Policy impacts of the New Jersey income maintenance experiment

This paper deals with a major piece of policy relevant social science research, the New Jersey Experiment in Income Maintenance, and a proposed piece of social legislation, the Family Assistance Plan. An attempt is made to assess the impact which the experiment had on political decision-makers, both in the Administration and the Congress, during deliberations over the legislation. The channels of communication between the researchers and the decision-makers are elaborated; the relevance of the research to the concerns of the decision-makers is described; and the impact of the research on these decision-makers is evaluated.It is suggested that there are two major uses of research in the policy process, technical and political. One involves resolving technical details of program design and administration; the other involves convincing decision-makers that a particular policy alternative is the correct one to support. Through analysis of primary documents, it is concluded that the major impact of the experiment to date has been in technical areas. Experimental findings and methods were used by the Administration to support its position and the preliminary data contributed to House discussions.The information sources of the Congress and the Administration are compared and despite disparities, it is pointed out that research cannot change values and values are an important factor in determining a decision-maker's attitude toward an innovation.It is concluded that if systematic thinking and research are to play a role in the process of policy formulation and implementation, each part of the process not only has to have access to research, but also the ability to evaluate that research. It is to be expected that under existing conditions the major immediate contribution of research such as the New Jersey Experiment to policy discussions will be in very technical areas, with the possibility of making a contribution to change in the climate of opinion over time.     

Examining the Consequences of the “Prevalent Life Events” of Arrest and Incarceration among an Urban African-American Cohort

The life course perspective has traditionally examined prevalent adult life events, such as marriage and employment, and their potential to redirect offending trajectories. However, for African-Americans, the life events of arrest and incarceration are becoming equally prevalent in young adulthood. Therefore, it is critical to understand how these “standard” criminal justice practices, which are designed to deter as well as punish, affect deviance among this population. This study evaluates the long-term consequences of criminal justice intervention on substance use and offending into midlife among an African-American community cohort using propensity score matching and multivariate regression analyses. The results largely point to a criminogenic effect of criminal justice intervention on midlife deviance with a particularly strong effect of young adult arrest on rates of violent and property arrest counts into midlife. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Effects of General Pretrial Publicity on Juror Decisions: An Examination of Moderators and Mediating Mechanisms

Two studies examined three moderators (gender, attitudes, and media slant) and four mediators (accessibility, evidence importance, evidence plausibility, and standards of guilt) of general pretrial publicity's influence on juror decisions. In Study 1, participants who watched a prodefense rape story were more likely to report that they would need more inculpatory evidence to convict a defendant of rape than were participants who watched a proprosecution rape story. In Study 2, participants watched news stories, one of which was a proprosecution rape story, a prodefense rape story, or a nonrape story. In an ostensibly unrelated study, participants indicated their attitudes toward rape, watched a rape trial, and provided trial and witness ratings. Accessibility did not mediate the media effects on participants' judgments of rape importance; however, attitudes moderated media effects. Rape news influenced juror ratings of the importance of evidence about the complainant's behavior. Finally, media altered the standards participants used to determine defendant guilt. Implications for understanding the mechanisms responsible for pretrial publicity effects are discussed.     

A novel multiplex for simultaneous amplification of 20 Y chromosome STR markers

A multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay capable of simultaneously amplifying 20 Y chromosome short tandem repeat (STR) markers has been developed to aid human identity testing and male population studies. These markers include all of the Y STRs that make up the "extended haplotype" used in Europe (DYS19, DYS385, DYS389I/II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, and YCAII) plus additional polymorphic Y STRs (DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS447, DYS448, DYS388, DYS426, GATA A7.1, and GATA H4). Primers for the markers DYS385, DYS389, and YCAII target duplicated regions of the Y chromosome and thus can provide two polymorphic peaks for each respective primer set. This Y STR 20plex, which utilizes 34 different PCR primers, is the first to include a simultaneous amplification of all the markers within the European "minimal" and "extended" haplotypes. Relative primer positions are compared between the newly developed primers described here and previously published ones. Efforts were made to avoid X chromosome homology in the primer design as well as close packing of PCR product size ranges in order to keep all alleles less than 350 bp through careful examination of known allele ranges. Haplotype comparisons between the 20plex and a commercially available kit found excellent agreement across the 76 samples in the Y chromosome consortium panel.     

Reflections on Punishment from a Global Perspective: An Exploration of Chehtman’s The Philosophical Foundations of Extraterritorial Punishment

In this review essay, I offer reflections on three themes. I begin by exploring Alejandro Chehtman’s expressed methodological commitments. I argue that his views move him closer to Lon Fuller and away from the thin accounts offered by HLA Hart and Joseph Raz. Moreover, to make sense of his views, he must offer a more normatively robust theory of law. Second, I turn to his use of Raz’s theory of authority. I argue that Chehtman fails to distinguish between Raz’s views and his own, but more importantly, I maintain that his discussion of Raz is superfluous: in the course of “unpacking” Raz’s views, he leads us back to his own core theses. Finally, I explore Chehtman’s ability to deal with perennial worries that plague any attempt to offer a justification for International Criminal Law in general, and the International Criminal Court in particular (i.e., “victor’s justice”, “show trials”, “peace vs. justice”). I argue that unless Chehtman is able to demonstrate that the enforcement of International Criminal Law is able to impart dignity and security on the most vulnerable, his account will be significantly weakened.     

Identifying and Responding to the Complex Needs of Domestic Violence Housing Practitioners at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The social, financial, and emotional repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic has left many organizations that support survivors of intimate partner violence questioning how to maintain core services while addressing compounding individual, organizational, and public health issues. Stay-at-home orders and other COVID-19 mitigation strategies have resulted in reduced shelter availability and increased intimate partner violence rates. Coupled with the economic impact of the pandemic, these factors have threatened financial and housing stability. To better understand these challenges and provide immediate support, The National Alliance for Safe Housing (NASH) co-hosted a peer support call to provide a virtual platform for practitioners to ask questions, discuss challenges, and share strategies for quality service provision during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 800 practitioners from across the United States participated in the NASH call, most of whom were advocates, program directors, and managers. NASH gathered data on practitioners’ needs from a brief survey from the registration form analyzed using conventional inductive content analysis. Practitioners’ primary concerns were situated within eight questions, which we categorized into four meta-categories: (1) managing residential housing programs; (2) getting survivors materials resources; (3) keeping staff safe; and (4) maintaining organizational operations. The paper concludes with community-grounded and empirically supported practice recommendations aligned with practitioners’ expressed needs.

     

Structural Topic Models for Open‐Ended Survey Responses

Collection and especially analysis of open‐ended survey responses are relatively rare in the discipline and when conducted are almost exclusively done through human coding. We present an alternative, semiautomated approach, the structural topic model (STM) (Roberts, Stewart, and Airoldi 2013; Roberts et al. 2013), that draws on recent developments in machine learning based analysis of textual data. A crucial contribution of the method is that it incorporates information about the document, such as the author's gender, political affiliation, and treatment assignment (if an experimental study). This article focuses on how the STM is helpful for survey researchers and experimentalists. The STM makes analyzing open‐ended responses easier, more revealing, and capable of being used to estimate treatment effects. We illustrate these innovations with analysis of text from surveys and experiments.     

From Accountability to Assurance – Stakeholder Perspectives in Local Government

This article reports on research which sought to explore the understanding of accountability for performance amongst constituents of local government in Western Australia. Recent trends to increase the public accountability and financial reporting requirements for local governments underline the need to understand the value and use made of this performance information by local government constituents.