The current state of gender-specific delinquency programming

Few attempts to identify “what works” in the crime prevention and offender rehabilitation research specifically address gender. The 1992 reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, however, called for new research that would improve the processing and treatment of delinquent girls. This article reviews the relevant theoretical and empirical research that both informed the new legislation and took place in response to it. This is followed by an empirical study conducted to: (1) identify gender-specific programs (GSPs), (2) determine the extent to which GSPs utilize applicable research in their design and implementation, and (3) assess the evidence of GSPs' impact on targeted outcomes. The findings from the current study suggested that, in addition to strengthening program evaluation methodology, gender-specific programs for girls need to more meaningfully incorporate relevant theories and gender-specific risk and protective factors into their curriculum.     

The Transition from Armed Opposition to Electoral Opposition in Central America

After the third wave of democratization swept much of the world during the late twentieth century, many armed opposition groups disarmed and transformed themselves into political parties. This paper explores the electoral performance of four Central American parties that have roots in armed opposition movements. It finds that the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, which achieved the greatest success during their revolutionary periods, have also had the most success in electoral competition. The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit and the Democratic Unification Party of Honduras, which trace their roots to relatively less successful armed opposition groups, have struggled in elections. Organizational factors, especially the number of combatants and popular support during the conflict, tend to provide a better explanation than institutional factors for the initial success of these groups as political parties.     

Preemption of local smoke-free air ordinances: the implications of judicial opinions for meeting national health objectives.

Elimination of state laws that preempt local antismoking ordinances is a national health objective. However, the tobacco industry and its supporters have continued to pursue state-level preemption of local tobacco control ordinances as part of an apparent strategy to avoid the diffusion of grassroots antismoking initiatives. And, an increasing number of challenges to local ordinances by the tobacco industry and persons supported by the tobacco industry are being decided in state supreme courts and courts of appeals. The outcomes of seemingly similar cases about the validity of local smoke-free air ordinances vary significantly by state. This paper examines the common and unique aspects of the decisions and the potential implications of court rulings on preemption for future state tobacco control efforts and achievement of national health objectives around the elimination of preemption. Using a search strategy developed for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System, cases where a state or federal appellate level court made a finding on the validity of a local smoke-free air ordinance or regulation were identified in 19 states. In contrast to previous studies, we found that cases in approximately half of states were decided for local governments. We also found that across the states, courts were considering similar factors in their decisions including the extent to which: (1) the local government possessed the authority to pass the ordinance, (2) the ordinance conflicted with the state constitution, and (3) state statutes preempt the ordinance.     

Exposing the War on Women: The Limits of Law and Power of Care to Address Sexual Violence in Contemporary Crime Drama

A comparative reading of two recent crime dramas, The Fall (TF) and The Bletchley Circle (BC), demonstrates the limits of law and potential of care to address violence against women. TF, a Nordic noir, moves beyond a gender-blind account of crime yet relies on a liberal, state-centric response that blunts its political critique. BC, a hybrid cozy-period-detective genre piece set in post-World War II London, offers a new perspective on violence against women in crime dramas. First, juxtaposing men’s and women’s post-war experiences, BC frames violence against women as an ongoing war in which women remain comrades-in-arms. Second, it suggests that while the state has a necessary role to play as a coordinator of spaces, skills, and citizens, state action alone cannot end violence against women. Rather, citizen engagement through an ethic of care may offer a new way to address such harms.