GROWTH AND QUALITY OF U.S. PRIVATE PRISONS: EVIDENCE FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY*

Research Summary: Private prisons incarcerate 5.3% of the sentenced, adult population in the United States. The present study presents selected results from a 1999 survey of administrators who monitored private prisons in the United States (or U.S. territories). Among the findings of interest, the private sector experienced significant problems with staff turnover, escapes, and drug use. Where possible, private prison operations were compared with those of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Policy Implications: Given the issues raised here with public safety, public sector agencies contracting for private prisons need to develop incentives or other means to ensure that private sector operators retain experienced custody staff.     

Using Cosponsorship to Estimate Ideal Points

Ideal point estimates based on roll‐call vote results have provided leverage for a variety of theory testing efforts. Recently, scholars have suggested using cosponsorship data as a proxy for roll‐call votes. Conceptually similar to roll‐call votes, cosponsorship data are appealing for a variety of reasons. However, the data‐generating process for cosponsorship is untheorized and little studied. We examine the properties of ideal point estimates from cosponsorship data. We find that the ability to estimate ideal points from cosponsorship data is contingent on the underlying data‐generating process; reliance on such measures requires strong and often unrealistic assumptions.     

INTERPRETING INTERPRETIVISM INTERPRETING INTERPRETATIONS: THE NEW HERMENEUTICS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

This article seeks to gauge the nature, distinctiveness and significance of the ‘interpretivist turn’ in public administration and political science more broadly. It considers the various interpretations and, indeed, misinterpretations to which this new hermeneutics of public administration has given rise, its relationship to (genuinely and seemingly) cognate perspectives (notably constructivism, the new institutionalism and critical realism) and its strengths and weaknesses – both as an analytical perspective and as a developing research programme. In the process it argues for a broadening of the interpretivist research agenda to accord a greater role to the institutional contexts in which the ideas and beliefs that actors hold acquire and retain resonance and for the value of exploring more thoroughly the synergies with constructivist variants of the new institutionalism.     

Does Reinvention Need Reinvention? Lessons from Tmncated Managerialism in Britain

Since the 1970s, reformers have pressed innovation in Whitehall management. However, the reinvention efforts by both the Thatcher and Major governments under the banners of public choice and managerialism have led the reform movement to a dead end. Using interviews ranging from 1978 to 1993 and drawing upon the works of public management theorists, this article analyzes the obstacles to reinventing government in the UK. Namely, the politicization of the process coupled with HM Treasuy's stronghold on expenditures has limited managerial discretion and built mistrust of veforms among civil servants. Rather than creating an environment conducive to innovations in public management, the UKs efforts have deepened the divide between policymakers and administrators.     

The Seriousness of Crime Cross-Culturally:

This study examines the perceptions of the seriousness of offenses: first, by examining perceptions of a wide range of offenses for respondents from two very divergent cultures, the United States and the Middle East, second, by assessing the perceived severity of some 17 sanctions for respondents from these two cultures and finally, by assessing the impact of religiosity on the perceived seriousness of Crime. In addition, both the magnitude estimation and category techniques for measuring the seriousness of crime are utilized and the results from using these two techniques are compared.