Computerizing Accounting Systems in Developing Bureaucracies: Lessons from Kenya

Kenya's agriculture ministries are reforming their accounting systems and the reform includes computerization. This article examines the impact of computers on accounts and the lessons that can be drawn from Kenya about building computerized accounting systems.
Four propositions emerge about the impact of computers on the accounting systems. First and surprisingly, the initial impact of computers is indirect. Their primary impact is to strengthen the manual accounts which the ministries continue to rely upon. Second, computers promote effectiveness reforms by changing procedures, rather than efficiency reforms by accelerating the throughput of data with existing procedures. Third, computers do not initially promote document processing but do improve data processing. Fourth, computers do promote rudimentary analysis.
One conclusion from the Kenya case is that modular implementation of computerized accounting is helpful. Implementing modules rather than an integrated system means that accounting reforms can begin without waiting for lengthy procedural reforms. Modular implementation also facilitates agency involvement in the design of the system.     

Myths of the insanity defense: Inherent and procedural obstacles

Often societies perceptions can be shaped by the media not only by what it reports but by how it is reported. This article discusses the impact that the American media has had on the social perception that the insanity defense is too often successfully used to avoid legal and criminal culpability. Many of the procedural obstacles associated with the assertion of an insanity defense are poorly understood or ignored. The article further address some of the less attractive characteristics associated with the assertion of the insanity defense that are not procedurally founded but nonetheless serve as an impediment the wide spread use of the defense. In conclusion the insanity defense is submitted as an unavoidable necessary evil in a civilized society that incarcerates its criminals.     

“Purpose versus practice in the use of electronically monitored home confinement”

This paper explores differences between the stated purpose and actual practice of electronically monitored home confinement as a prison-diversion strategy. Methods and data are triangulated to examine the difference between the stated purposes of electronic monitoring and its actual usage in two contexts: 1) the decision to imprison/probate; and 2) the actual use of electronically monitored home confinement. Sentencing information, along with data on employment, family, substance abuse, prior convictions, and type of offense, were collected on 391 felony offenders sentenced to probation in 1987–89 from three counties located in two large Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Texas. Information gathered from interviews with probation officials is also employed. This paper presents an analysis of this data and discusses its implications for future use and evaluation of electronically monitored home confinement.     

How jurors construe “insanity”

Historically and currently, jurors who have rendered verdicts in insanity cases have themselves been criticized and maligned-accused of being simplistic and biased, of lacking understanding, and of disregarding or nullifying the judge's instructions. Are the critics right? In this study, 263 mock jurors (141 adults and 122 students) were asked to decide four insanity cases without instructions, using their own best judgment, and to identify the determinative facts for them, and the meaning of those facts. Those determinative factors were then categorized, using a seven construct schema for NGRI and guilty verdicts. The results show that jurors do make discriminations among cases in terms of constructs, and that these constructs are relevant, complex, and flexible; furthermore, the jurors' lay constructs of insanity are more complex than the legal constructs of insanity. The “simplism,” it seems, lies not with the jurors but with the insanity tests.