Corrections,implementation, and organizational ecology: an introduction to the Purveyor Core-Skills Model

It has been a decade since Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature was first published bringing Implementation Science into the mainstream of American corrections. Since that time much focus has been placed upon Implementer and organization level core implementation components, contributing to their disproportionate representation in the literature. This has led to a gap as it pertains to the Purveyor. What literature is available on the Purveyor largely reviews their activities and does not thoroughly identify what core-skills are necessary to be successful in those activities. To address this gap, this article weaves a conceptual framework using open systems and organizational ecology to illustrate key differences between correctional Purveyors and Implementers and to introduce The Purveyor Core-Skills Model, offering the following core-skill domains to the implementation lexicon: competency, change fluency, leadership, and systems thinking. Finally, an agenda for future research and practice implications are presented.     

On the Ideological Foundations of Supreme Court Legitimacy in the American Public

Conventional wisdom says that individuals’ ideological preferences do not influence Supreme Court legitimacy orientations. Most work is based on the assumption that the contemporary Court is objectively conservative in its policymaking, meaning that ideological disagreement should come from liberals and agreement from conservatives. Our nuanced look at the Court's policymaking suggests rational bases for perceiving the Court's contemporary policymaking as conservative, moderate, and even liberal. We argue that subjective ideological disagreement—incongruence between one's ideological preferences and one's perception of the Court's ideological tenor—must be accounted for when explaining legitimacy. Analysis of a national survey shows that subjective ideological disagreement exhibits a potent, deleterious impact on legitimacy. Ideology exhibits sensible connections to legitimacy depending on how people perceive the Court's ideological tenor. Results from a survey experiment support our posited mechanism. Our work has implications for the public's view of the Court as a “political” institution.     

A book review on

Policing: A Short History. Philip Rawlings. Portland: Willan. Publishing, 2002. ISBN 1–903240–26–3 Paperback £17.99 / US $27.50. ISBN 1–903240–27–1 Hardback £45.00 / US $59.95. 280 pages.     

The Effect of Wanted Posters on Prospective and Retrospective Memory

The experiment tested prospective and retrospective memory for a person pictured on a wanted poster. Participants monitored the videotaped activity of a computer lab; one of their duties involved reporting if they saw a computer hacker. Half viewed a wanted poster of the hacker before the monitoring task and half after. For half the participants, the hacker appeared during monitoring and for half not. A diagnosticity ratio comparing the correct prospective memory identifications with false positive identifications showed that a prospective identification was 3.35 times more likely to be accurate than inaccurate. For those viewing the wanted poster after monitoring, the diagnosticity ratio was 1.21. Based on diagnosticity, a prospective identification had more value than a retrospective identification.     

Hainan for the Holidays

正Migratory birds seem to have it all figured out: in the winter it gets cold, so they pack up and fly south to warmer climates. Unlike my feathered friends, when the cold sets in, my winter jacket comes out and I begin a four-month stint of brooding and whining about Beijing temperatures.     

Tea Time In Hangzhou

正There's a saying in China: Above is heaven, below is Hangzhou. Having visited this city in east central China, I'm willing to vouch for this ancient adage, one that suggests heaven's beauty has somehow trickled