Inmate attitudes toward the conjugal visitation program in Mississippi prisons: An exploratory study

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast attitudes of Mississippi inmates who participate in a conjugal visitation program with inmates who do not participate in such a program. Logistic regression analyses reveal no differences between participant and nonparticipant attitudes toward the conjugal visitation program. However, differences exist among gender and racial lines and several of the attitudinal issues regarding the program. Policy implications are also addressed.     

Probabilistic Voting and Equilibrium: An Impossibility Result

The introduction of voters' uncertainty alone is in no way sufficient to guarantee an equilibrium outcome of a voting process. What is needed in addition is the assumption that the voting probabilities depend strictly convex respectively concave of the utility losses caused by the proposed policies of the different parties. This assumption is, however, not compatible with an unrestricted policy space, and it has to be rejected for theoretical as well as empirical reasons. Thus, using models of probabilistic voting we still have to accept that cycles can arise and electoral outcomes are prone to manipulation via agenda setting.     

Rights,review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rights

Abstract. This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time–series cross–section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions.     

‘These are your Title I students’: Policy language in educational practice

Based on a qualitative study of the United States federal compensatory education policy, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, this article uses interpretive policy analysis to investigate the ways in which policy language influences practitioners' understanding of students who are eligible for policy-funded services. Focusing on the situated interpretations of practitioners in nine urban elementary schools, the study shows how policy-generated categories shape practitioners' conceptualizations of students as they determine how to provide services. The aricle considers possible consequences of policy labels on teacher expectations and ends with an appeal for the collective, reflective interrogation of policy language in educational practice.     

Understanding the changing role of public sector performance measurement in less developed countries

This article develops a framework for understanding changes in the demand for and supply of performance information in public sector organizations in less developed countries (LDCs). New Institutional Sociology (NIS) is used to argue that pressures from specific stakeholders stimulate organizations to produce particular performance information. The article distinguishes three groups of stakeholders (i.e. funding bodies, statutory boards and purchasers), and elaborates on the performance dimensions these stakeholders are interested in. The group of funding bodies, with their interest in financial performance information, used to be the most important group of stakeholders. However, statutory boards and purchasers are gaining importance as a result of recent public sector reforms, which include decentralization, marketization and the implementation of anti‐corruption programs. As a consequence of pressures coming from these stakeholders, new performance dimensions, such as the quality and quantity of services and the political governance structure, will be added to organizations' performance measurement (PM) systems. Whether these and other—often more traditional financial—performance dimensions will be balanced and integrated throughout organizations depends on the power positions of the various stakeholders. The arguments presented in this article intend to stimulate public sector organizations in LDCs to design and redesign PM systems as a response to changing stakeholder interests. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public sector creativity as the origin of public sector innovation: A taxonomy and future research agenda

This systematic literature review analyses how public servants apply workplace creativity to come up with ideas for public sector innovations, defining public sector creativity and analyzing its practices, features, trends, and hiatuses in knowledge for which we provide a future research agenda. Creativity is the origin of innovation. Public sector creativity, however, is theoretically undefined and underexamined, resulting in unclarity on what constitutes public sector creativity. We define public sector creativity as “public servants coming up with novel and useful ideas through various practices.” Our findings indicate that public servants apply at least six taxonomically distinctive creative practices, and although they are involved to different extent in generating the initial idea and thus do not always generate ideas autonomously, they are creative in finding alternative ways to come up with ideas. However, our review indicates hiatuses in knowledge on public sector creativity, for which we provide a future research agenda.     

Fiscal Exchange and Tax Compliance: Evidence From a Field Experiment

Behavioral interventions appealing to taxpayers’ reciprocity often leave tax compliance unaffected. We provide evidence that a “fiscal exchange nudge” increased tax compliance in a setting where one might not expect it: crisis-ridden Argentina. In a randomized controlled trial with over 20,000 taxpayers, a tax bill visually celebrating realized public works benefiting children increased payment rates of tax delinquents by about 20 percent, or almost 40 percent when the bills were delivered in person. Without the appeal, the new bill design generated significantly fewer payments. Changes in the design of the tax bill also increased arrears cancellation. We estimate the ratio of marginal revenues to costs for the fiscal exchange bill to be 18. The factors we associate with the unexpectedly positive impacts are consistent with strengthening an affective response. We find persistent effects of the experiment two years later. The results suggest that communities have more scope to increase tax revenues through non-threatening interventions.     

Effect of Major Depression on the Self-Image of Adolescent Boys and Girls

We investigated the specific impact of major depressive disorder (MDD) on the self-image of adolescent boys and girls seeking outpatient treatment. We used the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ) to compare 68 adolescents with MDD and 39 adolescents with no diagnosis of psychiatric illness according to the Structural Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). Self-image among MDD patients was in general poorer than in the comparison group and was particularly expressed as dissatisfaction with life and an impaired mastery of the environment. Logistic regression analysis showed S2 (Emotional Tone) to be an independent factor associated with MDD (OR 1.15). In girls S2 was also independently associated with MDD (OR 1.14). The effect of MDD on self-image was more negative in girls than in boys and the self-image pattern differed between the sexes.     

Injury‐Related Healthcare Use and Risk of Filicide Victimization: A Population‐Based Case–Control Study

Research on child‐related risk factors for filicide is scant. We investigated whether prior healthcare use for injury (including poisoning) influences filicide risk. Victims (0–14 years; n = 71) were identified in a national autopsy database for the years 1994–2012 and compared to matched, general population controls (n = 355). Healthcare use data were retrieved from a national patient registry. Risks were estimated using odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). For females, prior inpatient care for injury conferred a statistically significant sevenfold risk (OR = 6.67 [95% CI: 1.49–29.79]), and any prior injury‐related healthcare use conferred a statistically significant fourfold risk (OR = 3.57 [95% CI: 1.13–11.25]), of filicide victimization. No statistically significant risks were found for males. Healthcare personnel should be aware that children treated for injuries, especially females, may be at an elevated risk of filicide victimization. Nevertheless, the filicide base rate remains low, and parents may be stigmatized by unfounded alerts; thus, prudent reflection should precede reports to the authorities.     

Real Lives and Lost Lives: Making Sense of ‘Locked in’ Responses to Intimate Partner Homicide

The problem of intimate partner homicide is featuring increasingly on national and international policy agendas. Over the last 40 years, responses to this issue have been characterised by preventive strategies (including ‘positive’ policing; the proliferation of risk assessment tools, and multi-agency working) and post-event analyses (including police inquiries and domestic homicide reviews). In different ways, each of these responses has become ‘locked in’ to policies. Drawing on an analysis of police inquiries into domestic homicides in England and Wales over a 10-year period, this paper will explore the nature of these ‘locked in’ responses and will suggest that complexity theory offers a useful lens through which to make sense of them and the ongoing consistent patterning of intimate partner homicide more generally. The paper will suggest this lens in embracing what is known and unknown affords a different way of thinking about and responding to this problem.