Analysing public service outsourcing: the value of a regulatory perspective

This article draws on findings from two longitudinal case studies of voluntary organisations engaged in delivering social care services via purchaser – provider relations with local authorities. The study focuses on changes to contractual relations, employment conditions in provider organisations and service quality. The article argues the influence of the market on these changes can only be adequately comprehended by rooting the analysis in an understanding of the way in which surrounding regulatory frameworks shape its structure and operation. In doing so, it reveals how in an era of shifting market conditions characterised by greater competition and dramatic local authority cuts, a ‘soft’ regulatory framework offers little support to partnership relations between voluntary organisations and local authorities. Instead, the regulatory environment undermines financial security among voluntary organisations, degrades employment conditions in them and raises concerns regarding their service quality

Reliability, Validity, and Cut Scores of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) for Chinese

We examined the reliability, validity, and classification accuracy of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) when adopted for use in Chinese. The DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling served as the standard against which the classification accuracy of the SOGS was tested. A total of 283 Chinese adults in the community and 94 Chinese treatment-seeking gamblers were recruited. The internal reliability of the SOGS was satisfactory for the general sample and acceptable for the gambling sample. The SOGS was correlated with the DSM-IV criteria items as well as psychosocial and gambling-related problems. Relative to the DSM-IV criteria, the SOGS tended to overestimate the number of pathological gamblers in both samples. In general, we were relatively confident that individuals were not pathological gamblers if the SOGS scores were between 0 and 4 and were pathological gamblers if the SOGS were between 11 and 20. There was about 50–50 chance of being pathological gamblers if the SOGS scores were between 8 and 10. However, the probability of individuals being pathological gamblers was about 0.30 if the SOGS scores were between 5 and 7. We proposed a SOGS cut score of 8 to screen for probable pathological gambling in Chinese societies

Job searching with a history of drugs and crime

This article explores the experiences and aspirations of offenders with histories of substance misuse in job searching. The analysis is based upon qualitative data from a localised study of 27 men and two women who were undertaking community-based court orders in Scotland. Their perspectives on job searching, job-readiness and aspirations for sustained employment including the role of self-employment are presented. The article concludes that with adequate support, greater tolerance and flexibility by employers and job searchers could contribute to reducing the vicious cycle of suspicion and dishonesty. Policy action needs to be sustained and possibly augmented to include enterprise training

The Multisite Violence Prevention Project: Impact of a Universal School-Based Violence Prevention Program on Social-Cognitive Outcomes

This study evaluated the impact of a universal school-based violence prevention program on social-cognitive factors associated with aggression and nonviolent behavior in early adolescence. The effects of the universal intervention were evaluated within the context of a design in which two cohorts of students at 37 schools from four sites (N=5,581) were randomized to four conditions: (a) a universal intervention that involved implementing a student curriculum and teacher training with sixth grade students and teachers; (b) a selective intervention in which a family intervention was implemented with a subset of sixth grade students exhibiting high levels of aggression and social influence; (c) a combined intervention condition; and (d) a no-intervention control condition. Short-term and long-term (i.e., 2-year post-intervention) universal intervention effects on social-cognitive factors targeted by the intervention varied as a function of students' pre-intervention level of risk. High-risk students benefited from the intervention in terms of decreases in beliefs and attitudes supporting aggression, and increases in self-efficacy, beliefs and attitudes supporting nonviolent behavior. Effects on low-risk students were in the opposite direction. The differential pattern of intervention effects for low- and high-risk students may account for the absence of main effects in many previous evaluations of universal interventions for middle school youth. These findings have important research and policy implications for efforts to develop effective violence prevention programs

Comment letters to the National Commission on Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting, 1987 (Treadway Commission) Vol. 2

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1662/thumbnail.jp

The impact of the prevent duty on schools: a review of the evidence

The UK has emerged as an influential global player in developing policy to counter violent extremism, and therefore it is important to consider the emerging evidence about the impact of this policy in education. The Prevent Duty came into force in the UK in 2015, placing a legal responsibility on schools and teachers to implement anti-terrorist legislation and prevent young people from being drawn into extremism or radicalisation. This article reviews all of the material based on empirical studies in England involving school teachers and students published between 2015 (when the Duty was introduced) and the beginning of 2019 (27 articles and reports in total) to consider the impact of the policy on schools. The key themes emerging from our analysis of this evidence base are related (1) to the ways the policy is interpreted within Islamophobic discourses, (2) the emergence of Britishness as a key feature of fundamental British values, and (3) the implications of framing Prevent as a safeguarding issue. We argue that the evidence gives support to those who have been critical of the Prevent Duty in schools, and that it seems to be generating a number of unintended and negative side effects. However, the evidence also illustrates how teachers have agency in relation to the policy, and may thus be able to enact the policy in ways which reduce some of the most harmful effects

Punishing parents for the crimes of their children

In recent years there has been a profusion of laws that punish parents for their children’s offences. These parental responsibility laws are based on the assumption that parents of children who offend have not accepted their responsibility and that they can be made to do so by the imposition of court orders and financial penalties. In this paper I will examine the efficacy of punishing parents for the crimes of their children. I will consider whether parental responsibility laws are an effective means of tackling youth crime; or should policies that strengthen the family and improve parenting skills be pursued as strategies for preventing juvenile offending behaviour