Patterns of entry,professional identity,and attitudes toward crime-related education: A study of criminal justice and criminology faculty

In the field of crime-related education, examination of the characteristics of teaching, research, and institutional differences has recently been a concern. This study examines full-time faculty (N=929) and their patterns of entry, including academic degree held, academic major, past academic and agency experience, and type of institution; and the extent to which differing methods of access are associated with attitudes toward research, scholarship, agency practice, academic collegiality, and orientation toward crime-related study. Dual paradigms seem to exist in crime-related education: one centering on teaching, field practice, and professionalism; the other on research, scholarship, and the more traditional values of academe.     

An estimate of the proportion of drug-facilitation of sexual assault in four U.S. localities

In recent years, drugs including flunitrazepam, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, ketamine, and ethanol, have become popularly associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault. Other drugs are also candidates as factors in "drug facilitated sexual assault" (DFSA). The true extent of DFSA is not known, and is difficult to estimate. We recruited sexual assault complainants at four clinics in different parts of the U.S. to anonymously provide urine and hair specimens, and to answer questions about suspected drugging, drug use, and the sexual assault incident. Urine and hair specimens were tested for 45 drugs, including ethanol, and those pharmacologically capable of inducing sedation, amnesia, or impairment of judgment. Analytical test results were used to estimate the proportion of subjects, and the proportion of all complainants to the clinic in the same time period, who were victims of DFSA. Overall, cases of 43% of 144 subjects, and 7% of 859 complainants, were characterized as DFSA. Subjects underreported their use of drugs. The role of toxicological results and history in characterizing DFSA cases is discussed.     

Is Sincerity the First Virtue of Social Institutions? Police,Universities, and Free Speech

In the final chapter of Speech Matters, Seana Shiffrin argues that institutions have especially stringent duties to protect speech freedoms. In this article, I develop a few lines of criticism. First, I question whether Shiffrin’s framework of justified suspended contexts is appropriate for institutional settings. Second, I challenge the presumption that the knowledge-gathering function performed by police is necessarily compromised by insincere practices. Third, I criticize Shiffrin’s characterization of the university as involving a complete repudiation of enforced consensus, and I express doubts about the close connection between education and democratic legitimation that Shiffrin endorses. Finally, I raise a problem with the book’s overall argument: even if one agrees that speech freedoms are necessary for moral development, they also may be threatening to moral development. The upshot is that the protection of speech should be modulated in order to account for the potential conflicts between sincerity and other valuable ends, rather than being oriented above all to sincerity.

     

Examining Youth and Program Predictors of Engagement in Out-of-School Time Programs

Prior research suggests that youths’ engagement in out-of-school time programs may be a crucial factor linking program participation to positive outcomes during adolescence. Guided by the theoretical concept of flow and by stage-environment fit theory, the present study explored correlates of engagement in youth programs. Engagement was conceptualized as the extent to which youth found the program activities enjoyable, interesting, and challenging. The current study examined how program content, monetary incentives, and youth demographic characteristics were linked to youth engagement among a sample of primarily low-income middle and high school youth attending 30 out-of-school programs (n = 435, 51 % female). Results from multilevel models suggested that program content and staff quality were strongly associated with youth engagement. Youth who reported learning new skills, learning about college, and learning about jobs through activities in the program were more engaged, as were youth who found the staff caring and competent. Results demonstrated that the link between learning content for the future and engagement was stronger for older youth than younger youth. In addition, there was a trend suggesting that providing a monetary incentive was associated negatively with youth engagement. Taken as a whole, these findings have important implications for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in understanding the characteristics of out-of-school time programs that engage older youth.     

Madison's View of Federalism in The Federalist

Interpreters of James Madison's treatment of federalism in TheFederalist are divided into two general camps: those who considerhim to have defended federalism with cogency and convictionand those who consider his defense, on account of his concealedantipathy to federalism, to be half-hearted. Although Madisonhad reservations about the Constitution's new structure, threecharges of disingenuousness that have been leveled against himare mistaken. The evidence mainly suggests that he viewed theConstitution as establishing a divided system of government,that he was not particularly confident that future state-federalconflicts would be resolved peacefully, and that, despite hisreservations about the new system, he wanted to see it in operationbefore thinking about how it might be reformed.     

Organizational change in law enforcement

A major problem in identifying and understanding change in law enforcement organizations is in specifying the object of intended change and the process by which change is to be implemented. The study focuses on organizational-structural change in police organizations and examines factors which have influenced the implementation of saturation patrol units, covert surveillance units, and regionalized detective bureaus. The results indicate that factors such as domain consensus, dependence and influence relationships, and perceptions of threat affect both the acceptance and use of these organizational changes.