Client participation in paid sex markets under alternative regulatory regimes

To help inform the design and review of alternative public regulatory policies towards paid adult sex markets, this study uses economic reasoning to explore the nature of client participation. This is a timely focus given the increasing consideration and movement towards a greater role for demand-side policies and regulation that has emerged in some countries to complement, or, in some cases, even replace elements of supply-side regulation and policy. The analysis is based upon a time allocation model that characterises the nature and balance of incentives facing clients under various public regulatory regimes. The regimes considered range from the status quo in England, Wales and Scotland, to varying levels of state involvement or direction, featuring, inter alia, supplier registration, public health inspections and locational restrictions. All of these are shown to affect in various ways the extent to which risk, income and other factors can influence the pattern and intensity of leisure time usage, which is a key requirement for client participation in paid sex markets.     

Americans’ Knowledge of Their Local Judges

What do Americans know about their local judges and how do they know it? One of the central arguments in the debate over judicial elections is whether voters know enough about judicial candidates to make an informed democratic choice. The vast majority of criminal and civil matters in the U.S. begin with and filter through the local state courts. But judicial scholars know little about what explains the variance in voters’ knowledge of their courts and judges. This paper draws on survey data from the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to investigate the origins of voter knowledge of local judges. A central finding of this study is that rural voters are a lot more knowledgeable about their local judges than are urban voters, ceteris paribus. This finding has significant consequences for the debate over the ways in which states structure their elections for local judges.     

Tooth mineralization standards for blacks and whites from the middle southern United States

Normative standards are provided for permanent tooth mineralization stages for blacks and whites of the middle southern United States. The data cover tooth development from 3.5 to 13 years of age. Females develop more rapidly than males, and blacks are nearly twice as sexually dimorphic (7.2%) as whites (3.7%). Within each sex, blacks achieve mineralization stages significantly earlier, by about 5%, than whites. This complements earlier findings that teeth erupt at appreciably earlier mean ages in blacks.     

Differential enforcement across police jurisdictions and client demand in paid sex markets

Police officers on the ground, as well as their senior officers, generally accept the view that arresting prostitutes and their clients is simply not as important as arresting many other types of ‘offenders’. Police officer preferences and priorities will differ such that the discretion applied to the enforcement of paid sex market related offences varies across locations. Motivated by increasing policymaker interest in considering demand-side policies, a simple model is developed to help analyse how clients will be likely to respond to enforcement level differences across jurisdictions. A range of policy implications that arise are also identified and discussed.     

Increasing Family Reunification for Substance‐Abusing Mothers and Their Children: Comparing Two Drug Court Interventions in Miami

This study provides a quasi‐experimental test of 80 consecutive enrollments in the Miami‐Dade (Florida) Dependency Drug Court in order to examine the impact of a family‐based and gender specific intervention, Engaging Moms Program (EMP), on drug court graduation and family reunification. We compared EMP with case management services (CMS). Results indicated that 72% of mothers in the EMP graduated from drug court, and 70% were reunified with their children. In contrast, 38% of mothers receiving CMS graduated from drug court, and 40% were reunited with their children. EMP, then, appears to be a promising family drug court intervention.     

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.