Crossing the threshold: A positive analysis of IBRD graduation policy

According to World Bank policy, countries remain eligible to borrow from the IBRD until they are able to sustain long-term development without further recourse to Bank financing. Graduation from IBRD is not an automatic consequence of reaching a particular income level, but rather is supposed to be based on a determination of whether the country has reached a level of institutional development and capital-market access that enables it to sustain its own development process without recourse to Bank funding. This paper takes a positive approach to IBRD graduation policy, investigating what income and non-income factors appear to have influenced graduation status in recent decades, based on panel data for 1982 through 2009. Explanatory variables include the per-capita income of the country, as well as measures of institutional development and market access that are cited as criteria by the graduation policy, and other plausible explanatory variables that capture the levels of economic development and vulnerability of the country. We find that the observed correlates of Bank graduation status are generally consistent with the stated policy. Countries that are wealthier, more creditworthy, more institutionally developed, and are less vulnerable to trade, financial, and other shocks are more likely to be graduates. Predicted probabilities generated by the model conform closely to the actual graduation and de-graduation experiences of Trinidad and Tobago and Korea, among other countries, and suggest that Hungary and Latvia may have graduated prematurely—a prediction subsequently borne out by the large loans that they later received from the IBRD in the wake of the global financial crisis.     

Can We Identify Bad Cops Based on History? Base Rates of Historical Markers in Law Enforcement Pre-employment Evaluations

While psychometric police selection processes have progressively evolved, the efficacy of simple background information has not been extensively evaluated. This study examined the utility of base rate information to predict job performance among law enforcement officers. Pre-employment historical markers from bad hires were compared to good hires from a large sample of 1536 officers. Of this sample, 205 officers were categorized as bad hires if they were arrested, had greater than five misconduct episodes, or were terminated for cause within 5 years following hire. Base rates of 40 pre-employment history variables were compared for good and bad hires. Analysis of markers showed that bad hires had a significantly higher frequency of markers across family factors, mental health variables, conduct problems, and criminal justice outcomes compared to good hires. Among the largest differences were history of multiple physical altercations, outpatient psychiatric treatment, and events related to previous law enforcement employment such as employer reprimands, suspensions, or fitness for duty evaluations. Many other intuitive markers occurred too infrequently to analyze or showed no significant difference between good hires and bad hires in law enforcement settings. Base rates in addition to psychological test data are necessary aspects of the police pre-employment evaluation.     

Navigating the Legal System After a Motor Vehicle Collision

More often than not, individuals involved in motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) do not sustain physical injuries. When individuals are involved in serious, injury-causing MVCs, the consequences may be devastating. Injured persons sometimes elect to pursue legal action to address the medical costs incurred and earning losses experienced in association with their injuries and the resulting impairments in function. This article presents a comprehensive review of the requirements of MVC-related litigation and the laws that govern this process, with emphasis placed on Ontario law in effect at the time of writing. Information considered germane to the decision to pursue legal action is reviewed, including the likely settlement amount, length of the legal process, costs associated with legal services and fee agreements that govern remuneration paid to the lawyer. Also described are no-fault regime and civil lawsuit, the two avenues of compensation that injured persons can pursue in an effort to recover losses and obtain the assistance they need to recover from their MVC-related injuries.     

Mortuuspolitics: politicization of the dead,capitalism, and inequality

Capitalism has led to the appropriation of oppressed groups, their experiences and narratives. We believe this includes narratives and given value of the dead where there remains a continuation of inequalities of life unto death and being dead. Specifically, we suggest that the discrepancy of the value of the dead is the result of the links between power, politics, and hegemonic discourse embedded in neoliberalism that propagate and reify unequal power edifices that value some groups over others, in life and death, what we refer to as mortuuspolitics. The State, entrenched within the capitalistic neoliberal definition of value, also decides on the value or non-value of the dead.     

The Political Economy of Welfare Reform and Poverty Alleviation in Ukraine

A British specialist on post-Soviet politics and economy examines public opinion constraints on welfare reform in Ukraine. The article uses extensive survey data gathered in 1998–1999 to examine public views on welfare benefits, distribution, and possible changes in targeting of benefits. Analysis is offered of how the targeting of social and economic benefits may be implemented to alter social outcomes in Ukraine.     

The commission and its lessons

This article surveys the history, organization and mixed success of the Hutchins Commission. The commission was foremost a creature of its own times, and, notwithstanding the sometimes unclear philosophy about its goal and the elitist content of its declarations to reform journalism, was motivated by high principles of communitarianism and duties of democratic citizenship. The article suggests an important lesson for academicians and journalists, politicians and social theorists, who today feel the need for another commission to address the difficult issues of, among other things, sensationalism of news content and concentration of media ownership. The message is that journalism should not be reformed, but informed. It should address the same kinds of issues broached long ago by the Hutchins Commission Report, but in a much different way.     

The predictive and convergent validity of a psychometric battery used to assess sexual offenders in a treatment programme: an 18-year follow-up

Abstract

This study examined sex offender risk and treatment change based on a battery of psychometric assessment measures administered to 267 treated adult Canadian federal sex offenders followed up an average 18 years post release. Several significant pre–post changes that were frequently moderate in magnitude (d>.50) were observed across these measures. A factor analysis of the psychometric battery generated three broad need domains consistent with the extant literature that were labelled Socioemotional Functioning, Anger/Hostility, and Misogynist Attitudes. The three need domains and a Need Total, created by their summation, converged with the Violence Risk Scale—Sexual Offender version (VRS-SO; Wong, Olver, Nicholaichuk, & Gordon, 2003) in conceptually meaningful ways and predicted sexual and violent recidivism to varying degrees. Raw measurements of change obtained from pre-to posttreatment frequently bore weak and non-significant relationships to outcome. However, after creating standardised residual change scores to control for pre-treatment score, treatment changes in the individual measures, need domains and Need Total improved significantly in their prediction of reductions in general and sexual violence.     

Some notes on the validation of VRS-SO static scores

ABSTRACT

The present study was a psychometric examination of Violence Risk Scale-Sexual Offender version (VRS-SO; Wong, S., Olver, M. E., Nicholaichuk, T. P., & Gordon, A. (2003 Wong, S., Olver, M. E., Nicholaichuk, T. P., & Gordon, A. (2003). The violence risk scale: Sexual offender version (VRS-SO). Saskatoon: Regional Psychiatric Centre and University of Saskatchewan. [Google Scholar]). The violence risk scale: Sexual offender version (VRS-SO). Saskatoon: Regional Psychiatric Centre and University of Saskatchewan) static item scores in a Canadian multisite sample of 668 treated adult male sexual offenders. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of 13 nonredundant Static-99R and VRS-SO static items generated three factors labelled Youthful Aggression, Sexual Criminality, and General Criminality. The factor and total scores converged with Static-99R and VRS-SO dynamic factor scores. Scores on the VRS-SO static items, EFA-derived factors, and total score each significantly predicted 5- and 10-year sexual, violent, and general recidivism through ROC analyses. Cox regression survival analyses showed all three factors uniquely predicted sexual recidivism to varying degrees in the overall sample; however, only Youthful Aggression and General Criminality uniquely significantly predicted violent and general recidivism in the overall sample and among sexual offender subgroups. Implications for theory, clinical practice, and instrument refinement are discussed.     

The children’s programme: a description of a group and family intervention for children engaging in problematic and harmful sexual behaviour and their parents/carers

ABSTRACT

Children under 10 are increasingly being referred to services for concerning problematic or harmful sexual behaviour, but information about interventions to support these children and their families is limited. A 3-year pilot of a group cognitive–behavioural intervention for children and their parents/carers is described. Forty-nine children were referred to the programme with 27 completing the programme in this period. This is the first intervention of its kind to be delivered with a UK population and demographic information is provided about the children who have been assessed, including information about age, gender, family composition and abuse history. Outcome data from the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children, Child Sexual Behaviour Inventory, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Parental Stress and Social Support Scale is reported. The available outcome data indicates the group has been largely beneficial in reducing problematic sexual behaviour. Key learning and implications for practice are discussed.