Expediting Permanency through Community Decision‐Making

Permanency for children has taken on a renewed urgency since passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. This article describes the process of building a community approach to using alternative dispute resolution for expediting permanency, and reports on the initiative's progress to date. Expediting Permanency through Community Decision‐Making, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services‐funded demonstration project, is simultaneously building community collaboration around the specific issue of permanency and establishing alternative dispute resolution models as a key component of permanency planning services. Lessons learned from implementation are instructive for others embarking on a community response to the demands of ASFA.     

Ensuring Fairness and Justice for Noncitizen Survivors of Domestic Violence

Immigrant women who are abused face multiple barriers to seeking legal protection from the abuse. In many cases, immigrant women are unaware of the protections afforded noncitizens by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and subsequent immigration laws. They may assume that noncitizens cannot access legal remedies or may fear deportation from being exposed as a noncitizen. These and other barriers such as language access and misinformation about U.S. laws about violence further shift the burden to judges, attorneys, and advocates to ensure that immigrant women are not underserved. The courts must also be aware of the consequences for noncitizens who perpetrate domestic violence. This article will provide a comprehensive overview of issues facing the courts when noncitizens are petitioners, respondents, or both in domestic violence cases, including a discussion of findings that can be made for immigrant survivors of domestic violence.     

The Quest for Recompense: Claimants' Experience of Medical Negligence Compensation in Victoria,Australia*

This paper reports a study investigating the experiences of people who perceived that they had suffered a health or medical care injury in Victoria, Australia. A particular focus was their experience with the process of seeking compensation. The research strategy involved a preliminary questionnaire and in-depth interviewing of the participants and, where possible, their families. We describe the type of injury reported by the participants, experiences with health care providers and lawyers and attitudes to the current system of compensation. The severity of injury sustained by these participants was often severe, involving permanent incapacity and psychological distress. We conclude that the quest for recompense is fraught with difficulties for claimants. The present system of compensation neither provides adequate financial compensation nor - even where claimants are successful - acknowledgement of the legitimacy of their claim.     

The Problems of a Multi-Racial Society in Central Africa

The following address was given by the president of the NorthernRhodesia Mines African Staff Association at a joint meetingof the Royal African Society and the Royal Commonwealth Societyon July 23, 1958. Earl De La Warr, President of the Royal CommonwealthSociety, took the chair.     

The Appointment of Rapporteurs in the European Parliament

Committee rapporteurs are central to decision making in many multiparty legislatures. It is not clear, however, whether these rapporteurs are best characterized as partisan animals or technical experts seeking consensus in nonmajoritarian institutions. We addressed this question by examining which members of the European Parliament become repeat rapporteurs. Using an original dataset comprising all committee reports from the 4th and 5th European Parliaments (1994–2004), we found that the report allocation process provides a way to pursue partisan policy goals within a multiparty, consensual institution that rewards both coalition building and expertise.     

DODGY KEBABS EVERYWHERE? VARIETY OF WORLDVIEWS AND REGULATORY CHANGE

In the study of risk regulation, grid-group cultural theory has attracted considerable interest. There has, however, been a lack of a systematic interest in its claims and in methodological issues. In this article, we present five claims that are drawn from cultural theory and assess them in the light of failure in meat inspections in Germany. These claims are assessed through the analysis of argumentation as recorded in newspapers. In the light of its empirical findings, this article argues that the claims and methodology employed offer a promising avenue for further work to investigate the usefulness of this particular theoretical approach.