The Interdisciplinary Settlement Conference: A Grassroots Alternative for Resolving High‐Conflict Parenting Disputes in Lean Times

This article describes a court‐connected alternative dispute resolution program, the Interdisciplinary Settlement Conference. The key feature of this program is the participation of two volunteer panelists, one a family law attorney and the other a mental health professional experienced in parenting disputes, who assist the judicial officer in working with the parties and their attorneys (if any) to reach a resolution of their parenting dispute. Significantly, in addition to addressing the parties’ legal issues, the panelists also address the parties’ psychological and emotional issues relevant to the dispute on an as‐needed basis. Findings from six years of experience with the program are discussed, including evidence of high satisfaction with the program, a high rate of settlement, a decrease in relitigation, and a concomitant savings of scarce judicial resources.     

Dissecting the relationship between mental illness and return to incarceration

Purpose

We examine all releases to parole supervision in a single state over a period of four years to consider how a diagnosis of mental illness is associated with return to incarceration.

Methods

We use survival methods and Cox regression to understand patterns of and influences on return to prison. Our measure of mental illness is based on in-prison clinical diagnoses. Data include a rich set of administrative variables with demographic, criminal history and institutional controls.

Results

Our findings suggest that (1) there is a statistically significant relationship between having a DSM diagnosis and reincarceration, (2) substance-related disorders account for most of that relationship, and (3) there are some important variations among types of disorders examined.

Conclusions

Research that examines mental illness and recidivism without controlling for substance use disorders/problems is likely to be uninformative and misleading. Findings provide qualified support for the notion that programming addressing criminogenic risks and needs may be as important, or more so, than therapeutic programming focusing on mental illness when recidivism reduction is the goal.     

A.G. Oude Elferink,The Delimitation of the Continental Shelf between Denmark,Germany and the Netherlands: Arguing Law,Practicing Politics?, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge 2013, xxv + 508 pp. ISBN 978-1-107-04146-2 (hardback).

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Recalling Extra Data: A Replication Study of Finding Missing Markets

We re-examine some of the strongest evidence supporting agricultural commercialisation, a highly touted yet under-researched development intervention. Our replication study re-examines Ashraf, Giné, and Karlan’s ‘Finding Missing Markets’ paper. Using the previous paper’s raw data, our research generally reproduces the original findings. We explore the evaluation’s theory of change, focusing on the result that first time export crop adopters benefit more from agricultural commercialisation than previous adopters. We also examine recall bias questions and provide sample size guidance for future researchers. Similar to the original paper, we find that the intervention mostly benefits households just entering the agricultural production value-chain.     

Role orientations of junior British MPs: A test of Searing's categories with emphasis on constituency activities

Based on interviews with 45 junior British MPs in 1995, a factor analysis is used to test the staying power of the role categories found by Donald Searing in his study Westminster's World, based on 1972–73 interviews. Searing's categories Policy Advocate and Ministerial Aspirant are clearly identified by the factor pattern, as are two sub‐types of his Constituency Member: Welfare Officer and Local Promoter. Two additional factors emerged, indicating orientation of some MPs toward Local Media and Local Party. Regression analysis testing behavioural consequences of the role types (identified as independent variables based on factor scores) produced more mixed results than Searing's original tests, including the unexpected finding that MPs who find the Local Party helpful spend more time in their constituencies and in their surgeries with constituents than do Welfare Officers.     

Determinants of congressional minimum wage support: the role of economic education

Much has been made about the lack of economic education among the public at large, yet little has been said about the limited education of Members of Congress. This paper examines the economic education levels of Members of Congress voting on the 2007 increase in the minimum wage. Controlling for a variety of characteristics of members and constituents, this study finds that members who majored in economics as undergraduates were less likely to vote for the minimum wage increase than their colleagues. No other major had a consistent influence. A large number of statistical specifications confirm the robustness of the finding.     

Online solicitation offenders are different from child pornography offenders and lower risk contact sexual offenders

The current study compared 38 lower risk (based on actuarial risk assessments) men convicted of contact sexual offenses against children, 38 child pornography offenders, and 70 solicitation offenders (also known as luring or traveler offenders). Solicitation and child pornography offenders were better educated than contact offenders but did not differ on other sociodemographic variables. In comparison to child pornography offenders, solicitation offenders had lower capacity for relationship stability and lower levels of sex drive/preoccupation and deviant sexual preference. Solicitation offenders were also more problematic than lower risk contact offenders on sex drive/preoccupation and capacity for relationship stability and had greater self-reported use of child pornography. Differences between groups on two actuarial risk measures, the Static-99 and the VASOR, were inconsistent. This study suggests that solicitation offenders differ in meaningful ways from lower risk contact offenders and child pornography offenders and, consequently, in risk, treatment, and supervision needs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).