Criteria for developing performance measurement systems in the public sector

The United States Government is placing increased emphasis on the development of financial measures, and measures of program effectiveness. The authors discuss government efforts in these areas. Various approaches and criteria are presented for the development of performance measurement systems, as well as generic criteria for selecting performance indicators, and obstacles to the process. Experience indicates that development of a performance measurement system is best served by a strategic planning approach with top management support, active management participation in goal setting, a small manageable number of goals, a strong link with the budget process, and an independent evaluation process.     

Discriminators of types of recidivism among boot camp graduates in a five-year follow-up study

This was a five-year follow-up study of 572 male graduates of a boot camp in the South. The purpose was to determine what elements of life-course theory discriminated between four outcomes: (1) nonrecidivists, (2) recidivists with felonies, (3) technical parole violators, and (4) parole violators due to drugs. Findings indicated a relatively accurate classification of the first three outcomes.The discriminators between nonrecidivists and various types of recidivists in the study were indicators of informal social controls such as marriage, employment, children, and religiosity. Discriminators of felony recidivists were early sexual and physical abuse, gang membership, peer association, carrying a weapon, and early onset of crime. Discriminators associated with technical parole violation were attachment to female caregivers, self-esteem and self-efficacy, and perception that boot camp stimulated thinking about choices in life. The conceptual and policy implications of these findings are discussed in detail.     

Facing the Fear: A Free Market Approach for Economic Expression

Commentators differ on whether a diminished constitutional status for profit-driven speech is consistent with free speech theory. Most recently, the Supreme Court of the United States in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission largely embraced an unfettered marketplace approach for political speech financed by corporate treasuries. Given the harm a free market approach is said to have produced in the economic realm, is this approach useful for structuring the constitutional protection economic expression receives? This article discusses the placement of economic expression within First Amendment theory and contends that restrictions on economic speech should be aimed at combating deceptive economic activities while overall regulatory goals should focus on requirements that enrich the supply of accurate and timely information.     

Policy Coherence for Development and Securitisation: competing paradigms or stabilising North–South hierarchies?

Often treated as separate paradigms, the security-development nexus and the aid effectiveness agenda are analysed here instead as a continuum of aid policy responses that attempt to stabilise power relations in a contested and unstable international arena These responses are informed by a common commitment by western donor governments to neoliberal logic since the early 1980s. The article focuses on the discourse of policy coherence for development promoted by the DAC (Development Assistance Committee) of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), analysing it as the common vector of the two dimensions – effectiveness and security - of donor aid policy. By examining the emergence and transformations of the concept of coherence over the past two decades, it underlines the predominance of continuity over rupture in three successive phases of stabilisation (economic, political, security).