Children with Sexual Behavior Problems

Judges are encountering more cases (both dependent and delinquent) involving juveniles under the age of 12 who have acted out sexually. The youth's own trauma history and protection issues often complicate the cases. This article reviews the research about treatment for children with sexual behavior problems (SBP) and discusses guidelines for making placement decisions in order to assist judges to determine an appropriate level of response in cases of children with SBP. To this end, information about typical sexual development with strategies for determining whether a sexual behavior is problematic or developmentally appropriate is provided. Children with SBP are contrasted with adolescent and adult sexual offenders. Assessment and treatment guidelines based on the current state of clinical research are provided, noting that a number of treatments have demonstrated efficacy with SBP in children. Information to facilitate decision making regarding residential placement, school participation, and family reunification is provided. Public policy should be based on scientific results and reflect the very low risk posed by children with SBP when making decisions about application of the Adam Walsh Act and national lifetime registries in general.     

Science in the Courtroom: Vital to Best Interests and Reasonable Efforts

This essay was adapted from a speech presented by the author on February 12, 2008 at a Colloquium entitled “What's Best for Children? How Judges Use Neuroscience to Break the Cycle of Child Maltreatment.” The colloquium was sponsored by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child and held at Harvard Law School. It focuses on the wealth of knowledge that has been discovered about infant and child development and the importance of incorporating that knowledge into judicial decision making in child maltreatment cases.     

Unemployment and Crime Rate Fluctuations: A Comment on Greenberg

Several ways in which the specification of the Cantor and Land (1985) conceptual model of transient relationships between aggregate unemployment and crime rate fluctuations differs from that of Greenberg (2001) are noted. It follows that we do not accept Greenberg's Eq. (1) as a valid theoretical representation of the processes of interest. We briefly review the substantive context from which our investigation began in the mid-1980s. We also review the time series properties of our model and of the aggregate unemployment and crime rates used in its estimation. We note how the time series behavior of various crime rates determines which parts of the Cantor and Land model are and are not likely to be estimated as statistically significant for those series. We conclude with some comments on the limitations of aggregate time series research designs for testing the behavioral hypotheses used to generate expected relationships between aggregate unemployment and crime rates and suggest some alternative research designs.     

External influence on parliamentarians in Kenya

Many scholars argue that the media can influence parliamentarians though the extent of that influence is hotly debated. There is some evidence that the relationship is two way, with politicians taking note of salient media stories but using the media to communicate with their constituents. It is also apparent that, whilst the media may have a role in drawing attention to specific issues, politicians in Kenya do not entirely trust it and thus use a wide range of other sources including government agencies as well as third party sources such as interest groups. This article addresses two gaps in our knowledge―the extent to which parliamentarians in Kenya turn to unofficial sources for information and public opinion, especially interest groups, and the extent to which the media in particular influences parliamentarians in Kenya. The results suggest that parliamentarians in Kenya rely to some extent on both the media and interest groups and that the media is good at raising awareness and stimulating action but that it has only a modest effect on political actions.     

Never a dull moment: Pim Fortuyn and the Dutch parliamentary election of 2002

The 2002 parliamentary election in the Netherlands will always be associated with the name of Pim Fortuyn. His murder only nine days before the election was the first political assassination in the Netherlands in more than 300 years. The sudden success of the new party he had founded, coupled with the major losses for the Labour and Liberal parties, made this an historic election. This article attempts to understand the motivations of the voters at this election, in particular the voters of the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF). It is first shown that the conventional wisdom, which assumes voting based on religion and social class, and voting along ideological issue lines, has lost its ability to explain voter behaviour in the Netherlands. An explanation based on retrospective economic voting is also rejected. The success of the LPF is accounted for by the popularity of Fortuyn and his appeal among those who had cynical attitudes towards government or who were dissatisfied with the performance of the incumbent government. The popularity of Fortuyn is shown to have been related to political issues, in particular those relating to asylum seekers and the integration of foreigners in the country.     

Studies presented to the international commission for the history of representative and parliamentary institutions 1980 — 1985

SUMMARY

In this article Joseba Agirreazkuenaga continues his account of the development of the Basque political institutions to the period following the settlement of the first Carlist war by the Convention of Bergera in 1839. This laid down a process for incorporating the Basque foral institutions into the framework of the new liberal constitution of the Spanish monarchy. It required negotiations between the Spanish Cortes and Basque representatives, which produced the institution of the Basque Conferencias to speak for the three Basque provinces. Once established these developed into the main institutional voice for the developing Basque national movemebt. By the 1860s the Conferencias had virtually acquired the function of a Basque provincial government.