Juvenile Shackling Reform: The Judicial Role in Ensuring Trauma‐Informed Courts and Why States Are Rethinking Restraints

In juvenile courts around the country, youth are routinely shackled, without any evidence that these young people are a danger to anyone or likely to attempt flight. A number of states are moving away from this practice. Shackling reform initiatives are motivated by constitutional issues, emerging science around adolescent development, and a growing recognition of the need for trauma‐informed, evidence‐based courts. Judges are ultimately responsible for safeguarding the rights of the young people who appear in court, and must uphold the dignity of the courtroom. A review of jurisdictions that have adopted limits on juvenile shackling shows that these policies have not resulted in breaches of safety.     

Book reviews

Social Policy Research, Martin Bulmer (ed.), London, Macmillan, 1978, pp. 373, £5.95.

Making Budgets, James N. Danziger, Sage Publications, 1978, pp. 255, £8.50 cloth edition and £4.25 paperback.

Universality, Selectivity and Effectiveness in Social Policy, Bleddyn Davies (in association with Mike Reddin), Heinemann, London, 1978, pp. viii &; 264, £9.50.

Implementation in a Bureaucracy, Control in a Bureaucracy, Andrew Dunsire, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1978, pp. Vol.1260, Vol. II 263, £15 each.

Planning the Social Services, N. Falk and J. Lee, Saxon House, Farnborough, 1978, pp. x &; 113, £7.50.

Policy Analysis: A Political and Organisational Perspective, W. I. Jenkins, London, Martin Robertson, 1978, pp. 278, £8.95.

Interactions and Interventions in Organizations, Iain L. Mangham, John Wiley &; Sons, 1978, pp. 150, price not known.     

Civic Engagement,Pedagogy, and Information Technology on Web Sites for Youth

Scholars of political socialization are paying increasing attention to how the Internet might help cure the civic disengagement of youth. This content analysis of a sample of 73 U.S.-based civic Web sites for youth introduces a framework for evaluating Web sites' strategies for fostering active communication for citizenship. We offer the first systematic assessment of the extent to which a broad range of Web sites aim to develop young people's abilities to use information and communication technology (ICT) as a vehicle for civic participation and to engage with ICT as a policy domain that encompasses issues (such as freedom of speech and intellectual property rights) that shape the conditions for popular sovereignty online. The study finds low levels of interactive features (such as message boards) that allow young people to share editorial control by offering their own content. In addition, few sites employ active pedagogical techniques (such as simulations) that research suggests are most effective at developing civic knowledge, skills, and participation. We also find little attention to ICT policy issues, which could engage budding citizens in debates over the formative conditions for political communication in the information age. We conclude with suggestions for civic Web site designers and hypotheses for user studies to test.     

Transforming Scotland's Public-sector Housing through Community Ownership: The Reterritorialisation of Housing Governance?

In recent decades, UK public-sector housing has increasingly been problematised, with government solutions focusing on modernising the sector by transferring ownership of the housing from the public to the voluntary sector through stock transfer. This promises to transform the organisation of social housing by devolving control from local government to housing organisations located within, and governed by, the communities in which they are based. The Scottish Executive's national housing policy of community ownership is the epitome of this governmental rationale par excellence. Drawing upon empirical research on the 2003 Glasgow housing stock transfer, this paper argues that, whilst community ownership is underpinned by governmental rationales that seek to establish community as the new territory of social housing governance, the realisation of these political ambitions has been marred by emergent central–local conflict. Paradoxically, the fragmentation of social housing through the break-up of municipal provision, co-exists with continued political centralisation within the state apparatus.