An Examination of the Outcomes of Various Components of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence by Male Offenders

With recognition that police intervention by itself is not entirely effective, in recent years there has been a shift in public policies towards the implementation of a coordinated community response to domestic violence incidents. This article examines the impact of participation in several aspects of a coordinated community response (CCR) in a mid-sized city in the Midwest. Specifically, recidivism was examined using information on officially recorded re-arrests for 131 male domestic violence offenders involved in a CCR type intervention. In addition, exploratory analyses attempt to determine if certain offender characteristics are related to their likely of progressing through each of several post-conviction components of this CCR-type intervention. Limitations of the research and suggestions for policy responses to domestic violence are discussed.

Design of an algorithm to identify persons with mental illness in a police administrative database

North American police maintain a database to track events and information related to their involvement with the public that contain a series of electronic caution/dependency flags attached to an individual's name for internal communication. To identify persons with mental illness in a police administrative database, an algorithm was developed that was composed of (a) caution/dependency flags, (b) addresses, and (c) key search words indicative of mental illness. Based on the level of confidence of the algorithm, persons with mental illness (PMI) were then assigned to one of three categories: Definite, Probable and Possible PMI. Results for 2000 include the sociodemographic characteristics of PMI and non-PMI in the database. The mean number of contacts, types of interactions, re-involvement with a year, charges and dispositions are described. The algorithm provides a cheap, quick method to identify PMI for North American police. It enables police to monitor the effectiveness of pre-arrest diversion programs and allows researchers to analyze questions of criminalization and mental illness.     

Refocusing on women: a new direction for policy and research on intimate partner violence

A key question facing researchers of intimate partner violence is how the real-life contexts of victims' lives should affect state policy. The bulk of recently adopted and much touted criminal justice reforms have taken the form of relatively inflexible, one-size-fits-all mandatory responses focused on counseling, restraining, and punishing batterers. Even the protection order system relies far more heavily on batterer treatment programs than on victim support to prevent future violence. Together, these reforms have largely sacrificed the contextualized, woman-centered focus from which the antidomestic violence movement originated. Recently, however, a small body of research has emerged indicating that responding flexibly to victims' needs and providing them with advocacy and broad social support could be a more successful strategy for keeping women safe. These data highlight the importance of expanding victim-centered resources and reincorporating a particularized perspective into current policy and practice. Development of this literature should guide future reform efforts.     

Ensuring safety, implementation and scientific integrity of clinical trials: lessons from the Criminal Justice–Drug Abuse Treatment Studies Data and Safety Monitoring Board

Data and safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) provide independent oversight to bio-medical clinical trials, ensuring safe and ethical treatment of research participants, data quality, and credibility of study findings. Recently, the type of research monitored by DSMBs has been expanded to include randomized clinical trials of behavioral and psychosocial interventions in community and justice based settings. This paper focuses on the development and role of a DSMB created by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to monitor six multi-site clinical trials conducted within the Criminal Justice–Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS). We believe this is one of the first such applications of formal DSMBs in justice settings. Special attention is given to developing processes for measuring and monitoring a range of implementation issues for research conducted within criminal justice settings. Lessons learned and recommendations to enhance future DSMB work within this area are discussed.     

论国企改革与脱困

企业改革就是通过调整企业的生产关系 ,实现企业的制度创新和转换企业的经营机制 ,发挥好政府宏观调控的职能 ,加强企业技术改造 ,强化质量管理 ,完善社会保障制度 ,抓好企业领导班子建设都是国企改革脱困的重要环节     

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy: neuropathologic findings

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy refers to sudden death of an individual with a clinical history of epilepsy, in whom a postmortem examination fails to uncover a gross anatomic, toxicologic, or environmental cause of death. Evidence of terminal seizure activity may not be present. One to two percent of natural deaths certified by the medicolegal death investigator are attributed to epilepsy. Detailed microscopic examination of the brain has increasingly afforded the identification of structural changes representative of epileptogenic foci. The authors present 70 cases of death attributed to sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. These cases were classified as follows: individuals who lacked a gross brain lesion, those who had a brain lesion demonstrable at autopsy, and those who lacked neuropathologic evaluation because of decomposition or because only an external examination was done. All of the subjects had a clinical history of seizures. The authors confirm that various microscopic findings, including neuronal clusters, increased perivascular oligodendroglia, gliosis, cystic gliotic lesions, decreased myelin, cerebellar Bergmann's gliosis, and folial atrophy, are present in a higher percentage of the brains of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy subjects than in the brains of age- and sex-matched control subjects.     

Advancing institutional anomie theory: a microlevel examination connecting culture, institutions, and deviance

Institutional anomie theory (IAT) contends that crime can be explained by an examination of American society, particularly the exaggerated emphasis on economic success inherent in American culture, which has created a "cheating orientation" that permeates structural institutions, including academia. Consistent with its macrosocial perspective, previous tests of IAT have examined IAT variables at the structural level only. The current study tests the robustness of IAT by operationalizing IAT variables at the individual level and looking at a minor form of deviance, student cheating. The author also examines the role statistical modeling has in testing the theory at the microlevel. Undergraduates, 122 American born and 48 international, were surveyed about their cheating behaviors and adherence to economic goal orientations. Results related to the hypothesis that American students, relative to foreign-born students, will have an increased adherence to economic goal orientations that increase cheating behaviors are presented, as are suggestions for future studies.