The Role of Incubators in the Entrepreneurial Process

We outline a model that improves our understanding of the role of incubators in the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, we focus on the impact of the services offered, namely infrastructure, coaching and networks, on the graduation rates of the respective incubators tenants. The model is tested among three different types of incubators, for-profit, non-profit, university-based incubators. Based on our qualitative findings, we conclude that our initial model is ineffective, in the sense that it cannot fully explain the role of the incubators in facilitating entrepreneurship. Interviews with directors of incubator centers were also carried out simultaneously. Further analysis of the results along with interview responses from incubator directors, led us to propose a more comprehensive model to explain how incubators affect the entrepreneurial process.     

Patients Are More than their Illnesses: The Use of Story in Medical Education

[W]hen a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences; the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. The latter falls in love, or reads Spinoza and these experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the type-writer or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes. —T.S. Eliot     

Incestuous victimization by Juvenile Sex offenders

Most research and clinical data dealing with child sexual abuse have focused on adult offenders (usually a parent or relative) and their child victims. More recently, however, the data are beginning to show that a sizeable number of these sexual encounters are being committed by juvenile offenders. Thus, parents and members of the helping professions are beginning to see that what had previously been labeled sexual experimentation may be more serious. Using 37 cases drawn from the files of a local Children and Family Service agency that met the study definition of a juvenile sexual offense, data are reported on the following variables: the age difference between the victim and the offender, the relationship between victim and offender, the act involved, the context in which the act occurred, the pattern of the sexual contact, problems the offender exhibited that may have resulted from the sexual encounter, and general demographic data about the offender's family.     

Education Aid in New York State: Targeting Issues and Measures

The distribution of state aid for public education in New Yorkis the result of a combination of political and educationalconcerns. They influence the amount of school aid distributed,the pattern of aid distribution among school districts, thetypes of programs funded, and the accountability required forthese funds. This article focuses on the forces that influencethe split between general state aid and targeted state aid.General aid refers to aid that districts may use for any purposeconsistent with local priorities or needs. Targeted aid is moneyprovided by the state to a district for a particular purpose.When a district accepts targeted aid, it must agree to spendthe funds in accord with specific statutes or regulations. Considerationsof equity, mechanics of state aid distribution, and the historyof the development of school aid legislation are also discussedin this article.     

Third‐Party Policing and Insurance: The Case of Market‐Based Crime Prevention

This paper examines a relatively new trend: market‐based crime prevention. The insurance firm is an exemplary agent of this new type of crime prevention. Although the traditional focus of insurance has been on losses sustained after a crime or other catastrophe, we explore the shift from reactive to proactive crime management by the insurance industry. This trend is part of a more general decentralization of policing, from state‐controlled agents to community‐ and market‐based third parties. New ideologies support these shifts, including an actuarial logic about crime and a view of the prudent person.     

A National Picture of Prison Downsizing Strategies

Abstract

Many states faced fiscal pressures on their corrections budgets as the country entered a deep recession in 2008. A 2011 survey by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) asked corrections officials in all 50 states about changes in correctional facilities, focusing on closures, new facilities, and altering existing facilities as a response to budget pressures. States employed a combination of these strategies. Between fiscal year (FY) 2007–2008 and FY 2011–2012, 148 facilities were closed, 29 new facilities were opened, and 23 states added 22,740 beds to existing facilities, resulting in about a 19,000 net bed reduction overall. Closures did not necessarily appear to be related to fiscal pressures or always related to reductions in the prison population. Despite the Great Recession, correctional funding is still a large part of state expenses and many states’ correctional populations continue to grow.     

Results from experimental trials testing participant responses to White, Hispanic and Black suspects in high-fidelity deadly force judgment and decision-making simulations

Objective

Advance the methodological techniques used to examine the influence of suspect race and ethnicity on participant decisions to shoot in an experimental setting.

Methods

After developing and testing a novel set of 60 realistic, high definition video deadly force scenarios based on 30 years of official data on officer-involved shootings in the United States, three separate experiments were conducted testing police (n?=?36), civilian (n=?72) and military (n?=?6) responses (n?=?1,812) to the scenarios in high-fidelity computerized training simulators. Participants’ responses to White, Black and Hispanic suspects in potentially deadly situations were analyzed using a multi-level mixed methods strategy. Key response variables were reaction time to shoot and shooting errors.

Results

In all three experiments using a more externally valid research method than previous studies, we found that participants took longer to shoot Black suspects than White or Hispanic suspects. In addition, where errors were made, participants across experiments were more likely to shoot unarmed White suspects than unarmed Black or Hispanic suspects, and were more likely to fail to shoot armed Black suspects than armed White or Hispanic suspects. In sum, this research found that participants displayed significant bias favoring Black suspects in their decisions to shoot.

Conclusions

The results of these three experiments challenge the results of less robust experimental designs and shed additional light on the broad issue of the role that status characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, play in the criminal justice system. Future research should explore the generalizability of these findings, determine whether bias favoring Black suspects is a consequence of administrative measures (e.g., education, training, policies, and laws), and identify the cognitive processes that underlie this phenomenon.