CORRUPTION: TOP DOWN OR BOTTOM UP?

This article studies the impact of corruption on an economy with a hierarchical government. In particular, we study whether centralizing corruption within the higher level of government increases or decreases the total amount of corruption. We show that when the after-tax relative profitability of the formal sector as compared to that of the informal sector is high enough, adding a layer of government increases the total amount of corruption. By contrast, for high-enough public wages and/or an efficient monitoring technology of the bureaucratic system, centralization of corruption at the top of the government hierarchy redistributes bribe income from the lower level to the upper level. In the process, total corruption is reduced and the formal sector of the economy expands.     

‘It's their word against mine’: young people's attitudes to the police complaints procedure in Northern Ireland

One of the central aims of the police reform process in Northern Ireland has been to increase the legitimacy of the policing structures and police officers amongst those who are served and policed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). To meet this aim, structures have been created to ensure that the PSNI is accountable to all sections of the community for its strategy and performance, and in monitoring the attitudes and behaviour of its officers. To that end, the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI), the Northern Ireland Policing Board and 26 District Policing Partnerships have been created. This paper aims to break ground by looking in some detail at young people's attitudes to and experiences of the workings of one of those new bodies, the Police Ombudsman, and to explore issues related to young people's willingness to engage with the PONI.     

Severely Traumatized Siblings: A Treatment Strategy

Siblings who have suffered severe trauma and disrupted attachment relate to one another in ways that interfere with individual development, the chance to benefit from connections with adults, the establishment of healthy sibling relationships, and the working through of traumatic experiences. The authors use case examples to illustrate four distinct sibling patterns: absent, adult lockout, half and half, and trauma shield. The authors highlight the importance of recognizing these types and then varying the therapist's treatment stance to pursue five goals. These include suspending problematic sibling relationships to create room for bonding with caring adults, transferring attachment behaviors and impulses to a receptive adult, resuming healthy individual development, forming more adaptive sibling connections, and expressing shared traumatic content.     

International and internal migration decision making: a value-expectancy based analytical framework of intentions to move from a rural Philippine province

"The study compares determinants of internal and international migration intentions, drawing upon interview data from a sample of adults in Ilocos Norte, a largely rural province in the Philippines. A regression model is applied to test the relative determinants of intentions to migrate to Manila and to Hawaii. The study is based on a value-expectancy model of migration decision making. The results document the importance of subjective expectations related to the attainment of different values and goals in Manila and Hawaii."     

FamilyLive: Parental Skill Building for Caregivers with Interpersonal Trauma Exposures

Mental health treatments for emotionally traumatized children incorporate family and caregiver-child therapy sessions to promote child recovery and minimize developmental disruption. Such sessions require that caregivers regulate their emotions to remain productively engaged in the therapeutic process. However, caregivers with histories of unresolved interpersonal trauma have difficulty with emotional regulation. Interpersonal trauma also negatively affects the ability to reflect on one’s own and others’ feelings and intentions. This limitation interferes with caregiver engagement in psychotherapy relationships aimed at supporting child trauma work. FamilyLive is an innovative caregiver-focused family therapy model that uses a one-way mirror, a specially trained reflecting team, structured routines and individualized verbalizations to address this complex clinical phenomenon. Guided by the literature on attachment and trauma, FamilyLive has yielded anecdotal successes and positive pilot results. FamilyLive is a viable approach to engaging caregivers with histories of interpersonal trauma in trauma-focused child and family therapy relationships.     

Exploring the Link Between Caregiver Affect and Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Does Neighborhood Disadvantage Matter?

In a sample of urban youth (N = 1,070), we examined the links between primary caregiver affect (i.e., warmth and hostility) and two measures of sexual behavior in adolescence - early sexual initiation and sex with multiple partners. We also examined the extent to which neighborhood disadvantage moderated associations between caregiver affect and adolescent sexual behavior. We found that caregiver hostility was positively associated with early sex and sex with multiple partners in neighborhoods characterized by high levels of disadvantage, but inversely associated with both sex outcomes in neighborhoods characterized by low levels of disadvantage. Caregiver warmth, on the other hand, was inversely associated with early sexual initiation and sex with multiple partners in all neighborhoods regardless of neighborhood disadvantage.     

The behavioural wedge

When nations fail to agree, can individual citizens make a difference? The third of our post-Copenhagen features is by Jonathan Gilligan, Thomas Dietz, Gerald T. Gardner, Paul C. Stern , and Michael P. Vandenbergh . They look at the effects that voluntary actions by individuals can have, and at the policies that can best encourage such actions.