Patterns and determinants of public shelter utilization among homeless adults in New York City and Philadelphia

Administrative data on public shelter utilization among homeless adults from New York City (1987–1994) and Philadelphia (1991–1994) are analyzed to identify the relative proportion of shelter users by length of stay and rate of readmission, and to identify the characteristics that predict an exit from shelter. Survival analyses reveal that half of adult shelter users will stay fewer than 45 days over a two-year period (combined stays), and that approximately one half of men and one third of women will experience a readmission within two years of the first admission. Results also document the size and relative resource consumption of a long-term sheltered population, finding that 18.2 percent of New York shelter users stay 180 days or more in their first year, consuming 53.4 percent of the system days for first-time shelter users. Discrete-time logistic hazard regression analyses reveal that, in general, being older, of black race, having a substance abuse or mental health problem, or having a physical disability, significantly reduces the likelihood of exiting shelter. In both cities, people entering shelter in later years are staying longer, although individuals have shorter episodes on subsequent admissions. The implications of this study for the analysis and management of emergency shelter system utilization are discussed.     

Relationships Between Discretionary Time Activities,Emotional Experiences,Delinquency and Depressive Symptoms Among Urban African American Adolescents

Using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), this cross-sectional study examined mediated and moderated associations between different types of discretionary time activities and depressive symptoms and delinquency among a sample of 246 (107 boys, 139 girls) fifth through eighth grade urban African American adolescents. More time spent in passive unstructured activities was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms only for adolescents residing in less dangerous neighborhoods, whereas more time spent in active unstructured activities was associated with higher levels of delinquency only if adolescents resided in more dangerous neighborhoods. Alienation was positively associated with depressive symptoms and delinquency, but neither alienation nor positive affect mediated the relationship between activities and adjustment. These findings suggest the importance of considering neighborhood environment issues when determining what types of discretionary time activities are most beneficial for urban African American young adolescents.

James M. Buchanan’s constitutional project: past and future

Public Choice - A substantial amount of James Buchanan’s academic work was devoted to his constitutional project: the development of procedures for designing constitutional rules that would...     

Is routine histopathologic examination beneficial in all medicolegal autopsies?

Postmortem examinations are performed for a number of reasons. Medical autopsies are performed at the request of and with the consent of the next of kin of a decedent and are often requested to determine the extent of a disease process or to evaluate therapy. In contrast, medicolegal autopsies are performed by a forensic pathologist primarily to determine cause and manner of death but also to document trauma, diagnose potentially infectious diseases and report them to the appropriate agencies, provide information to families about potentially inheritable diseases, provide information to family members and investigative agencies, and testify in court. As medicolegal and hospital autopsies differ in their purpose, so do they differ in procedure. Medicolegal autopsies often include histologic analysis, but not always, as with medical autopsies. We designed a prospective study to address the question of whether or not routine histologic examination is useful in medicolegal cases, defining a routine case as one where histology would not normally be performed and where the cause and manner of death were readily apparent during the gross autopsy. We reviewed brain, heart, liver, kidney, and lung sections on 189 routine forensic cases and compared the results to the gross anatomic findings. Of the 189 cases, in only 1 case did microscopic examination affect the cause of death and in no case did microscopic examination affect the manner of death. Thus, we feel that routine microscopic examination (performing histologic examination in all cases regardless of cause and manner of death) in forensic autopsy is unnecessary. Microscopic examination should be used, as needed, in certain circumstances but is not necessary as a matter of routine.     

Mainstream medicine versus complementary and alternative medicine in the witness box: resolving the clash of ideologies

Mainstream medical philosophy and practice differ in many respects from those of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), differences which are explored in this article. Because of a resurgence of CAM therapies, courts and tribunals will scrutinise CAM in more and more contexts in the future. Such court cases may require the resolution of conflicts between opinions of CAM and medical experts. This article considers how courts evaluate such opinions where experts hold conflicting ideologies or philosophical approaches, and addresses the following questions: Do the opinions of CAM practitioners qualify as "expert" opinions in court? How do the courts examine the basis of such opinions? Are they systematically given less weight than the opinions of mainstream medical practitioners? Will recent procedural reforms for hearing expert evidence make it easier for courts to resolve these issues?     

The status of Armenian Christians in post-independence Israel: the first decade

Literature on the status of the Armenian population during the State of Israel's first decade is virtually nil; a scholarly investigation regarding why Armenians were not drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), when other small, non-Arab and/or non-Muslim minorities were, has not yet been written. While recognizing the paucity of available documentation, this article will seek to address both of these issues/questions in light of what sources are publicly available as well as in light of the author's own previous research into minority recruitment policies in post-independence Israel. This article will argue that while the Armenians appeared to fit nearly all of the IDF’s criteria for minority recruitment, an Armenian presence in the army ultimately would have provided few tangible advantages to the state from both a domestic and regional perspective. However, due to their non-Arab and non-Muslim identity, the Armenian population was treated as a ‘special minority’ and possessed certain unique privileges denied to other minorities in Israel. This was particularly noticeable in Haifa. However, in other ways, Armenians were treated by state authorities in a very similar manner to the far larger and more distrusted Arab population.     

Empirical evidence on the publicness of state legislative activities

Legislation would be a Samuelsonian public good if the cost of creating legislation is not a function of the number of people covered by the legislation. A straighforward test of Samuelsonian publicness is undertaken by estimating the cost of producing legislation as a function of population and other variables, using cross-sectional data from the states of the United States for the years 1965, 1975, and 1985. The empirical results indicate that while legislation does have some degree of publicness, legislation is mostly a private good, and that it has been becoming increasingly less public over time.     

Clinical change in psychopathic traits after the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program: preliminary findings of a controlled trial with male detained youth

Journal of Experimental Criminology - To assess the preliminary efficacy of the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP in reducing psychopathic traits among male detained youth. In this controlled trial, a treatment...