Poetic boundary conditions: Australian poets in the ivory tower

This article explores the experience of women poets in academe and posits that by institutionalising themselves in universities, women poets gain financial stability by working in the wider field of poetry. However, they also face discrimination and a lack of opportunity in these workplaces. The article uses two case studies of poets Maria Takolander and Jill Jones, who work at Deakin University and the University of Adelaide, Australia, respectively. These case studies show the way in which these poets explore the experience of academe in their poetry.     

Expressiveness and Voting

It has been suggested that voting may be an ``expressive''action taken without regard to any hope of actuallyinfluencing election outcomes on the margin. However, therehas been no real-world evidence brought to bear on thequestion of whether the propensity of an individual to voteand the propensity of that same individual to engage in otherforms of ``expressive'' behavior are correlated in anystatistically meaningful sense. Drawing from longitudinal datafound in the National Election Surveys we report compellingevidence of a strong, positive relationship between what weterm ``political expressiveness'' and the act of voting.     

ADOLESCENTS' VIEWS ON THE FAIRNESS OF PARENTING AND FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS AFTER SEPARATION

Interviews were conducted with 60 young people aged 12–19 in Australia, concerning their views about parenting and financial arrangements after separation. Half the young people reported that they had no say at all in where they would live after separation. A quarter said they were never able to see their nonresident parent when they wanted to. There was a strong relationship between young people's perceptions of the fairness of the parenting arrangements and the extent to which they were allowed to participate in making those arrangements. Half said that they did not have enough time with their nonresident parent. Having a continuing and meaningful relationship with both parents and with siblings was very important to them. More than a third favored arrangements of spending equal time with each parent. The young people were also very concerned with issues about fairness between first and second families, both in terms of time availability and financial provisions.     

Why Deliberate? The Encounter Between Deliberation and New Public Managers

A number of organizations in Britain's National Health Service (NHS) have been experimenting with 'deliberative' techniques of citizen involvement, techniques that were designed with democratic imperatives in mind. However, political practices are moulded by their institutional settings and the goals of their proponents, so it is unlikely that they have been left 'pure' following their encounter with public management imperatives.
This paper offers an explanation for the interest in deliberative processes in the NHS by comparing deliberative and public management imperatives, as well as discussing more case-specific motivations, drawing on interviews with health policy actors between May and July 2001. I then use those insights to highlight gaps between the deliberative ideal and deliberative practice, showing what has been gained and what has been lost in the encounter between deliberative democracy and new public managers.     

Witnessing spouse abuse and experiencing physical abuse: A “double whammy”?

Child witnesses to parental violence, both abused (N =40) and nonabused (N =44), who were temporarily residing in a battered women's shelter were compared with children from a similar economic background (N =66) on measures of anxiety, depression, and behavior problems. Mothers of the three groups of children (comparison, witness, abused/witness) across the age range from 4 to 12 years completed a behavior problem inventory; the youngsters responded to paper-and-pencil self-report measures. Results indicated that the abused/witness children were manifesting significantly more distress on the behavior problem measure than the comparison youngsters, with the witness children showing a moderate amount and the comparison children the least. However, these patterns were mediated by the age of the child. Implications of these differential findings are discussed.     

Revictimized Adult Women: Perceptions of Mental Health Functioning and Associated Services

In this study, using a sample of adult women (N = 418) from various environments, mental health outcomes and perceptions about different types of support following childhood and adulthood sexual and physical violence were assessed. The respondents were from three locations: general community, state prison, and sexual assault and domestic violence service providers. A cluster analysis based on victimization experiences was conducted; subsequent analyses showed that women who endured more types of abuse had more self-reported mental health difficulties. Somewhat paradoxically, women who utilized more therapeutic services held more negative perceptions of their mental health functioning, while use of tangible services had no significant association. Those who found therapeutic services helpful had significantly higher self-reported concurrent mental health functioning.     

Can financial incentives reduce juvenile confinement levels? An evaluation of the Redeploy Illinois program

Purpose

Assessments of ongoing fiscal restructuring of juvenile justice system processes and the impact such restructuring has on juvenile incarceration rates are limited. When impacts of fiscal restructuring efforts have been assessed, researchers have focused on systemic, macro level changes in incarceration rates but avoided more focused, micro level impacts. This study fills this knowledge gap by examining the recent implementation of the Redeploy Illinois program in two pilot sites. In the Redeploy Illinois program, financial incentives were provided to select counties to develop community based alternatives to incarceration. The goal was to alleviate over reliance on state funded residential facilities for evaluation and confinement purposes.

Methods

Agency data were analyzed using qualitative methods to examine the effects of this change.

Results

Results of this study demonstrated that counties participating in the pilot test of the Redeploy Illinois program were able to reduce their levels of juvenile commitment to the state. Peoria County exceeded their reduction benchmark for all but two years, and St. Clair County well exceed their reduction benchmark for all full calendar years subsequent to implementation.

Conclusions

Findings are consistent with the limited literature exploring fiscal restructuring efforts designed to reduce county levels juvenile commitments.