An exploratory study of social class and energy issues

This paper analyzes the relationship between a Marxian class measure based upon individuals' relations to the means of production and three types of survey items dealing with energy and conservation issues; knowledge items, attitude items, and items concerned with behavioral change. We also compare the relationship between three commonly used measures of socioeconomic status (SES) (family income, personal income, and education) and these same items regarding energy and conservation. In this manner we attempt to determine whether a particular Marxian class measure can provide insights in this issue area which are not provided by the traditional measures of SES. Contrary to previous research, our major finding is that the three traditionally accepted indicators of SES are related to many more energy and conservation items than is our measure of Marxian class.The authors are engaged in a series of collaborative articles. The order in which our names appear in these works is rotated.     

An Investigation of the Characteristics of Local Governmental Units Disclosing High Deposit and Investment Credit Risk as Defined by Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 3

As a result of severe financial losses by local governments in the mid-1980s due to falling interest rates, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 3 was issued. The GASB No. 3 provides information for assessing a government's actual and future deposit, investment market, and credit risks. This article investigates the number of governments disclosing deposits and investments in the high risk category and determines if there are common characteristics among those reporting high risk deposits and investments.     

British Abortion Law: Speaking from the Past to Govern the Future

This paper analyses the poor alignment of the aging statutory framework and modern understandings of medical best practice in the context of abortion services. With a particular focus on medical abortion, it assesses the significant challenges that the gulf between the two poses for clinicians, service providers, regulators and the courts. Law is said to be at its most effective where there is a shared regulatory community that accepts and endorses the values that underpin it. It is suggested that the example of abortion law provides a marked example of what happens when legal norms once justified by broadly shared moral understandings, concerns for patient safety and requirements of best practice are now either unsupported by or, indeed, sit in opposition to such concerns.     

Unmarried Fathers and Parental Responsibility: A Case for Reform?

Following a Consultation exercise conducted by the Lord Chancellor's Department, the U.K. Government has announced its intention to amend the Children Act 1989 so that the unmarried father who jointly registers the birth with the mother will acquire parental responsibility automatically. In this paper, I draw on the responses made to the L.C.D. Consultation, in order critically to evaluate the arguments for and against reform. A poverty of relevant empirical research makes it impossible to reach a properly informed view on the positive or negative impacts of implementing the proposal. However, the principled arguments: that unmarried fathers and their children are subject to discrimination, or that it is unfair for men to pay child support, yet have no automatic rights with regard to their children, are ultimately unconvincing. I also attempt a more explicitly sociological exploration of the Consultation and reform process, focusing on what it can tell us about evolving social attitudes towards the statuses of `father' and `family' and how they should be valued and protected.     

Three Faces of Justice and the Management of Change

The apparatus of legal principles we use has, far more than we realise, transformed the way we think about the control of private power in the name of social justice. The actual sort of equity that the legal and political system is searching for is not reflected in our major political theories, nor indeed in the official rhetoric of many such systems themselves. The reason for this mismatch has to do with the need to accomodate change – a space opened by the law and unacknowledged by theory.
This article sets out the current theoretical frameworks within which the regulation of private power is analysed, and it contrasts these with a different approach to the problem of justice at work in employment and corporate law that does not find its way into theory. Once that approach is given a formulation, its place within a larger theory of justice is proposed, and its wider implications for the relationship between state and civil society are investigated.     

An economic analysis of the in-prison therapeutic community model on prison management costs

This study estimated the impact of an in-prison, therapeutic community (TC) substance abuse treatment program on management costs in a California prison. A deconstruction method was developed to estimate the opportunity cost of staff time and other resources involved in various prison administrative tasks. Compared to “non-treatment” yards within the facility, the TC environment generated lower administrative costs for disciplinary actions, inmate grievances, and major disruptive incidents resulting in lockdowns. These findings suggest that, in addition to their intended rehabilitative outcomes, prison-based TCs may foster institutional environments that help to control prison management costs.