Responding to COVID-19 through Surveys of Public Servants

Responding to COVID-19 presents unprecedented challenges for public sector practitioners. Addressing those challenges requires knowledge about the problems that public sector workers face. This Viewpoint essay argues that timely, up-to-date surveys of public sector workers are essential tools for identifying problems, resolving bottlenecks, and enabling public sector workers to operate effectively during and in response to the challenges posed by the pandemic. This essay presents the COVID-19 Survey of Public Servants, which is currently being rolled out in several countries by the Global Survey of Public Servants Consortium to assist governments in strategically compiling evidence to operate effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

The 2012 sandy hook elementary school shooting: Connecticut’s department of mental health crisis response

This article reports on the role, activities, and lessons learned of a state mental health authority—the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services—in responding to the mental health needs of families and community members following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Following the introduction, we provide a brief case study of Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services’ role in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. This role included use of the Incident Command System (ICS) to deploy a standing statewide network of clinicians who provided direct care for surviving children and school personnel, victims’ family members, and others, and coordination of its mental health response with the activities of other state, private, and individual players. We then discuss key themes and lessons learned and offer recommendations to mental health authorities for planning and implementing their own responses to possible like incidents in the future.     

Who Deserves Help? Students' Opinions About the Deservingness of Different Groups Living in Germany to Receive Aid

A study was conducted examining German students' attitudes toward different groups of people living in Germany and the influence of those attitudes on the willingness to distribute aid to groups in need. A survey was distributed to over 2000 students at universities across Germany. It was predicted that groups judged more responsible for their need of aid and less likable would be considered less deserving of receiving aid than groups judged less responsible for their need of aid and more likable. An effect of the Belief in a Just World was also expected such that, students with a weak Belief in a Just World would judge targets as more deserving of aid than students with a strong Belief in a Just World. Results indicate effects of likability, responsibility for neediness, and the Belief in a Just World on ratings of deservingness.     

An Application of Foucauldian Concepts to Youth in the Criminal Justice System: A Case Study

In this paper, I examine the relationship between youth and the Canadian youth justice system within a Foucauldian framework. Of particular interest are the implications inherent in the interconnectedness of agencies and organizations of social control in the classification, detection, and treatment of youth in conflict with the law. I focus my analysis on the policies of one youth correctional facility located in the province of Saskatchewan to provide a practical application of Foucauldian theoretical concepts to an analysis of youth and formal social control. Lauren Eisler completed her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Saskatchewan and is currently an Assistant Professor of Criminology at the Brantford campus of Wilfrid Laurier University. Her work focuses on the relationship between the institutional control of disadvantaged youth and the public constructions of youth culture as criminogenic. She has done extensive consulting work for government and community organizations in Canada.     

Considering the efficacy of situational crime prevention in schools

Situational crime prevention (SCP) techniques have proven successful in a variety of spheres. One setting that has increasingly relied on such tactics to control crime, namely schools, has not been subject to much evaluation, however. Much of the school crime research has focused on distal risk factors such as individual propensity and ignored more proximal factors, specifically opportunities for crime. Additionally, research that does evaluate opportunities for crime in school settings does so with limited theoretical bases and methodologies. Given the pervasiveness of SCP tactics within schools, as well as the associated costs, this is a clear void in need of research. Using a cross-sectional, nationally representative sample of schools, this study investigated the efficacy of a variety of SCP tactics with regard to violent and property crimes, net of statistical controls. The findings revealed that most SCP techniques did not have a relationship with school crime, with the exception of closing campus for lunch and the number of classroom changes. The discussion considers the robustness of these results, focusing on the methodological and substantive mechanisms that may underlie them.     

When “Best Practices” Win,Employees Lose: Symbolic Compliance and Judicial Inference in Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Cases

This article provides a new account of employers' advantages over employees in federal employment discrimination cases. We analyze the effects of judicial deference, in which judges use institutionalized employment structures to infer nondiscrimination without scrutinizing those structures in any meaningful way. Using logistic regression to analyze a representative sample of judicial opinions in federal EEO cases during the first thirty‐five years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, we find that when judges uncritically use the presence of organizational structures to reason about whether discrimination occurred, employers are much more likely to prevail. This pattern is especially pronounced in opinions written by liberal judges. In light of these findings, we offer recommendations for judges, lawyers, and policy makers—including legal academics—who seek to improve the accuracy and efficacy of employment discrimination adjudications.     

Changes in staff confidence and attributions for challenging behaviour after training in positive behavioural support within a forensic medium secure service

Positive behavioural support (PBS) is a non-aversive approach to preventing and managing challenging behaviours. Seventy-nine qualified and unqualified nursing, psychology and occupational therapy staff were trained in using PBS. To measure the effectiveness of the training, confidence in managing challenging behaviour and attributions for causality, control and stability were measured before and after the training. To measure confidence, an adapted version of the Confidence in Coping with Patient Aggression Instrument was used. Attributions were measured using the Challenging Behaviour Attributions Scale and the Causal Dimension Scale II. There was a significant increase in confidence after training. In addition, there were significant changes in attributions relating to causality and stability of challenging behaviour, particularly for qualified staff. The results suggest that confidence and attributions are affected positively by training in PBS within a medium secure forensic mental health setting.     

The Home Maintenance and Improvement Behaviors of Older Adults in Boston

Prior studies have found that older homeowners spend less money maintaining and improving their homes, which may reduce their quality of life and eventually pose larger, more costly housing problems. Delayed repairs and improvements may also have adverse spillover effects on neighborhoods. We explore the home maintenance expenditures, housing conditions, and credit access of older homeowners in Boston, Massachusetts, where many aging adults have limited incomes and live in older structures but also have substantial home equity that could be used as a financial resource. We find evidence that older homeowners spend less on home maintenance, and many live in low-income areas with high numbers of constituent complaints about housing conditions and less access to cheaper forms of credit. A particular policy intervention, the Boston Senior Home Repair Program, helps by providing home repair assistance to low- and moderate-income older homeowners.