The Benefit-Cost Analysis of Security Focused Regulations

Security focused regulations have been largely exempt from the benefit-cost type of analysis required for major Federal regulations and done routinely in areas such as transportation, environment and safety. among the reasons offered for exemption are the analytical difficulties of security issues involving complex or poorly understood probabilities and consequences. This paper investigates the magnitude of security focused regulations, a framework for developing an expected costs analysis of regulations, and the current "break-even" analysis used by the Department of Homeland Security. Key assumptions implicit in the current analysis are identified and suggestions are made for the difficult evolution of security regulations toward a more explicit benefit-cost analysis.Benefit-cost, homeland security, regulation

Implementing School-Based Mental Health Centers to Increase Academic Outcomes for Students

Although there have been many attempts to close the achievement gap through academic interventions, achievement gaps among African-American, Hispanic, and Economically Disadvantaged students continues to be prevalent in public schools in the United States. As a part of a school turnaround strategy, school-based mental health centers were installed in high schools throughout an urban school district to address severe mental health challenges of some of its students. Students from three of the high schools that utilized a school-based mental health center at least five times were compared with students in a computer-generated comparison group to determine whether the school-based mental health counseling affected student academic performance. Attendance, discipline records, grade point averages, and standardized examination scores of students during the year prior and during the treatment year were analyzed. A descriptive analysis found that students treated in a school-based mental health center had improved attendance, reduced disciplinary infractions, improved grade point averages, and better standardized examination scores than the comparison group. This Record of Study recommends practices to implement and monitor a school-based mental health center successfully. School administrators need to consider strategies to identify students who need mental health services, provide professional development for staff on mental health issues, the plan to promote the services provided in the mental health center to the school community, and support systems required to fully realize the potential of providing counseling on a school campus. Recommendations for further study include measuring the effectiveness of the school-based mental health center based on cohorts of students, using students who refuse treatment as a control group, determining the effects of the school-based mental health center on the culture and climate of a school community, and using questionnaires to document feedback from students, parents and staff

The Rationality of Rule-Guided Behavior: A Statement of the Problem

In this Article, the author discusses the problem of the rationality of rule-guided behavior. He points our a hidden assumption of the dilemma, which he calls the autonomy assumption. It holds that people who have adopted rules are free not to follow them. Nevertheless, these people choose to follow the rules each time they deem the rules applicable. Each act of compliance implies choice. His suggestion is that rules operate as constraints on action - one who adopts a rule is constraining his future self to follow it. The rule constrains nonconformity, but it does not compel the intentional action

The Rationality of Rule-Guided Behavior: A Statement of the Problem

In this Article, the author discusses the problem of the rationality of rule-guided behavior. He points our a hidden assumption of the dilemma, which he calls the autonomy assumption. It holds that people who have adopted rules are free not to follow them. Nevertheless, these people choose to follow the rules each time they deem the rules applicable. Each act of compliance implies choice. His suggestion is that rules operate as constraints on action - one who adopts a rule is constraining his future self to follow it. The rule constrains nonconformity, but it does not compel the intentional action

What is the Internal Point of View?

John Austin famously claimed that the idea of sanctions is “the key to the science[] of jurisprudence.” Thus, he held legal rules to be threats backed by sanctions and statements of legal obligations as predictions that the threatened sanctions will be carried out. And before The Concept of Law was published in 1961, the concept of sanctions was central to every other positivistic theory of law as well. Although Hans Kelsen sought to explain legal rules and obligations in terms of norms, he understood these norms to be directives to courts requiring that sanctions be applied. Splitting the difference between Austin and Kelsen, Alf Ross conceived of legal rules as norms addressed to courts directing the use of sanctions and statements of legal validity as predictions that these norms will be followed