Youth justice conferencing and indigenous over-representation in the Queensland juvenile justice system: a micro-simulation case study

Restorative justice conferencing for young offenders is firmly established in Australian juvenile justice, and legislated conferencing schemes are operating in all Australian states and territories. While there is some variation in the terms used to describe restorative justice conferences (e.g., family group conferencing, family conferencing, or youth justice conferencing), there is much more consistency in how the conferencing process is managed across Australian jurisdictions. In Queensland youth justice conferencing is a process that brings together an offender, the victim and their supporters to discuss the harm caused by the offending behaviour and provide the young person with an opportunity to take responsibility for his or her behaviour and make amends. This paper begins by briefly sketching the development of restorative justice conferencing in Queensland and describes the Juvenile Justice Simulation Model (JJSM), a micro-simulation model developed for criminal justice policy analysis in Queensland, Australia. We use this micro-simulation model to conduct an experimental exploration of the effects that youth justice conferencing has on system-wide outcomes for indigenous young people. The model simulates the impact of interventions up until 2011 on the number of finalised youth justice court appearances. Our results indicate that youth justice conferencing is unlikely to reduce the over-representation of indigenous young people in the juvenile justice system. The simulations demonstrated that, by the 2011, youth justice conferencing would result in a 12.5% decrease in finalised court appearances. Unfortunately, this decrease was more apparent for non-indigenous young people (13.7% decrease in court appearances) than for indigenous young people, who had a 10.5% decrease in court appearances. This differential impact of conferencing is due to the different court appearance profiles between indigenous and non-indigenous young offenders, with indigenous young people initiating offending at an earlier age and offending more frequently than non-indigenous young offenders.     

Optimism as a Mediator Between the Experience of Child Abuse,Other Traumatic Events,and Distress

In this study, we examined the role of dispositional optimism in mediating distress among students who experienced traumatic events, including child physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse. Participants included 199 undergraduate and graduate students (aged 18–63 years) from a private university in Oregon. In this study, dispositional optimism partially mediated distress among individuals who had experienced child physical abuse and child emotional abuse; participants with higher levels of optimism had lower levels of distress. In addition, dispositional optimism fully mediated distress among individuals who had experienced traumatic events such as rape, assault, and fire; participants with higher levels of optimism had lower levels of distress. Contrary to prediction, the experience of child sexual abuse was not associated with distress. Clinical implications of these results are addressed.     

The Prosecution Role where Courts Decide Cases

This article explores the role played by prosecutors during the court stage of criminal proceedings. It complements Peter et al.’s chapter on negotiated case settlements in showing how the power to decide cases is divided between judges and prosecutors when cases are taken to court. Providing information as to, e.g. what influence prosecutors in the 11 study countries have on what evidence is brought to court in “normal” and accelerated court proceedings, this chapter explores the balance of responsibilities in court rooms across Europe.     

European and U.S. aircraft development strategies

A comparison of 20 years of aircraft production in Europe and America. U.S. cost increases in the system acquisition process have resulted in large part from unforeseen (sometimes unforseeable) engineering difficulties in the development phase, and from substantial production commitment before development was complete. Common European strategy completed basic development before beginning production and demonstrated utility through prototypes, using early proof-testing of engines, electronics and airframes. An alternative acquisition strategy to that used in the 1960s in the United States is recommended for the next decade: (1) incremental acquisition, based on a sequence of decision points and a succession of development and production phases; and (2) pronounced austerity in early development phases. These changes would result in lessened cost growth and lower U.S. acquisition costs, as well as in improved predictability of schedule and system performance outcomes.The following statement was prepared for the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, and was presented on December 7, 1971.     

What We Have Learned About Teaching Multiparty Negotiation

This article grows out of our experience teaching an advanced course on multiparty negotiation. The main question underlying the course is: “How can experts in two‐party negotiations make themselves effective multiparty negotiators?” In this article, we describe what and how we taught, what we think worked, and what we decided to change after the first year of teaching.