Mental disorders and charges of violent offences. A study of male adolescent remand prisoners

This study describes associations between mental disorders and charges of violence among remanded adolescents. 100 15-17 year old boys from East Denmark, consecutively remanded during one year, were interviewed with SCAN, K-SADS and SCID-II to obtain past year ICD-10 diagnoses. There was no statistically significant association between the occurrence of a violent charge and mental disorders in general (OR=1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.24; 4.38]). An association was found between violent charge and non-Danish ethnicity (OR=7.58, [1.60; 35.92]). Previously reported association between violence and mental disorder among adults were not replicated in this male adolescent remand population. A developmental hypothesis is proposed.     

Assessing Public Managers' Change-Oriented Behavior: Are Private Managers Caught in the Doldrums?

This article presents a concept and a measurement of managers' change-oriented behavior related to the initiation and implementation organizational change. It is argued that managers have an optimal potential for achieving organizational changes if they have the change-centered leadership style, are intuitive, recognize demands for change, and have power-motivated behavior. Public and private managers are significantly different in relation to change-oriented behavior based on data from 343 managers in two public organizations and one private. One result was unexpected: public managers are more change-oriented than managers in business organizations. As expected, there is no significant difference in change-oriented behavior among managers in public agencies. Possible explanations for these outcomes are presented.     

Intensifying Social Exchange Relationships in Public Organizations: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

In accordance with social exchange theory, prominent streams of management research emphasize the importance of reciprocal exchange relationships between organizations and their employees. When employees perceive themselves as supported by the organization, they reciprocate with increased work motivation. However, we do not know how this knowledge can be developed into management initiatives that increase public employees’ perceived support, because severe endogeneity problems make it difficult to estimate the effect of organizational support on employee commitment outside the laboratory. We use a randomized field experiment involving more than 800 public employees to estimate the effect. We find no average effect of the organizational support treatment on the employees’ perceived organizational support. Yet, a subgroup analysis shows a positive treatment effect when the employees’ local front‐line managers felt less supported prior to the intervention. We discuss the implications for theory and management practice. ©2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Documentation Requirements,Intrinsic Motivation,and Worker Absence

ABSTRACT

Command systems are widely used to monitor public service provision, but little is known about unintended effects on individual workers’ motivation and work effort. Using insights from motivation crowding theory, we estimate a SEM model that captures how Danish childcare assistants and social/healthcare assistants perceive documentation requirements. We analyze how this perception relates to intrinsic motivation measured in a survey and sickness absence as reported in administrative registers, and find that individuals who perceive documentation requirements as controlling have lower intrinsic motivation and higher sickness absence. The association is statistically significant, but very small in substantive terms. The result is nevertheless consistent with the expectation in motivation crowding theory and contributes to the literature by including a new, reliable behavioral variable—sickness absence—and by drawing attention to possible downsides of command-and-control. Even though command systems can also have positive disciplining effects, knowledge about potential drawbacks is important for public managers.     

Public Service Motivation,Task, and Non-task Behavior: A Performance Appraisal Experiment with Korean MPA and MBA Students

ABSTRACT

Appraisals of public employees are important for a host of reasons, and particularly so with the increasing emphasis on pay-for-performance systems and performance-based management in the public sector. However, managerial appraisals of employees can be somewhat subjective and our understanding of the appraisal process in the public sector is largely U.S.-centric. In this study, we explore whether characteristics of managers, like a rater's public service motivation (PSM), affect appraisal outcomes for their subordinates. Using a mixed experimental design, we analyze these dynamics in a non-U.S. context with MBA and MPA students enrolled in one of Korea's top universities. We find that rater PSM moderates the influence of both task and non-task behavior on an employee's performance appraisal.     

Coproduction and Equity in Public Service Delivery

Public managers and researchers devote much attention to the benefits of coproduction, or the mixing of the productive efforts of public employees and citizens in public service design and delivery. One concern, however, is the distributional consequences of coproduction. This article proposes that disadvantaged citizens may be constrained by a lack of knowledge or other resources necessary to contribute to and benefit from the coproduction process. From this assumption, the authors develop the theoretical argument that if coproduction programs were designed to lift constraints on disadvantaged citizens, they might increase both efficiency and equity. This claim is tested using a field experiment on educational services. A coproduction program providing immigrant parents with knowledge and materials useful to their children's early educational development had a substantial positive impact on the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children, thereby diminishing inequity. Economically, the program was more efficient than later compensation of low‐performing children.     

Violent and sexual offences: a validation of the predictive quality of the PCL:SV in Switzerland

Used to diagnose psychopathy, the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) is still rarely used in the German-speaking part of Europe. The aim of the present study was to conduct a first-time evaluation of the predictive validity of the PCL:SV for sexual and violent recidivism in the German language area. PCL:SV scores for 96 violent and sexual offenders in Switzerland were assessed. These assessments were based on data taken from the forensic psychiatric expert opinions. The scores were then compared to subsequent recidivism as shown in the official criminal records. ROC analysis indicated a cut-off score of 14 for maximized overall predictive accuracy. Consistent with various results from past research in North America and Europe, the PCL:SV yielded a satisfying predictive accuracy (ROC area=.69). This degree of accuracy demonstrates the PCL:SV's usefulness for risk assessment of sexual and violent delinquency in the Swiss cultural and German language area.     

Governing aboriginal justice in Canada: Constructing responsible individuals and communities through ‘tradition’

In recent years, Aboriginal justice projects have gained in popularity in such places as Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. However, these programs have remained relatively insulated from external critique, particularly as it relates to the problem of grafting “traditional” principles onto non-traditional forms of social organization. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this shortcoming in the context of examining the relationship between newly emerging neo-liberal discourses about personal responsibility and the function of “community” as a domain of freedom, in Aboriginal restorative justice programs in Canada. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.