Improving the quality of drug court clinical screening: a call for performance measurement policy reform

Despite the widespread use of the drug court model, standardized performance measures for drug courts are not uniformly utilized, and rarely include process measures. To ensure that drug courts are being implemented in the most effective manner, the use of performance measurement tools should be considered for wide scale adoption. Drug court effectiveness is moderated by participant characteristics, and is most effective for individuals with the highest substance use needs. Therefore, having quality clinical screening processes is crucial to ensuring that drug courts are serving the population for which they are effective. This paper examines clinical screening in drug courts, to answer the following 1) what is the current state of screening, 2) what works, and 3) why measurement matters. It also proposes a clinical screening performance measure to improve fidelity and ensure appropriate participant enrollment. The creation of a performance measure would create opportunities to improve drug court outcomes, and leverage pay-for-performance models.     

德尔菲法在构建政府绩效指标体系中的应用——以乡镇政府为例

评价指标是政府绩效评价的关键要素。咨询专家的选择、初始指标集的确定和咨询问卷的拟订以及进行多轮征询和数据处理是应用德尔菲法构建政府绩效指标体系过程中的关键环节。应用德尔菲法构建政府绩效评价指标体系的一般方法,如以乡镇政府为例,选取50位专家进行三轮征询,获得由37个指标构成的乡镇政府绩效评价指标体系,对中国政府绩效评价(或类似于绩效评价)活动具有参考意义。     

地方政府绩效考评的人文GDP指标体系初探

党的十六届三中全会提出了全面、协调、可持续的科学发展观和构建和谐社会,这是我们党对社会主义现代化建设指导思想的新发展。因此,我们既要注重地方政府经济GDP和绿色GDP的增长,又要注重实现地方政府四个GDP(经济GDP、绿色GDP、人文GDP和人力GDP)的全面发展,同时,尤其要将人文GDP纳入考评轨道并建立科学的指标体系。     

电子政务与政府绩效评估——基于W市Q区电子绩效管理平台的实证分析

电子绩效管理平台是公共管理中一项崭新的研究议题,其关键在于以信息化工具取代传统的手工操作,创新绩效评估指标,完善绩效评估过程,精确反映绩效评估结果。电子绩效管理的出现蕴含了当代公共行政的重要变革与公共服务范围的扩展,本文依据电子绩效管理的应有含义,检视实际案例,分析实践中电子政务与政府绩效评估的契合程度,并评价电子绩效管理平台的实际效用与推广价值,揭示电子绩效管理在实践中的良好应用前景以及有待深入完善的领域。     

关于干股型受贿研究的新思路

干股型受贿的危害性已经呈现,随着《最高人民法院、最高人民检察院关于办理受贿刑事案件适用法律若干问题的意见》的颁布,对干股型受贿的惩治力度不断加强,理论与实践对干股型受贿的认识进一步深入和扩展,但特别要深入研究该种受贿犯罪的数额、既遂与未遂等的认定以及防治方式等问题。     

Police Manipulations of Crime Reporting: Insiders’ Revelations

Social scientists have theorized about the corruption of crime reports (Bayley, 1983; Campbell, 1976). Yet, scant empirical research has examined the impact of modern policing methods on the accuracy of crime reporting. Our research uses an anonymous survey of 1,770 retired New York City police officers examining retirees’ experiences with crime report manipulations across their years of retirement. This includes retirees from the community policing as well as police performance management eras. We subject the data to various statistical tests including tabular analysis, graphical trends to visualize the data, MANOVA, and logistic regression to explain report manipulations. Results indicate that the misuse of the performance management system and pressures on officers from management are key explanations for manipulating crime reports. Individual explanatory variables such as gender, educational status, rank, race, and marital status had no effect. Our research supports Bayley’s and Campbell’s theories. We recommend greater transparency to remedy this.     

商品房买卖预约合同强制履行的适用研究

对于商品房买卖预约合同强制履行的问题,理论界在争议过程中基本形成了"强制缔结本约-强制履行本约"的通说。但是该通说无法避免自身的缺陷,而且司法实务中肯定或否定商品房买卖预约合同强制履行的裁判立场并存,该争议并无真正的定论。通过选取样本,统计分析商品房买卖预约合同实务案例中体现出的违约方、违约原因、卖方和卖方的违约比例等,根据利益平衡和保护购房者一方的理念,应仅支持商品房买受人关于商品房买卖预约合同强制履行的主张,而房地产开发企业作为出卖人的情形,不支持其关于强制履行的请求。     

Patterns of democracy reconsidered: The ambiguous relationship between corporatism and consensualism

Arend Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy, similar to most of his work, elicited fierce scientific debate. This article replicates some of the analyses proposed in its second edition (published in 2012) in the light of the critiques received by the first edition (published in 2009). It primarily examines the relationship between institutional setup and interest group representation, disentangling the effect of consensualism from that of corporatism on issues such as macroeconomic performance and governance capabilities. The article further deepens our understanding of the complex causal mechanisms connecting these variables, proposing a more sophisticated empirical investigation that emphasises selection effects and conjunctural causation.     

Cheaper,better, and more accountable? Twenty‐five years of prisons privatisation in Victoria

Twenty‐five years after the Kennett government began privatising prisons, Victoria has the world's highest proportion of prisoners in private prisons. When the privatisation project began, it was confidently expected that privately managed prisons would be cheaper, better, and more accountable than traditional public sector provision. This paper examines whether those anticipated benefits have been realised. In doing so, we assess system‐wide operating costs, specific measures of performance, and accountability of the prison system between 1992 and 2017. Using publicly available data, we conclude temporary lower costs occurred but have not been sustained. Similarly, performance improvements are mixed, and enhanced accountability is contested. Although the performance information now available on Victoria's prisons is superior to what was available in the pre‐privatisation era, successive Victorian governments have also overseen arrangements that severely curtail dissemination of such data. This has restricted the capacity of Parliament and the public not only to hold government to account for the operations of the prison system, but also to evaluate the efficacy and impact of the prisons privatisation project. We conclude a more definitive assessment will only be possible when current limitations on accessing performance and other data are lifted enabling greater public scrutiny of Victoria's prison system.     

Community participation and local government capacity in Vietnam: Conditions for coproduction

With Public Administration Reform in Vietnam comes more local government responsibility for policy making. Building on the results of a multiple case study research on housing and infrastructure upgrading projects in four cities of Vietnam, it has been confirmed that the community participation and local government capacity in urban housing and infrastructure upgrading projects are positively related. The level of community participation in urban housing and infrastructure upgrading projects is influenced by local government capacity, and in turn, it has effects on the outcomes. There are some important aspects for the enhancement of the level of community participation. These are effective leadership, the financial resources aspect, and communication/information exchange. Moreover, based on the patterns of community participation in urban upgrading projects, it has been found that participation is strongly supported by government actors in these four cases, and a process of coproduction between the local government and the affected communities has taken place.