Building collective action at crime hot spots: Findings from a randomized field experiment

Journal of Experimental Criminology - The study examined whether Assets Coming Together (ACT), a policing intervention directed at increasing collective action and collective efficacy at crime hot...     

Cross-agency coordination of offender reentry: Testing collaboration outcomes

Successful offender reentry is arguably one of the most challenging contemporary issues, with policymakers calling for more effective coordination between criminal justice and social service agencies. Evidence linking cross-agency coordination to reentry outcomes is limited and underdeveloped. The theory of relational coordination was used to develop hypotheses regarding the impact of cross-agency coordination on reentry outcomes in “reentry hot spots” and to test those hypotheses. Results pointed to some differences in cross-agency coordination between cities that were part of reentry policy efforts and those that were not. Results also revealed that relationships between criminal justice agencies were relatively strong, while their relationships with employment providers were comparatively weaker, but the impacts of these relationships on reentry outcomes were limited at best. Findings support using relational coordination to understand reentry collaboration, to identify strengths and weaknesses of collaborative ties, and to measure their impact on reentry outcomes.     

If They Grow It,Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition

Abstract

In this article we address a gap in our understanding of how household agricultural production diversity affects the diets and nutrition of young children living in rural farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The specific objectives of this article are to assess: (1) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child dietary diversity; and (2) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child nutritional status. We use household survey data collected from 3,040 households as part of the Realigning Agriculture for Improved Nutrition (RAIN) intervention in Zambia. The data indicate low agricultural diversity, low dietary diversity and high levels of chronic malnutrition overall in this area. We find a strong positive association between production diversity and dietary diversity among younger children aged 6–23 months, and significant positive associations between production diversity and height for age Z-scores and stunting among older children aged 24–59 months.     

Beach boys or sexually exploited children? Competing narratives of sex tourism and their impact on young men in Sri Lanka??s informal tourist economy

Sex trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) are widely identified as global social problems, but each remain politically charged, especially given the disproportionate emphasis on sexual slavery. The current investigation is a case study of CSEC within the context of Sri Lanka??s international tourism industry. I draw from data collected during a multi-year field study to analyze and compare those understandings of sex tourism and CSEC driven by local ??moral crusaders????which dominated policy and public discussion??with the experiences of adolescent boys and young men who participated in these markets. Moral claims-making, focused as it was on cultural purity, morality, Western perversions, sexual slavery, and deviance, shifted attention away from the global political and economic contexts in which transactional sex took place. This resulted in both distortions and harms to marginalized youth in tourism communities, and a failure to address the economic realities of those involved in the informal tourism economy, including transactional sex with tourists. The current study thus adds additional support to the concerns raised by scholars and activists about the scope, nature, and impact of efforts to ameliorate commercial sexual exploitation, including the harms that result from narrow foci on individual deviance and sexual slavery.     

Welfare Reform: Prescription for Abuse? A Report on New Research Studies Documenting the Relationship of Domestic Violence and Welfare

Anecdotally, welfare‐to‐work programs have documented that domestic violence serves as a welfare‐to‐work barrier by partners' interference with education, training and work, or by physical or mental trauma which also prevents employment. Four new research studies, which, although using different methods, including random and nonrandom surveys of welfare caseloads and random neighborhood surveys, document high and remarkably consistent prevalence of domestic violence within welfare caseloads. Although much more needs to be known, the prevalence of domestic violence in these women's lives requires specific domestic violence‐sensitive welfare policies lest women become injured during the welfare‐to‐work process.