A Refutation of Racial Differentials in the Juvenile Recidivism Rate Hypothesis

It has repeatedly been argued that race is an important predictor of juvenile recidivism, invariably with black offenders having significantly higher odds of recidivating than white offenders (DeComo, 1998; Strom, 2000; Benda, 2001; Langan & Levin, 2002; Harms, 2003; Pope and Snyder, 2003; Puzzanchera, 2003; Stahl, 2003). This study refutes that assertion. Using data from the Department of Public Safety and Corrections in the state of Louisiana, a total of 2,810 juvenile offenders released in the 1999/2000 fiscal year were examined and a socio-demographic profile of those who were returned into the correctional system one year post release was established. The results failed to show a statistically significant difference in the likelihood of recidivating between black offenders and white offenders, leading to a conclusion that race is not an important predictor of juvenile recidivism

What if the Officer Were Black or Female? The Effects of Officer Race and Gender on Arrest Decision-Making

Race and gender in arrest decisions are some of the most enduring areas of study in policing, but the same cannot be said of research on the effect of officers’ race and gender on arrest decisions, which warrants more vigorous attention than it currently receives. Using a complete count of 136,160 arrests conducted over a period of eight years in a Midwestern city in the United States and a two-model approach, this study is intended to explain the effects of the race and gender of officers on who is arrested. Focusing on the role of conventional perceptions as well as the latent effect of police deployment practices, this study found that officers are generally more inclined to arrest members of their own racial groups, and that, holding racial backgrounds constant, female officers are more inclined than male officers to arrest racial-minority suspects, especially African Americans. The study further found that if all other factors are equal, then female officers over-arrest female suspects and male officers over-arrest male suspects. Other findings are presented, possible analytic explanations offered, and policy implications discussed. The study ends with a set of recommendations that are linked to the findings

Juvenile recidivism: an analysis of race and other socio-demographic predictors within three intervention modalities in the state of Louisiana

Owing to the increasingly growing problem of juvenile crime and the recognition that adult criminals begin their criminal careers in their juvenile years, the need to contain juvenile offending has never before been so glaring. Delinquency of young offenders can be predicted and prevented. But the methods most often used to predict juvenile recidivism typically derive from stereotypical conceptions, which often yield very low accuracy levels. This study is an attempt to make up for this shortfall. It tracks one year recidivism of 2,810 juvenile offenders released from state custody of Louisiana between July 1999 and June 2000. Of these releases, 919 were discharged from non-secure or community-based treatment modality, 572 from secure short-term modality, and 1,319 from secure regular type of incarceration. The aim of the study was: to find out whether recidivism varies according to the three treatment modality types; to establish the correlation between recidivism and clients\u27 individual socio-demographic characteristics; to find out whether race would have any effect on recidivism, ceteris paribus; and to examine the relationship between race and other potential predictors of recidivism. Existing literature was reviewed and among the frequently cited predictors of recidivism were: race, age at first adjudication, age at release, gender, duration of stay in custody, offense type, drug use, peer influence, alcohol use, family background, emotional stability, health status, employment, educational achievement, school discipline, and economic status. The data were analyzed in three stages. The first involved a descriptive presentation, the second bivariate correlations, and the third logistic regression analyses. It was found that the rate of juvenile recidivism does not vary according to the intervention modality type. The most significant predictors of recidivism were: (a) offense type/seriousness of the offense; (b) age at first adjudication; (c) duration of stay in the correctional system; (d) drug use; and (e) peer influence. The offender\u27s race was not found to be important in determining the likelihood of recidivating. Black offenders differ from white offenders only in terms of gender, but not with respect to any other socio-demographic characteristics that influence their likelihood of recidivating

Software as a Service Adoption: impact on IT workers and functions of IT Department

Software as a Service (SaaS), a type of cloud computing is based on information technology (IT) capabilities in a utility model that enhances the reliability and scalability at relatively low costs as compared to on-premise IT systems. Other benefits SaaS provides to customers include: no upfront investment cost required, elasticity of computing resources, vendor support and upgrades, agile response to markets, usage metered as utility, resource pooling the ability to add computing resources as needed. Consequently, organisations may decide to adopt SaaS model based on these potential benefits. However, these benefits may have some implications on the roles of IT workers and functions of IT department. These implications include: changing IT workers’ skill sets requirements, widespread of layoffs of hardware IT workers, and IT department loses control of IT-Servers, and focuses more on data security, vendor management, as IT system support moves to cloud service provider. Similarly, IT workers believe that turning IT resource and support to a cloud service provider poses significant risks to their own jobs [1]. There is a lack of research conducted on the implications of SaaS model on IT department and associated human resource management. Thus, this paper seeks to fill this gap by examining how SaaS adoption may change IT workers’ roles and tasks, and functions of IT department. Drawing on adaptive structuration theory, a modified framework is constructed to support the change dynamics from SaaS adoption. Using examples of functions of IT department in tertiary institutions, we explored sources of structures from advanced IT and the ways in which organisational and human interactions have an impact on how SaaS is appropriated and institutionalised into business processes, and brings about changes in an organisation. This paper contributes to the theory by examining the way emergent and new structures are formulated at the macro and group level of the organisational structure. Implications for researchers and practitioners are provide

Approaches to Crime Control and Order Maintenance in Transitional Societies: The Role of Village Headmen, Chiefs, Sub-Chiefs and Administration Police in Rural Kenya

The need to illuminate and contextualize approaches to crime control and order maintenance in transitional societies has become increasingly necessary, thanks to the pervasiveness of social disorder and the elusive nature of crime in general. This study focuses on the functions of the Provincial Administration and the Administration Police in Kenya in order to reveal the little known but overarching powers of Chiefs and Sub-Chiefs as the official agents of crime control and order maintenance in the rural parts of the country. The study, which is a culmination of an in-depth review of Kenya’s legal framework and other germane literature, uses the country to cast a thoughtful appraisal of the African experience and, as a result, to provide a strong and reliable data point that could be used in cross-cultural and comparative crime control studie

Self-reported knowledge, attitudes, practices and barriers in use of evidence-based medicine among resident physicians in Kenya: a mixed methods study

Background: Evidence based medicine (EBM) helps clinicians to integrate latest research evidence into their daily clinical practice. There is a need for all healthcare professions to adopt it in order to provide safe and most costefective care. Postgraduate doctors are at the frontline of healthcare delivery and all medical institutions should strive to produce practitioners of EBM. Studies have shown that physicians are still struggling to adapt to this paradigm shift in the practice of medicine but very few studies have been done in Sub Saharan Africa. This study explored the self-reported knowledge, attitudes, practices and barriers of evidence-based practice among resident physicians in a tertiary teaching hospital. Methods: A mixed methods cross-sectional study that used convergent parallel design was conducted. The quantitative arm was conducted among all residents enrolled in the Master of Medicine programme at Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi (AKUHN). It included an online survey exploring self-reported knowledge, attitudes, practices and barriers of EBM among all residents. Simultaneously, semi-structured In-Depth Interviews were carried out among 18 purposefully selected residents in order to explore the same themes in more depth. Results: One hundred and one residents (99%) responded to the survey. The mean scores for self-reported knowledge, attitude and practice of EBM among residents were 73.88, 66.96 and 63.19% respectively, which were generally higher than in comparable studies. There was a signifcant association between year of residency and practice of EBM. The most common barriers faced by residents were lack of time, lack of EBM skills and patients’ unawareness about EBM. From the qualitative study, residents demonstrated good knowledge and support of EBM but practice remained relatively poor. Barriers to EBM were characterized by lack of motivation, time, skills and resources, patient overload and fear of challenging consultants. Conclusion: There was good understanding and support of EBM among residents at AKUHN, though challenges were experienced in regards to practice of EBM because of lack of time and skills. Therefore resources should be allocated towards integrating EBM into undergraduate medical curricula to cultivate critical thinking skills at an early stage before transition into residency

Vécu du deuil chez les catholiques de Kinshasa vis-à-vis des rites funéraires religieux selon la variable sexe

Résumé : Cette étude qui a concerné un échantillon de 67 catholiques dont 32 hommes et 35 femmes, portant sur le vécu des endeuillés catholiques de Kinshasa vis-à-vis des rites funéraires religieux selon la variable sexe a permis de déduire que les deux groupes évoluent de la même façon, les différences observées ne sont pas significatives. Nous attribuons aux valeurs culturelles, le constant de Fauré selon lequel les femmes ne vivent pas le deuil de la même manière que les hommes dont la raison principale est attribuée au statut d’homme qui interfère fréquemment

Faecal matter-saw dust composite briquette and pellet fuels: production and characteristics

This work relates to the sustainable development goal (SDG) 6.2 which relates to access to adequate sanitation and hygiene. Raw sludge emptied on to drying beds inside greenhouses was carbonized from milled materials (faecal matter, saw dust, banana stalks and market waste) and a binder (molasses and faecal matter). Four percentages (25, 50, 75 and 100) were variedly used. The average calorific value of faecal matter was found to be 13.1MJ/kg with average moisture content of 9.1%, volatile matter of 2.2%, ash content of 48.3% and fixed carbon of 40.4%. Caloric values of market waste, sawdust, banana talk and human waste were respectively found to be 2.5, 2.7, 3.2 and 4.0. The briquettes and pellets showed no pathogens, concentration of heavy metals were insignificant. Mixture of sawdust and faecal matter took shorter duration to boil water compared to faecal matter mixed with other biomass materials

Evaluation of Kilifi epilepsy education programme: a randomized controlled trial

Objectives: The epilepsy treatment gap is largest in resource-poor countries.Weevaluated the efficacy of a 1-day health education program in a rural area of Kenya. The primary outcome was adherence to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) as measured by drug levels in the blood, and the secondary outcomes were seizure frequency and Kilifi Epilepsy Beliefs and Attitudes Scores (KEBAS). Methods: Seven hundred thirty-eight people with epilepsy (PWE) and their designated supporter were randomized to either the intervention (education) or nonintervention group. Data were collected at baseline and 1 year after the education intervention was administered to the intervention group. There were 581 PWE assessed at both time points. At the end of the study, 105 PWE from the intervention group and 86 from the nonintervention group gave blood samples, which were assayed for the most commonly used AEDs (phenobarbital, phenytoin, and carbamazepine). The proportions of PWE with detectable AED levels were determined using a standard blood assay method. The laboratory technicians conducting the assays were blinded to the randomization. Secondary outcomes were evaluated using questionnaires administered by trained field staff. Modified Poisson regression was used to investigate the factors associated with improved adherence (transition from nonoptimal AED level in blood at baseline to optimal levels at follow-up), reduced seizures, and improved KEBAS, which was done as a post hoc analysis. This trial is registered in ISRCTN register under ISRCTN35680481. Results: There was no significant difference in adherence to AEDs based on detectable drug levels (odds ratio [OR] 1.46, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.74–2.90, p = 0.28) or by self-reports (OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.71–1.40, p = 1.00) between the intervention and nonintervention group. The intervention group had significantly fewer beliefs about traditional causes of epilepsy, cultural treatment, and negative stereotypes than the nonintervention group. There was no difference in seizure frequency. A comparison of the baseline and follow-up data showed a significant increase in adherence—intervention group (36–81% [p \u3c 0.001]) and nonintervention group (38–74% [p \u3c 0.001])—using detectable blood levels. The number of patients with less frequent seizures (≤3 seizures in the last 3 months) increased in the intervention group (62–80% [p = 0.002]) and in the nonintervention group (67–75% [p = 0.04]). Improved therapeutic adherence (observed in both groups combined) was positively associated with positive change in beliefs about risks of epilepsy (relative risk [RR] 2.00, 95% CI 1.03–3.95) and having nontraditional religious beliefs (RR 2.01, 95% CI 1.01–3.99). Reduced seizure frequency was associated with improved adherence (RR 1.72, 95% CI 1.19–2.47). Positive changes in KEBAS were associated with having tertiary education as compared to none (RR 1.09, 95% CI 1.05–1.14). Significance: Health education improves knowledge about epilepsy, but once only contact does not improve adherence. However, sustained education may improve adherence in future studies

Risk factors associated with the epilepsy treatment gap in Kilifi, Kenya: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Many people with epilepsy in low-income countries do not receive appropriate biomedical treatment. This epilepsy treatment gap might be caused by patients not seeking biomedical treatment or not adhering to prescribed antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). We measured the prevalence of and investigated risk factors for the epilepsy treatment gap in rural Kenya. METHODS: All people with active convulsive epilepsy identified during a cross-sectional survey of 232,176 people in Kilifi were approached. The epilepsy treatment gap was defined as the percentage of people with active epilepsy who had not accessed biomedical services or who were not on treatment or were on inadequate treatment. Information about risk factors was obtained through a questionnaire-based interview of sociodemographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, access to health facilities, seizures, stigma, and beliefs and attitudes about epilepsy. The factors associated with people not seeking biomedical treatment and not adhering to AEDs were investigated separately, adjusted for age. FINDINGS: 673 people with epilepsy were interviewed, of whom 499 (74%) reported seeking treatment from a health facility. Blood samples were taken from 502 (75%) people, of whom 132 (26%) reported taking AEDs, but 189 (38%) had AEDs detectable in the blood. The sensitivity and specificity of self-reported adherence compared with AEDs detected in blood were 38·1% (95% CI 31·1-45·4) and 80·8% (76·0-85·0). The epilepsy treatment gap was 62·4% (58·1-66·6). In multivariable analysis, failure to seek biomedical treatment was associated with a patient holding traditional animistic religious beliefs (adjusted odds ratio 1·85, 95% CI 1·11-2·71), reporting negative attitudes about biomedical treatment (0·86, 0·78-0·95), living more than 30 km from health facilities (3·89, 1·77-8·51), paying for AEDs (2·99, 1·82-4·92), having learning difficulties (2·30, 1·29-4·11), having had epilepsy for longer than 10 years (4·60, 2·07-10·23), and having focal seizures (2·28, 1·50-3·47). Reduced adherence was associated with negative attitudes about epilepsy (1·10, 1·03-1·18) and taking of AEDs for longer than 5 years (3·78, 1·79-7·98). INTERPRETATION: The sensitivity and specificity of self-reported adherence is poor, but on the basis of AED detection in blood almost two-thirds of patients with epilepsy were not on treatment. Education about epilepsy and making AEDs freely available in health facilities near people with epilepsy should be investigated as potential ways to reduce the epilepsy treatment gap. FUNDING: Wellcome Trust