The effectiveness of interactive journaling in reducing recidivism among substance-dependent jail inmates

The present study sought to evaluate the influence of interactive journaling on criminal recidivism and identify significant predictors of recidivism among a sample of 183 male inmates incarcerated in a local jail facility randomly assigned to either an interactive journaling condition or a control group. All participants met DSM-IV-TR criteria for substance dependence, had their current offense indicate substance involvement, and had a minimum of one previous arrest in the prior 12 months. The recidivism rate (51%), in terms of subsequent bookings within a 12-month period, for the journaling group was significantly lower than the recidivism rate (66%) for the control group, χ(2)(1, 183) = 4.13, p < .05. The three most significant independent predictors of subsequent bookings were severity of posttraumatic stress disorder, group assignment (journaling vs. placebo), and employment status. Interactive journaling appears to show promise as a brief treatment intervention strategy for substance dependence in local jail settings and may have the potential for reducing recidivism.     

The concentration of criminal victimization and patterns of routine activities

Although many repeat victimization studies have focused on describing the prevalence of the phenomenon, this study attempted to explain variations in the concentration of victimization by applying routine activities as a theoretical model. A multivariate analysis of repeat victimization based on the 2005 Taiwan criminal victimization data supported the general applicability of the routine activity model developed in Western culture for predicting repeat victimization. Findings that diverged from Western patterns included family income to assault, gender to robbery, and marital status, family income, and major activity to larceny incidents. These disparities illustrated the importance of considering the broader sociocultural context in the association between risk predictors and the concentration of criminal victimization. The contradictory results and nonsignificant variance also reflected untapped information on respondents' biological features and psychological tendencies. Future victimization research would do well to integrate measurements that are sensitive to salient sociocultural elements of the society being studied and individuals' biological and psychological traits.     

Studying North Korea through North Korean migrants: lessons from the field

This article examines the use of North Korean defectors’ accounts as a source of information for studying the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Information from defectors fills a vital knowledge gap and improves our understanding of North Korean politics, economics, and society. Witness accounts and interview data collected from people who were born in North Korea but have since left have been widely used by journalists, government agencies, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academics. There are, however, serious methodological issues in collecting, organizing, and interpreting information derived from defectors’ accounts. Selection and demographic biases, power relations between researchers and interviewees, monetary incentives, and language barriers are among those issues. We propose focus group discussions and participatory observation as complementary methods of data collection to mitigate the shortfalls of relying on individual interviews.     

Writing history: flow and blockage in the circulation of knowledge

ABSTRACT

Historical writing in Tanzania has had highly serious goals from the early days of the history department at the University of Dar es Salaam. Historians have aimed at the decolonization of intellectual life, the construction of a national historical identity, and the achievement of a just society. This body of well-contextualized historical writing has circulated widely within the country, but does not reach readers outside east Africa as fully as it deserves. The article explores parallels with African genomic science as a way of getting at inequalities between northern and southern countries in access to resources for academic research and publication.     

The paradox of grading systems

We distinguish between (i) voting systems in which voters can rank candidates and (ii) those in which they can grade candidates, using two or more grades. In approval voting, voters can assign two grades only—approve (1) or not approve (0)—to candidates. While two grades rule out a discrepancy between the average-grade winners, who receive the highest average grade, and the superior-grade winners, who receive more superior grades in pairwise comparisons (akin to Condorcet winners), more than two grades allow it. We call this discrepancy between the two kinds of winners the paradox of grading systems, which we illustrate with several examples and whose probability we estimate for sincere and strategic voters through a Monte Carlo simulation. We discuss the tradeoff between (i) allowing more than two grades, but risking the paradox, and (ii) precluding the paradox, but restricting voters to two grades.     

Multiwinner approval voting: an apportionment approach

Public Choice - To ameliorate ideological or partisan cleavages in councils and legislatures, we propose modifications of approval voting in order to elect multiple winners, who may be either...     

Revenue-sharing voucher program (RSVP)

There has been a significant shift in government towards decentralized power and responsibility as exemplified by the State and Local Assistance Act. The trend occurs at a time when society faces the double challenge of encouraging more and better informed, public participation in decision-making, and also improving the efficiency in governmental delivery of services. A proposal is made to use general revenue sharing moneys to meet this dual challenge through a revenue sharing voucher program (RSVP). The program entails turning back to citizens the incoming funds in the form of vouchers to be allocated by them to various local government agencies. The implications for the City of Seattle are discussed as an example of the operation and the tradeoffs involved.