The impact of the daily lottery on the numbers game: Does legalization make a difference?

There has been a profusion of state run legal lotteries over the last two decades. One justification for them has been their supposed diversion of funds from illegal games known as numbers, policy and bolita. Records obtained in a police raid in south Florida provided an opportunity to analyze the impact of Florida' legal lottery on its illegal counterpart. The records ranged over a 13 week period encompassing five weeks prior to the inception of Florida's legal daily numbers and lotto games and seven weeks afterward. While there was a 17 percent decline in monies wagered on the illegal games during the first week of the legal games, illegal wagers quickly rebounded to prelegalization levels.An earlier version of the paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Washington, D.C., March 1989. The authors wish to express their deep appreciation to the Metro-Dade Police Department, Miami, Florida, and particularly to Max Schuman and Sgt. James Boyd for their assistance in this research.     

The mystical hue in clinical practice

The notion of the mystical hue in clinical practice, viewed essentially as therapist tendency to formulate understandings and interventions from a known frame of reference, is considered from the dimensions of theoretical commitment, technical style, and similarity to psychic processes. Consideration is given to reification, the projective fallacy, and the developmental tilt, for their potential reverberations in practice. Emphasis is placed on the need to formulate experience-near interventions related to the patient's subjective state consistent with the reality that existing well reasoned theory is continually subject to revision. A case is presented in which the patient's subjective experience, imbued with a mystical flavor, was best approached from a mystical perspective familiar to both patient and therapist.     

An application of attribution and equity theories to tax evasion behavior

Traditional economic theory often has been utilized in an attempt to explain tax evasion behavior. Although economic consequences are important factors in the understanding of tax evasion behavior, they alone do not appear adequate to describe and predict the phenomenon. The results of two experiments which apply two social psychological theories, attribution theory and equity theory, to tax evasion judgments are reported. In the first experiment, the effects of personal need and degree of societal consensus were investigated. Both variables significantly affected recommended penalty judgments. In the second experiment, the effects of societal need and distinctiveness were studied. Neither societal need nor distinctiveness affected recommended penalty judgments. However, a significant interaction effect was found concerning subjects' behavioral intentions to evade. The present research suggests that both attribution theory and equity theory may be helpful in formulating hypotheses and enhancing our understanding of tax evasion behavior.     

Plans for the 1970 census of population and housing

The Nineteenth Decennial Census of the United States, covering both population and housing, will be conducted as of April 1, 1970. Planning, testing, and preparatory activities have been underway since early in the decade. Extensive discussions with users of census data led to relatively minor changes in subject content as compared to 1960, but a major increase in the amount of statistics to be tabulated, especially for small geographic areas. For about 60 to 65 percent of the population, the information will be collected through a new mail-out/mail-back system. The rest of the country will be covered by house-to-house canvass. Special efforts to alleviate the serious problem of underenumeration are being undertaken, particularly in the hard-to-enumerate portions of the big cities. The geographic program includes an “address coding guide” through which location identification in most urban areas can be made to specific side of block; this will permit tabulations for new types of small areas. Processing of the data will be performed with the Census Bureau’s Fosdic equipment and advanced computers. Dissemination of the census results will be in the traditional type of printed reports but also, in substantially greater subject and area detail, through magnetic tape, special printouts, etc. To help users exploit the potentialities of the latter material, the Bureau has instituted a “data access” informational program. As in previous censuses, there will be a number of studies to evaluate the 1970 procedures and results.     

The effect of data collection mode on smoking attitudes and behavior in young African American and Latina women. Face-to-face interview versus self-administered questionnaires

Evaluating smoking prevention and cessation programs requires valid data collection. This study examined two survey modes--face-to-face (FTF) interview and self-administered questionnaire (SAQ)--comparing response rates, sample characteristics, data quality, and response effects. From two family planning clinics, 601 female Latina and African American clients ages 12 to 21 were recruited and randomized to either group. Results reveal that neither mode is superior to the other. The SAQ may therefore be preferable for this population, despite its higher rate of incompletes, because it yields results similar to the FTF yet is more cost effective and less disruptive to clinic routines.     

A model-based evaluation of a cultural mediator outreach program for HIV+ Ethiopian immigrants in Israel

This article presents a model-based evaluation of a program designed to reduce HIV transmission from HIV-infected Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. Rather than rely on self-reported variables such as condom use, this study's approach focuses on pregnancy rate reduction, estimated from administrative periodic reporting data, as a measure of unprotected sexual exposure. The models show that among both HIV+ women and the female sex partners of HIV+ men, the ongoing pregnancy rates estimated during the intervention were significantly lower than the estimated baseline pregnancy rates, suggesting reductions in unprotected sexual exposures among those participating in the program.     

On The Quantitative Definition of Risk

A quantitative definition of risk is suggested in terms of the idea of a "set of triplets". The definition is extended to include uncertainty and completeness, and the use of Bayes' theorem is described in this connection. The definition is used to discuss the notions of "relative risk", "relativity of risk", and "acceptability of risk".