The Role of Victim-Related Factors in Victim Restitution: A Multi-Method Analysis of Restitution in Pennsylvania

Mandatory statutes do not always produce change, but a 1995 Pennsylvania statutory change making restitution mandatory dramatically increased the proportion of cases in which restitution was imposed. There are three possible reasons for this generally successful implementation: (a) judges agreed with the victim-centered goals of the statute, (b) there were mechanisms in place to implement the goals of assisting victims, and (c) there was a context supportive of victims that made it easier to follow the law. Two studies investigated these possible explanations. First, a statewide survey of trial court judges suggested that they agreed with the statute's goals of compensating victims. Second, hierarchical logistic models of 55,119 statewide restitution-eligible decisions indicated that a victim-related contextual factor, the nature and location of the victim/witness assistance office, was significantly related to the imposition of restitution, although a more general contextual factor relating to funding for victim programs had only small effects.     

Budget Rhetoric in Presidential Campaigns from 1952 to 2000

We offer a theory to identify the determinants of presidential campaign rhetoric related to the federal budget. The theory builds on the literature dealing with issue ownership, candidate strategy, retrospective voting, and voter preferences to generate eight hypotheses about the use of budget rhetoric. To test these hypotheses, over 800 campaign speeches from the major party presidential nominees from 1952 to 2000 are content analyzed. The content analysis generates measures of both the volume and tone of budget rhetoric. Volume is driven primarily by the objective balance of the budget and subjective importance given to it by voters and a conditional effect involving budget balance, incumbency, and partisanship. Tone is more complex, with positive rhetoric determined mostly by the budget balance and partisanship and overstated rhetoric shaped solely by the salience of the budget to the electorate. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Recidivism in Stalking and Obsessional Harassment

Despite the rapidly growth of mental health attention focused on the phenomenon of stalking, no empirical research to date has attempted to assess the frequency of repeat offending or attempted to identify predictors of recidivism. A total of 148 stalking and harassment offenders who were court-ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation were followed for a period of 2.5–13 years in order to assess the frequency of repeat offenses and the variables that differentiated high versus low risk offenders. Recidivism data were obtained from a variety of sources, including criminal justice records, mental health records, and reports from probation officers and victims. A number of potential predictor variables were selected on the basis of the existing recidivism literature in other criminal justice populations. Frequency analysis were used to identify variables that significantly differentiated offenders who did and did not reoffend while survival analysis was used to analyze the impact of these covariates on time to reoffense. A total of 49% of the offenders reoffended during the follow-up period, 80% of whom reoffended during the first year. The strongest predictors of recidivism included the presence of a personality disorder, and in particular, a Cluster B personality disorder (i.e., antisocial, borderline, and/or narcissistic). In addition, those offenders with both a personality disorder and a history of substance abuse were significantly more likely to reoffend compared to either of these risk factors alone. Surprisingly, the presence of a delusional disorder (e.g., erotomania) was associated with a lower risk of reoffender. The findings are discussed in terms of the legal system and treatment implications.     

Voluntarism and its limits: Canada's search for radioactive waste-siting candidates

Abstract: A growing body of evidence suggests that extensive public involvement can play a constructive role in the cooperative resolution of waste-facility siting decisions. The Canadian experience in pursuing a voluntary strategy for siting of a low-level radioactive waste facility provides some support for this consensus view, in light of its early stages of deliberation and public participation. However, a number of factors have served to limit the effectiveness of a voluntary strategy in this case, more generally, as well as undermine the prospects for a cooperative siting agreement in Deep River, Ontario. This article considers the recent experience in this case and attempts to draw lessons for future use of voluntary siting strategies. The article concludes that extensive public involvement remains an important element of siting but must be viewed as one component of an integrated process of waste-facility siting and management. Sommaire: Les preuves s'accumulent à l'effet que la participation du public peut jouer un rôle constructif dans la prise collaborative des décisions concernant l'emplacement des dépôts de déchets. La stratégie canadienne d'emplacement volon-taire d'un certain dépôt de dechets faiblement radioactifs favorise dans une certaine mesure cette approche collective, au vu des premières étapes de délibération et de participation du public à cette stratégie. Cependant, plusieurs facteurs ont limité l'efficacité d'une stratégie volontaire, dans ce cas particulier ainsi que plus générale-ment, et ont sapé la possibilité d'un accord collectif d'emplacement à Deep River (Ontario). Dans cet article, on examine l'expérience récente de ce cas et on s'efforce de tirer des lecons générales pour l'emploi futur de stratégies d'emplacement volontaire. En conclusion, une participation extensive du public demeure un élément important de la localisation, mais elle n'est qu'une composante d'un processus intégré de localisation et de gestion des dépôts de déchets.     

The environments of U.S. R&D laboratories: political and market influences

R&D laboratories in the United States have during the past decade undergone much structural and environmental change. Much of this change has been in response to public policy initiatives and changing markets. One result of the changing environments of R&D laboratories is that traditional sector-based (government, industry, university) classification of laboratories tells us little about their structure and behavior. This study based on survey data derived from 966 U.S. R&D laboratories, develops an environmental input taxonomy, based not on sector but on the mix of political and market influence on laboratories. This taxonomy is examined in connection with three central policy issues: amount of cooperative research, red tape and bureaucratization, and laboratory output. Traditonal sector classification accounts well for red tape, but the environmental input taxonomy provides additional insights into laboratories' scientific and technical output and cooperative research.