The dynamics of policy change: Policy succession

This paper suggests that the policy model assumed by most writers on policy analysis neglects the implications of the fact that most new policies in contemporary Western political systems are in fact replacing old policies, and that this is increasingly likely to be the case. Similarly, the recent interest in policy termination is partly misplaced since it fails to follow through adequately the implications of the fact that most policy terminations lead to policy succession. Accordingly, there is a need to study and analyse the processes involved in policy succession. This paper places policy succession in the context of policy change, sketches a model which describes the distinctive features of the policy succession process, outlines the various kinds of policy succession which occur, and draws out some implications for policy makers resulting from the increasing importance of policy succession.This article is a revised version of a paper entitled The policy succession process: Implications of policy change, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 28–31 August 1980.     

School Finance Reform's Impact on New Jersey's State Spending Priorities

The combination of school finance reform, voter opposition to higher taxes, and rising costs forced the state of New Jersey to reorient its spending priorities. This article presents an analysis of budgetary data for the period FY 1990 to FY 1996, which clearly indicates that: 1) state resources were shifted from direct state services to state aid; 2) even though the 1991 sales and income tax hikes were revoked, the state's tax structure was more progressive in 1996 than in 1990; 3) Governor Florio's attempts to level down per pupil expenditures by reducing payments to wealthy school districts were largely stymied; 4) the proportion of state resources allocated to public education was lower in FY 1996 than the year preceding school finance reform; 5) because of education's reduced budget share, efforts to level up per pupil expenditures were severely circumscribed; and 6) state aid was diverted from homestead rebates to municipal aid.     

A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE ON POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE FALLACIES OF MISPLACED PRESCRIPTION

Implementation has been used to try to explain too much, particularly that policy formulation should be oriented around implementation. The concentration on implementation has added little to our theoretical understanding of policymaking. Implementation studies have taken either "The Horrors of War" or "The Search for Theory" views. The latter has four major views, none of which is adequate. The best approach is to treat implementation as only one of a number of conditions which must be fulfilled for successful policymaking. The design perspection, explained in the paper, is the best approach for this.     

celling black bodies: black women in the global prison industrial complex

The past two decades have witnessed an explosion in the population of women prisoners in Europe, North America and Australasia, accompanied by a boom in prison construction. This article argues that this new pattern of women's incarceration has been forged by three overlapping phenomena. The first is the fundamental shift in the role of the state that has occurred as a result of the neo-liberal globalization. The second and related phenomenon is the emergence and subsequent global expansion of what has been labeled a ‘prison industrial complex’ made up of a intricate web of relations between state penal institutions, politicians and profit-driven prison corporations. The third is the emergence of a US-led global war on drugs which is symbiotically related and mutually constituted by the transnational trade in criminalized drugs. These new regimes of accumulation and discipline, I argue, build on older systems of racist and patriarchal exploitation to ensure the super-exploitation of black women within the global prison industrial complex. The article calls for a new anti-racist feminist analysis that explores how the complex matrix of race, class, gender and nationality meshes with contemporary globalized geo-political and economic realities. The prison industrial complex plays a critical role in sustaining the viability of the new global economy and black women are increasingly becoming the raw material that fuels its expansion and profitability. The article seeks to reveal the profitable synergies between drug enforcement, the prison industry, international financial institutions, media and politicians that are sending women to prison in ever increasing numbers.     

The Association Between Affective and Problem-Solving Communication and Intimate Partner Violence Among Caucasian and Mexican American Couples: a Dyadic Approach

The present study examined individuals’ subjective evaluation of their effectiveness with regard to affective communication and problem-solving communication, and their relation to intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization. Data from 100 Caucasian American and Mexican American couples were collected during the first and during the third year of marriage. For affective communication, a significant partner effect emerged, indicating that husbands’ higher dissatisfaction with affective communication was related to wives’ higher IPV victimization. For problem-solving communication, a significant actor effect emerged, indicating that husbands’ higher dissatisfaction with problem-solving communication was related to husbands’ higher IPV victimization. While these findings largely generalized to Caucasian Americans, they did not generalize to Mexican Americans.     

Intensive psychological treatment of high-risk violent offenders: Outcomes and pre-release mechanisms

Research on correlates of intervention programmes that reduce expected reconviction rates (‘what works’ literature, Risk–Need–Responsivity model) has been highly influential in criminal justice systems throughout much of the western world. But while this psychological research has been acquiring widespread recognition, a deeper understanding of how programmes work and of mechanisms for desistance more generally, has still to develop. This research reports results of a quasi-experimental recidivism outcome study for a series of prison units that provide intensive psychological treatment to high-risk, persistently violent prisoners. Four outcomes were examined over the first 12 months following release on parole: parole violations, new convictions, new convictions for violence, and imprisonment sentences resulting from new convictions. Alongside these results, we conducted preliminary analyses of two potential pre-release mechanisms for surviving the first 12 months on parole without reconviction: lower dynamic risk for violence, and greater release readiness. We found that dynamic violence risk fully accounted for differences between treatment completers and comparison prisoners in proportions reconvicted for violence. However, in all other cases, the proposed mechanisms did not significantly explain treatment-related differences. We close by considering possible explanations for these unexpected results, and reiterating the importance to our field of more sophisticated treatment outcome research.