Prisons or Problem-Solving: Does the Public Support Specialty Courts?

ABSTRACT

Recently, “problem-solving” courts have been developed as an alternative to imprisonment. They are often called “specialty” courts because they process and divert into treatment programs offenders who are seen as different from the general criminal population, such as those with mental health or drug problems, those who are homeless or veterans, and those who engage in domestic violence. Based on a 2017 national survey of 1,000 respondents, the current study examines overall public support for rehabilitation as a goal of corrections and then focuses specifically on support for different types of specialty courts. The analysis reveals that the American public endorses not only the rehabilitative ideal but also the use of problem-solving courts. Further, with only minimal variation, strong support for these courts appears to exist regardless of political orientation and sociodemographic characteristics.     

Explaining economic growth in the Soviet Union, 1950–86

Production function estimates are provided for Soviet industrial production and gross national product for the period 1950–86. A variety of alternative specifications is tested, including Cobb-Douglas, constant elasticity of substitution and variable elasticity of substitution production functions, and an error correction mechanism is used to investigate the long-run properties of the estimated equation. The structural stability of the estimates is also examined. Constant-returns-to-scale Cobb-Douglas production functions suggest that the rate of total factor productivity growth in the Soviet economy has declined steadily over time, becoming negative sometime in the period between 1970 and 1980. However the extensive statistical tests can doubt on the validity of any production function estimated on Soviet data.     

The Australian Welfare State: Has Federalism Made a Difference?

This paper examines the historical development of the Australian welfare state with a view to identifying the role that Australia's federal constitutional arrangements have played in shaping that development. Theoretical paradigms have been unanimous in their prognoses: that federal states are likely to be slow in developing welfare state programmes and typically spend less on them than unitary states. But recently it has been argued that federal institutions may have a “ratchet effect” of slowing down the pace of change, irrespective of its direction. The purpose of this chronological account of significant stages in the development of the Australian welfare state is to use the unfolding of historical events — far too rich in nuance and detail to be captured in quantitative modelling — as a test‐bed for establishing whether, and, if so, to what extent, federalism has impacted on the trajectory of Australian welfare state development.     

Crime Victimization: Assessing Differences Between Violent and Nonviolent Experiences

Experiencing a criminal victimization is among one of the most stressful human experiences. A cross-sectional study of victims of violent crime and victims of nonviolent crime suggests that there are statistically significant differences in experiences in the initial aftermath of the crime event and a few common effects. This article describes the common effects that are associated with criminal victimization in the context of intense distress and discusses the theoretical implications of well-being in the coping process. One hundred seventy-five victims of violent or nonviolent crime were interviewed. Implications for social work practice and theory and future research are delineated.     

Project USA: American competitiveness and what must be done to restore it

The United States today faces a loss of influence as a world power, a reduction in American independence as a policymaker, and a decline in the standard of living on which Americans have come to depend. History teaches that nations weaker and less productive than the United States can rise to become economic powerhouses and rapidly increase their standards of living. History also teaches that nations failing to recognize their fundamental problems will inevitably decline. American politicians must face what is abundantly clear: the United States is losing ground and must act quickly to reverse its course. This White Paper outlines what must be done. Information about the nation's current status must be analyzed and communicated. Incentives to improve the level of competence in government must be provided and maintained. The emphasis of government policy must be changed to reflect broad economic and technological interests as opposed to special interests. Savings must be encouraged and increased. Infrastructure must be improved Tax laws must be modified to help bring these changes about. Economic and technological issues must be elevated to the importance they require. American thinking must reflect the new realities: that the age of leadership through military power is over, that the requirements for success in the world of the 1990s and beyond require a sound and growing economy that is internationally competitive. The US can accomplish these goals only through foundation-shaking, comprehensive, fundamental changealong the lines we propose herein.This paper is the executive summary (with minor editing modifications) of a white paper that is available from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management.     

Transition from paper to paperless: DOD'S CALS system

When technology is transferred from one context to another, it is an established principle that innovation must take place. Even though a technology is well situated in one context, it must be adoptively redesigned for another. The sharper the difference in contexts, the greater the adaptation. This paper describes a program to transfer technology among a very diverse group of organizations: contractors to the US Department of Defense (DOD). Specifically, it describes how the technology of electronic communication, including electronic- data interchange (EDI), is being pursued by both the DOD and its supporters.     

How stable is party identification?

This essay refines and extends our argument (Green and Palmquist, 1990) that net of the distorting effects of measurement error, Americans' partisanship tends to be highly stable over time. Three challenges to this thesis are addressed. In response to doubts about the generalizability of our earlier findings to panel studies of longer duration or from other eras, we show that nine multi-wave panel studies yield similar results. Next, we take up the question of whether our model can account for observed patterns of partisan conversion. The rate of party-switching forces some modifications in the statistical assumptions used to model party identification over time, but a revised model which can account for inter-party change reproduces earlier findings of partisan stability. Third, we grapple with the question of how our findings square with fluctuations in what has been termed macropartisanship. We suggest that aggregate shifts in party identification need not be incompatible with strong over-time correlations at the individual level. Finally, we develop a simulation of micropartisanship to illustrate that over long stretches of time very gradual changes in partisanship can accumulate to produce appreciable levels of micropartisan change.Donald Philip Green, Yale University.Bradley Palmquist, Harvard University.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 3–6, 1992.