Recent legal trends in child sexual abuse cases: Direction for child protection workers

Considerable changes have occurred in criminal proceedings involving sexually abused children. As a result, perpetrators of child sexual abuse have been convicted more easily and sentenced to long prison sentences. However, a number of these convictions have been tainted and, thus reversed on appeal, based on either problems in the investigatory process or expert witnesses' exceeding the limits of proper testimony. Because many investigators and some expert witnesses were social workers, the author discusses recent decisions where appellate judges have criticized child protection workers' behaviors. By becoming familiar with cases such as these, child protection workers should gain a better understanding of the limits of their roles in the investigatory process and court proceedings. The result more likely would be that just convictions would be upheld by appellate courts, and falsely accused defendants would be spared the stigma of accusation, trial, and perhaps conviction.     

Authenticity and the disclosure of the information preserve: The case of adoptive parenthood

This paper explores the processes whereby people disclose information that is potentially stigmatizing but relatively inaccessible to others as a tactic to maintain personal authenticity. This general issue is examined by investigating how 71 infertile adoptive mothers manage information about adoption within and outside the family. Attention is also given to the codes of conduct regarding adoption advocated by professionals and their relevance for disclosure of a potentially stigmatizing attribute. Respondents acknowledge differences in their families in public (as advised by practitioners), but covertly reject difference by disavowing deviance. Thus, adhering to professional codes for achieving authenticity appears to create, instead, a personal sense of inauthenticity. The relevance of the disclosure of private information for a sense of personal authenticity is considered in other areas of social life.This research was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Government of Ontario.     

Individuelle und kontextuelle Determinanten der Teilhabe an Sozialkapital

We ask for conditions influencing membership in social organizations as strongholds of social capital. Beside individual characteristics, contextual factors such as political, social, or economic settings are also taken into consideration to explain individual decisions to participate in social organizations. The influences of individual and contextual level factors are tested simultaneously in several multi-level analyses. The results show that membership in social associations on the one hand is affected by individual characteristics such as marked trust in others, high level of education, church attendance, strong ties with the neighbourhood, age and sex, and on the other hand by contextual factors such as a catholic social context and institutional settings. In particular, Swiss direct democracy offering larger possibilities of participation facilitates membership in social organizations.     

Peru's coming baby boomlet

There are grounds for reconsidering the United Nations' population projections for Peru. These projections assume that fertility will continue to decline after 1990 in a smooth and uninterrupted manner, but they ignore several factors related to recovery from the economic and political crises of the 1980s that could significantly alter the pace of decline. The alternative projections we present consider the possibility that Peru's fertility decline will temporarily slow. This alternative hypothesis is conservative in the sense that increases in birth rates are not anticipated, but substantial differences in population size and age structure materialize nonetheless. Moreover, these differences have important implications for future planning in terms of the number of children needing primary health care and education and the number of young adults seeking first-time employment.The authors are grateful to Maryann Belanger, Luis Rosero-Bixby, and Anne Marie Wills for helpful comments, to Wayne Appleton for computer support, and to Terence Kelly for graphics design.     

Recycling in multi-family dwellings: Increasing participation and decreasing contamination

This study explored the promotion of recycling in multi-family dwellings. An experimental design investigated four behavior change techniques: biweekly postcards giving specific feedback to each dwelling unit as to quantity and contamination of the recyclables, newsletters giving general information on recycling and the amount recycled by the city as a whole, written pledges committing households to recycle for a specified period, and volunteer coordinators who distributed information and answered questions from residents. The effectiveness of these techniques was compared against that of a control group. The findings suggest that volunteer coordinators are not an effective intervention technique in multi-family dwellings, and that feedback and commitment techniques are useful mainly for managing contamination in medium sized complexes. The data also suggest that the size of a multi-family dwelling complex significantly affects the amount of recyclables collected and the level of contamination. Smaller complexes with less than ten units recycled up to three times the amount on a per unit basis as complexes with more units. Smaller units also had fewer problems with contamination in their recyclables. Several explanations are offered for the poor participation and performance in larger complexes.     

Regression analysis and ratio analysis for domains: A randomization-theory approach

In most surveys, inference for domains poses a difficult problem because of data shortage. This paper presents a probability sampling theory approach to some common types of statistical analysis for domains of a surveyed population. Simple and multiple regression analysis, and analysis of ratios are considered. Two new methods are constructed and explored which can improve substantially over the common method based on sample-weighted sums of squares and products. These new methods use auxiliary variables whose importance depends on the extent to which they succeed in explaining certain patterns in the regression residuals. The theoretical conclusions are supported by empirical results from Monte Carlo experiments.     

Financial planning in a divisionalized firm

In a business environment characterized by rapid technological changes, massive capital outlays, intensive competition, and the administration of complex large scale organizations, future growth and profitability will largely hinge upon reliable and intelligent long range financial planning.

If a business organization is to raise funds at the most reasonable costs and terms in money markets and capital markets, it must plan its cash requirements in advance to have ample time to negotiate effectively with the prospective lenders or their representatives. It is here that long range financial planning makes important contributions to effective financial management.     

Report on the cost-benefit/effectiveness of treatment at the Johns Hopkins Center for Pathological Gambling

It is mandatory that programs, particularly social programs, generate evidence of efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of the treatment of illness. Thus a study was conducted to determine the cost-effectiveness of treatment of pathological gamblers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Pathological Gambling. This Center provides two types of treatment programs: an intensive residential program, and an out-patient program. Although abstinence is but one measure of the success of these programs, they have demonstrated an 80 percent and 90 percent abstention rate respectively, measured at an average of six months after completion of treatment for the residential programs and after six months while in treatment in the out-patient program. Similar high success rates were obtained for the stabilization, maintenance, and/or restoration of families, initiation and maintenance of restitution, indictments saved by restitution or other plans, and return to employment. Data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Pathological Gambling, indicates the benefit to cost ratio of treatment in excess of 20:1. Pathological gambling not only ranks amongst the most expensive illnesses afflicting society, but also is the least expensive to treat and the most cureable when treated. Without public education, and awareness, and without dollars for treatment and research, untreated pathological gambling will far surpass the costs of other catastrophic illnesses as the latter remain the focus of our health care expenditures while the former is ignored.