They Were Getting High on What? Evaluating Novel Psychoactive Drug Knowledge Among Practitioners

Novel psychoactive drugs (NPDs) such as synthetic marijuana, bath salts, and salvia have increasingly entered into the American drug landscape. As law enforcement, researchers, and policy makers attempt to better understand, regulate, and detect these novel substances, other practitioners invested in drug abuse prevention and treatment may lack the knowledge to adequately handle patients and adolescents abusing NPDs. The current study employs interviews with 64 practitioners employed in positions that interact with potential recreational substance users in southeast Georgia in order to assess NPD knowledge, placing particular emphasis on those 22 respondents employed in public health, healthcare, or educational roles. Findings indicate that knowledge about NPDs among medical and educational practitioners is lacking, much of the information they ‘know’ is inaccurate, and that practitioners clearly recognize a need for NPD training. We discuss these findings relative to their broader impact on treatment and prevention programs.     

Reading for Life and Adolescent Re‐Arrest: Evaluating a Unique Juvenile Diversion Program

We present results of an evaluation of Reading for Life (RFL), a diversion program for nonviolent juvenile offenders in a medium‐sized Midwestern county. The unique program uses philosophical virtue theory, works of literature, and small mentoring groups to foster moral development in juvenile offenders. Participants were randomly assigned to RFL treatment or a comparison program of community service. The RFL program generated large and statistically significant drops in future arrests. The program was particularly successful at reducing the recidivism of more serious offenses and for those groups with the highest propensity for future offenses.     

Congressional dysfunction: An information processing perspective

The public's approval of Congress is at an all time low. The parties seem to have taken the legislative process hostage for their own electoral gain. Whereas traditional arguments about congressional dysfunction focus on polarized voting coalitions or outputs – particularly legislation – in this article we highlight congressional information processing and how it has changed in this highly partisan era. By coding congressional hearings according to the kind of information on which they focus, we find that members of Congress are receiving one‐sided information to a greater degree and are spending less time learning about potential solutions. We use these results to make numerous recommendations for improving how Congress gathers its information.     

College Guidance for All: A Randomized Experiment in Pre‐College Advising

Pre‐college advising programs exist in most disadvantaged high schools throughout the United States. These programs supplement traditional advising by high school guidance counselors and attempt to help underrepresented and disadvantaged students overcome the complexities of the postsecondary admission and financial aid processes. Existing evidence on these programs often uses within‐school randomization where spillovers and alternative supports may confound estimates. We provide the first evidence on a whole school intervention resulting from a school‐level randomized controlled trial in the United States. The college access program we study uses a near‐peer model where a recent college graduate works at the school assisting students in the application and enrollment process. Pooled results across the first three years of program implementation find no significant impacts on overall college enrollment. However, subgroup analyses reveal positive, significant effects among the groups most targeted by the intervention: Hispanic and low‐income students. Most of the impact comes through increasing two‐year college enrollment, but this appears to be new entrants rather than inducing students to move from four‐year to two‐year colleges. The observed positive effects for these subgroups attenuate over time. We attribute this drop in the estimated impact to departures in fidelity of the experiment. Even among the cohorts for which we find positive enrollment impacts, we find no significant impacts on college persistence.     

The Contentious American Debate: The First Amendment and Internet-based Hate Speech

This essay reviews the debate over what constitutes hate speech and whether or not such speech is protected by the American First Amendment. First, the concept of white racialism and white supremacy is defined and illustrated. Then after a brief discussion of the legal debate, the nature and problematic definition(s) of hate speech is presented. The unique speech environment of the internet is reviewed alongside attempts to limit and censor topics available on the internet. The arguments for and against restricting first amendment protection are discussed, with a focus on Michael Israel's five criteria for withdrawing first amendment protections. The work concludes with a discussion of the difficulty in constraining discourse on the internet.     

Power and Paradox: Asian Geopolitics and Sino-American Relations in the 21 Century

The pattern of Asian geopolitics can be examined by employing three analytical perspectives. The first employs East Asia and the vigorous debate over the meaning of the rise of China as an intellectual prism to observe the currents of geopolitical continuity and change that are currently abroad in the Asian region. The second explores the extent to which the interacting forces of geopolitics and military modernization foster the rise of new force projection capabilities that may affect the strategic environment in Asia—particularly in East Asia. Here, the focus is mainly on the arsenals of the three indigenous Asian giants, China, Japan and India, all of whom have developed, or are in the process of developing, significant air and maritime assets whose operations have the potential to intersect in East and South East Asia. Russia is not as much a presence because it no longer possesses its powerful Soviet-era Pacific Fleet and has, in essential respects, retreated to its traditional role as a Eurasian land power.¹ The third examines the future of Sino-American relations in Asia in the context of the debate over China's ascent and U. S. decline—a discussion that has intensified since the implosion of the U.S. financial system in 2008 and the onset of the worst global recession since the 1930s.     

Improving the Health Coverage of the Rural Poor: Does Contracting-Out Mobile Medical Teams Work?

Low population density in rural developing countries coupled with deficient infrastructure, weak state capacity and limited budgets makes increasing health care coverage difficult. Contracting-out mobile medical teams may be a helpful solution in this context. This article examines the impact of a large-scale programme of this type in Guatemala. We document large impacts on immunisation rates for children and prenatal care provider choices. The programme increased substantially the role of physician and nurses at the expense of traditional midwives. The results indicate that mobile medical teams substantially increased coverage of health care services in Guatemala, and could be effective in other developing countries.