Inequality,discrimination, and service delivery: A recapitulation for the public administrator

The equitable provision of urban public services has begun to receive increased attention from researchers, administrators, and the courts. Recent research has questioned the view that minority and low-income groups are systematically deprived in the distribution of public services, e.g. police and fire services, libraries, street quality and maintenance, and parks and recreational facilities. This paper reviews empirical studies in urban service distribution and judicial responses to municipal service claims. The research reveals that discimination in service delivery does exist. However, it is difficult to determine empirically in larger cities if a consistent pattern of discrimination exists and whether or not it bears a significant relationship to race or class. Discrimination and inequality on the basis of race has been subject to meticulous judicial prowess benefitting at one time or another the citizen and the municipality. The courts are requiring overwhelming statistical documentation to substantiate racial discrimination in the provision of urban public services.     

Motivating the uninvolved worker: some conceptual and empirical observations

This paper focuses on the issue of whether less involved workers are affected by conventional management practices such as group involvement, merit pay, and participative management. The findings suggest that while these management practices have some influence on the performance of uninvolved employees, that uninvolved employees are behaviorally distinct from more actively involved workers. As a consequence, it may be prudent for managers in the public sector to develop management practices and approaches specifically designed to stimulate low involvement employees.     

Reconciling Expert Advice and Community Opinion in a Local Government Strategic Planning Process

This article proposes that the eventual outcomes of local government strategic policy deliberations can often reflect the interplay between “expert” administrative staff, democratically elected politicians, and the community they jointly serve. A multi-site case study approach, to examine the generation of local government strategy related to a niche economic activity concludes that broadly conceptualized opinion congruence can sometimes be threatened by substantial pockets of stakeholder vested interest. As such, “expert” and “political” opinion reflects a caution based on both historical experience and political expediency; while community opinion displays an optimism based on eager anticipation of an unknown future.     

Appendix I: Glossary

All the First Minister's Men: The Truth Behind Holyrood. By D. Black. Edinburgh: Birlinn 2001. Pp.237, £7.99. ISBN 1841581674.

New Scotland, New Politics. By A. Brown, J. Curtice and L. Paterson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2001. Pp.206, £14.99 ISBN 1902930258.

The Scottish Electorate. By A. Brown and D. McCrone. Basingstoke: Macmillan 1999. Pp.200, £17.99 (paper) ISBN 0333725263; £47.50 (cloth) ISBN 0333725255.

Politics and Society in Scotland. By A. Brown, A.D. McCrone and L. Paterson. Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998. Pp.288, £15.50, ISBN 0333747089.

The Scottish Nation, 1700–2000. By T. Devine. London: Allen Lane 1999. Pp.720, £9.99, ISBN 0140230041.

Scotland's Shame? Bigotry and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland. Edited by T. Devine. Edinburgh: Mainstream 2000. Pp.240, £9.99, ISBN 1840183306.

The Road to Home Rule: Images of Scotland's Cause. By C. Harvie and P. Jones. Edinburgh: Polygon 2000. Pp.224, £11.99 ISBN 190293010X.

Claiming Scotland: National Identity and Liberal Culture. By J. Hearn. Edinburgh: Polygon 2000. Pp.233, £16.99, ISBN 1902930169.

Scottish Politics in the Twentieth Century. By I.G.C. Hutchison. Basingstoke: Palgrave 2001. Pp.208, £14.50 (paper) ISBN 0333588754; £45 (cloth) ISBN 0333588746.

Scottish Government and Politics. By P. Lynch. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2001. Pp.248, £14.95, ISBN 0748612874.

After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland. By T. Nairn. London: Granta 2000. Pp.336, £8.99, ISBN 1862073228.

Crisis in the Classroom. By L. Paterson. Edinburgh: Mainstream 2000. Pp.192, £7.99, ISBN 1840184205.

Scotland Reclaimed: The Inside Story of Scotland's First Democratic Parliamentary Elections. By M. Richie. Edinburgh: Saltire Society 2000. Pp.224, £10.99, ISBN 0854110771.

An Important Matter of Principle. By D. Seawright. Dartmouth: Ashgate 1999. Pp.236, £47.50, ISBN 1840140666.

Imagine: A Socialist Vision for the 21st Century By T. Sheridan and A. McCombes. Edinburgh: Rebel Inc. 2000. Pp.272, £7.99, ISBN 1841950564.

Open Scotland? Journalists, Spin Doctors and Lobbyists. By P. Schlesinger. Edinburgh: Polygon 2001. Pp.318, £15.99, ISBN 1902930282.

The Scottish Parliament. By B. Taylor. Edinburgh: Polygon 1999. Pp.266, £12.99, ISBN 1902930126.

Year Zero: An Inside View of the Scottish Parliament. By M. Watson. Edinburgh: Polygon 2001. Pp.221, £12.99, ISBN 1902930266.

Scotland: The Challenge of Devolution. Edited by A. Wright. Dartmouth: Ashgate 2000. Pp.282, £42.50, ISBN 0754612546.     

The Morphology of Fecal and Regurgitation Artifacts Deposited by the Blow Fly Lucilia cuprina Fed a Diet of Human Blood

Fly feces and regurgitation deposits may be mistaken for bloodstain patterns at a crime scene, potentially compromising event reconstruction and/or misdirecting police resources. In some instances, these artifacts contain sufficient human biological material to generate a full DNA profile, sometimes 2 years after deposition. Clearly, it is important that investigators can make the distinction between artifacts and bloodstains. This study examined 6645 artifacts deposited on a smooth, nonporous surface after Lucilia cuprina were fed human blood. Artifacts were also compared with bloodstains on a variety of other surfaces. Both similarities and differences were found between artifacts and bloodstains, highlighting the need for an identification system to assist personnel with little training in bloodstain pattern analysis. The morphology of the artifacts has been described so that these deposits may be more clearly distinguished from bloodstains, targeted by crime scene personnel as potential sources of human DNA, and/or identified as potential evidence contaminants. Flowcharts have been devised to facilitate the analysis.     

Rehabilitating Retributivism

This review essay of Victor Tadros’s new book, “The Ends of Harm: The Moral Foundations of Criminal Law,” responds to Tadros’s energetic and sophisticated attacks on retributivist justifications for criminal punishment. I argue, in a nutshell, that those attacks fail. In defending retributivism, however, I also sketch original views on two questions that retributivism must address but that many or most retributivists have skated past. First, what do wrongdoers deserve – to suffer? to be punished? something else? Second, what does it mean for them to deserve it? That is, what is the normative force or significance of valid desert claims, either with respect to retributivist desert in particular or with respect to all forms of desert? Because the answers that this essay offers are preliminary, the essay also serves as a partial blueprint for further work by criminal law theorists with retributivist sympathies.     

Disclosure strategies among sex offenders: A model for understanding the engagement process in groupwork

Abstract

A key component of the functional engagement of child sex offenders in a group-based programme is the disclosure of certain personal information. Such information is required to be of a type and presented in a way that facilitates open exchange in the group, promoting understanding of the presenter's offence pattern and conveying his sole responsibility for the offending. The model explained in this paper, based on an outcome from a grounded theory study, describes in detail four distinct orientations to such disclosure. Each is associated with a particular style of managing the disclosure encounter. Three of these disclosure management styles can be described as essentially “resistant” in nature, but only one is overtly oppositional. The two other “resistant” styles of disclosure management emerge as more covert and perhaps less readily identifiable expressions of reluctance. The implications of the model for work with this population and in more general settings are discussed.     

Devolution and party change: Candidate selection for the 1999 Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly elections

The article analyses the candidate selection procedures of each of the major parties in the run‐up to the 1999 Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections, assessing the extent to which they reveal developments in party democratisation and decentralisation on the one hand, and evidence of countervailing central control on the other. Procedural innovations achieved greater openness in candidate nomination and gender balance in candidatures but developments in democratisation were contested and evidence of decentralisation was mixed. Surveys of candidates reveal a perception in the Labour Party that there was too much central influence, although its implications differed in Scotland and Wales. There were perceptions of unfairness and lack of internal democracy in the other parties as well, suggesting in particular a contradiction between central influence in all of the parties’ approaches to list selection and candidates’ expectations of such influence diminishing. Devolution, therefore, released tensions in all parties.     

Capacity Building for New Parliamentarians: Survey of Orientation and Induction Programmes

This article reports original research which built on conceptual issues previously identified by the authors. A survey of national parliaments sought information on orientation and induction programmes offered to first term members and on members' perceptions of those programmes. An overview of findings is presented and significant issues identified. Most programmes provided passive development through information and a handbook rather than active skill development. Few used training processes and techniques that were based on contemporary adult learning principles. There were sharp divisions over training and development in dealing with ethical issues. The findings suggest considerable potential for the further development of programmes and for sharing information about programmes in order to assist capacity building for parliamentarians and thereby enhance the performance of parliaments and individual members.     

Oran Young and international institutions

Current understandings of global environmental governance owe much to the numerous theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions of Oran Young. Over the course of 50 years, Young has created many of the theories and typologies we use to explain why international environmental institutions form and what types of effects they have and the conditions under which they have them. His contributions have been central to the development of the concepts of institutional dynamics, interplay, and scale. He has made major contributions to environmental policy globally and in the Arctic, both through his own work and by fostering the work of other scholars. This article summarizes the contributions Young has made to the field and introduces the articles in this special issue that honor those contributions.