Psychopathy, treatment behavior, and recidivism: an extended follow-up of Seto and Barbaree

Seto and Barbaree reported the unexpected finding that adult male sex offenders who scored higher on psychopathy and exhibited better behavior in treatment were almost four times more likely to commit a new serious offence than other offenders once released. The present study reexamined this sample after a longer follow-up time using more complete recidivism data from a national police database. Although psychopathy continued to be a significant predictor of general and serious recidivism, treatment behavior was no longer related to either general or serious recidivism, and there was no statistically significant interaction between psychopathy and treatment behavior. Additional analyses ruled out the possibility that the differences between studies could be accounted for by the different average length of follow-up. A direct comparison of the two sources of recidivism data showed that differences in recidivism between subgroups were reduced by using the more complete recidivism data.     

A functional approach to sudden unexplained infant deaths

There is a great deal of variation in the methods and wording used by medical examiners in the medicolegal investigation and certification of infant deaths. This paper was created by the NAME Ad Hoc Committee on Sudden Unexplained Infant Death to address several specific issues, namely: * To establish a functional approach to the investigation of sudden unexplained infant deaths; * To outline a "bare minimum" set of recommendations to define the scope of investigation required; * To recommend methods and wording to be used when certifying infant deaths; * To develop a list of potential stressors or possible external causes of death that should be identified and reported on the death certificate and/or within a medical examiner/coroner office database. This paper was electronically posted for NAME member review and comment for a period of 30 days. The paper was further revised based on member comments and then submitted to the NAME board of directors in the fall of 2005 prior to the annual meeting. This text of this paper was officially approved and endorsed by the NAME board of directors on October 14, 2005, at the annual meeting in Los Angeles, CA.     

Race,Neighborhood, and Drug Court Graduation

This research examines the possibility that racial disparities in drug court graduation are attributable to individual-level employment or education or to neighborhood-level disadvantage. Individual-level data on 455 drug court clients and neighborhood-level census and police incident data are joined geographically. Drug court graduation is modeled using multilevel logistic regression. In a model with no neighborhood-level indicators, client race, employment, and education all predicted drug court graduation. When neighborhood-level variables are introduced, client-level race drops from significance but employment and education remain significant predictors of graduation. Client race, then, appears to be an indirect indicator of neighborhood disadvantage, while client employment and education remain important individual-level predictors of drug court graduation. These results support further analysis of neighborhood-based barriers to drug court graduation and the development of drug court programming that can address neighborhood-based challenges.     

The Horizons of the Constitution: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Politeia</Emphasis>, the Political Regime and the Good

How do we think about the word politeia when this involves a reaching back to the past? The response, pursued in this paper, is that in the classical understanding of politeia there is a significant connection between the question of the ‘good’ and the constitution; a connection which has become occluded or obscured by modern constitutional thought. In support of this understanding of politeia it must be acknowledged that what is meant, in this paper, by ‘good’ is very different from that conventionally found in contemporary constitutional, legal or political theory. In an effort to disclose how politeia unravels this novel sense of ‘the good’ the paper will closely consider the philosophical work of Hans-Georg Gadamer on Plato. The paper claims that this largely neglected work is of importance to contemporary constitutional philosophy, particularly in so far as it focuses, as in this paper, on classical traditions or origins within constitutional thought.     

中国与拉美社会保障比较:传统文化与制度安排——提高覆盖率的角度

欧洲、拉丁美洲和中国的文化与社会保障改革取向存在差异性.与西欧相比,拉美和中国之间的相似性更多一些,例如低收入的经济背景、积累性质的融资模式、个人账户的引入等,其改革效果也存在一些相似性.例如覆盖面狭小等.中国和拉美社保覆盖面狭小的原因在于传统文化存在较大差异性,即拉美缺乏储蓄文化,其社保改革之后"对等原则"的引入并没有为提高覆盖率和遵缴率作出很大贡献,但对中国住房公积金制度进行分析和对比之后发现,在浓厚的储蓄文化背景之下,中国社保覆盖率狭小的原因正是由于缺乏"对等原则"因素所致.不同文化背景下,社保制度中"对等原则"效果截然相反.鉴于此,本文认为,如果将目前统账结合制度改造为大账户制或名义账户制,将个人和单位缴费完全划入个人账户,覆盖率和遵缴率就会像住房公积金那样立即提高,实现应保尽保.