Youth justice conferencing and indigenous over-representation in the Queensland juvenile justice system: a micro-simulation case study

Restorative justice conferencing for young offenders is firmly established in Australian juvenile justice, and legislated conferencing schemes are operating in all Australian states and territories. While there is some variation in the terms used to describe restorative justice conferences (e.g., family group conferencing, family conferencing, or youth justice conferencing), there is much more consistency in how the conferencing process is managed across Australian jurisdictions. In Queensland youth justice conferencing is a process that brings together an offender, the victim and their supporters to discuss the harm caused by the offending behaviour and provide the young person with an opportunity to take responsibility for his or her behaviour and make amends. This paper begins by briefly sketching the development of restorative justice conferencing in Queensland and describes the Juvenile Justice Simulation Model (JJSM), a micro-simulation model developed for criminal justice policy analysis in Queensland, Australia. We use this micro-simulation model to conduct an experimental exploration of the effects that youth justice conferencing has on system-wide outcomes for indigenous young people. The model simulates the impact of interventions up until 2011 on the number of finalised youth justice court appearances. Our results indicate that youth justice conferencing is unlikely to reduce the over-representation of indigenous young people in the juvenile justice system. The simulations demonstrated that, by the 2011, youth justice conferencing would result in a 12.5% decrease in finalised court appearances. Unfortunately, this decrease was more apparent for non-indigenous young people (13.7% decrease in court appearances) than for indigenous young people, who had a 10.5% decrease in court appearances. This differential impact of conferencing is due to the different court appearance profiles between indigenous and non-indigenous young offenders, with indigenous young people initiating offending at an earlier age and offending more frequently than non-indigenous young offenders.     

Sexing of human clavicles using length and circumference measurements

Measurement of clavicular length and circumference, and computation of clavicular robustness and length-circumference product from 724 autopsied adults of known age, sex, and body length between the ages of 15 and 96 years produced useful sex-predictive values. This predominantly North American white population contained 560 males and 164 females with intact, nondeformed clavicles. Clavicle length and circumference and particularly their product have been found useful in sexing, but robustness as a single trait has not. Despite a significant overlap of male and female values, the use of single cutoff values allowed correct sex assignment of up to 93% of the entire study population, including 94% of males and 89% of females. The ratios of body length to clavicle circumference and to clavicle length are on average greater in women than in men. The former ratio yields male predictive values greater than 95% for those individuals with ratios falling below the cutoff value of 43, whereas the latter ratio is a relatively poor sex predictor.     

What does Brexit Tell Us about Our Understanding of European Identity?

This paper reports on a number of Eurobarometer surveys undertaken by the European Commission as a way of reflecting on Brexit and the challenges it poses to European identity. Our work with the surveys has been undertaken in the context of developing an educational game (RU EU?) which will explore European identity. European citizenship and identity have been strongly promoted by the EU but, while they appear to have been accepted at an elite level, the EU—and the UK in particular—have so far not constructed a narrative which has been supported by ‘ordinary’ citizens. Brexit has therefore exposed the failings of European elites in this regard. That said, there is some evidence that the complexities of Brexit have led to a strengthening of European identity in the other EU 27 countries.     

Administrative Growth and Grant Payouts in Nonprofit Foundations: Fulfilling the Public Good amid Professionalization?

The Tax Reform Act of 1969 remains the core governing policy for the U.S. foundation sector, primarily for its qualifying distributions mandate, which ensures a baseline spending of foundation assets toward charitable purposes. However, implementation of this policy required additional foundation administrative resources and contributed to significant professionalization of the foundation sector. This article focuses on the payout requirement's potential paradox of accountability, as administrative expenses can be counted toward fulfilling foundations’ qualifying distributions. Using a 14‐year panel of grantmaking foundations, the analysis seeks to understand whether professionalization, measured by operating and administrative expenses, contributes to or crowds out grantmaking. Findings indicate that professionalization of the foundation sector has a small yet practically and statistically significant positive association with foundation grantmaking. From a policy perspective, the current structure of the qualifying distributions mandate does not appear to lead to a crowding out of grant allocations as administrative expenses grow.     

Sex differences in the likelihood of arrest

Using data from the new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), this study analyzed the impact of a criminal offender's sex on the likelihood of arrest for 555,752 incidents of kidnapping, forcible rape, forcible fondling, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation in nineteen states and the District of Columbia during 2000. The data used in this study advanced the literature by enabling the authors to determine the likelihood of arrest for males and females based on sex-specific offending as reported by crime victims. Controlling for offense seriousness and a variety of other factors, logistic regression results showed that the probability of arrest for females was 28 percent lower for kidnapping, 48 percent lower for forcible fondling, 9 percent lower for simple assault, and 27 percent lower for intimidation than for males. A supplemental analysis also revealed that Black females had a higher probability of arrest than did White females for aggravated and simple assault. No discernable impact of an offender's sex on the prospect of arrest was noted for the crimes of forcible rape and robbery. Overall, these findings suggest that the lower arrest rate for females is partly the result of leniency shown women by law enforcement personnel.     

Trading with the Dragon: Chinese trade,investment and development assistance in the Pacific Islands

Chinese development assistance, raw material exploitation, investment and trade increases in their region are causing Pacific Islanders to ask: ‘Why are the Chinese interested in Pacific Island states?’ and ‘Why has there been an upsurge of the Chinese influence in the Pacific?’. This article seeks to add to the debate on that issue by examining the nature and the evolving purpose of Chinese engagement with the small island states of the Pacific. Only a small proportion of China's outbound investment goes to the Pacific Islands, but it has a considerable effect on the region's economically dependent states. Pacific Island nations have a pressing need for overseas investment and are highly dependent on development assistance. They are, therefore, particularly vulnerable to external players.