Assessing Empowerment in Divorce Mediation

The empowerment of disputants is a fundamental concern of mediation research, but empowerment is difficult to measure. This study operationally defines empowerment in a divorce case as an agreed-upon modification of the Texas Standard Possession Order in the direction of granting more time with the child to the noncustodial parent. Using a cross-case analysis of mediated and nonmediated divorce cases, this study found that couples that participated in mediation were empowered, not disempowered, in the construction of their visitation arrangements. Implications for measuring empowerment, litigation, and legislative policy are discussed.     

The effect of the presence and seating position of an interpreter on eliciting information and cues to deceit

The present experiment examined how the seating position of an interpreter during investigative interviews affects information elicitation and cues to deceit. A total of 60 native English speakers were interviewed in English and 200 non-native English speakers were interviewed in English (a non-native language) or through an interpreter who either sat next to the interviewer, behind the interviewee or interpreted via the telephone. Interviewees either lied or told the truth about a mock security meeting they watched. Interviewees who spoke in their native language provided more detail than interviewees who spoke in their native language through an interpreter or in a non-native language (English) without an interpreter. The latter groups did not differ. Additionally, the amount of detail differentiated truth tellers from liars in all conditions and interviewees found the presence of an interpreter to be a largely positive experience. The interpreter’s seating position had no effect on the findings.     

Serving the creditors after insolvency filings: from value creation to value distribution

This paper provides original empirical evidence on the financial outcome of insolvency filings in Europe. We adopt a cross-country analysis of the determinants of recovery rates isolating three types of creditors (junior, senior, and new money claims). We investigate the structure of recoveries on a unique hand-collected sample of bankrupt firms in France, Germany, and the UK. We initially question value maximization, and study to which extent the legal provisions prevailing after insolvency filing can influence creditors’ overall recoveries. Three procedures differ significantly from our benchmark (UK liquidations). French continuation and UK receivership exert a positive influence onto total repayments, while such influence becomes negative under French liquidation. We relate this finding to the ability of the two former procedures to improve coordination among the creditors, monitoring of the debtor, and/or incentives to file early. We then analyze value distribution by examining competition between the categories of creditors. We show that the insolvency systems do not converge. Junior and senior creditors are better served under the German and the French continuation procedures than in any other bankruptcy path. At the opposite, the UK liquidation procedures fail to satisfactorily serve the junior/senior creditors. Still, nearly all the insolvency procedures support fresh financing by protecting quite well new money claims. Overall, we do not confirm any superiority of one family of insolvency system over another, but rather stress the importance of an appropriate design of the procedures, especially regarding the incentives they create before and after insolvency filing.     

Defining A Product Market for Spanish-Language Broadcast Media: Lessons from United States v. Univision Communications,Inc. and Hispanic Broadcasting

In 2003, a media merger with dramatic content and policy implications went largely unnoticed. Little attention was paid to the transaction because it did not affect the majority; it affected the largest minority population in the United States: Hispanics. Although up to 65% of Hispanics prefer Spanish-language media, most broadcast media now come from one corporation, Univision. In approving the consolidation of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting, the FCC ignored product market findings by the Department of Justice as well as its own policy precedent, which includes numerous exceptions for Spanish programming to promote content and ownership diversity. Consistent with the FCC's mandate to protect the public interest, a demand-side analysis is undertaken, positioning the audience as consumer. Industry evidence, product market thresholds, and ownership rules are applied to United States v. Univision, Inc. and Hispanic Broadcasting, with the conclusion that a separate product market must exist for Spanish language broadcast media.     

Population and income: Is there a puzzle?

Abstract

This note presents wide evidence on the relationship between population and income for 125 countries for which data was available for the period 1950–2000. The main result is that there is a weak but negative relationship between population growth and per capita GDP, as income increases population expands at a slower rate. This relationship appears to be stronger for African countries and for Asian countries before 1970.     

Police Response to Intimate Partner Violence in Canada: Do Victim Characteristics Matter?

This study examines the role of sociodemographic factors and violence characteristics in influencing women's reporting behaviors and types of police intervention received in response to intimate partner violence (IPV) in Canada. A subset of female respondents to Canada's 1999 General Social Survey who experienced physical or sexual IPV by a male perpetrator and who had contact with the police as a result of the violence was used for this analysis (n = 383). Findings suggest significant racial, economic, and social variations in women's motivation for self-reporting violence to the police as well as in the types of law enforcement interventions administered by police in response to reports of IPV. Implications for policy development are examined.     

The impact of after‐school programs on the routine activities of middle‐school students: Results from a randomized,controlled trial*

Research Summary Unsupervised after‐school time for adolescents is a concern for parents and policymakers alike. Evidence linking unsupervised adolescent socializing to problem behavior outcomes heightens this concern among criminologists. Routine activities theory suggests that, when youth peer groups congregate away from adult authority, both opportunity for and motivation to engage in deviant acts increase. After‐school programs are a possible solution to unsupervised teen socializing during afternoon hours and are much in demand. However, empirical research has yet to test the relationship between the availability of after‐school programs and youth routine activities. This study presents evidence from a multisite, randomized, controlled trial of an after‐school program for middle‐school students in an urban school district. Policy Implications Youth in the treatment group engaged in less unsupervised socializing after school than youth in the control group but not as much less as would be expected if the after‐school program was providing consistent supervision to youth who would otherwise be unsupervised. Additional analyses examined why the influence of the after‐school program was not more pronounced. We found that, although program attendance was related to decreases in unsupervised socializing, the program did not attract many delinquency‐prone youths who were unsupervised, which suggests that the students most in need of the program did not benefit. Furthermore, data obtained from a mid‐year activity survey revealed that youth in the study were highly engaged in a variety of after‐school activities. The addition of the after‐school program into the mixture of available activities had little effect on the frequency with which students participated in organized activities after school.     

An experimental evaluation of teen courts

Teen Court (TC) is a juvenile diversion program designed to prevent the formal processing of first-time juvenile offenders within the juvenile justice system. TC instead utilizes informal processing and sanctions in order to prevent future offending. Despite its widespread popularity throughout the United States of America, little rigorous research has been conducted on the effectiveness of the TC model for reducing recidivism. Using an experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of TC in reducing recidivism and improving the attitudes and opinions of juvenile offenders in comparison with a control group of youth who were formally processed. Self-reported delinquency was higher for those youth who participated in TC. TC youth were also found to have significantly lower scores on a scale of belief in conventional rules than had youth who were processed in the Department of Juveniles Services. Implications of these findings are discussed.