The fertile soil for policy learning

Early in the 20th century, both Japan and the United States adopted isolation as the primary policy for leprosy victims. Medical science had, by mid-century, arrived at a near consensus that isolation was inappropriate. This new information filtered into the policy making soil of both nations and slowly led to the abandonment of isolation. Conceptualizations from the literature offer the bases of a policy learning model centered on the characteristics of a fertile soil for policy learning. The model considers the nature of the problem, the nature of the information, and the nature of the debate as critical factors shaping the learning of new information. Each factor added to the understanding. The problem, complex and characterized by negatively constructed targets, was not amenable to policy learning, especially in Japan with more victims, more hospitals, more researchers, and more stigmatization. It took considerable time to wrap the information in scientific integrity. In Japan the process was slowed by the war which separated researchers from professional fora at a critical time. Head on, confrontational debates in both nations failed. Success came only when strategies that moderated debate were adopted.     

Privatization of public-sector services in theory and practice

The last ten years have seen a marked increase in the analysis and implementation of private-sector alternatives to the production of public-sector services. The impetus for privatization has two sources: (1) opposition to further growth of the public sector, and (2) the belief that the private sector would be a more efficient producer. Yet as privatization moves beyond the acquisition of intermediate goods and services (payroll processing and housekeeping services, for example) to more complex public outputs (such as education, social security, public safety, the postal system, for example), it is subject to increasing challenge on both efficiency and equity grounds. Nonetheless, private alternatives to public production are finding increased acceptance.     

Deterring discrimination with data

Discrimination on grounds of race, sex, and handicap persists in many local school districts in spite of nearly twenty years of sustained attention from federal policymakers. Because litigation proceeds slowly and expensively, and because administrative attacks on discrimination have been stymied by political controversy, additional policy strategies merit careful consideration. We studied the operation of one such strategy in nine local districts: the mandatory collection of data concerning civil rights matters in schools. Data collection and reporting shaped local compliance with civil rights laws in four ways: by threatening local officials with future penalties, by providing political ammunition to constituencies that care about civil rights, by allowing local districts to learn about their own performance, and by framing school practices in ways that heighten awareness about equity. In this policy setting, data collection has advantages and disadvantages that complement those of other enforcement strategies. In this and other policy settings, data collection has power to elicit compliance even in the absence of conventional enforcement.This paper is based on research supported by the National Institute of Education, Grants NIE-G-81-0037, NIE-G-81-0038, and NIE-G-83-0008. We acknowledge with gratitude the research assistance of Rosa Yvonne Herrera, Elizabeth Greenberg, and Lauren Rothfarb, and the encouragement of Grace Mastalli.     

The Limits of Reconciliation: The Story of a Perpetrator,Katherine Ann Power

In this paper, I apply concepts of restorative justice, along with moral philosopher Joanna North's (1998) multistage model of the process of earning forgiveness to the case of 1960s antiwar militant, Katherine Power. Both frameworks assume that forgiveness ought to culminate in reconciliation between perpetrator and victim. On September 23, 1970, Katherine Ann Power, a 20-year-old college student, was a member of a group of five who were robbing a bank near Boston to support the movement against the Vietnam War. One from the group stayed at the bank and shot and killed a Boston police officer and father of nine. Under Massachusetts' felony murder law, all five were chargeable with murder. Power went underground for 23 years, remaining on the FBI's Ten-Most-Wanted list longer than any other woman in history. During her fugitive years, Power lived her life in a purposeful attempt to make atonement. Ultimately, though, she came to understand that her crime was not a private matter, but demanded social and relational modes of remediation, including public confession, public penance (in a penitentiary), and efforts at reconciliation with the family of her victim. So in 1993, she turned herself in, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and began serving an 8–12-year sentence in Massachusetts. She completed her prison sentence in October, 1999. Power spent her years in prison engaging in reflection and action that maps well onto the first five stages of North's model and onto much of the restorative justice model. So far, though, Power's efforts have failed to yield the hypothesized reconciliation with her victims. Examination of the parallels and divergences between these theoretical frameworks and Power's narrative provides significant insight into the meaning, the promise, and the limits of reconciliation.     

When Choice of Data Matters: Analyses of U.S. Crime Trends, 1973–2012

Objectives

This study uses UCR and NCVS crime data to assess which data source appears to be more valid for analyses of long-term trends in crime. The relationships between UCR and NCVS trends in violence and six factors from prior research are estimated to illustrate the impact of data choice on findings about potential sources of changes in crime over time.

Methods

Crime-specific data from the UCR and NCVS for the period 1973–2012 are compared to each other using a variety of correlational techniques to assess correspondence in the trends, and to UCR homicide data which have been shown to be externally valid in comparison with other mortality records. Log-level trend correlations are used to describe the associations between trends in violence, homicide and the potential explanatory factors.

Results

Although long-term trends in robbery, burglary and motor vehicle theft in the UCR and NCVS are similar, this is not the case for rape, aggravated assault, or a summary measure of serious violence. NCVS trends in serious violence are more highly correlated with homicide data than are UCR trends suggesting that the NCVS is a more valid indicator of long-term trends in violence for crimes other than robbery. This is largely due to differences during the early part of the time series for aggravated assault and rape when the UCR data exhibited consistent increases in the rates in contrast to general declines in the NCVS. Choice of data does affect conclusions about the relationships between hypothesized explanatory factors and serious violence. Most notably, the reported association between trends in levels of gasoline lead exposure and serious violence is likely to be an artifact associated with the reliance on UCR data, as it is not found when NCVS or homicide trend data are used.

Conclusions

The weight of the evidence suggests that NCVS data represent more valid indicators of the trends in rape, aggravated assault and serious violence from 1973 to the mid-1980s. Studies of national trends in serious violence that include the 1973 to mid-1980s period should rely on NCVS and homicide data for analyses of the covariates of violent crime trends.