SHIFTING SANDS: TEACHING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN A CLIMATE OF CHANGE

This article analyses influences which in recent decades have changed the way in which public administration has been taught in British higher education. Focusing mainly on the former polytechnics, the article argues that a curriculum shift away from the social sciences and towards management, and changes in the nature of the British public sector, have profoundly influenced approaches to teaching public administration. It suggests that learning strategies are closely related to debate about the nature of the discipline and its location within the academic spectrum. The article also raises questions about the extent to which public administration teachers in British universities are equipped to present the more applied and skills-based teaching which has often been adopted in recent years, and the tensions which this might pose particularly in the‘new’universities with the increasing emphasis upon academic research.     

PROBATION AND PAROLE: PUBLIC RISK AND THE FUTURE OF INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVES*

Jail and prison populations in the United States have continued to grow unabated during the past two decades but crime rates have not declined. Partly in response to the pressures caused by burgeoning correctional populations, the use of alternatives to incarceration has expanded. An ongoing debate centers on the effectiveness of these alternatives. Many criminal justice professionals and some researchers question whether such alternatives seriously restrict the criminal justice system 's ability to incapacitate the active offender. This study deals specifically with two alternatives to incarceration: probation and parole. We examine offender recidivism for a sample of probationers and parolees active in New Orleans, Louisiana, and offer a new approach to addressing the effectiveness issue. Past research has evaluated the effectiveness of alternatives by examining failure rates of diverted offenders. High failure rates, we argue, do not necessarily imply a significant loss of the incapacitative effects of imprisonment. We suggest that a more appropriate measure of the loss of incapacitative effect is the proportion of all offenses committed by persons on probation or parole. Our results suggest that such losses are surprisingly low. The policy implications of our findings are discussed.     

Lingual markings of anterior teeth as seen in human bite marks

A review of the available literature does not reveal a plausible explanation as to why the incisal edges of maxillary anterior teeth do not always mark clearly. Generally, the mandibular incisal edges do mark with some consistency. This paper demonstrates through test bites on skin that the answer lies in the position of the mandible.     

Comparison of fingernail striation patterns in identical twins.

The fingernail ridge patterns of a pair of identical twins were compared to each other, their parents, and an unrelated subject. The patterns of the twins' nails showed regions of strong similarity but were distinguishable from one another. Fewer similarities were found when comparing the nails to those of the parents and the unrelated control. The twins were shown to be monozygotic by means of DNA profiling. This therefore represents the first demonstration of unique fingernail ridge patterns in subjects shown conclusively to be identical twins. When the fingernail ridge patterns were examined with a scanning electron microscope, the backscattered electron (BEI) images were found to have superior contrast when compared to the secondary electron (SEI) images.