The effects of different paraphrasing styles on the quality of reports from young child witnesses

The link between criminal attitudes and behavior is well established throughout the literature. We know, for example, that offenders have higher levels of criminal attitudes than non-offenders. However, it is also likely that individual differences in criminal attitudes exist among offenders. The aim of the study is to explore the unique contribution of (1) individual, (2) criminal career, and (3) social characteristics to individual differences in criminal attitudes. Data were used from the Prison Project, a large-scale study among prisoners in all Dutch remand centers (N = 1612). Hierarchical linear regression models were used to identify factors associated with two types of inmates' attitudes. Among the most salient relationships with criminal attitudes were having more agreeable personality traits, having a criminogenic social network, and having experienced more prior incarcerations. Criminal history and social characteristics had the most salient links with criminal attitudes. The results seem to support the idea that criminal behavior is learned in interaction with criminal others, which is in line with the ideas of differential association and reinforcement. The current study might serve as a starting point for individually oriented prison intervention strategies and rehabilitation efforts based on specific offender characteristics.     

The Russian Election of 1993: Public Opinion and the Transition Experience

Two British specialists on Russia report the results of a nationwide survey of 2,030 Russian adults, randomly chosen from each of 50 provinces of the Russian Federation. A survey instrument containing 300 questions was administered in face-to-face interviews during summer 1993, and explored attitudes toward the market, privatization, social order, minority rights, and nationalism. Testing three alternative explanations for the results of the December 1993 Russian elections, the authors present a nuanced argument that the Russian public has been drawing negative lessons about market democracy from the transition itself, as experienced since January 1992. A higher voter turnout, they find, would have augmented the strength of anti-government parties and candidates. Journal of Economic literature, Classification Numbers: H19, P29     

The succession of policy termination

Despite the cessation of a variety of governmental organisations, policies and programmes in the UK throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the termination concept which emerged during the late 1970s remains heavily under utilised. This is attributed partly to the effects of the same incremental practices which termination was designed to solve; partly to the difficulties of distinguishing the categories of ‘termination’ from ‘succession’ ; and partly to Kaufman's assertion that organisational survival was a matter of chance, and therefore not fruitful to study. Academic interest in governmental cessations remains firmly rooted in the termination of organisations; much less attention has been paid to the ending of policies and programmes. Management science research can be used to challenge assertions about the lack of pattern in organisational survival, and the way in which political science has operationalised the concept of incerementalist, suggesting the applicability of semi rationalist techniques in an incrementalist world. Using a hierarchical reformulation of de Leon's 1978 categorisation of governmental functions, organisations, policies and programmes it is here suggested that ‘termination’ and ‘succession’ are distinct. In doing so, the aim is to demonstrate the practical utility of the termination concept, both for analysis, and for practitioners whose interest is centred on the opportunity cost savings which cessations can make available.     

Promoting Learning and Critical Reflexivity Through an Organizational Case Study Project

Engaging students directly with community partners can foster deeper learning and critical reflexivity. In our undergraduate seminar in “Understanding Human Service Organizations,” we developed a community-based project that has students working in groups to study local human service organizations. Students interview organizational staff, observe operations, and review documents to identify perceived organizational strengths and challenges and offer humble solutions based on course material and outside research. A key component of the course is the critically reflexive journal. Using a structured reflection guide, students describe and analyze their experience in relation to class concepts and examine their personal beliefs and assumptions. This approach is one teaching strategy that has the potential for promoting the critical awareness and reflective practice skills we seek in our students.     

Government transparency and policymaking

We argue that making lawmakers more accountable to the public by making it easier to identify their policy choices can have negative consequences. Specifically, we analyze a model of political agency with a single lawmaker and a representative voter. In our model, the lawmaker has better information than the voter about the appropriateness of alternative policy courses. In addition, the voter is uncertain about the incumbent's policy preferences – specifically, the voter is worried the incumbent is an ideologue. Our model suggests that when lawmakers expect their policy choices to be widely publicized, for those lawmakers sufficiently concerned about reelection, the desire to select policies that lead the public to believe they are unbiased will trump the incentive to select those policies that are best for their constituents. Hence, lawmakers who would do the right thing behind close doors may no longer do so when policy is determined in the open.     

Alcohol addiction and perceived sanction risks: Deterring drinking drivers

This study argued that while sanctions deter offenders from being involved in future drinking-driving offenses, alcohol addiction prevents individuals from making rational choices, and, thus, increases offenders' chances of being involved in drinking driving regardless of the certain, severe, and swift punishments they had experienced. Results indicated that, individuals with more severe alcohol addiction problems had increased chances of committing multiple offenses regardless of the sanctions that they had experienced relative to those with less severe alcohol-related problems. Findings seemed to suggest that criminal justice sanctions alone might not obtain expected deterrent impacts on individuals with alcohol and other addiction problems. Drinking drivers and other drug and alcohol offenders should be screened for substance abuse problems, and, if necessary, provided with treatment.     

Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast

Focusing on the Kenya coast, this article analyses the developing contrast between the place of Islam and Christianity in public politics. It argues that Islam’s association with criticism of the political order contrasts with Christianity, but that this is not the result of inherent difference between the religions. Both have previously provided a language, and space, for political commentary and activism in Kenya. The contrast is rather the contingent result of particular circumstances in Kenya. Christianity has become increasingly associated with affirming clientelism and the accumulation of wealth in a way which is avowedly non-political but in practice legitimates the current political order. Meanwhile, although individual Muslims are more likely to enjoy high political office than was previously the case, Muslims are also more likely to locate their experience as symptomatic of a wider pattern of exclusion in Kenya and link this sense of local injustice to global inequalities.