An Overview of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS)

We provide an overview of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; Meyer, Viglione, Mihura, Erard, & Erdberg, 2011). After providing a general introduction to Rorschach-based assessment, the rationale and features of R-PAS are outlined. As part of this discussion, some of the ways in which R-PAS differs from the Comprehensive System (CS) (Exner, 2003) are delineated.     

Japanese and American Perspectives on East Asian Regionalism

Regular convening of East Asian summits and rising concernsabout the American dollar have heightened interest in Asiancooperation. Japan will necessarily play a central role in regionalendeavors, and the United States must at least acquiesce ifregional coordination is to progress. Among American accounts,the most theoretically elaborate and systematically comparativeanalysis is A World of Regions, while Remapping East Asia providesthe most authoritative overview of recent developments. Japanese-languagestudies of East Asian regionalism agree that regional cooperationis far less institutionalized and rule-based in East Asia thanin Europe, but they include a wider range of opinion about thedesirability and feasibility of cooperation. Skeptics on theright warn that efforts to create a regional community wouldweaken the United States–Japan alliance, undermine universalvalues, and cede regional leadership to China. Optimists onthe left counter that regional cooperation holds out the onlyhope for ameliorating nationalist conflicts. Most numerous arecentrists arguing for active cooperation on economics and theenvironment, but only cautious moves on politics and security.Despite their caution, Japanese authors convey a sense thatchanges to the American-led global and regional order are occurringand likely will continue.     

Variations in the Recidivism of Treated and Nontreated Sexual Offenders in New Jersey: An Examination of Three Time Frames

This study examines the recidivism of sexual offenders in New Jersey at three different time intervals: three years, five years, and ten years after release from prison. The sample is comprised of sexual offenders released from the general prison population (untreated sample, n = 150) and the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center (ADTC) (treated sample, n = 150), a sex offender specific facility. The goals of this study were twofold: (1) to identify the recidivism rates of sexual offenders and to determine whether sexual offenders who receive treatment demonstrate lower levels of recidivism and (2) to examine whether differences in recidivism exist among the varying time frames and offender subtypes. The results indicate that treated sex offenders maintained decreased nonsexual recidivism rates. Additionally, offenders who committed acts of rape and offenders followed up after six years had increased rates of recidivism.     

Telling Stories about Women and Gender in the War on Terror

This article focuses on the role of gender in boundary-drawing practices, in the construction of identities and in the discursive construction and depiction of the “body politic” in the War on Terror. It argues that the evocation of “liberated Western women” and “oppressed Muslim” women in narratives on the War on Terror has been useful in the project of casting the United States as a beacon of civilisation and in constructing, reinforcing and reproducing a polarity between the West and the Islamic world. The War on Terror has also generated narratives about male protectors and the female protected; narratives that are also central to boundary-drawing processes. The final section of the article focuses on “dissident stories” that have challenged dominant meanings and dominant constructions of identity and boundaries, and unsettled simplistic and dichotomous characterisations of “good” and “evil” in the War on Terror.     

The Complexities of Land Reparations

The question whether unjust dispossessions of land perpetrated on whole peoples in the past should be corrected by restitution in kind, that is, granting reparations in the form of returning land to the dispossessed former owners or their present‐day successors, is substantially more complex than the questions posed by other forms of reparations. I argue that the complexities involved in all the situations where claims for land reparations are made to correct historic injustices give us good reasons to be hesitant about granting such claims. At the same time, we should not dismiss such claims out of hand. Reparations that take a form other than restitution of dispossessed land may be both necessary and sufficient to establish a public marker of acknowledgment.     

IN SEARCH OF PERMANENCY

President Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) into law on November 19, 1997. ASFA is designed to prevent children in foster care from being returned to unsafe homes and to find safe homes for children who are not able to return to their families. Some critics say that ASFA is too extensive and intrusive; others feel it does not go far enough. The author focuses on the practical issues of what ASFA has done so far and how various communities can still use it to ameliorate some of their child welfare problems. She begins with the history of child welfare in the United States, followed by an extensive discussion of ASFA's provisions. The author then addresses criticisms of some of ASFA's key components. A discussion of the ways the states have implemented ASFA follows. The author concludes that ASFA could be a powerful and important tool in aiding the child welfare system.     

Policy analysis: The undisciplined discipline

Policy analysis is an amorphous, multi-disciplinary, adademic pursuit in search of a professional focus. This discussion surveys the parameters of this pursuit and outlines the basic ingredients of a professional perspective. Argument is made for a multi-faceted, yet integrative approach which appreciates both the rational and trans-rational elements of public policy and which is anchored in a mixture of technical expertise and public regardedness.