Objectivity versus outrage

He wrote a background paper for the Committee on Health Care for Homeless Persons, “The Dynamics of Homelessness.” He has studied both the needs of homeless persons and the development of shelters and services for the homeless; he codirected a training tape for service providers; and he is coauthoring a book for shelter staff. He is author of Organization in a Changing Environment.     

Menarcheal status and parent-child relations in families of seventh-grade girls

The associations between menarcheal status and several child-rearing and outcome variables were examined for mother-daughter and father-daughter dyads. All variables were assessed with questionnaires as an extension of earlier observational studies. Analyses were conducted via multiple regression analyses wherein menarcheal status was treated as a continuous variable and was entered into the regression equation as a set of power polynomial terms. The results indicated that most of the significant relations occurred for the mother-daughter dyad, and most of these relations were curvilinear. When menarche occurs at or around the modal time, changes in parent-child relations may be best thought of as temporary perturbations, but when menarche occurs early the effects may persist.The research reported here was funded by Father Flanagan's Boys Home, Inc., and by a grant to the senior author from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Family Relations in Early Adolescence.Received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University.Received his M.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University.Received her M.S. in counseling psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University.Received his M.S. from the University of Nebraska.She received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University.     

Sacje’s role and function: A membership survey

The Southern Association of Criminal Justice Educators (SACJE) is a regional professional organization which was developed to improve professionalism in criminal justice. In recent years the organization seemed to loose its focus and was having membership and budgetary problems. The authors, in an attempt to understand the feelings of members and former members, surveyed current and prior members of SACJE. The results of the survey are presented with recommendations for action by the SACJE Executive Board. Several areas of consensus were evident. The membership wants SACJE to continue to exist. The role of the organization is to promote better criminal justice education and to disseminate new criminal justice information. The membership wants annual meetings and the Southern Journal of Criminal Justice published twice yearly. They also want voting by mail on all major issues and elections. All other voting should be conducted at a business meeting on the second day of a three day annual meeting.     

Social justice in the large and small

Social justice is an issue at both the large or even whole-society level and the very small group or dyadic level. If it is an issue in distribution of resources or welfare, rather than an issue of procedure, it requires very strong interpersonally comparable value judgments. This generally distinguishes it from other small and large group moral and political problems, which can often be resolved satisfactorily without such a strong value theory, in particular without interpersonal comparisons of welfare, because their resolution can yield mutual advantage to all concerned. At the dyadic and small-group level social justice is the philosopher's problem of beneficence; at the large level it is the problem of distributive justice. Much of the social-psychological literature on social justice deals with the small-scale problem; political theory is generally concerned with the large-scale problem. Yet, strategically and in their value theory requirements, the two problems are in many ways analogous. In both variants of social justice the core problem is a pure conflict interaction in which one party or group must bear a cost in order that another party or group may benefit.     

Systems theory and policy practice: An exploration

Systems approaches in policy analysis have had a chequered history. Expectations that hard (quantitative) systems analysis would lead to better answers to policy problems have largely been disappointed. Yet systems theory has itself moved on, to embrace the concept of autopoiesis and a variety of soft systems methodologies. Collectively, these theories offer a way of analysing policy quite distinct from the institutionalist approaches which tend to dominate the theory and practice of policy-making. Rather than selecting instruments to fit a particular kind of policy problem (the conventional approach to policy design) systems analysis suggests that the nature of the problem cannot be understood separately from its solution. For policy problems characterised by complexity (such as those concerned with environmental management and regulation, and urban re-development) using systems concepts offers a way of rationalising aspects of existing practice and of suggesting directions for improvement.     

Pelvic age estimation using actual specimens and remote images

Age estimates of the auricular surface (sacro-iliac joint) of the ilium taken from bony specimens, 35 mm slides, and digital images were compared for 29 intact specimens from archaeological contexts. Results demonstrate that age estimates from all photographic and digital images may result in significantly differing estimates of age than those from bony specimens. Of the imaging techniques, 35 mm slides provided estimates most similar to those from bony specimens. Digital images provided age estimates that varied more from bony specimens. In general, photographic and digital images may offer researchers a way of documenting age information that would otherwise be unavailable or delayed. Yet, caution should be used when age estimates are derived solely from images rather than from bony specimens.