Do Participatory Learning and Action Women’s Groups Alone or Combined with Cash or Food Transfers Expand Women’s Agency in Rural Nepal?

Participatory learning and action women’s groups (PLA) have proven effective in reducing neonatal mortality in rural, high-mortality settings, but their impacts on women’s agency in the household remain unknown. Cash transfer programmes have also long targeted female beneficiaries in the belief that this empowers women. Drawing on data from 1309 pregnant women in a four-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial in Nepal, we found little evidence for an impact of PLA alone or combined with unconditional food or cash transfers on women’s agency in the household. Caution is advised before assuming PLA women’s groups alone or with resource transfers necessarily empower women.     

Section 8 Renters in the Phoenix,Arizona, Foreclosure Crisis: Implications for Poverty Deconcentration

How the recent U.S. foreclosure crisis affected federal housing mobility programs has not been well studied. This article explores the crisis’s impact on low-income renters receiving Section 8 vouchers in Phoenix, Arizona. We find that (a) 8% of voucher holders lived in homes that underwent foreclosure, (b) they were in comparably affluent neighborhoods, and (c) most eventually moved after foreclosure. Yet, those who moved after foreclosure were not overtly disadvantaged in the housing market. This unexpected finding may be explained by the opening up of new housing opportunities for voucher holders as foreclosures in more affluent areas were converted to rentals. Overall, this research suggests that the foreclosure crisis did not adversely affect the Section 8 program’s goal of deconcentrating poverty in Phoenix and may have even advanced it—a dynamic potentially occurring in other formerly booming and economically distressed Sunbelt regions.     

The Influence of Latinisms on the Quality of the Judgments of Polish Courts

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - This article addresses the issue of linguistic phenomena which, as a legacy of the centuries-old...     

Population heterogeneity, state dependence and sexual offender recidivism: The aging process and the lost predictive impact of prior criminal charges over time

Purpose

Two competing theories explain the link between past and future criminal behavior: population heterogeneity and state dependence. Actuarial models of risk prediction emphasize static variables, akin to population heterogeneity. State dependence, has never been tested with similar populations.

Methods

Using survival modeling this study examines both population heterogeneity and state dependence using a sample of adult sex offenders incarcerated in Quebec, Canada from 1994-2000. Analyses were conducted on offenders age 36 and over (n = 242). Official criminal activity was measured at: (a) 18-23 years; (b) 24-29 years; (c) 30-35 years; and, (d) 36 + years.

Results

Cox proportional hazards modeling shows stronger evidence for state dependence, suggesting changeability in risk over time.

Conclusions

Support was found for both offending continuity and discontinuity, or a mixed model of offending. Current actuarial risk assessment tools for adult sex offenders do not accommodate for the inclusion of state dependent and life-course processes, which could have implications for the potential overestimation of offender risk.     

Identity-Linked Perceptions of the Police Among African American Juvenile Offenders: A Developmental Perspective

Ethnic identity development can play a role in youths’ perceptions and attitudes concerning police, but this process has not been explored in delinquent samples. In this article, we examine how youths’ perceptions of police legitimacy and levels of legal cynicism are related to processes of ethnic identity development. Participants were 561 black youth ages 14–18 (12% female) who were adjudicated of a felony or serious misdemeanor. Data were taken from semi-annual interviews conducted over 3 years. Increased ethnic identity exploration was related to positive perceptions of police legitimacy and lower legal cynicism. Higher ethnic identity affirmation predicted higher perceived legitimacy over time, but affirmation was not related to legal cynicism after accounting for psychosocial maturity. This study provides evidence that ethnic identity development operates similarly among high risk youth as in non-delinquent samples, and that it is connected to beliefs that can have implications for juvenile offenders’ future compliance with the law.