EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF INCREASED COURT REVIEW ON PERMANENCY OUTCOMES FOR ABUSED AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN

This article provides a brief history of a federally funded court improvement program, describes the Dane County Court Improvement Project, and discusses the implications of the project evaluation's findings. As part of Wisconsin's efforts under the federally funded state court improvement program, Dane County developed and evaluated a form of accelerated review of selected juvenile court cases. The accelerated review intended to expedite permanency outcomes for abused and neglected children in out-of-home care. The evaluation's findings of the initiative suggest that more frequent court reviews than those mandated by law may increase the likelihood of adopting children entering out-of-home care with no decrease in the likelihood of family reunification. However, because many of the children whose parental rights had been terminated had yet to be placed for adoption at the time of the study's conclusion, the encouraging early findings of the initiative should be regarded with some caution.     

Nonfeminist and feminist students at risk: The use of case study analysis while transforming the postsecondary curriculum

Recent events at the University of Washington and at Fresno State University, where male students disrupted Women's Studies classes, serve as background to discuss some problems faced by nonfeminist and feminist students. These problems may be seen as one result of current attempts to integrate Women's Studies scholarship into the U.S. higher education's mainstream curriculum. Through illustrative case studies, the author analyzes the causes and effects of some of the complex problems faced by a diverse student population. In this paper, the case study approach itself is recommended as a methodology compatible with feminist theory and pedagogy. It serves as a vehicle to anticipate and to understand the concerns of different constituencies in the large Women's Studies core courses and in the courses in which feminist scholarship has been mainstreamed into the curriculum.     

An approach to the legislative production of the Spanish parliament (1979–1982)

Abstract. Analysis of Spain's first constitutional legislature (1979–1982) reveals (with the logical reservations derived from the fact that this was the first democratic legislature after the many years of Franco's dictatorship) the Spanish Parliament's important influence on the legislative process in terms of both initiating legislation and proposing amendments to bills introduced. This influence may possibly have stemmed from the fragile government of Union de Centro Democrático (UCD) at a time when the party had only a relative majority in Parliament and was torn by serious internal problems, both ideological and personal, which caused it to all but disappear in the 1982 election. All of this took place within the framework of a system of centralized political decision-making in which political leaders played a starring role.     

The Federal Structure of Australian Political Parties

Australian parties reflect the combination of British responsiblegovernment and elements of American federalism embodied in theconstitution. Despite considerable symmetry in party competitionfor all seven parliaments, party organizations must functionwithin electoral systems complicated by state differences andbicameralism. The extra-parliamentary federal organizations,which began as weak confederations, have gradually gained ascendancyover state parties, particularly within the Labor parties. Yetthis shift of power to national party organizations is lessmarked than the increase in Commonwealth government activities.Such developments have not made for complete Commonwealth dominationbut the intermeshing of state and federal responsibilities hasincreased the need for bargaining between the two planes ofgovernment and decreased the areas in which independent decisionsby either are possible. Frequent elections, in which federaland state issues can rarely be separated, strengthen these trendsand make bargaining between federal and state leaders withineach party as important as bargaining between governments.     

An Inside View of Police Officers�� Experience with Domestic Violence

Since the recognition of domestic violence (DV) in the late 1970s, police officers have been frontline providers. Despite their changing role as a result of the criminalization of DV, little is known about their experiences and responses to this public health issue from their unique perspective. Via focus groups, 22 police officers discussed their scope of practice and emotional reactions to DV calls. Participants reported frustration with the recurring nature of DV and with the larger systems?? lack of accountability (e.g., courts, prosecution and community) that follow their initial interventions. Participants discussed the limitations of their role as protectors of public safety, attitudes that evolve over time and their beliefs as to contributing factors that perpetuate DV. Additionally, the officers recommend: more professional training, counseling, incident debriefing for officers including feedback on case disposition, better collaboration across professional groups, and evidence-based prosecution. Harsher penalties were also recommended.     

A correction to Potters and van Winden (1992)

This note amends the model of informational lobbying presented in Potters and van Winden (Public Choice 74:269–292, 1992). In the original article, the authors find that only separating and pooling equilibria exist when the cost of lobbying is intermediate and the policymaker’s prior favors the interest group’s preferred policy. However, we prove that a semi-separating equilibrium also exists under these conditions. Implications for lobbying behavior are discussed.     

Deficiencies in education and poor prospects for economic growth in the Gulf countries: The case of the UAE

Abstract

Our paper shows that the deficient educational system and the large share of unskilled foreign workers in the Gulf countries are serious impediments to a successful implementation of the strategies of these countries to reduce their dependence on foreign technologies and to restructure their economies in order to make them less dependent on oil exports. A novel element in our analysis is that we emphasise the role of the deficient educational system as an important problem, next to the well-documented quandary of a high incidence of unskilled foreign workers in the workforce. We use new survey data, both at an establishment level and economy-wide, to provide evidence on how the poor educational facilities lead to a poor provision of training, low skill levels, serious skills mismatch and deficient transfer of knowledge. These inadequate facilities and the lack of incentives to improve them also lead to low R&D efforts to promote local technologies and hamper a restructuring of the economy.