The Initiative Process and its Declining Agenda-setting Value

California adopted the initiative process in 1911 as a means to allow the electorate to enact laws or amend the state constitution without acting through representatives. The process was instituted in reaction to an unresponsive legislature dominated heavily by well-financed and professional special interest groups.
Since 1978, however, there has been a clear trend toward the "professionalization" of the initiative process in California. What was once a valuable agenda-setting mechanism for citizens has increasingly become a tool of professional special interest groups. A survey of expenditures made in solely the qualification phase of statewide initiatives over time shows a growing dichotomy between those initiatives that qualify for the ballot and those that fail to qualify. Not only are dramatically more funds spent on behalf of successful qualification efforts, but these funds also are more likely to be spent on enlisting professional signature-gathering services. The era of the "popular initiative" is coming to a close unless steps are taken to reduce the professionalization of its agenda-setting function.     

Are Teen Courts An Answer to Our Juvenile Delinquency Problems?

Teen courts are being implemented across the country at a speed that surpasses the celerity with which research of program effectiveness can be performed. This study attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the Dona Ana County, New Mexico, Teen Court by looking at the rate of recidivism for, program participants as well as possible influential factors upon the rate of recidivism. The subjects were 478 randomly selected participants who were traced though the Juvenile Probation and Parole Office to detect any referrals following teen court participation. The study found a recidivism rate of 25% between 1994 and 1998, which was affected by several factors, including gender, age, prior offenses, and program completion. The study was not a comprehensive evaluation, but it did reinforce the need for further research in the area.     

Political Trust and Judicial Retention Elections

Retention elections are that part of the merit selection plan designed to hold judges accountable to the public. While more than one scholar has concluded that votes cast in a retention election are often not informed evaluations of the judge's qualifications and/or conduct on the bench, the few existing systematic empirical studies have failed to explain why people vote for or against retention. This study fills part of this void by testing the hypothesis that political trust is a major cue in judicial retention voting. In contrast to most previous work which was either limited to the appellate level or to elections in a single state, the data set consists of 1,864 retention elections held from 1964 through 1984 for major trial court judges. The national trends in political trust in the last two decades are found to be reflected in the trends in the mean vote for retention.     

PSYCHOPATHIC DEVIATION AMONG FEMALE SUBURBAN ADOLESCENTS

The female population of a suburban high school in a Northeastern metropolitan region (n = 837) was administered the MMPI-168 and additional surveys in order to explore the relationships between scale 4 (Psychopathic Deviate) and other variables, using multivariate techniques. Results of three multiple discriminant analyses between high and normal scorers on scale 4 suggest that high scorers are typified by a variety of delinquent experiences, low self-esteem, family and residential disruptions, and personality disorder. MMPI-168 response sets are not so influential as target variables in discriminating the criterion groups.