Life Constraints and Psychological Well-Being of Domestic Violence Shelter Graduates

Psychosocial adjustment and life constraints of 81 domestic violence shelter graduates were examined via field interviews in the community, assessing womens current life status, satisfaction with core life domains, and violence experience, pre- and post-shelter. Psychometric scales for depression and trauma symptoms were also administered. Participants had received extensive services in either an emergency or a transitional living shelter. Although fairly satisfied across life domains, many had serious post-shelter financial hardships. Most importantly, they reported remarkably little post-shelter violence exposure, either within or outside of romantic relationships. Despite now living independently, 43% and 75% reported clinical levels of depression and trauma symptoms, respectively. In hierarchical stepwise regressions, depression was related to womens childhood sexual abuse, dissatisfaction with housing and their own parenting, and experience of financial difficulties conjoined with public assistance. Trauma symptoms were associated with childhood sexual abuse and post-shelter financial difficulties. The impaired psychosocial functioning and life difficulties of these predominantly successful domestic violence survivors highlights the need for specialized shelter intervention and continuity of care in the community.     

Psychological Distress of Children and Mothers in Domestic Violence Emergency Shelters

Abused mothers and their school-aged children who recently entered domestic violence emergency shelters were assessed by individual interview and psychometric measures. Children had positiveviews of the shelter residence. Mothers and children reported high-quality relationships with eachother. Children came from highly violent homes, and the majority had attempted to intervene in theinteradult violence. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted on child PTSD symptoms, child behavior problems, and maternal depression, anxiety, and anger. Child PTSD symptoms were associated with amount of physical violence. Child behavioral problems were related to mother anxiety andanger. The predictors of maternal emotional distress varied. Depression was associated with sexualabuse, child physical intervention, and quality of mother–child relationship; anxiety was related to witnessing child abuse, child age, and child internalizing behaviors; anger was associated with abuse-related injuries, violence frequency, and child internalizing behaviors. Augmentationof shelter-based interventions for children's trauma, maternal emotional distress, and parenting are discussed.     

Temporal Linkages in Violent and Nonviolent Criminal Activity

Research on the temporal distribution of criminal behavior has highlighted two distinct mechanisms—population heterogeneity and state dependence. Most of this work indicates that long-term patterns of criminal offending reflect a mixture of stable individual differences and the causal effect of life events and experiences. Yet several ambiguities remain. Among the most important of these problems is whether both population heterogeneity and state dependence processes operate for different types of offending. We use longitudinal official record and self-report data for violent and non-violent offending activity from the Rochester Youth Development Study to address these ambiguities.     

B: Reviews: review articles

THE OTTOMAN GULF: THE CREATION OF KUWAIT, SAUDI ARABIA AND QATAR. By Frederick F. Anscombe. New York, Columbia University Press, 1997. 270 pp., maps, $21.00/£14.00 (pb), $55.00/£38.00 (hb).

THE BLOOD‐RED ARAB FLAG: AN INVESTIGATION INTO QASIMI PIRACY, 1797–1820. By Charles E. Davies. Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 1997. 453 pp., illustrations, maps, £40.00.

THE POLITICS OF REGIONAL TRADE IN IRAQ, ARABIA AND THE GULF, 1745–1900. By Hala Fattah. SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East (11). Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1997. 254 pp., maps.

AN OTTOMAN CENTURY: THE DISTRICT OF JERUSALEM IN THE 1600s. By Dror Ze'evi, edited by Jere Bacharach. SUNY Series in Medieval History. Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1996. xii + 258 pp.

FABRICATING ISRAELI HISTORY: THE ‘NEW HISTORIANS’. By Efraim Karsh. London and Portland, Frank Cass, 1997. 210 pp., £25.00 (hb).

ISLAM AND MODERNITY: MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS RESPOND. Edited by John Cooper, Ronald Nettler and Mohammed Mahmoud. London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 1998. xii + 228 pp., £39.50.

DEFINING ISLAM FOR THE EGYPTIAN STATE: MUFTIS AND FATWAS OF THE DAR AL‐IFTA. By Jakob Skovgaard‐Petersen. Leiden, New York and Koln, Brill, 1997. vii + 420 pp.

CIVIL SOCIETY, DEMOCRACY AND THE MUSLIM WORLD. Edited by Elisabeth Özdalga and Sune Persson. (Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul Transactions Vol. 7.) Richmond, Curzon Press, 1997. 143 pp., £15.00.

CIVIL SOCIETY IN YEMEN: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ACTIVISM IN MODERN ARABIA. By Sheila Carapico. (Cambridge Middle East Studies 9.) Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998. 256 pp., map, 14 tables, £35.00.     

Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs

While some recent evidence suggests that more decentralizationis associated with reduced corruption, no empirical work hasexamined whether different types of decentralization havedifferential effects on corruption. The theoretical literaturehas emphasized that expenditure decentralization will only beeffective if accompanied by the devolution of revenuegeneration to local governments. In this paper we examine thishypothesis empirically, by studying the mismatch betweenrevenue generation and expenditure in U.S. states. Largerfederal transfers are associated with higher rates ofconviction for abuse of public office, supporting the theorythat soft-budget constraints created by federal transfers arepotentially problematic.     

Partisanship and principle: Voters and the New Zealand electoral referendum of 1993

Abstract. In a two–stage referendum process, in 1992 and 1993, New Zealand voters authorised a radical change from a plurality electoral system to proportional representation. Although ad hoc groups, not the major political parties, led the debate for and against the change, the nature of the issue ensured that partisanship had a strong effect on voters' choices. Yet many voters were also guided by their political principles and values, including fairness of representation on one side, and preference for single–party, decisive governments on the other. Experience of proportional representation since 1996 has resulted in a fairly high level of uncertainty toward electoral change, independent of partisanship. Values and partisanship, however, remain the two stabilising influences.     

Community Development Block Grant Spending Revisited: Patterns of Benefit and Program Institutionalization

This article analyzes Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)spending by local governments between 1988–1992. We addressfour issues examining actual expenditure patterns in a smallcentral city and five satellite cities in Michigan: changesin CDBG expenditure patterns; levels of social targeting; theextent of institutionalization of expenditure patterns; andthe level of privatization of CDBG spending. We conclude thatwhile spending for housing and public works is related to thefiscal health of cities, expenditures for economic developmentand social services are related to political characteristics.Further, local governments exceed federal social targeting guidelines.Finally, while there is little privatization, the communitiesstudied evidence modest levels of program innovation in thelater years of the CDBG program.     

Benefit estimation goes to court: The case of natural resource damage assessments

This article evaluates the feasibility of performing natural resource damage assessments under the current Superfund legislation. Using the analyses developed for two recent cases, it explains the sources of the substantial divergences between plaintiffs' and defendants' estimates of these damages. Three factors explain the differences in damage estimates: (1) the time horizon used and treatment of capitalization effects of past damages; (2) the extent of the market assumed in estimating the effects of a release of hazardous wastes on the demand for the affected natural resource; and (3) the character and availability of substitutes for the resource involved.     

Promoting small business through public-sector technology transfer

It is generally concluded that small businesses are the most effective institutional mechanism for the execution of technological innovation in the United States. Federal legislation provides for special considerations to be rendered to small businesses when public-sector technology is to be transferred to the private sector. Nevertheless, the activities of many federal laboratories lag in the transfer of technology to small businesses relative to large businesses. This paper examines the reasons for the current low level of interaction between federal laboratories and small businesses including the constraints typically encountered in working with small businesses. Recommendations are made to enhance the lab/small-business relationship. Finally, a sample program at Sandia National Laboratory for assistance to small businesses is described.     

Coercive versus cooperative policies: Comparing intergovernmental mandate performance

Cooperative policies hold out promise of an improvement over coercive mandates as ways to enhance implementation of intergovernmental programs. By treating subordinate governments as regulatory trustees and emphasizing substantive compliance, the cooperative mandates avoid the onerous aspects of heavy-handed regulatory federalism. Our comparison of state hazard-mitigation policy in Florida and in New South Wales, Australia addresses procedural and substantive compliance under the two forms of intergovernmental policies. When local governments are not committed to state policy objectives, the coercive policy produces better results as evidenced by higher rates of procedural compliance and greater effort by local governments to achieve policy objectives. When local government commitment exists, the cooperative policy produces substantive results that are at least the equivalent to the coercive policy. Moreover, over the long run cooperative policies may have greater promise in sustaining local government commitment. The dilemma is to figure out how to motivate lagging jurisdictions that seem to require a coercive policy, while not straightjacketing leading jurisdictions that are capable of thriving under a cooperative regime.