Are prisoners Clients?

Public servants should identify their clients. As a statement of modern practice it seems unobjectionable. The emphasis of modern management has shifted from die inputs and processes to the outputs and recipients of government services. The language of the public sector has been infused with the rhetoric of the private, with discussion of customers and clients, rather than, as previously, recipients and patients. In many places the benefits are apparent, with officials less concerned with ensuring that every minute process is satisfied and more directed to the needs of those whom they service. My concern here is not to challenge the notion that a concentration on clients and customers is desirable; in places it clearly is. Rather I want to suggest that while a client focus may be applicable in some facets of public policy it is not universally so. There are instances where the attempt to classify everyone as clients may be counterproductive and strip the concept of useful meaning.     

Seasonality in suicide: a study of farming suicides in England and Wales

Seasonality in suicide rates has long been reported. Spring peaks in suicide deaths have been positively correlated with the proportion of the workforce engaged in agriculture. Some studies have indicated that suicides using violent methods are more likely to show seasonality. Recent research has suggested that seasonal patterns have diminished. This study examined deaths in male farmers, an occupational group which might be expected to be more vulnerable to seasonal influences because of the nature of their work and the relatively high proportion of farmers using violent methods for suicide. Data on suicides between 1982 and 1999 by males in England and Wales aged 15 years and over were provided by the Office for National Statistics. Seasonal patterns of suicide in farmers and nonfarmers were examined by nonparametric tests and harmonic analysis. No significant seasonal variation was found for farmers. For nonfarmers, although a chi-square test showed significant variation in monthly distribution, this was not found when a harmonic analysis was applied. There was no significant difference in the variation of violent suicides throughout the year. This study reinforces recent findings that seasonal variation in suicide appears to be diminishing, even in an occupational group where this might be expected.     

State Constitutions, Freedom of Expression, and Search and Seizure: Prospects for State Court Reincarnation

This article examines the decisions of ten state high courtsin the areas of access to private property for expressive purposesand exclusion of the fruits of illegal searches and seizures.The analysis centers on two questions. First, are some statesrelying on their own constitutions to resolve individual rightsissues while other continue to follow the United States SupremeCourts interpretation of the federal Constitution? Second, havethe states that do rely on their own constitutions to resolveindividual rights issues developed an independently based stateconstitutional jurisprudence, or have they simply attemptedto circumvent decisions of the Burger Court? The authors findlittle evidence that the state high courts examined here havebegun, as yet, to develop an independent approach to state constitutionalanalysis.