Pathways to work for low‐income workers: The effect of work in the temporary help industry

This paper provides new evidence to inform the policy debate about the effect of a newly important industry—the temporary help industry—on the labor market outcomes of low‐income workers and those workers who are at risk of being on public assistance. The core issue of whether temporary help work harms the long‐term prospects of disadvantaged individuals depends critically on the alternatives available to the worker. Temporary employment results in labor market outcomes that are better than not working at all. For example, while nonemployed public assistance recipients have only a 35 percent chance of being employed a year later, those who were in temporary employment have almost twice the likelihood of being employed in the same period. These findings, if correct, would support the use of temporary agencies by welfare programs. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Alcoholism and Criminal Liability

Having examined the question of whether alcoholism should be regarded as a disease or habitual and learned behaviour, the article assesses from a comparative law perspective the effect of alcoholism as a defence to criminal responsibility. The article proposes a 'disease' model of alcoholism for the purpose of criminal law, and criticises its handling through the law of diminished responsibility.     

Playing fair: fairness beliefs and health policy preferences in the United States

Conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to persuade Americans to support changes in health care policy is to appeal to their self-interest - particularly to concerns about their economic and health security. An alternative strategy, framing problems in the health care system to emphasize inequalities, could also, however, mobilize public support for policy change by activating underlying attitudes about the unfairness or injustice of these inequalities. In this article, we draw on original data from a nationally representative survey to describe Americans' beliefs about fairness in the health domain, including their perceptions of the fairness of particular inequalities in health and health care. We then assess the influence of these fairness considerations on opinions about the appropriate role of private actors versus government in providing health insurance. Respondents believe inequalities in access to and quality of health care are more unfair than unequal health outcomes. Even after taking into account self-interest considerations and the other usual suspects driving policy opinions, perceptions of the unfairness of inequalities in health care strongly influence respondents' preferences for government provision of health insurance.     

A Three‐Locus,PCR‐based Method for Forensic Identification of Plant Material

Plant residue is currently an underutilized resource in forensic investigations despite the fact that many crime scenes, as well as suspects and victims, harbor plant‐derived residue that could be recovered and analyzed. Notwithstanding the considerable skill of forensic botanists, current methods of species determination could benefit from tools for DNA‐based species identification. However, DNA barcoding in plants has been hampered by sequence complications in the plant genome. Following a database search for usable barcodes, broad‐spectrum primers were designed and utilized to amplify and sequence the rbcL, trnL‐F, and rrn18 genetic loci from a variety of household plants. Once obtained, these DNA sequences were used to design species‐targeted primers that could successfully discriminate the source of plant residue from among the 21 species tested.