Using Crowd-Sourced Data to Study Public Services: Lessons from Urban India

As cities throughout the developing world grow, they often expand more quickly than the infrastructure and service delivery networks that provide residents with basic necessities such as water and public safety. Why do some cities deliver more effective infrastructure and services in the face of rapid growth than others? Why do some households and communities secure better services than others? Answering these questions requires studying the large, politicized bureaucracies charged with providing urban services, especially the relationships between frontline workers, agency managers, and citizens in informal settlements. Researchers investigating public service delivery in cities of the Global South, however, have faced acute data scarcity when addressing these themes. The recent emergence of crowd-sourced data offers researchers new means of addressing such questions. In this paper, we draw on our own research on the politics of urban water delivery in India to highlight new types of analysis that are possible using crowd-sourced data and propose solutions to common pitfalls associated with analyzing it. These insights should be of use for researchers working on a broad range of topics in comparative politics where crowd-sourced data could provide leverage, such as protest politics, conflict processes, public opinion, and law and order.     

Contact,welfare and children in care: revisiting the significance of birth family relationships after finding significant harm

The focus of this paper is the issue of continuing birth family involvement in the child’s life once the child is living in care. Drawing on a psychosocial study and free association narrative interviews with care leavers it focuses on the harm to a young woman called Frances, caused by direct contact with her birth family and the cessation of such contact. The paper addresses the tension between these two types of harm, in particular the role of contact in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in care. It presents an argument for the child’s care plan to emphasise the need for ongoing review of the role and impact of the child’s close relationships and contact with their birth family once the child is in care. This includes ongoing consideration of the child’s changing relationship with the birth mother and siblings with a view to reconciliation in young adulthood.     

Leading the way: the integral role of local government within a multisector partnership delivering a large infrastructure project in an Australian growth region

Multisectoral partnerships with local government have emerged as a strategy for solving ‘wicked’ problems in communities, although research about these types of public–private partnerships is limited. Available evidence suggests that differentials in power and status, value bases and perspectives on priorities have been problematic in partnership building with community. This paper examines the role of local government as the funded, lead organisation, in a public–private partnership for planning, designing and constructing a business accelerator in one of Australia’s growth regions. Partnership scope, role and outcomes were measured against a conceptual framework mapping success indicators. Findings show core principles for successful partnership were achieved and supported by the role, capacity and commitment of local government to forming strong working relationships with consortium partners. Relationship building and commitment to collective project outcomes were pivotal to success. Further research is needed to assess whether emerging trends hold and consolidate over time.     

Intergenerational Transmission: Physical Abuse and Violent vs. Nonviolent Criminal Outcomes

In this paper we test several specific hypotheses derived from the intergenerational transmission of violence thesis to see if exposure to physical abuse has a special role in the etiology of violence. We employ a systematic statistical approach using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Our findings suggest that a history of physical abuse is strongly associated with frequency of violence, but the association is not specific to violence and is mediated by their common association with nonviolent offending. Further, the association between physical abuse and violence is not significantly larger than the association between neglect or sexual abuse and violence. In summary, the data suggest that the association between abuse and violence is not unique to physical abuse and that the impact of physical abuse is not specific to violent behavior.     

Mental health, gender, and drug court completion

Drug-involved offenders report high rates of mental health problems that can negatively impact criminal justice outcomes. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to the mental health issues of drug court offenders. Therefore, this study examined 449 participants in a Delaware drug court and investigated relationships between mental health, gender, and program completion. Bivariate results indicated that gender was related to both mental health status and completion status. Multivariate findings revealed that two indicators of mental health, depression and being prescribed drugs for a psychological or emotional problem, were significant predictors of drug court completion. Policy implications include assessing the mental health status of all drug court participants at program entry so that services can be provided which aim to improve offender health and increase the likelihood of successful program outcomes. Drug courts must better meet the needs of participants with co-occurring disorders if they are to remain an effective and viable criminal justice intervention. This research was supported by grant RO1 DA12424 “Drug Court Offenders in Outpatient Treatment,” by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.