POLICY FOR THE'DESERVING,'BUT POLITICALLY WEAK: THE 1996 WELFARE REFORM ACT AND BATTERED WOMEN

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public Law #104–193) is perhaps the most visible national legislation since the sweeping Civil Rights laws of the 1960s. For social policy so well entrenched into the American social fabric, the rapidity with which reforms swept through the welfare system was unprecedented and confound conventional theoretical pronouncements on bureaucracy and policy change. The swiftness of reform, and the political rhetoric that surrounded the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, have prompted criticism that reformers responded more to the social construction of welfare recipients than they did to the dictates of sound public policy (Magusson and Dunham, 1996). This article discusses the ramifications of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act for battered women and concludes that battered women's social construction as deserving of public assistance, but politically weak, precipitated welfare reform policy, targeted to battered women, that has been largely rhetorical rather than substantive.     

Latent Print Proficiency Testing: An Examination of Test Respondents,Test-Taking Procedures,and Test Characteristics

Proficiency testing is a key component of quality assurance programs within crime laboratories and can help improve laboratory practices. However, current proficiency testing procedures contain significant limitations and can be misinterpreted by examiners and court personnel (Garrett & Mitchell, 2018). To evaluate some of these limitations, we surveyed latent print examiners (n = 198) after they completed a Collaborative Testing Services, Inc. proficiency test. Additionally, we evaluated test performance and used a quality metric algorithm to evaluate the quality of test prints. Results do not suggest that respondents are dissimilar to the broader examiner population, although they may engage in different behaviors when completing tests versus casework. Findings show that proficiency testing contains prints of high quality and is perceived as both relatively easy and representative of casework. The test discriminated between inexperienced and experienced respondents, and verification procedures were largely ineffective in reducing errors. Objective quality metrics may provide a path forward to improving proficiency testing in a measurable manner.     

Privadentiality: Developing a Coherent Framework for Establishing Communication Protections in Family and Child Protection Dispute Resolution Methods

The emergence of innovative family and child protection dispute resolution (DR) methods has resulted in a varying array of communication protections. Review of these communication protections in the United States reveals a lack of consistency and clarity within each form of DR, and no clear policy to guide the development of the different communication protections across the spectrum of DR methods. This article proposes a new term, privadentiality, to describe communication protections which may be provided for a wide range of DR methods and a framework for categorizing DR methods in order to develop more consistent and appropriate communication protections across the spectrum of DR. This article concludes with recommendations to improve party and professional understanding of DR communication protections; protect families from escalating conflict; promote the integrity of DR methods; and enable courts to appropriately review and, where appropriate, approve DR outcomes.     

Civil Rights,Federalism, and the Administrative Process: Favorable Outcomes by Federal,State, and Local Agencies in Housing Discrimination Complaints

Some theorists argue that cooperative intergovernmental relations are critical to policy implementation in the United States. This assertion is explored in the context of fair housing enforcement by comparing favorable administrative outcomes in fair housing complaints at the federal, state, and local levels from 1989 to 2004. What conclusions can be drawn from this systematic comparison of intergovernmental enforcement in one policy area over an extended period of time? First, cooperative federalism works well in fair housing enforcement. Second, of special significance, state civil rights agencies resolve complaints in favor of complainants nearly as often as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and localities sometimes do so even more frequently.     

Legal clarity and regulatory discretion exploring the law and economics of insider trading in derivatives markets

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. Key points

• Unspecified boundaries in the commodities, derivatives,and securities law have not only increased the discretion ofindividual regulatory authorities, but have also resulted inexpanded and often overlapping assertions of jurisdiction bythe Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity FuturesTrading Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,and other authorities.
• The Securities and Exchange Commissionhas recently sought to expand its jurisdiction into the derivativesmarkets to seek registration of hedge funds and other usersof derivatives and commodity futures as investment advisors,and to seek to apply its insider trading laws broadly to thevarious assets traded by funds.
• Financial institutions, intermediaries,and end users are increasingly being asked to demonstrate theeconomic or business purpose of their financial transactionsand their trading practices to ensure their legitimacy and avoidregulatory scrutiny.
• Compliance and litigation costs have predictablyrisen in this environment, in part due to the . . . [Full Text of this Article]