Evaluating the Child Abuse and Neglect Institute: Does Training Affect Decision‐Making?

Traditionally, training evaluations have focused on participants' satisfaction and self‐reported knowledge gain. The current study uses a different approach to evaluate the Child Abuse and Neglect Institute (CANI), a training program designed to educate judicial officers on best practices in child abuse and neglect cases. CANI participants were asked to review a case scenario and render decisions about the case before and after the trainings. Findings suggest CANI has several positive impacts on judicial decision‐making, including an increased willingness to engage the father, an increased focus on the child, and increased motivation to comply with the Indian Child Welfare Act.     

Regulating Public Services: How Public Managers Respond to External Performance Assessment

Performance management systems have become a key component of contemporary public administration. However, there has been only limited analysis of the social construction of performance by public managers who are subject to them. This article examines the ways in which public managers create, maintain, and disrupt performance management practices. The authors find that managers make external performance assessments perform for themselves by constantly negotiating boundaries in ways that combine bureaucratic and managerial rationales. The authors argue that the ways in which organizational boundaries are constructed are fundamental to understanding the success or failure of performance management systems and the transformation of managerial ways of thinking about performance into a logic of improvement through which contemporary public sector reforms become embedded.     

The impact of protective shields and videotape testimony on conviction rates in a simulated trial of child sexual abuse

In Experiment 1 mock jurors watched a videotape simulation of a sexual abuse trial that included a 10-year-old child witness testifying in one of three different modalities: (1) The child testified in court while directly confronting the defendant (open court condition). (2) The child testified in court with a protective shield placed between the child and the defendant (shield condition). (3) The child testified outside the courtroom and the child's testimony was presented to the jury and the defendant on a video monitor (video condition). The mock jurors judged the guilt of the defendant after watching the entire trial. The modality of the child's testimony had no impact on conviction rates. In Experiment 2 subjects watched the same trial that was used in Experiment 1. The trial was stopped immediately after the child testified (the child was the first witness to take the stand), and subjects judged the guilt of the defendant. The modality of the child's testimony had a significant impact on conviction rates. Subjects in the open court condition were more likely to convict the defendant than subjects in the shield and videotape conditions. These findings are relevant to Supreme Court decisions regarding the use of protective devices with child witnesses.     

Social integration: Approaches and issues

The World Summit for Social Development, to be held in Copenhagen in March 1995, will consider three closely inter-related themes: decreasing poverty, reducing unemployment, and enhancing social integration. With the support of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has been mobilising its worldwide network of scholars, activists, and development practitioners to promote reflection on major social issues, channel new information and ideas into the Summit preparatory process, and build public support for a successful Summit. To illustrate some of this work, we reproduce below the Summary of a Briefing Paper written by Cynthia Hewitt de Alcántara.     

The Ethics of Justice and Good Governance in African Traditional Society

The aim of this paper is two-fold: to retrieve African democratic rationalism using the Igbo schematic; based on this, to challenge the feasibility of liberal democracy as a veritable model for justice and good governance, irrespective of the ecological specificity and historical lessons of Africa. In this context, the paper examines the ethics of justice and good governance in Igbo traditional society.     

Rethinking local political leadership

The changing nature of local political leadership in Britain over the past 25 years has received scant attention from political scientists. This article argues that changes in the roles and functions of local authorities have had a marked impact on the nature of local political leadership. Three phases (operational, transitional and collaborative) are identified and leadership roles are related to changes in the political context of local government. The fundamental tasks of leadership have not changed but what has changed is the balance or relative emphasis between them and the way they have been interpreted. While elected local authorities cannot ignore the implications of the changed external agenda – notably the advent of new forms of executive leadership – the way they respond still bears the mark of the local political culture.