Child support enforcement policy and unmarried fathers' employment in the underground and regular economies

Some scholars have suggested that a negative consequence of strengthening child support enforcement is to encourage fathers to shift from regular sector to underground employment. We employ data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the relationship between the strength of child support enforcement (CSE) and levels of underground and regular sector employment among unmarried fathers. We find that, in general, living in a city with stricter CSE is associated with fewer hours of underground employment. We find little evidence that stronger enforcement is associated with employment or hours in the regular sector. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

A re‐examination of welfare states and inequality in rich nations: How in‐kind transfers and indirect taxes change the story

Previous studies find large crossnational differences in inequality amongst rich Western nations, due in large part to differences in the generosity of welfare state transfers. The United States is the least generous nation and the one having the most aftertax and transfer inequality. But these analyses are limited to the effects of cash and nearcash transfers and direct taxes on incomes, while on average, half of welfare state transfers in rich nations are inkind benefits—health insurance, education, and other services. Counting inkind benefits at government cost and accounting for the indirect taxes used to finance transfers substantially reduces crossnational differences in inequality at the bottom of the income distribution. The findings have implications for how we think about tradeoffs across welfare state domains that all nations face and we illustrate this with reference to the current U.S. debate about health insurance. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

The value of restorative justice*

This paper starts by defining restorative justice and analysing its components. It looks at its practical benefits for the criminal justice system and explores the human benefits, not only for victims, but also for offenders, the families of both parties and the community. The experience of restorative justice in juvenile courts in New Zealand is examined in order to highlight the main benefits of the practice. Studies have shown that restorative justice can have positive effects such as reducing reoffending, providing an insight into offending, bringing together victims and offenders and repairing emotional harm. The paper concludes that although restorative justice on its own will not fix all social problems, it has many positive impacts on participants.     

Protecting Ohio's Children: Ohio Juvenile Court Jurisdiction to Prevent Nonparty Interference in the Protection of the Best Interest of a Child

Ohio Rule of Juvenile Procedure 2(Y) allows juvenile courts to do what other courts cannot: designate additional parties to an action, allowing juvenile courts to better accomplish their statutory purpose of pursuing the best interests of children. However, sometimes this can lead to confusion about juvenile courts’ actions to protect children, especially when courts invoke Rule 2(Y) to stop interference with proceedings. This article will examine the historical foundations of Ohio's juvenile courts, the unique authority that they possess, and the conflicts that can arise due to interference with juvenile court proceedings. Ohio's juvenile courts have unique authority, and they can use that authority in a way that does not conflict with constitutional rights, while still working to protect the interests of children.     

Improving information evaluation for intelligence production

National security decision-making is informed by intelligence assessments, which in turn depend on sound information evaluation. We critically examine information evaluation methods, arguing that they mask rather than effectively guide subjectivity in intelligence assessment. Drawing on the guidance metaphor, we propose that rigid ‘all-purpose’ information evaluation methods be replaced by flexible ‘context-sensitive’ guidelines aimed at improving the soundness, precision, accuracy and clarity of irreducibly subjective judgments. Specific guidelines, supported by empirical evidence, include use of numeric probability estimates to quantify the judged likelihood of information accuracy, promoting collector-analyst collaboration and periodic revaluation of information as new information is acquired.     

DNA identification of "Earthquake McGoon" 50 years postmortem

This report describes the genetic identification of James "Earthquake McGoon" McGovern, a WWII fighter ace who perished in Laos while providing supplies to French troops during the French Indochina war. Because reference samples were unavailable for all of the potential casualties, testing of the entire mitochondrial genome, autosomal STRs and Y-chromosomal STRs was performed to increase the genetic information available for analysis. Kinship analyses performed on the evidentiary data and numerous indirect family references for McGovern excluded other possible casualties and definitively established McGovern's identity. This particular case demonstrates the practical utility of novel research technologies and aggressive genetic typing protocols in the identification of aged, degraded remains.     

The Santa Clara County Greenbook Story: From Theory to Transformation

This article is an overview of the past 20 years, from a judicial perspective, of how a discreet selection of Greenbook recommendations were implemented in Santa Clara County, California. This historical overview shows that it is possible to take a guidebook written by national experts from many jurisdictions and tailor the intervention to a particular location with the assistance of local leadership. We applied a theoretical framework to government agency interventions and to the very real needs of families, and that process resulted in a profound transformation of practice.     

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.