ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY MAKING: ADJUDICATION BY THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS IN ASYLUM-RELATED APPEALS 1980–1987

This analysis examines the extent to which the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), from 1980 to 1987, complied with a new policy of Congress, set forth in the Refugee Act of 1980, which called for an elimination of bias in favor of aliens from hostile countries. Statistical analysis reveals that the BIA did not enforce the Refugee Act of 1980. I argue that Congress never intended to eliminate this bias since doing so would bring it into conflict with actors within the executive branch (including the President and the State Department) that have traditionally dominated policy-making relating to refugees and asylees. Instead, in the Refugee Act of 1980, Congress allowed these actors to retain control through a broad definition of "refugee" and by failing to clearly specify standards for political asylum and withholding of deportation. Simultaneously, Congress temporarily placated private and public "refugee rights" interest groups with statutory provisions that (presumably) eliminated the hostile country bias in U.S. refugee and asylum admis- sions, and granted increased federal aid to private organizations and units of state and local governments.     

中德社会保障争议处理制度比较研究

中德两国在历史发展过程中逐步形成了各自独特的社会争议处理制度和模式。德国社会法院作为专门审理社会保障争议的特殊行政法院，体现了法律保护的缜密性和司法的高度专业性，适应了社会保障争议多，内容纷繁复杂，技术性、专业性强的现实需要。中国社会保障争议处理法律制度则处于形成发展阶段，因争议种类、主体不同而设置了不同的解决争议的机构，采用了不同的法律制度、程序和处理原则。本文以两国现行社会争议处理法律规定作为比较标准，按照社会争议处理的程序，分别从社会争议的范围界定、行政处理程序和制度、法院处理程序和制度三方面进行了比较研究，为中国社会保障争议处理制度提供借鉴和启示。     

Comparing Self-Reports and Official Records of Arrests

We compared measures of self-reported arrests and official arrests for 676young adults with a history of child abuse and/or neglect and 520 nonabusedand nonneglected controls matched on age, sex, race, and approximate familysocial class. Findings reveal considerable concurrent validity between thetwo sources overall. But there is also evidence of differences by gender,race/ethnicity, age at time of arrest, conviction status, and type ofoffense. Abused and neglected subjects did not appear to differ from thecontrol group in the extent of underreporting of known offenses, however,the groups did differ in the degree of positive bias—offensesnot found in arrest records. Abused/neglected subjects self-reportedproportionately more offenses not known to police compared to controls. Thisresult suggests that findings from previous studies on the relationshipbetween childhood victimization and later criminality, as measured byarrests, may have underestimated the magnitude of this relationship.     

Police Charging Decisions in Child Maltreatment Investigations: Findings from the 2008 Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect

The objective of this study was to use logistic regression and examine factors that influence charging decisions by the police during child maltreatment investigations. An estimated 4,808 substantiated child maltreatment investigations that involved police were obtained from the 2008 Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. Of the 4,808 cases examined, police laid charges in about one-third of the cases. Controlling for all other factors, police were 1.6 times more likely to lay charges in physical abuse cases and 2.5 times more likely to lay charges in sexual abuse cases. Other factors associated with police charging decisions include: older victim, cases with multiple types of maltreatment, cases opened for ongoing services, and cases of the child living in a house known to have drugs or household hazards. The article discusses the results and their implications for child welfare policy and practice.     

Foster Parent Strategies to Support the Functional Adaptation of Foster Youth

Individual interviews and focus groups with 35 experienced foster parents explored strategies that facilitate the functional adaptation of children transitioning into their care. Findings from this qualitative study suggest functional adaptation is enhanced by unconditional commitment by foster parents, “claiming” behaviors of foster children and parents, establishment of routines, support of birth family relationships, and advocacy for the youth across systems. Implications of this study support the vital role that foster parents have in helping children adapt to placement, and indicate that agencies can provide increased support for foster parents to better meet the needs of foster youth.     

Insane Sex Offenders: Psychiatric and Legal Characteristics of Sexual Offenders Found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity

There is little known about sexual offenders hospitalized under forensic commitment statutes such as not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). We conducted a chart review to delineate the demographic, clinical, and legal characteristics of NGRI sexual offenders (n = 68) committed to the California Department of State Hospitals—Napa, including 41 found NGRI for a sexual offense and 27 found NGRI for a nonsexual offense. The two groups did not differ significantly in their demographics, psychiatric diagnoses, victim characteristics, or recidivism risk as measured by the Static‐99R. Those found NGRI for a sexual offense were older at the time of their first criminal and first violent offense, younger at the time of their committing offense, and had fewer prior total convictions and sexual offense convictions. These findings may indicate that sexual offenders found NGRI for a sexual offense are less antisocial than those found NGRI for a nonsexual offense.     

Stature estimation from tibia percutaneous length: New equations derived from a Mediterranean population

Stature is a fundamental anthropometric character to trace the biological profile of a person. In some cases, when dismembered or mutilated bodies are discovered in a forensic context, it is essential to estimate stature from single districts of the body. Nevertheless, to date and worldwide, there are only few population-specific studies on stature estimation from leg length and none of them concerns modern populations in southern Europe. We attempted to fill this gap, focusing on the estimation of stature from the length of the tibia in a Mediterranean population (Italians). We carried out the current study on a sample of 374 Italian university students of both sexes (age range: 19.9–34.4). Both, actual stature and percutaneous length of tibia were measured and new equations were developed for stature estimation. We tested separate regression equations for each sex, as well as an equation for remains, whose sex is unknown. To assess their reliability, the equations were tested on a holdout sample of 30 individuals from the same population. Moreover, results of new specific linear regression equations were compared to others from the literature. We demonstrated that the newly proposed formulae (for males and combined sexes) and the ones by Olivier (for females) provided the most reliable estimations of stature for southern Europeans.     

Explaining the number of rebel groups in civil wars

Why do multiple rebel groups form in some civil wars but not others? Since 1946, only half of all civil wars were fought by a single rebel group; the rest were fought by multiple groups. This article argues that this variation is determined by the incentives political entrepreneurs have to enter a war. The higher the demand for political change and the lower the costs of fighting, the more incentives entrepreneurs have to form their own group. Analyzing UCDP data for all civil wars between 1946 and 2015 I find that the two measures of demand – the number of identifiable ethnic or religious groups in a country and the size of the disgruntled population – have the most consistent effects, but that key measures of costs such as the size of the government military also matter. A detailed analysis of the Ethiopian case further reveals the influence of external intervention on the formation of rebel groups. These results suggest that rebel groups emerge in civil wars in rational, predictable ways related to the ease by which rebel elites can mobilize separate groups for fighting.