The conduct of program evaluation reviews in the general accounting office

Professional behavior during the General Accounting Office's (GAO's) present era of oversight can best be understood by reviewing the audit types that populate village life in the GAO and the repertoire the office uses in conducting program evaluation audits. Four types of auditors are present, each of which has a role to play in the audit repertoire. This repertoire focuses on finding faults in government programs in order to catch or sustain congressional interest in GAO's work. The “audit trail” of each report may last up to 3 years and involves considerable organizational strife and conflict with outside groups. To sustain themselves through this arduous auditing process, auditors have developed a creed through which they conceptualize themselves as an elite with a mission to insure good government.     

Forecasting aggregate period-specific birth rates: the time series properties of a microdynamic neoclassical model of fertility

"This article demonstrates the value of microdata for understanding the effect of wages on life cycle fertility dynamics. Conventional estimates of neoclassical economic fertility models obtained from linear aggregate time series regressions are widely criticized for being nonrobust when adjusted for serial correlation. Moreover, the forecasting power of these aggregative neoclassical models has been shown to be inferior when compared with conventional time series models that assign no role to wages. This article demonstrates that, when neoclassical models of fertility are estimated on microdata using methods that incorporate key demographic restrictions and when they are properly aggregated, they have considerable forecasting power." Data are from the 1981 Swedish Fertility Survey.     

Voluntary organisations and the social state in the European Community

Accurate comparison of the social welfare systems operating in the twelve countries of the European Community is inhibited by lack of information about the voluntary or non-governmental organisations which form an important element in those systems. This paper summarises available information about the scale and scope of voluntary organisations, and attempts to set them in the context of current policy debates. The changing nature of the family in Europe, the development of mixed economies in the provision of welfare, the functions of NGOs as employers and organisers of volunteering, the future of NGOs after 1992, and in the context of a steadily more open Europe are some of the themes which are preoccupying voluntary organisations in most countries of the Community. The paper refers to the inadequacy of most data on NGOs atnational level and to the consequent impossibility of constructing valid cross-national comparisons.I am grateful to the Department of Social Welfare in Dublin for sponsoring the work on which this paper is based. An earlier version was presented as a background paper at the European ConferencePartners in Progress, jointly organised by the Minister of Social Welfare and the EC Commission in Galway, Ireland, June 1990.     

Does the best practice of rational-style model-based policy analysis already include ethical considerations?,

This paper deals with ethics in the context of the real-world practice of operations research (OR), once an analyst has taken on the responsibility of carrying out a rational-style model-based policy study for a client. OR models are often used by policy analysts to assist decisionmakers in choosing a good course of action based on multiple (and competing) criteria from among a variety of alternatives under uncertain conditions as part of the policy analysis process. The paper suggests that if applied operations researchers (acting as rational-style model-based policy analysts, and not as policy analysts playing a different role or as policy advocates) use the scientific method and apply the generally accepted best practices of their profession, they will be acting in an ethical manner. It, therefore, describes the steps of a typical rational-style model-based policy analysis study, and specifies the tenets of good practice in each step. It also provides a list of questions and statements that the analyst and those evaluating an analyst's work (both internally and externally) can use to help make sure that the study adheres to the tenets of good practice for rational-style model-based policy analysis and remains within ethical bounds.     

Does size really matter?: A reexamination of Sheldon's somatotypes and criminal behavior

In the mid-20th century, William Sheldon developed the idea of somatotypes in explaining different types of criminal behavior. Sheldon defined three body types believed to be associated with criminality: mesomorphs, who are athletically fit; endomorphs, who are overweight, and ectomorphs, who are characterized by fragility and thinness. Sheldon's research implied that mesomorphic individuals were more prone to committing violent and aggressive acts. This research explores a new method of somatotyping using the Body Mass Index (BMI). What follows is an examination of prisoners from the State of Arkansas, using information provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction's database on inmates. In particular, this paper examined prisoners’ physical characteristics such as age, height, and weight in comparison to the types of crimes that these prisoners committed. The findings of this paper show that the BMI is a useful alternative to traditional somatotyping techniques; the findings also suggest that a prisoner's somatotype is associated with criminal patterns while being a meager predictor of criminality. Methodological and theoretical implications of this study are discussed.     

Facilitating Arts-Based Mindfulness Group Activities with Vulnerable Children: An Example of Nondeliberative Social Group Work Practice

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the process of facilitating arts-based mindfulness group work and activities with vulnerable children age 8 to 12 years who were involved with the child welfare or mental health systems. Specifically, it delineates connections between our group program and Norma Lang’s nondeliberative social group work practice. Importantly, in working with vulnerable children, the authors purposefully fostered the development of mutual aid, creativity, and strengths and recognized that each group had a life of its own.     

Hopelessness, helplessness, and haplessness as predictors of suicidal ideation

Scales to measure helplessness and hopelessness were found to have good reliability and concurrent validity and were significantly correlated with suicidal ideation.