Media coverage of organized crime—police managers survey

This brief presentation notes how the lack of clarity of what exactly is meant by “organized crime” as it is evolving, and particularly its transnational dimensions, can create problems and confusion for police and community alike. The role of the media is of particular significance in determining how both police and citizens perceive the scope and impact of organized crime. This in turn has implications for operations, priorities, and so on. The need to address a number of important areas that limit police effectiveness in countering organized crime, such as cooperation and sharing, appropriate resources, and measures of effectiveness, is also noted.     

Collective decision making by committee

Implicitly or explicitly, economic decisions always contain elements of compromise. However, the bargaining models of economic theory treat only the two decision maker case with linearly aggregated priorities; i.e. compromise decisions under Pareto optimality and no side payments. Even then the relative importance of the decision makers remains indeterminate. This paper proposes a simplified bargaining model with three new features: (a) it allows multiple participants; (b) it uses optimal voting patterns to combine the policy proposals, rather than the policy priorities, to form those compromise decisions; and (c) it determines the relative power of each participant endogenously. Perhaps more important, the method does not depend on each decision maker knowing the preferences of his colleagues exactly.     

Like Ships That Pass in the Night: AFDC Policy and Battered Women

Research confirms that significant numbers of AFDC‐eligible women are currently or formerly battered women. Policymakers intent on turning AFDC into a successful program of transitional assistance should not ignore this fact, for to do so would place battered women and their children at risk for serious harm, and insure the failure of welfare reform. AFDC policy re‐crafted in light of this data should prioritize safety for battered women and children; early assessment of the needs of applicants and recipients; recovery from the effects of violence; flexibility in setting program requirements; and integrated systems of service for battered women and their children. By responding in these ways, governments can empower battered women to move with integrity from lives gripped by violence and the aftermath of violence to lives of safety and independence.     

Ladies against women: Explaining the political participation of traditional- and modern-role females

Data from the 1980 National Election Study are used to examine how well participation theory variables and group consciousness variables account for the nonvoting political activity of traditional-role women. Of the little variance in this activity that is explained by a regression analysis among these women (.070 after adjustments for number of respondents and variables, compared to .240 among modern-role women), most is due to two participation theory variables: party identification and efficacy. However, a discriminant function analysis emphasizes two group consciousness variables (gender consciousness and religious consciousness) and only one participation theory variable (political ideology) as the main forces that distinguish active traditional-role from active modern-role women. These findings indicate the need to make clear which comparison group — other traditional-role women or politically active modern-role women — is being used in efforts to understand traditional-role women's political conduct. The findings also call for new theoretical directions about traditional-role women's nonvoting participation, because of the weak explanatory ability exhibited by all fourteen variables together.     

Alcohol-related problems and collegiate drinking patterns

Six kinds of collegiate problem drinking were examined utilizing a ceptualized relationship among the variables of student religious commitment, parental attitude toward drinking, neutralization of drinking behavior, drinking before college, anticipated ethos of college life, social orientation in college, and quantity-frequency of alcohol consumption. Self-administered questionnaires were collected from 534 college students and analyzed by path analysis, which explained up to 47% of the variation in certain kinds of problem drinking. The strongest single predictor of problem drinking was found to be quantity and frequency of consumption, but precollege drinking was also important.