Racial disparities in access to long-term care: the illusive pursuit of equity

While nursing homes were insulated from civil-rights enforcement at the time of the implementation of the Medicare program and lagged behind other parts of the health sector in providing comparable access to minorities, they are the only providers for which current reporting requirements make it possible to fully assess racial disparities in use and quality of care. We find that African Americans' use of nursing homes in 2000 in the United States was 14 percent higher than Caucasians' use. The largest relative African American use of nursing homes in 2000 took place in the South and West. Average nursing-home case-mix acuity for African Americans and Caucasians were essentially identical, suggesting that shifts in payment incentives have eliminated the selective admission of easy-care private-pay (predominantly Caucasian) patients and helped fuel the growth of private pay home care and assisted living for this segment of the population. While these shifts in incentives helped increase the use of nursing homes by African Americans, a high degree of segregation and disparity in the quality of the nursing homes used by African Americans persists. Parity in use is an illusive benchmark for measuring progress in assuring equity in treatment.     

Female and male sex offenders: a comparison of recidivism patterns and risk factors

Few studies have empirically validated the assertion that female and male sex offenders are vastly different. Therefore, utilizing a matched sample of 780 female and male sex offenders in New York State, the current study explored differences and similarities of recidivism patterns and risk factors for the two offender groups. Results suggested that male sex offenders were significantly more likely than female sex offenders to be rearrested for both sexual and nonsexual offenses. However, limited differences in terms of risk factors between female and male sex offenders were found.     

Reflections on Scientific Inquiry,Academic Freedom,and Enlightenment

This paper explores the connections between scientific inquiry, scholarly reflexivity, and enlightenment. I argue that the free intellectual inquiry essential to the practice of science is a fundamental constituent and enactment of human dignity, freedom, and democracy. The expansion and diffusion of these values are both unavoidable in the modern age and immensely valuable, even if there are of course many obstacles to their expansion and no guarantees of their ultimate realization. This process of scientific inquiry also contains the seeds of a discourse ethic with broader ramifications for public enlightenment and perhaps even democratization. I develop these themes through a dialogue with some of the writings of Professor Yu Keping on the topics of Chinese political science and “incremental democracy.”     

Understanding Date Rape Attitudes and Behaviors: Exploring the Influence of Race,Gender, and Prior Sexual Victimization

This exploratory investigation examines the influence of race, gender, and prior sexual victimization on attitudes and behaviors related to date rape from a large sample of college students (n = 3,084) in the United States. The results of this study indicate that gender was a salient factor, with males more likely to subscribe to undesirable attitudes toward date rape and to engage in behaviors that increase the risk of both men and women perpetrating date rape. Findings also indicate that racial differences exist in that black students were less likely to subscribe to undesirable attitudes and to engage in sexual behaviors that increase the risk of perpetrating date rape than were white students. Finally, the analyses found previous sexual victimization experiences unexpectedly increased undesirable attitudes toward and behaviors associated with date rape. Implications of the results are discussed.     

The Diagnostic Frame in National Security Evaluations

In clinical and most forensic evaluations, “diagnosis” connotes the expectation of a DSM‐5 or ICD‐10 formally labeled mental condition. When the task is to evaluate the security risk a person's psychological makeup presents to an institution, such a molar diagnosis can blind the clinician and elevate the risk to a security agency. When “diagnosis” connotes achieving an understanding of a person's behavior that has raised security concerns, then a different conceptualization of the diagnostic process is required. Unlike the clinical situation, the evaluation is not being performed to benefit the person but for the purpose of assessing risk to an agency. The differences this introduces involve every aspect of the evaluation and changes the type of diagnosis expected. Not appreciating these differences can cause the clinician to fail in the task of assessing psychological tendencies that affect national security.