Unconditional Intergovernmental Transfers to Finance Decentralization in Albania

The Government of Albania embarked on a comprehensive program to decentralize decision‐making powers with the passage of the Law on Organization and Functioning of Local Governments in 2000. A centerpiece of the policies undertaken to implement that legislation was an unconditional transfer program which, using a formula‐based allocation mechanism, transferred substantial financial resources to the local communes and municipalities beginning in 2002. This paper describes that system and its evolution. It illustrates how the transfer was designed to take into account the transition from a centralized system to a decentralized arrangement for provision of local public services and how the formula has undergone some “fine‐tuning” while retaining its simplicity. Analysis of the outcomes reveals how it has achieved its mandated objective of equalizing resources across local governments; however, it does so while running the risk of substantially discouraging local governments from mobilizing resources of their own.     

Examining the Nature and Magnitude of Intradistrict Resource Disparities in Mid‐Size School Districts

While a growing research base has examined resource disparities across schools within large school districts, the literature has largely overlooked resource allocation in the mid‐size school districts that a large portion of the nation's children attend. In this paper, we measure disparities in teacher resources within four New York State districts and conclude that intradistrict equity is not just a big city problem. We also explore the budgeting processes and mechanisms leading to these disparities, including fund‐based budgeting, grant‐based allocation rules, class size formulae, and ad‐hoc mechanisms. We conclude with policy implications and recommendations for improving intradistrict resource equity.     

A LIFE‐COURSE PERSPECTIVE ON SPIRITUALITY AND DESISTANCE FROM CRIME*

Spirituality is a component of many drug and alcohol treatment strategies, and faith‐based programming is also common within prison settings. Yet research on religiosity—crime linkages has often relied on general youth or adult samples or has included a short time line for gauging positive effects. Life‐course researchers focused on serious delinquents, in turn, have often emphasized other factors associated with long‐term crime patterns, such as marital attachment and job stability, or the criminality of the individual's social ties. This study draws on quantitative and qualitative data derived from a long‐term follow‐up of a sample of serious adolescent male and female offenders to explore the role of spirituality and religious participation as influences on adult patterns of criminal involvement (N= 152). The respondents were first interviewed as adolescents, in 1982, and again as adults in 1995 and 2003. Results of longitudinal analyses that take into account self‐report and incarceration histories at both time periods do not reveal a significant association between these indices of religiosity and the likelihood of evidencing a pattern of sustained desistance. Our analysis of indepth life‐history interviews conducted with most respondents over these two time periods and 41 additional interviews focused specifically on spirituality and religion are used to explore in more detail the promise and challenges associated with relying on religiosity as a catalyst for sustained behavior change.     

CRIME AND PERSONALITY REVISITED

The present study explored the effects of MMPI response sets on relatonships between crime and personality in self-report studies. The MMPI-168 and a 21-item delinquent behavior questionnaire were administered to 1680 high school students. The Psychopathic Deviate, Schizophrenia, and Hypomania scales of the MMPI-168 were correlated with delinquent behaviors, with and without control for the L, F, and K scales of the MMPI-168, considered separately and simultaneously. Controlling for F eliminated some relationships and significantly diminished the magnitude of others, while control for L and K had no significant effect. Studies of this nature that fail to control for the F type of response set may produee largely illusory results.     

TRANSFERRING JUVENILES TO ADULT COURTS. Recent trends and issues in Canada and the United States

This paper examines the practice of transferring youngsters from juvenile to adult courts in Canada and the United States from 1986 to 1994. The research indicates that Canada and the United States have similar provisions for trying youths as adults. The United States transfers large numbers of juveniles (nearly 13,000 per year recently) to adult courts each year, and most of these youngsters are non-violent offenders. By contrast, in Canada transfers are still relatively rare (521 over a nine year period), and most of these youngsters are charged with violent offenses.     

DRUG USE AND DESISTANCE PROCESSES

Sampson and Laub's age‐graded theory of informal social control emphasizes the importance of adult social bonds such as marriage and stable employment in redirecting behavior in a more prosocial direction. Heavy alcohol use has also been shown to influence persistent patterns of offending as well as more episodic offending across the life course. Sampson and Laub's life‐course theory emphasizes the negative impact of alcohol use on marital and employment bonds. Although alcohol has indeed been shown to have significant effects on criminal offending, we argue that drug use and the drug culture in which many contemporary offenders are enmeshed have consequences that often complicate desistance processes in ways that alcohol does not. Drug use and its lifestyle concomitants bring together a host of distinctive social dynamics that compromise multiple life domains. The current project investigates the role of drug use on desistance processes relying on a contemporary sample of previously institutionalized youth. We draw on three waves of data from the Ohio life‐course study, a project that spans some 21 years. The results support the assertion that drug use exerts unique effects on desistance processes, once levels of alcohol use are taken into account. We investigate possible mechanisms that help to explain the differential impact of drug use on offending and find that social network effects, particularly partner criminality, explain some but not all of the negative impact of drug use on life‐course patterns of criminal offending.