Roemer on Responsibility and Equality

Law and Philosophy -     

Collaborations between drug courts and service providers: Characteristics and challenges

Addressing the multiple treatment needs of drug-involved offenders can enhance outcomes including sobriety and recidivism. Meeting drug court offenders' needs requires collaborative linkages between courts and providers of treatment and other services; however, there has been limited research on linkages. Using semi-structured interview data collected from administrators of fourteen drug courts and providers of services to offenders in those drug courts, this study described collaborative linkages and the challenges involved in fostering them. Although results suggest a moderate to strong level of linkage as perceived by both drug court administrators and service providers, services other than substance abuse treatment were sparsely provided through the drug courts. Limitations in funding, management information systems, and staffing were perceived as barriers to linkage. Results offer directions for enhancing linkages between drug courts and service providers and should be of value in improving quality of drug court treatment and offender outcomes.     

What is valued in resolving environmental dilemmas: Individual and contextual influences

Justice is an increasingly important concept to examine with regard to decisions about environmental conflicts. But justice can be defined in a number of ways. This paper argues that the perceived importance of different principles of justice to environmental decisions is affected by the position argued, by contextual manipulations, and by individual difference variables. Literature is reviewed in support of the first of these points, suggesting that environmentalism is more congenial than antienvironmentalism to macrojustice principles. Data are presented to show that the way in which a conflict is described, in general or specific terms, affects the perceived importance of some justice principles, and that subject gender and environmental ideology are also related.     

Predicting adolescent risk behavior using a personalized cost-benefit analysis

Risk was investigated from the subjective viewpoints of adolescents, with the aim of assessing adolescents' perceptions of what constitutes risky behavior and how risk behaviors and risk judgments relate. Participants were 570 school-based adolescents. Students named risky behaviors perceived as common to similarly aged peers, then rated level of engagement in these behaviors. The perceived positive and negative outcomes of risk were also nominated, and rated on perceived likelihood and desirability/undesirability. The sample viewed risky behaviors as smoking, drinking alcohol, dangerous driving, taking drugs, criminal behavior, sporting risks, antisocial behavior, minor rebellion, school-related risks, and sexual activity. Negative outcomes of risk were categorized as death, disablement, punishment, and social consequences. Payoffs included pleasure, material gain, and avoidance of negative outcomes. There was a consistent pattern of relationships between risk participation and outcome judgment, with perceived pleasantness and likelihood of positive outcomes, and unpleasantness of negative outcomes, strongly associated with behavior.This research was supported by the Australian Rotary Health Research Fund.Received Ph.D. from Florida State University. Research interests: adolescent development, risk taking, and sexuality.Received Ph.D. from Monash University. Research interests: adolescent development, emotional development, and families.     

VOICE ALTERATIONS

The experience of divorce is difficult for everyone involved. To best help with the legal experience, we need to understand gender differences that affect the process. This article adds to the understanding of that difference by addressing women's development and the female "voice." Women have not been acculturated to the subtle rules of litigation, which are in the male "voice." The authors offer an alternative scenario to add balance to the traditional experience of divorce for women and men and to the divorce process itself.