IMPLEMENTING SERRANO

In Serrano v. Priest the California Supreme Court held the state's method of financing public schools unconstitutional because educational expenditures were dependent on district wealth. This article traces the court's ability to structure the implementation of this policy. Although the court succeeded in placing the issue on the agenda, the events since the decision illustrate the difficulties courts encounter when they require action from a legislature. In Serrano, the "polycentric" nature of the problem, the difficulties of obtaining legislative action on a redistribute policy, and the effect of intervening economic forces have served to keep the Serrano principle from being realized fully.     

Promises or Pitfalls: A Prospectus on Comparative Victimology

Most of the systematic theory and research conducted in the field of victimology has been generated within the past decade. Compendia of the victimological literature are, however, almost entirely devoted to studies within the United States, while little atttention is given to the subject of comparative victimology. This article discusses the victim in a cross-cultural perspective and its importance to the advancement of victimological knowledge. Emphasis is placed on various aspects of victim-criminal justice system interactions and the practical implications of cross-cultural inquiries.     

VIOLENCE AND COMMITMENT IN CUSTODIAL SETTINGS

Questionnaires were distributed to the inmates and staff of four custodial settings: (1) a men's prison; (2)a women's prison; (3) a boarding school for troubled and troublesome juveniles; and (4) a drug rehabilitation halfway house (staff not questioned). The hypothesis of the study was that violence would be inversely related to commitment (defined as involvement with the organization and organizational cohesion). Using attitudinal measures of commitment and a self-report. Guttman scale of violence, the results of the study indicated the following: (1) violence was significantly inversely related to both organizational involvement and cohesion among some custodial inmates and (2) violence was slightly positively correlated with involvement and cohesion among some custodial staff. The relationship persisted among inmates even with the introduction of age and education as control variables. The use of these controls only slightly modified the relationship among custodial staff:     

Legislative Victory, Electoral Uncertainty: Explaining Outcomes in the Battles over Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights

Previous studies indicate that in cases of relatively low issue salience, the interest group model best explains lesbian and gay antidiscrimination policy in the American states. The analysis of state and local public policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation concludes that for cases of high issue salience, the morality politics model best describes outcomes. The interest group politics model is used here in a case study of Wisconsin's passage of a comprehensive antidiscrimination policy, while the morality politics model is used to investigate the electoral outcomes of anti‐gay ballot initiatives in several states. The results of this analysis conform with prior research—when lesbian and gay issues are not salient, the interest group politics model best explains resulting policy, however, under salient conditions, the morality politics model best describes outcomes. Finally, the implications of this research for social scientists and activists are discussed.