EARLY INTERVENTION IN NEW ZEALAND FAMILY COURT CASES

In April 2010 the New Zealand Family Court introduced the National Early Intervention Process (NEIP) to diversify its previous unitary dispute resolution pathway into two tracks (standard and urgent). A “triage” model is now in use to assess and assign cases appropriately. This article outlines the key milestones in the Family Court's 30‐year history which have led to this new initiative to reduce delays and help avoid the escalation of family conflicts over the care of children into bitter and intractable disputes. NEIP represents the most overarching reform of the Family Court since the Court's inception in 1981.     

Ventilatory and metabolic demands during aggressive physical restraint in healthy adults

We investigated ventilatory and metabolic demands in healthy adults when placed in the prone maximal restraint position (PMRP), i.e., hogtie restraint. Maximal voluntary ventilation (MVV) was measured in seated subjects (n=30), in the PMRP, and when prone with up to 90.1 or 102.3 kg of weight on the back. MVV with the heaviest weight was 70% of the seated MVV (122+/-28 and 156+/-38 L/min, respectively; p<0.001). Also, subjects (n=27) were placed in the PMRP and struggled vigorously for 60 sec. During the restrained struggle, ventilatory function (V(E)/ MVV) was 44% of MVV in the resting PMRP. While prone with up to 90.1 or 102.3 kg on the back, the decrease in MVV was of no clinical importance in these subjects. Also, while maximally struggling in the PMRP, V(E) was still adequate to supply the ventilatory needs.     

Paradigm Muddle or Paradigm Paralysis? The Wide and Narrow Roads to Restorative Justice Reform (or,a Little Confusion May Be a Good Thing)

McCold (2004 McCold, P. (2004). Paradigm muddle: The threat to restorative justice posed by the merger with community justice. Contemporary Justice Review, 7: 13–35. [Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], this issue) argues that community justice and balanced and restorative justice (BARJ) models confuse people and distort the restorative justice movement. We argue that there are many sources of confusion and explain the differences between these approaches. Neither model poses any threat to restorative justice, and both community justice and BARJ can garner new support for restorative justice. We respond to misleading portrayals in McCold’s account of these movements (and of our writings about them) and suggest that more time should be spent on truly critical debates within the restorative justice movement, and in confronting real barriers to restorative justice reforms.     

The physical and mental health status of homeless adults

Abstract

This paper reviews recent research on the physical and mental health status of homeless single adults and briefly summarizes definitional, sampling, and measurement problems. It presents findings from research examining the physical health status of homeless adults; the data suggest that homelessness places people at greater risk for specific health problems and also complicates treatment. The authors then review findings on the mental health status of homeless adults from several methodologically rigorous studies that carefully define and measure mental illness among the homeless population. The final section discusses what is known about the short‐ and long‐term service needs of the physically and mentally disabled homeless population.

The studies reviewed suggest that individuals with chronic physical or severe mental illnesses are more vulnerable than others to homelessness. Homelessness exacerbates physical and/or mental conditions and complicates their treatment. Despite myths to the contrary, research and demonstration programs have shown that most homeless individuals are willing to receive assistance. By linking health and mental health services to appropriate housing, such individuals can be treated and cared for in community settings. However, local communities often do not have the necessary resources to meet the long‐term needs of severely mentally ill or physically disabled homeless people.     

At the limits of spatial governmentality: A message from the tip of Africa

Urban studies scholars drawing on Foucault's analysis of governmentality have investigated how urban social orders are increasingly more concerned with the management of space rather than on the discipline of offenders or the punishment of offences (Merry, 2001). This paper examines the 'rationality' and efficacy of spatial governmentality in post-apartheid Cape Town, and shows how the city has increasingly become a 'fortress city' (Davis, 1990), much like cities such as Los Angeles, Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. These 'global cities' are increasingly characterised by privatised security systems in middle class suburbs, shopping malls and gated communities (Caldeira, 1999). These spatial forms of governmentality draw on sophisticated security systems comprising razor wire and electrified walls, burglar alarms and safe rooms, as well as vicious guard dogs, neighbourhood watches, private security companies, and automated surveillance cameras. On the other side of the race and class divide are urban ghettoes characterised by growing poverty and everyday violence. These socio-spatial inequalities continue to be reproduced despite urban planning initiatives aimed at desegregating the apartheid city. Although the media and the middle classes highlight the dangers of crime and violence, they tend to ignore the structures of inequality that fuel the growth of crime syndicates and violent drug economies that are reproducing these urban governance crises. Given the diminished resources of the neo-liberal state, the policing of middle class residential and business districts is increasingly being 'outsourced' to private security companies. In working class neighbourhoods of Cape Town such as Manenberg, the state has attempted to re-establish governance by resorting to new forms of spatial governmentality. The paper draws attention to the limits of these attempts to assert state control through the management of space. Spatial governance in places like Manenberg will continue to be relatively ineffectual given existing levels of social inequality and racial polarization. Such processes are reproduced by massive unemployment and racialised poverty resulting from socio-spatial legacies of apartheid and Cape Town's shift from a manufacturing to a tourist, IT and financial services economy. Although this paper focuses on attempts at re-establishing governance in a crime and gangster-ridden working class neighbourhood of Cape Town, it addresses these issues in relation to city-wide shifts to new forms of spatial governmentality after apartheid.     

Betting on the Future with a Cloudy Crystal Ball? How Financial Theory Can Improve Revenue Forecasting and Budgets in the States

Accurately predicting revenue growth is nearly impossible. Predicting the peaks and valleys of the business cycle is even more hopeless. This matters because tax revenues are largely driven by economic growth. Volatile, unpredictable revenue growth causes all sorts of unpleasant responses on the part of governments, most commonly manic-depressive patterns of spending and taxing. Fortunately, modern financial economics gives us a set of tools that can be used to manage volatility. This article shows how such tools can be used to inform fiscal decision making. The focus here is state governments, but the analysis applies to all jurisdictions that face hard budget constraints and therefore must balance spending increases against revenue growth.     

A calculation of the theoretical significance of matched bullets

Abstract:  The comparison and identification of bullets from the striations that appear on their surfaces, after they have been fired from a gun, have been practiced since the 1920s. Although the significance of the correspondences of these impression marks has been empirically justified, there is a conspicuous absence of any theoretical foundation for the likelihood. What is presented here is the derivation of the formulae for calculating the probability for the correspondence of the impression marks on a subject bullet to a random distribution of a similar number of impression marks on a suspect bullet of the same type. The approach to the calculation entails subdividing the impression marks into a series of individual lines having widths equal to the separation distance at which a misalignment of striations between the two bullets cannot be distinguished. This distance depends upon the resolution limit imposed by the microscope as well as by the visual acuity of the examiner. A calculation of the probabilities for finding pairs and triplets of consecutively matching lines on nonmatching bullets, by an examiner with normal perception using a microscope at 40× magnification, produces values that agree well with the empirical probabilities determined by Biasotti in the 1950s and when determined for larger consecutive sequences suggest that they are extremely unlikely to occur. The formulae can be used to determine the probabilities for the random occurrence of any sequence of striae and provide a straightforward way to quantitatively justify the significance of a specific match between any two bullets.     

Political liberty and social development: An empirical investigation

Liberty is not only economic; it is political. Whether the economic system promotes social development is one question. Whether the political system promotes social development is another question. The empirical investigations indicate that for the world political liberty has a small, though significant relationship with the level of social development.By investigating groupings of alternative economic systems, it is clear that global policies to increase political liberty will not necessarily bring about desired results. In the Socialist, Mixed Socialist, and Capitalist-Statist countries political liberty appears to have virtually no relationship with social development. An increase in political liberty without an increase in economic liberty is even associated with lower levels of social development.