The Massachusetts Task Force on Secure Facilities: An Examination of the Issue of Security in a Community-Based System of Juvenile Corrections

Authors' note: This article reviews the findings of the Massachusetts Task Force on Secure Facilities' Final Report “The Issue of Security in a Community-Based System of Juvenile Corrections,” L. Scott Harshbarger, Chairman (1977), and includes the comments of the authors which do not necessarily represent the official position of the Task Force.     

Procedural fairness and organizational commitment under conditions of growth and decline

We surveyed employees from seven relocating firms undergoing either an expansion or decline. Employees' judgments of procedural fairnes regarding the decision procedures used to implement the change showed a stronger effect on normative commitment for sites undergoing decline than for those undergoing growth. Procedural fairness concerns therefore seem to be more important to employees experiencing organizational decline. The finding has implications for research and for the management of organizational decline.     

Socialist humanism and the problem of crime

Crime is understood as a problem of human existence. Assumed is the intersubjectivity of social reality, and the need for an interdisciplinary and integrative approach to criminology. Along the way, a consideration of (1) the relativity of things human, (2) the modes of having and being in contemporary society, (3) the interdependence of all things, and (4) the way of peace. The ideas of Erich Fromm are germane to our thinking in the development of a peacemaking criminology.     

Contract discipline: In search of principles in the control of contracting power

The justness and the efficiency of contracts will depend on the effectiveness of contract discipline. This disciplin will be most effective when contractors have a good range of alternatives to choose from and when they ca make those choices on the basis of good information about the alternatives. This notion of contract disciplin is used in this paper as the basis for reviewing the coherence and effectivenss of judicial attempts to control con tracting behavior in the United Kingdom. It is suggested that the legal analysis of contract needs to be reorientate toward an exploration of the sources of contract indiscipline in the many highly imperfect markets in the real world     

Reputational inmate leaders: Some comparative contact patterns

A small number of studies have presented data on the sociolegal correlates of inmate leadership. These studies have based their results on traditional designs of data collection, including official records and interview questionnaires. The literature has not captured reciprocal contact patterns between inmate leaders and followers, nor has research addressed the question of how leaders differ from nonleader inmates on behavioral dynamics. This article presents the results of a videotaping procedure which captures leader contact patterns in task-related decision making. The general findings support the behavioral leadership studies performed on noninmate populations and suggest that leadership is a transcendental quality which cannot be explained by the functional model of inmate subculture.