Improving the organization and management of civil service training in Zambia

This paper describes the first phase (1981-1984) of a programme being carried out by the Government of Zambia to improve the organization and management of in-service training for civil servants. General guidelines for an effective training function are outlined. These are compared to the problems of civil service training in Zambia in 1981, where responsibility was fragmented, co-ordination was poor, work concentrated on routine administration, and the background of training staff was often inappropriate. A set of recommendations was agreed for resolving these problems, including the creation of a central training directorate and a cadre of full-time training staff. The package of proposals was designed to increase accountability, improve co-ordination, improve the quality of training staff, and introduce systematic training procedures. The progress with implementing these changes is evaluated; the greatest progress was in setting up the cadre of training staff, although significant progress was also made in other areas. The paper concludes that the conditions for an effective training function have been created and that a longer-term programme to develop the new training cadre is now required. The Zambian example provides a possible model for any country thinking of introducing similar changes.     

Sentencing disparities for juvenile offenders sentenced to adult prisons: An individual and contextual analysis

While the punishment of juvenile offenders has increasingly become an issue of major concern to the public, there are few studies that test the government's coercive response to offending by this particular group. This study addresses this issue by examining the variation in sentence length for juvenile offenders adjudicated in the adult criminal courts for violent offenses. Results from the regression analyses consistently show that, while factors related to the specific offense are important contributors to the variation in sentence length, differences in the ideological climate of each state are a strong predictor of the variation in adult sanctions for minors. Specifically, the findings show that conservative citizen ideology and Republican control of state government are important contributors to the variation in sentencing of juveniles across U.S. states. Additional evidence shows that states where judges must run in an election to gain their seats proscribe more severe sanctions on juvenile offenders by sentencing more of them to adult prisons. Overall, the results suggest that the social and political climate of each state plays a very strong role in the sentencing of juvenile offenders to adult prisons.