Public Scrutiny, Standards and the Planning System: Assessing Professional Values within a Modernized Local Government

Since the 1990s there has been a long-standing concern in government towards public sector accountability, management, efficiency and service delivery. A number of studies have attempted to analyse the multitude of individual changes and their manifestations through analyses based on a variety of institutional, policy and governmental distinctions. This paper attempts to specify the changes with particular reference to planning, and to consider the evolution of the public service ethic in planning towards more openness, scrutiny, transparency and efficiency with particular reference to the changing ethos of the professional employee. We first explore the  main impacts upon local government, the public service ethic and professional planning as a consequence of the Modernization agenda and freedoms and flexibilities initiative. We then look at how such changes have impacted upon the ethos and values in public service and planning. We draw on some evidence of Ombudsman cases to highlight issues of professional values in planning practice over the past decade before finally drawing these strands together in some conclusions. Our principal findings indicate that the much-trumpeted decline of services and standards may not have been as apparent as is sometimes portrayed and that internal professional attitudes and values towards the external changes may not have significantly altered over the same period.     

Family Violence, Anger Expression Styles, and Adolescent Dating Violence

How partner violence is transferred across generations is relatively unexplored. This paper proposes that anger expression style (constructive, destructive direct, destructive indirect) mediates the relationship between exposure to family violence and dating violence perpetration by adolescents. Data are from 1,965 completed self-administered questionnaires given to eighth- and ninth-grade students in a primarily rural county in North Carolina in 1994. Results varied by gender and type of exposure to family violence. For females, destructive direct and destructive indirect anger expression styles mediated the relationship between experiencing family violence and dating violence perpetration. For males, this relationship was mediated primarily by destructive direct anger expression style. The association between witnessing family violence and dating violence perpetration for females was mediated by destructive direct anger expression style only. Witnessing family violence was not associated with dating violence perpetration for males, and therefore could not be mediated. This study suggests that adolescents exposed to family violence learn anger expression styles that put them at risk of being perpetrators of dating violence. Further research is needed to identify other mediators that explain how partner violence is transferred across generations.     

Reassessing the family-delinquency association: Do family type, family processes, and economic factors make a difference?

The present study drew on four competing theoretical perspectives to examine the relationship between family structure and juvenile delinquency. Using data from the Add Health Study, the authors examined nonserious and serious delinquent behavior across youth from different types of households and also considered how the association between family structure and delinquency might be conditioned by family processes and economic factors. Results from negative binomial regression analyses indicated that, in general, type of household was not a significant predictor of nonserious or serious delinquency. Rather, maternal attachment emerged as the most important determinant of delinquent behavior among youth from all family types. The results are discussed within the context of Hirschi's original interpretation of social control theory and future directions for research are suggested.     

Governance without a state: Can it work?

In this article we explore how much state is necessary to make governance work. We begin by clarifying concepts of governance and the “shadow of hierarchy” and we follow this clarification with a brief overview of empirical findings on governance research in developed countries. We then discuss the dilemmas for governance in areas of limited statehood, where political institutions are too weak to hierarchically adopt and enforce collectively binding rules. While prospects for effective policymaking appear to be rather bleak in these areas, we argue that governance research has consistently overlooked the existence of functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy. We assert that governance with(out) government can work even in the absence of a strong shadow of hierarchy, we identify functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy, and we discuss to what extent they can help overcome issues of legitimacy and effectiveness in areas of limited statehood.     

The use of the laser for determining the direction of the shots and the position of the victim's body in gunshot wounds

In this article a practical case is described when gunshot directions and position of a victim's body at the moment of each shot were determined by natural simulation using an LG-78 laser (made in the form of a gun).     

Hair analysis: a worthless tool for therapeutic compliance monitoring

Hair analysis has been presented by some authors as a possible tool of investigation for estimating patients' compliance to long-term therapies. This paper summarises the different publications that have been devoted to this topic and highlights the available statistical data presented to support this proposition. Qualitative results of such determinations may be of some interest but due to the enormous interindividual variations of quantitative data, the idea of using hair analysis to ascertain whether a patient has taken his treatment exactly as prescribed, clearly appears to be inapplicable.