and without the fingerprint sampler and examined for evidence of distortion. The quality of the marks was also assessed. The results of this study suggested that the fingerprint sampler deposited fingermarks without distortion caused by some physical factors associated with deposition and that the marks were of a statistically significantly higher quality than marks deposited without its use.     

Crisis intervention skills training for police negotiators in the 21st century

Summary While Crisis Management training and intervention skills are not new areas for police officers or for police crisis negotiators, it is certainly true that such training must be included in the overall preparation for police officers in general and for police crisis negotiators in particular. Not to do so ignores the need for such skills in the day-to-day functions and calls-for-service of these groups. It has been the experience of this author, in talking with police negotiators, that more and more calls for their services are being made, in situations which are non-hostage related, than ever before. These areas continue to include barricaded individuals, suicidal persons, family disputes in which one member of the family is holding other members of the family against their will, and abuse situations including spouse abuse and child abuse. Additional areas include those in which there are juveniles involved as well as within school settings. Some of the latter may involve hostages while others do not. Finally, it is becoming less unusual for negotiators to be summoned only to find that the subject has engaged in acts designed to evoke fatal responses from those officers involved. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as “death by cop.” Further, it is also important that those indirectly involved in these situations receive this type of Crisis Intervention training. These may include first response officers, first response police and security personnel in our public and private schools, security officers in our hospitals and courthouses, and others who, due to their particular jobs, may be involved in these types of incidents.     

Review

Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996, xvi + 939 pp., £28.50.

Reiner Weichhardt (ed.), Status of Economic Reforms in Cooperation Partner Countries in the mid‐1990s: Opportunities, Constraints, Security Implications. Brussels: NATO, 1996, 293 pp.

Pal Gáspár (ed.), Changes and Challenges: Economic Transformation in East‐Central Europe. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1995, 146 pp.

Ian Jeffries, A Guide to Economies in Transition. London: Routledge, 1996, ix + 816 pp.

Rumen Dobrinsky & Michael Landesmann (eds), Transforming Economies and European Integration. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995, xvi + 331 pp. £59.95.

John P. Hardt & Richard F. Kaufman (eds), East‐Central European Economies in Transition. New York: M. E. Sharp, 1995, xv + 709 pp., $39.95.

Eckhard J. Dittrich, Gert Schmidt & Richard Whitley (eds), Industrial Transformation in Europe. Process and Contexts. London: Sage, 1995, x + 290 pp., £35.00.

Gary McMahon (ed.), Lessons in Economic Policy for Eastern Europe from Latin America. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxii + 256 pp., $40.00.

Sergei Sinel'nikov‐Murylev, Byudzhetnyi krizis v Rossii: 1985–1995 gody. Moscow: Evraziya, 1995, 316 pp.

Sue Bridger, Rebecca Kay & Kathryn Pinnick, No More Heroines? Russia, Women and the Market. London: Routledge, 1996, ix + 220 pp., £12.99.

Simon Clarke (ed.), Labour Relations in Transition: Wages, Employment and Industrial Conflict in Russia. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996, x + 282 pp., £49.95.

Oksana Dmitrieva, Regional Development: The USSR and After. London: UCL Press, 1996, xi + 211 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Richard Pomfret, The Economies of Central Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 205 pp., £27.50.

Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Islam and Politics in Central Asia. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995, xxiv + 264 pp., £30.00.

Revaz Gachechiladze, The New Georgia: Space, Society, Politics. London: UCL Press, 1995, xxi + 205 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Uri Ra'anan & Kate Martin (eds), Russia: A Return to Imperialism? Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, viii + 216 pp., £29.50.

Thomas Carothers, Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996, vi+ 144 pp., $12.95.

Peter Lentini (ed.), Elections and Political Order in Russia: The Implications of the 1993 Elections to the Federal Assembly. London: Oxford University Press/Central European University Press, 1995, xii + 292 pp., £30.00 h/b, £11.95 p/b.

Stephen White, Russia Goes Dry: Alcohol, State and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xiii + 250 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Edvard Radzinsky, Stalin: The First In‐depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives. Translated by H. T. Willetts. New York, Doubleday, 1996, xii + 607 pp.

Robert F. Byrnes, V. O. Kliuchevskii, Historian of Russia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995, xxi + 301 pp., £31.50.     

Programs for Men who Perpetrate Domestic Violence: An Examination of the Issues Underlying the Effectiveness of Intervention Programs

This review paper seeks to explore some of the reasons why rehabilitation programs for male perpetrators of domestic violence appear to be less effective in reducing recidivism than programs for other offender groups. It is argued that while the model of systems response to domestic violence has predominated at the inter-agency level, further consideration might be given to way in which men’s intervention groups are both designed and delivered. It is concluded that the program logic of men’s domestic violence programs is rarely articulated leading to low levels of program integrity, and that one way to further improve program effectiveness is to incorporate some of the approaches evident in more general violence prevention programs and from what is know about good practice in general about offender rehabilitation.

An analysis of strategies used to disseminate the PLATO system

Two aspects of efforts to disseminate an innovative computer-assisted instructional system called PLATO between 1972 and 1976 are addressed. The first pertains to the dissemination problems encountered and resolved by the system developers. The second covers dissemination modus operandi chosen by the developers to bring PLATO to the attention of large numbers of people. An ex post facto analysis of data obtained suggested PLATO developers made dissemination decisions that reflected viable dissemination theory and practice of the time, committed substantial resources to the dissemination process, and selected what appeared to be a cost-effective marketing strategy. Perhaps the most important consequence of these actions is that PLATO flourished throughout the 1970s and continues to flourish.