Community standards of criminal liability and the insanity defense

Two experiments (N=71) compare lay standards of insanity to standards incorporated in American legal codes. In Experiment 1, case vignettes provided only legally relevant information about defendants' degrees of impairment in cognition or in behavioral control. Respondents' judgments of criminal liability ornot guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) reflected an exculpatory standard of substantial impairment in both cognition and control. In Experiment 2, case vignettes provided realistic information about defendants' psychiatric diagnoses; respondents had to infer levels of cognitive and control impairment. Results showed that respondents made highly idiosyncratic inferences based on diagnostic categories, but once made, these inferences predicted NGRI judgments. Implications of the concordance between laypeople's rules for assigning NGRI verdicts and the rules used in American legal codes are discussed.Daniel Bailis gratefully acknowledges the support of Public Health Service grant No. 5T32 MH18021-07 for Research Training in Social Psychology during the time in which the present research was conducted. John Darley wished to acknowledge the generous support of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and Princeton University. Study 2 presents work done for the Princeton University undergraduate thesis of Tracy Waxman. The authors are grateful to Norman J. Finkel, Valerie Hans, and three anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft on this article.Northwestern University.     

Managing retrenchment in a public service organization

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to identify the distinguishing features of an effective approach to managing retrenchment in a public service organization. It draws on the author's experience in Alberta and makes reference to experience in the rest of Canada and in the United States. Management responses to changes in the external environment are considered under two headings: strategic and operational. Strategic responses aim to acknowledge economic reality and to increase political support by enhancing credibility and visibility. A new corporate strategy aims to position the organization for maximum effectiveness at a smaller size in the post-retrenchment period. Operational responses emphasize communication and productivity planning. Restraint measures include voluntary staff reductions, compensation reductions and non-voluntary staff reductions, usually in that sequence. The central operational issue is reducing staff complement and the principal dilemma is whether to encourage voluntary terminations or to select the staff to be dismissed. The outcome is a trade-off between fairness and rationality. Ten principles of effective retrenchment management emerge from the experience discussed: 1. scan the environment; 2. acknowledge reality; 3. foster political support; 4. renew the commitment to productivity; 5. review the corporate strategy; 6. target the reductions; 7. reduce slowly; 8. seek alternatives to staff reductions; 9. balance rationality and fairness in staff reductions; and 10. communicate, communicate, communicate.     

Assessing Criminal Justice Practice Using Social Justice Theory

In this article, I introduce two of the leading theories of social justice put forth by John Rawls and David Miller. Then, I assess criminal justice practice, from law-making to corrections, in terms of ways in which it is consistent and inconsistent with these theories of social justice. Throughout the article, I also identify ways in which criminal justice practice is inconsistent with social justice. Finally, I make recommendations for reforming criminal justice to make it more consistent with social justice.     

The Caucasian Connection: National Identity in the Ballets of Aram Khachaturian

Gypsy Related Holdings (Texas Collection), World Romani Union; Buda Texas, 1987, and Supplement (compilers Dick Atterbull and Hal McCorrie), Manchaca, Texas, 1991; Gabrielle Tymauer, Gypsies and the Holocaust: A Bibliography and Introductory Essay. Interuniversity Center for European Studies, Montreal, 1989.     

Evictions: The hidden housing problem

Abstract

Although evictions are a major housing problem that disproportionately affects lower‐income and minority tenants, no systematic data about evictions are collected on a local or national level. This article presents the scattered available data on the magnitude and impact of the problem, along with existing model efforts to reduce its incidence and impact.

Creating a national database on evictions—how many, where, who, why, and what happens to evictees—would be an important first step in focusing attention on this neglected issue. Definitional questions must be resolved as an initial step. In an effort to launch such a project, suggestions are offered on how to begin creating such a database.