Governmental corruption in Africa: Sierra Leone as a case study

This paper examines the definition and context of official corruption in the emerging African nation of Sierra Leone. Historical, legal and sociological studies of the development of Sierra Leone and corruption within that nation are reviewed, as well as the content of official ljudicial inquiries into administrative corruption. These investigations and studies are supplemented with data from the primary author's experiences as a prosecutor and judge in Sierra Leone. Predisposing factors which facilitate corruption are identified and a variety of policies aimed at reform are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Competency to stand trial: description and initial evaluation of a new computer-assisted assessment tool (CADCOMP).

The authors describe a Computer-Assisted Determination of Competency to Proceed (CADCOMP), a new instrument that collects data directly from the defendant through an interactive computer program and renders a report covering relevant historical, psychopathological, and legal information. The comprehensive report could be utilized by the clinician to focus the clinician's interview with the defendant on areas requiring further probing, thus reducing the time required to assess competency. Preliminary reliability and validity assessment studies are reported. The results support the predictive validity of CADCOMP used as a screening instrument and found the CADCOMP to be sufficiently reliable to be used for screening purposes.     

Church Stewardship Evaluation Information Requirements: A Pilot Study

There is a potential for financial abuse in church organizations. Large amounts of money are collected, performance is difficult to measure, and financial records and controls are often not as strong as in other not-for-profit organizations. Members/ donors of church organizations must be able to judge the financial stewardship of the organizations. Thus, financial statements for churches must include usable information and be in an understandable format. This study examines the appropriateness of two different types of financial statements: the GAAP format and a specialized church format.     

Toward a Regulatory Budget

A regulatory budget would require the federal government to treat compliance costs incurred by the private sector as if they were incurred by the government, without requiring the government to actually assume those costs. For example, EPA could be given a regulatory compliance budget of say $80 billion in FY98. A regulatory budget would provoke an annual debate in Congress on the size of EPA's or OSHA's budget. Such a debate would force the proponents to weigh the benefits and costs of various regulatory programs, something now lacking in the political process.
Interest in a regulatory budget reflects the slight gains in the quality of regulatory decision making resulting from mandatory regulatory review. It is now apparent that better information about the costs, benefits, and distributional consequences of regulation will not automatically improve regulatory decision making-although it would not hurt.