Psychiatric disorder,IQ, and emotional intelligence among adolescent detainees: A comparative study

Objectives. To document criminality, psychiatric difficulty, IQ, EQ, and EI amongst Irish, male juvenile detainees (Detainee Group). To compare their IQ, EQ, and EI to non‐offending boys attending a child psychiatry clinic (Psychiatric Group) and boys without offending or psychiatric problems (Community Group). To compare psychiatric morbidity between the detainee and psychiatric groups. Method. Criminality levels of 30 detainees were evaluated using official court charge sheets. Psychiatric status was assessed through structured clinical interview (DISC‐IV); IQ through an individually administered IQ‐scale (WASI); EQ using the BarOn EQi:Youth Version (EQi:YV); and EI using the MSCEIT: Youth Version – Research Edition (MSCEIT:YV‐RE). IQ, EQ, and EI levels in the psychiatric and community groups were compared. Psychiatric morbidity between detainee and psychiatric groups were compared. Results. A total of 335 crimes led to the detention of detainees. Eighty‐three percent of detainees had a psychiatric disorder compared to 60% of young people in the psychiatric group. Detainees had 3.1 disorders each compared to 1.4 disorders in the psychiatric group. A total of 63.3% of detainees had an externalizing problem, 37.9% an internalizing problem, and 66.7% a substance dependency or use problem. A total of 21.4% of detainees had an IQ score below 70. The detainee and psychiatric groups had similar deficits in EI and significantly lower EI than the community groups. Conclusions. Serious levels of criminality and psychiatric disorder exist amongst Irish detainees. They have significantly lower IQ than young people attending a psychiatry clinic and both share deficits in the ability to accurately identify emotions, use emotions to guide thought processes and to prioritize thinking and to effectively regulate emotions.     

A cross‐cultural comparison of the self‐concepts of imprisoned young offenders by country,race, and parental status

The Tennessee Self‐Concept Scale (TSCS) was administered to 193 imprisoned male youthful offenders in a southern U.S. state and to 161 male young offenders in one of Her Majesty's young offender institutions in England. The purpose of the study was to determine if the self‐concept scores of the subjects differed significantly according to the subject's ethnicity (Country), whether the youth resided with one or both parents or separate from either parent (Parental Status Residence) at the time of imprisonment, and Race. Analyses reveal the Total Self Concept scores of the U.S. and English offenders, as well as the sub‐scale scores, which together make up the Total Self Concept score, are significantly lower than for normal subjects. The U.S. offenders’ scores were more abnormal than the English offenders, often falling below the lowest normal range score, in some instances so low as to suggest serious psychopathological conditions. Discriminant function (DF) analysis was used to analyze the effects of the 12 self‐concept measures in distinguishing subjects by Country, Race, and Parental Status. Analyses correctly classified group membership more than two thirds of the time for each of the three variables and produced moderate to strong correlation coefficient values for various sub‐scales on each of the three variables. Black subjects in both cultures were found to score significantly lower than their White counterparts, a finding that contradicts numerous earlier studies. Findings also question the labeling theory proposition that the stigma of delinquency and subsequent imprisonment with other delinquents exacerbates one's negative regard of self. And perhaps more important, the findings suggest that cultural influences in both countries, rather than the effects of the stigma of the delinquent label and imprisonment, operate to cause low‐self‐concept long before one becomes involved in the justice system. Findings also reveal that delinquent youths from intact families have significantly higher self‐concepts than those from fragmented families.     

Ferrets in the Caribbean: Britain,Grenada and the Curious Case of the Armoured Cars

Abstract

When the Marxist-Leninist New Jewel Movement seized power in Grenada in March 1979 they set about securing and defending their ‘revolution’ against the threat of a countercoup organised by the deposed Prime Minister Eric Gairy. Military aid was quick to arrive from expected allies, namely Cuba and Guyana. Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop also requested arms from Britain and the United States. The People’s Revolutionary Government’s (PRG’s) ties to Cuba and evasiveness over election plans ruled out the US providing any support. Britain remained more open-minded about the PRG’s intentions. Using recently declassified British government documents, this article will examine London’s deliberations over supplying armoured cars to Grenada. It argues that Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials focused on the bigger picture of steering the PRG away from Cuba at the cost of considering how the sale of the armoured cars to the PRG would appear to a wider audience and that the PRG’s increasingly authoritarian behaviour ultimately vetoed the sale.     

Household income dynamics: a four-country story

In this article, we analyse the dynamics of household per capita incomes using longitudinal data from Indonesia, South Africa, Spain and Venezuela. We find that in all four countries reported initial income and job changes of the head are consistently the most important variables in accounting for income changes, overall and for initially poor households. We also find that changes in income are more important than changes in household size and that changes in labour earnings are more important than changes in other sources of household income.     

From reorganizing to reinventing: sixty years and “we still don’t get it”

Sixty years ago the “Brownlow Committee Report” was written by some of the most prominent members of the emerging field of public administration. Its recommendations had serious consequences for the way both our democratic republic and the field of public administration have evolved. In developing principles in which to anchor the recommendations, Luther Gulick, who was both the intellectual and political force behind the committee, contributed to a confusion of the concepts of organizations and the polity and those of management and governance.

Some of the story of how the concepts promoted by Gulick and the Papers on the Science of Administration led to a misconception, which became public administration's living legacy is told in this article. We then discuss the Brownlow Committee Report as something which changed: our very conception of the Constitution; Gulick's rationale for cooperation with Franklin D. Roosevelt; the Report as a misplacement of organizational concepts upon a polity; the dimensions of constitutional change in the report; and the staying power of Gulick's and the Committee's ideas. In conclusion, we contend that if we are to move beyond Gulick's legacy, that the field must learn and act upon the distinctions between organizations and the polity and management and governance.

“The charge that the Brownlow Committee set in train the development of the “imperial presidency” can be advanced only by those who have not read the Committee's report.”

James Fesler, former staff member of the Brownlow Committee Public Administration Review (July/August, 1987)

“How interesting it is historically that we all assumed in the 1930s that all management, especially public management, flowed in a broad, strong stream of value-filled ethical performance. Were we blind or only naive until Nixon came along? Or were we so eager to ‘take politics out of administration’ that we threw the baby out with the bathwater?”

Luther Gulick, member of the Brownlow Committee From Stephen K. Blurnberg, “Seven Decades of Public Administration: A Tribute to Luther Gulick” Public Administration Review (March/April, 1981)

was as old in American politics as it was popular. Yet, before the end of his second term, Roosevelt, with the help of Charles Merriam, Herbert Brownlow, and Luther Gulick, would use such hoary symbolism towards ends that would fundamentally alter our perceptions of the constitutional order, the nature of the presidency, and public administration. How did this come to pass? Barry Karl says that “He (Roosevelt) had continued as President to look at reorganization through the eyes of those who saw in it a means of saving money, balancing the budget, and thereby giving security to the nation's economy.” But Karl adds, “By 1936, this viewpoint had undergone drastic revision.”⁽⁶⁾ The revision in his thinking replaced “saving money” with “managerial control” as the principal aim of reorganization. “Managerial control” by the president would enable him not only to manage New Deal programs but protect them against potential Republican counterattacks, i.e., in short, to strengthen his hand as president.

The impetus for this change apparently came directly from the President's experiences in seeking to administer the government's burgeoning and increasingly chaotic Executive Branch. Roosevelt was a skilled, intuitive, and flexible administrator. But, according to Karl, his experience in seeking to administer the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act with a loose arrangement, quickly dubbed “the five ring circus,” taught the President several lessons. First, “it demonstrated the growing dependence of the President on official staff, other than cabinet members, working exceedingly close to the President's own sphere of daily operation. “⁽⁷⁾ Second, the problems of administering the Act raised questions among the participants themselves as to whether or not the President could “administer and control so complex an operation as federal relief given the inadequate machinery in his possession.”⁽⁸⁾ In other words, the effort was not simply a “five ring circus” because of FDR's famed flexible and informal style, but also because of the inadequacy of the available structures. Karl notes that “despite the problems inherent in the fiscal machinery as it stood, a continued development of governments within governments could only lead to a dangerous chaos over which the President would have no control whatsoever.”⁽⁹⁾ The questions raised suggested to the President that perhaps there was some merit to the position of those urging that emergency agencies be absorbed into the existing framework. This could meet a very practical question by “placing agencies within the purview of budget and accounting procedures already in existence.”⁽¹⁰⁾

According to Gulick, FDR told Brownlow and him at a November 14, 1936, meeting “that, since the election, he had received a great many suggestions that he move for a constitutional convention for the United States” and observed that “with Coughlin and other crackpots about there was no way of keeping such an affair from getting out of hand. But,” he said, “there is more than one way of killing a cat, just as in this job I assigned you.”⁽¹¹⁾ Gulick also quotes FDR as specifically telling the Committee, “We have got to get over the notion that the purpose of reorganization is economy. . . . The reason for reorganization is good management.”⁽¹²⁾ Of course FDR meant management as in “presidential management.”

So it was that President Roosevelt by 1936 was prepared to do something quite beyond “abolishing useless offices” in the words of his 1932 speech--something significantly more constitutional in nature. His other aim was no doubt to strengthen his hand significantly to protect the New Deal programs from Republican counterattack. But whatever his aim, the practical effect was to treat the executive branch as a hierarchical organization headed by a chief executive of corporate or city management conception. In so doing, the delicate constitutional balance among branches was altered. Recommending the reorganization of the executive branch as they did inevitably led to reorganization of the larger whole, the government, which was not an organization, but something qualitatively different.⁽¹³⁾     

Public opinion as a dependent variable: A framework for analysis

This paper outlines an approach to examining how public opinion is taken into consideration by political and governmental leaders and reviews recent studies that have followed this approach to evaluate the extent to which public opinion is subject to manipulation by political elites in diverse circumstances. The central idea of this approach is to treat public opinion as a “dependent variable” and to examine the role of the mass media in linking elite initiatives and the public. Instead of starting with polls that presume public opinion is an independent force, we start with elites and presume that they try to manipulate public opinion through the mass media and by other means. First, we look at why the emphasis on the independent nature of public opinion has become so prominent in political science. We argue here that viewing public opinion as a dependent variable is a more promising perspective. Next, we review and evaluate a number of studies that attempt to demonstrate the fruitfulness of our suggested approach. Each of the studies analyzed focuses on the initiatives of political elites and monitors the success of their efforts with targeted groups. These studies demonstrate the conditions that favor elite control as well as the opportunities for citizens to limit such control. In our conclusion, we outline a theory of the role of public opinion in modern mass democracies.     

Social capital and crime in New York City's low‐income housing

Abstract

This article presents evidence that components of social capital can play a prospective role in preventing crime in low‐income housing. It develops a conceptual approach to crime prevention involving social capital, alternative forms of ownership, and environmental design considerations. The study compares five programs that house New York City's poorest, mostly minority residents. The effectiveness of social capital in preventing crime is assessed using data from surveys of 487 buildings in Brooklyn, NY, and crime data from the New York City Police Department.

Results of the analysis indicate that three components of social capital—basic participation in tenant associations, tenant prosocial norms, and a building's formal organization—were all related to reducing various types of crime in the buildings under study 6 to 12 months after social capital was measured. The effectiveness of social capital was related to alternative ownership structures, building characteristics, and housing policy.     

Social capital and the revitalization of New York City's distressed inner‐city housing

Abstract

This article presents evidence that social capital can be an effective component of locally sponsored low‐income housing programs. It provides a model for measuring social capital at the building level, where it may be most effective in improving housing quality and security. The study compares five programs in New York City that house the city's poorest, mostly minority residents. The surveys from 487 buildings in Brooklyn, NY, were analyzed to compare the success of programs in maintaining and revitalizing landlord‐abandoned buildings taken by the city in lieu of taxes.

Results of the analysis demonstrate that the positive effects of tenant ownership were largely mediated by the higher levels of social capital found in these buildings. These levels have implications for the survival and economic advancement of poor households and civic participation in poor communities. The study suggests the value of alternative homeownership programs.     

Goal Setting and Performance Management in the Public Sector

ABSTRACT

The public sector in North America as well as parts of Europe is increasingly adopting a performance management system that includes goal setting, coaching, and the evaluation of an employee on goal attainment. The purpose of this article is three-fold. First, the extant literature on goal setting for individual employees is summarized in terms of its applicability to the public sector. Second, the importance of context to goal setting and performance management in the United States and Italy is discussed. Third, coaching techniques, based on theory and empirical evidence, for increasing the probability of goal attainment by public sector employees are examined.