Affordable Homeownership: The Incidence and Effect of Down Payment Assistance

Using data from a panel study of low- and moderate-income homeowners, we assess the determinants of the use of several types of down payment assistance and the effect of using assistance on mortgage performance. Although we find differences in reliance on types of assistance, we find no difference in mortgage performance between those who used assistance and those who did not. Based on these findings, we urge caution in imposing down payment requirements that disproportionately restrict access to mortgage credit.     

The current state of gender-specific delinquency programming

Few attempts to identify “what works” in the crime prevention and offender rehabilitation research specifically address gender. The 1992 reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, however, called for new research that would improve the processing and treatment of delinquent girls. This article reviews the relevant theoretical and empirical research that both informed the new legislation and took place in response to it. This is followed by an empirical study conducted to: (1) identify gender-specific programs (GSPs), (2) determine the extent to which GSPs utilize applicable research in their design and implementation, and (3) assess the evidence of GSPs' impact on targeted outcomes. The findings from the current study suggested that, in addition to strengthening program evaluation methodology, gender-specific programs for girls need to more meaningfully incorporate relevant theories and gender-specific risk and protective factors into their curriculum.     

Policy networks and the GM crops issue: assessing the utility of a dialectical model of policy networks

A dialectical model of policy networks is deployed to analyse policy change in the area of GM crops in the UK. The model uses an analysis of the interaction between agents and structure, network and context and network and outcomes to understand and explain how policy change has occurred. A key advantage of the model is that it increases understanding of network transformation, explanation of which has been an alleged weakness of the policy network approach. However, this case study does throw up some weaknesses with the model, including the tendency of the model to emphasize the role of 'insider' agents and downplay the role of 'outsiders' in the policy process.     

The Transition from Armed Opposition to Electoral Opposition in Central America

After the third wave of democratization swept much of the world during the late twentieth century, many armed opposition groups disarmed and transformed themselves into political parties. This paper explores the electoral performance of four Central American parties that have roots in armed opposition movements. It finds that the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, which achieved the greatest success during their revolutionary periods, have also had the most success in electoral competition. The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit and the Democratic Unification Party of Honduras, which trace their roots to relatively less successful armed opposition groups, have struggled in elections. Organizational factors, especially the number of combatants and popular support during the conflict, tend to provide a better explanation than institutional factors for the initial success of these groups as political parties.     

Increasing the ERP signal in the detection of guilty knowledge

The N400 and P300, two event-related potentials (ERPs), were tested using a modified Guilty Knowledge Test for their effectiveness in discriminating people possessing guilty knowledge from those who did not. In the study phase, participants read different passages that detailed either a crime in a specific location (Guilty), some location, without a crime (Innocent but Knowledgeable) or an unrelated location without a crime (Naive). During EEG collection, participants viewed context phrases, some of which were relevant to the crime scene, and test words that were either congruent or incongruent to the context phrases. In Experiment 1, both Guilty and Innocent but Knowledgeable participants were originally classified as guilty because both produced large P300 amplitudes to the crimerelevant stimuli. However, few Innocent but Knowledgeable participants produced significant N400 amplitudes and thus were rejected as guilty in the final analysis. In Experiment 2, participants were assigned to either the Guilty or Innocent but Knowledgeable condition. Seventy-two hours after reading the appropriate passage, participants were divided into two groups: those reminded of the passage read earlier and those who were not. There was not effect of reminding Guilty participants on the discrimination but a strong effect on the Innocent but Knowledgeable participants suggesting a possible technique for discriminating guilty knowledge from other knowledge formats.     

Preemption of local smoke-free air ordinances: the implications of judicial opinions for meeting national health objectives.

Elimination of state laws that preempt local antismoking ordinances is a national health objective. However, the tobacco industry and its supporters have continued to pursue state-level preemption of local tobacco control ordinances as part of an apparent strategy to avoid the diffusion of grassroots antismoking initiatives. And, an increasing number of challenges to local ordinances by the tobacco industry and persons supported by the tobacco industry are being decided in state supreme courts and courts of appeals. The outcomes of seemingly similar cases about the validity of local smoke-free air ordinances vary significantly by state. This paper examines the common and unique aspects of the decisions and the potential implications of court rulings on preemption for future state tobacco control efforts and achievement of national health objectives around the elimination of preemption. Using a search strategy developed for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System, cases where a state or federal appellate level court made a finding on the validity of a local smoke-free air ordinance or regulation were identified in 19 states. In contrast to previous studies, we found that cases in approximately half of states were decided for local governments. We also found that across the states, courts were considering similar factors in their decisions including the extent to which: (1) the local government possessed the authority to pass the ordinance, (2) the ordinance conflicted with the state constitution, and (3) state statutes preempt the ordinance.     

Female prisoners' understanding of ‘bullying’ and their methods of coping: a multinational perspective

Abstract

Whilst prison bullying is a well-researched form of aggressive behaviour, recent studies have suggested that there may be discrepancy between how prisoners and researchers understand the term ‘bullying’. Interviews with 26 female prisoners were subject to constant comparison framework analysis. More than 150 themes were identified. These suggested that whilst there is overall agreement between prisoners and researchers as to what behaviours constitute bullying, a consensus does not exist within the prisoner population. Behaviours identified as bullying behaviours by prisoners are also reported as methods of coping. Cultural differences in behaviour and how these relate to perceptions of aggression were identified by the women prisoners. The findings of this study have implications for researching bullying in institutions such as prisons, and for managing and intervening with bullies in prisons.