Pragmatists, Ideologues and the General Law of Curvilinear Disparity: The Case of the Irish Labour Party

In this article we examine the opinion structure of Irish Labour party members and supporters. Our purpose is to test May's law of curvilinear disparity by dividing party members into two groups as outlined by Kitschelt. By focusing on ideological differences within political parties Kitschelt identifies two types of members: ideologues and pragmatists. We use two individual-level data sets: the Labour Leadership Election Study (LLES) and the Irish National Election Study (INES), to test May's law. We find some limited support for May's law and Kitschelt's extensions to this model.     

Examining Dose–Response Relationships Between Childhood Victimization,Depression, Symptoms of Psychosis,and Substance Misuse for Incarcerated Women

The current study uses the dose–response model to examine the relationships between childhood victimization events and subsequent depression, symptoms of psychosis, and substance misuse in a sample of 230 randomly selected incarcerated women in the United States. Results on the frequency of victimization were mixed. In this sample, both frequency of physical abuse and frequency of sexual abuse significantly predicted current symptoms of psychosis, but only frequency of physical abuse significantly predicted substance misuse. Incarcerated women who experienced multivictimization were 5.7 times as likely to report depression, 4.2 times as likely to report current symptoms of psychosis, and 3.8 times as likely to meet criteria for a substance use disorder. Results indicate that adjusting prison-based interventions to address multivictimization may improve outcomes and reduce recidivism among this population.     

Empowering employees through the performance appraisal process

Increasing demands are being placed on many public servants as civil service organizations seek to increase productivity and operate with fewer levels of management. Moves away from traditional bureaucratic organization structures are often accompanied by attempts to develop a more empowering culture. These typically involve leadership initiatives adapted from the private sector in areas such as vision, values, participation and trust. In order to be successful, however, such initiatives need to be supported by corresponding changes in the systems which underpin human resource management. One of the most important of these is the performance appraisal system. This article describes how performance appraisal can be used to assist in empowering employees, using as an example the Corporate Finance Office of the New Zealand Department of Social Welfare.     

The Strength of Weak Terrorist Ties

The current age of technology, mass communication, and globalization makes networks analysis an especially useful tool for understanding cell-based terrorism. Some concepts from traditional networks analysis may be especially relevant. The Strength of Weak Ties hypothesis (SWT) is particularly promising and will be used here to demonstrate the usability of traditional networks analysis for studying modern terrorism. The findings suggest that the strength of weak terrorist ties may improve Al Qaeda's operational capabilities despite the group's decentralization following the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan beginning in 2001.     

Risk assessment with adolescent sex offenders

The paper describes an evaluation of a risk assessment tool's effectiveness in distinguishing adolescent sexual offenders who had committed further sexual offences from those who had not. The sample consisted of 50 male adolescent sexual offenders referred to a forensic outpatient service within a healthcare setting. The adolescents within the sample were designated recidivists versus non-recidivists using two methods: clinican's judgement and Home Office records for reconvictions. The risk assessment achieved a moderate to high level of sensitivity and specificity in distinguishing the recidivists from non-recidivists using clinician's judgement of recidivism as outcome. However, the tool was unable to distinguish recidivists from non-recidivists. The risk assessment tool described has potential in the identification and modification of contextual and clinical risk factors, in informing professionals’ decision-making and in developing and implementing a comprehensive risk management plan.     

Personality features of an adolescent female offending population

The incidence of adolescent offending has been shown to be different for young males and females. However, there is a lack of literature concerning adolescent female offenders, and despite research suggesting that personality factors may be linked with antisocial and criminal behaviour in adolescents and young adults; there have been a lack of studies investigating intra-sex personality differences in young female populations. The Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory, a 160-item self-report personality measure, was administered to 26 non-offending and 28 offending adolescent females. It was found that the offending group was significantly less submissive, less conforming, more forceful, more oppositional and more likely to exhibit borderline personality traits than the control group. The offending group also had higher reported incidences of childhood abuse and family conflict, and were more prone to substance abuse, impulsive actions and suicide ideation. These initial findings suggest that personality differences may well exist between offending and non-offending adolescent females.     

Using Dasymetric Mapping for Spatially Aggregated Crime Data

With availability of crime data to the public via sources such as the Uniform Crime Reports, and increasing geographic information system (GIS) capabilities for mapping crime, macro-level studies of crime have advanced knowledge of how crime is distributed over large areas. Choropleth mapping, commonly used in macro-level studies, visually displays data by assigning the number of crimes or crime rate to the corresponding spatial unit and using different shades or textures for each value or classified values creating a thematic map. However, crime incidents or crime rates are not dispersed evenly within spatial units, and choropleth mapping masks the underlying nuances of the distribution. Artificial boundaries, along with variations in the size of the unit of analysis, can further distort the true distribution of crime. Dasymetric mapping provides a methodology for refining the distribution of crime within a spatial unit. It does so by using additional data, such as land use and census data, to provide a realistic estimate of how crime may be distributed within the units of analysis. Dasymetric mapping is also useful in creating density maps to reveal clusters of crime normally masked with choropleth maps. This paper will show how dasymetric mapping can estimate the spatial distribution of aggregate level residential burglary within political boundaries in Massachusetts based on land use and housing data.