Follow-up after release of insanity acquittees, mentally disordered offenders, and convicted felons

The authors compared 127 insanity acquittees in the state of Maryland with a matched prisoner control group of 127 convicted felons and a comparison group of 135 mentally disordered prisoners transferred for hospital treatment. Subjects were followed from five to 17 years after discharge from hospital or release from prison. Subsequent arrests, hospitalizations, employment, and functioning of these large cohorts were studied and compared. The study focused on outcome data at five years after release. The authors found that, at five years postrelease, 54.3 percent of the insanity acquittees, 65.4 percent of the prisoner control group, and 73.3 percent of the mentally disordered prison transfers were rearrested. At 17 years postrelease, rearrest rates increased to 65.8 percent of the insanity acquittees, 75.4 percent of the prisoner controls, and 78.4 percent of the prison transfers. Significantly more mentally disordered prison transfers than NGRIs were rehospitalized during the follow-up period. Overall, the prison transfers had significantly poorer outcomes on nearly all variables studied compared with the other two groups. The authors conclude that although there were a substantial number of rearrests among insanity acquittees, that group had a statistically significantly lower rate of criminal activity compared with the other two groups of offenders.     

Punishment or treatment?

Although there is strong support among the general public for providing insanity acquittees with mental health treatment, it is also believed that insanity acquittees should be punished when they break the law. Prior studies of the lengths of confinement of insanity acquittees have yielded inconsistent results. This article draws upon a large-scale, multistate study of insanity pleas to explore the question: Is society able to withhold punishment against persons acquitted of criminal charges due to insanity? Results indicate that offense seriousness is a more important factor than mental disorder in determining the lengths of confinement of persons foundNot Guilty by Reason of Insanity and that persons found guilty are more likely to be released without ever having been confined than persons acquited by reason of insanity. Implications for invoking offense seriousness as a primary criterion in assessments of dangerousness are discussed.     

Efforts to Improve Public Policy and Programs through Data Practice: Experiences in 15 Distressed American Cities

Philanthropies and government agencies interested in children's issues are encouraging localities to improve the process of collecting, linking, and sharing microdata and aggregated summary statistics. An implicit assumption of these efforts is that outcomes will improve as a result of the new approaches. However, there has been little systematic study of these efforts. In this article, we examine efforts to improve data practice in 15 distressed American cities. Interviews conducted in these cities revealed variation in the types of information collected, dissemination, and intended audiences. We identify significant challenges to these efforts, including adequate resources, turf battles, technical problems, access to information sources, inconsistent leadership, and absence of political will. We find that little is known about the impact of these initiatives on decision making. Assumptions that improved data practice will lead to improved policy making have not yet been realized in these cities.     

Working with boards: The experiences of Australian managers in performing arts organisations

Corporate governance has long been a feature of the arts and cultural sector and is a requirement for all cultural organisations seeking public funding, regardless of their size. However, despite the ubiquity of corporate governance in the arts and cultural sector, there is little research addressing the experiences of managers. This study examines the experiences of managers in performing arts organisations in working with their boards, based on data collected across 20 performing arts organisations in Australia using a stakeholder salience lens. Our results indicate that while the board is seen as a key organisational stakeholder, managers have a range of concerns about the governance role of boards, and in particular their limited effectiveness on the dimensions of legitimacy and urgency. We find that arts managers often must wrestle with competing agendas around creative autonomy and the low‐risk appetite of their management boards. Our findings highlight the need to re‐align, particularly in small‐ and medium‐sized organisations, the organisational needs of arts managers with corporate governance arrangements, without detracting from creative endeavours.     

Measuring Reed’s Reach: Content Discrimination in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals After Reed v. Town of Gilbert

Commentators and justices on the Supreme Court of the United States speculated when the Court delivered its opinion in Reed v. Town of Gilbert in 2015 that the case would dramatically reshape First Amendment law. This article analyzes Reed’s impact to date in the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. The article demonstrates that, although Reed has been consequential in some circuits, it has not been the basis of any First Amendment revolution. Indeed, the research supports the conclusion that many circuit courts seem to be actively working to narrow Reed’s reach. Moreover, the article concludes that Reed did little to clarify — and in some ways made worse — what has been a problematic doctrine for decades.