Forensic science and criminal justice: An analysis of curricular models

The multi-disciplinary field of forensic science frequently finds its academic home within criminal justice programs. After examining the reasons for this academic linkage, an analysis of criminal justice curricular models and courses was undertaken to assess their applicability to forensic science education and careers. The authors concluded that the relationship between criminal justice and forensic science can be mutually beneficial; however, most criminal justice programs do not provide adequate preparation for meaningful careers in forensic science.     

Ambiguity and conflict in sentencing research: Partial resolution through crime-specific analysis

Prior research on factors influencing sentence severity has produced ambiguous findings. To resolve some of this ambiguity, a crime-specific approach to data analysis is proposed and tested. The research sample consists of 468 convictions resulting from 619 indictments for the crimes of murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. Independent variables examined include seven offender and case-processing characteristics. The dependent variable, sentence severity, is measured first as a dichotomous variable (probation or prison) and then as an interval variable (prison-sentence length). After determining that crime type explains a significant proportion of the total variance in sentence severity, the dependent variables are then regressed on the variable list. Four regressions are performed for each dependent variable; the first analysis uses all cases in the sample, while the remaining analyses focus separately on the crimes of murder, assault, and robbery. The research indicates that the aggregate and crime-specific analyses produce substantively different results, both in terms of the factors found to influence sentence severity and the total amount of variance explained. Findings demonstrate the utility of crime-specific analysis.     

Predicting the effect of substance abuse treatment on probationer recidivism

Support for the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment to reduce substance use and recidivism among populations supervised by the criminal justice system continues to grow in substance abuse and criminal justice literature. Recent studies show that a variety of programs including the Breaking the Cycle program and drug courts appear to result in improved outcomes for offenders. In this paper, we examine the effect of non-residential substance abuse treatment on arrest. Our data are for almost 134,000 ‘drug-involved’ individuals sentenced to probation in Florida between July 1995 and June 2000. Nearly 52,000 of these individuals received non-residential substance abuse treatment, while 81,797 did not. Our approach is a methodologically simple one that entails stratifying our data by treatment status, estimating logit and negative binomial models of arrest for each of the two datasets, and then applying each model to both datasets. This approach, which requires that both groups include subjects for whom treatment is appropriate, is analogous to using regression models to predict outcomes for new values of independent variables. For each observation in the dataset, we use the models to predict the expected outcomes for each individual under two scenarios – receiving non-residential treatment and receiving no treatment. Summing over these individual estimates provides an estimate of the total numbers of arrests that would be expected under different levels of population exposure to treatment. Results suggest that non-residential treatment reduced both the expected numbers of individuals who recidivated (i.e., were arrested) and the expected total numbers of arrests in the 12 and 24 months following placement on supervision.**RTI is an independent organization dedicated to conducting innovative, multidisciplinary research that improves the human condition.     

The stability of stated preferences for public goods: Evidence from recent budget games

We have investigated the stability of the individual response in recent budget games based on survey data, which is an important requirement for the reliability of this instrument. Budget games have gained popularity due to the problems encountered with alternative methods to determine preferences for public goods, such as the analysis of actual public expenditure date using median-voter theory or similar approaches. The short-term test-retest correlations (within an interval of one month) turn out to be rather low, typical around 0.3. No explanation of the test-retest differences could be found from the usual socio-economic and political characteristics of the respondents or from information characteristics of the survey design. Also, the pattern of budget-game outcomes for different countries and different periods is rather similar. The cumulative evidence suggests that the survey response to budget games is generated to a large extent by very general notions on the (un)desirability of public goods: defence is bad, education and health care are good. This implies that outcomes are often not related to the actual level and structure of public expenditure or revenues. As a result, the individual responses, even to the more sophisticated budget games, are subject to large uncertainty margins. Our results should warn researchers and, even more important, policy makers against giving too much weight to stated preferences for public expenditure or taxation levels obtained from budget games. Of course, further research is needed to obtain the precise limits of the instrument, including laboratory experimental economics.     

Spending reviews and the Government of Canada: From episodic to institutionalized capabilities and repertoires

Following surges of spending and staff hiring to address the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trudeau government announced a strategic policy review in the 2022 Budget to secure savings of $6 billion. There has been little apparent progress by May 2023 and opaque communications. This is surprising because Canada was once considered an international exemplar for spending reviews, needs to learn from the pandemic experience, has a worrisome medium-to-long-term federal spending trajectory, and the governance and economic context has rapidly evolved. This article identifies different kinds of spending reviews and design considerations, reviews Canada's experience with reviews since the early 1980s, considers recent OECD experience and exemplars, and argues that its spending reviews have become increasingly selective and closed. We suggest the Canadian government should institutionalize annual spending reviews, which can be scaled up or down, and that this points to more fundamental issues for reform and building a new governance culture.     

Gender at Janaka’s Court: Women in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Reconsidered

The female characters in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad have generally been interpreted by scholars in two opposing fashions: as fictional characters whose historicity can be dismissed or as representative of actual women in ancient India. Both of these interpretations, however, overlook the literary elements of this text and the role that these female characters play within the larger philosophical debate. This paper is an analysis of the various women who appear in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and their role in this text. Close attention is paid to their characterizations, their relationship to the doctrine discussed, and their functions in the larger narrative structure. The paper concludes with a discussion about the relationship of narrative to history and fundamental problems with the “woman question” based on this text.