A detective allocation model

Assuming that the primary purpose of investigative detectives is to solve cases (make arrests), a mathematical model is developed that allocates detectives among divisions in large urban police department so as to maximize the city-wide clearance rate.     

Evaluation of prison systems

Models are developed for the flow of prisoners through a state prison system. These models are used to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative correctional programs. Results based on the Georgia prison system are presented.     

Reconsidering The Counter-Mobilization Hypothesis: Health Policy Lobbying In The American States

Despite its widespread use since the concept was introduced by David Truman (1951. The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf), counter-mobilization by organized interests has remained theoretically ambiguous and rarely studied empirically. We more fully develop the concept of short-term counter-mobilization, distinguish it from long-term counter-mobilization, specify the conditions under which we might observe short-term counter-mobilization, and test the resulting hypotheses with data on health care lobby registrations in the American states during the late 1990s. We find little evidence of short-term counter-mobilization among health interest organizations, which leads us to more fully consider several null hypotheses about the limits of strategic behavior on the part of organized interests.An earlier version of this paper was prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 2004. This research was supported by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research (ID#047727).     

Industry–University Research Centers: A Multivariate Analysis of Member Retention

Although a growing literature documents the benefits of industry–university research centers, most centers experience a significant amount of turnover among their industrial members. In order to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, the current study attempts to identify factors that predict member renewal (DV). Questionnaire data were collected from industrial respondents (N=249) participating in 39 centers funded by the NSF IUCRC program. Structural, member benefits and administrative process variables were used to predict the dependent variable. Logistic regression analyses identified three significant predictors: professional networking benefits, research relevance and administrative operations. Implications of these findings for public policy, cooperative research management and future research are discussed.     

Leave or stay? Battered women's decision after intimate partner violence

Battered women's reasons for staying with or leaving their male partners are varied and complex. Using data from the Domestic Violence Experience in Omaha, Nebraska, a discrete-time hazard model was employed to examine a woman's decision based on four factors: financial independence, witness of parental violence, psychological factors, and the police response to the domestic violence call. Findings regarding the first three factors are consistent with previous findings. However, a negative police response did not deter a woman from leaving, which is a different finding from previous studies.     

Regulatory disempowerment: How enabling and controlling forms of power obstruct citizen-based regulation

Regulatory studies assume that citizens can act as regulators to complement or correct failing state and market forms of regulation. Yet, there is a growing literature that shows that in reality citizens may fail to be effective regulators. This paper systematically analyses how power inequalities obstruct citizens in their regulatory roles. It compares four case studies with highly different social and political contexts but with similar outcomes of citizens failing to regulate risk. The case studies are analyzed by operationalizing sociological and political science ideas about manifestations of enabling and controlling forms of power in order to understand the way power inequalities obstruct citizens in their regulatory roles across diverse contexts. The article shows how citizens, from farmers and manual workers in both authoritarian developing and democratic developed contexts to even highly trained medical professionals from the US, have limited agency and are disempowered to act as regulators. Our analysis reveals that five patterns of disempowerment play a crucial role in obstructing successful society-based regulation: (i) dependency, (ii) capacity, (iii) social hierarchy, (iv) discursive framing, and (v) perverse effects of legal rights.