For almost two decades, Virginia has used risk assessment to justify “alternative” nonprison sentences for eligible drug and property offenders. In Study 1, we examined how frequently alternative sentences actually were imposed. We found that alternative sentences were given to only 42% of low-risk offenders. In Study 2, we tested the hypothesis that a lack of treatment resources explains why many judges fail to offer alternative sentences. We focused on the availability of mental health and substance abuse treatment resources across judicial circuits. Our findings support the “treatment resource hypothesis” as one explanation for variation among courts and judges in the extent to which alternative sentences are offered to low-risk offenders. To the extent that treatment resources available in a jurisdiction lead to increased judicial use of risk assessment to sentence low-risk offenders to nonjail alternatives, providing these resources will be crucial in reducing mass incarceration.
Black college students attending historically and predominantly White institutions are increasingly encountering online racial discrimination. This exposure may increase psychological distress and undermine academic performance. Although White bystanders may be well-positioned to challenge racist posts, limited research has examined interventions to increase White students' willingness to confront online racial discrimination. The present study used multiple methodologies to characterize the nature and frequency of online racial discrimination college students face, understand its impact on Black students, and increase challenges to online discrimination among White bystanders. Study data include content scraped from campus-related social media platforms over a 3-month period, transcripts from 8 focus groups conducted separately with Black (n = 35) and White (n = 33) college students, and data from an online experiment with 402 White college students. Taken together, study findings indicated that Black students encounter online racial discrimination with nontrivial frequency and are harmed by this exposure. Black students noted, however, that harm is mitigated when online racial discrimination is challenged by their White peers. Further, findings indicated that White students may be more likely to publicly confront racist posts if they (a) are aware of the harm it causes their Black peers; (b) perceive social norms that support confronting discrimination; and (c) receive guidance on what to say.
Research on risk assessment in sentencing has focused heavily on the role of judges. Ignoring the role of other courtroom actors in the sentencing process, however, leaves unexamined the potentially significant effects on judicial decision making of arguments made by prosecutors and defense attorneys at sentencing hearings. Unduly focusing on judges also overlooks the vast majority of sentences arrived at through negotiated guilty pleas. We explored the extent to which considerations of risk are made among prosecutors and defense attorneys when advocating for given sentences in open court or during plea negotiations. We surveyed all prosecutors and defense attorneys in 14 judicial circuits in Virginia and found that most prosecutors and defense attorneys at least “sometimes” explicitly invoked actuarial risk estimates both at sentencing hearings and during plea negotiations. However, defense attorneys were much more likely than prosecutors to be averse to the use of risk assessment in either form of case disposition.
To what extent can social policies influence how individuals experience spells of unemployment? Conventional hypotheses posit that more generous unemployment insurance schemes might increase the subjective well-being of the unemployed, but the empirical literature fails to convincingly confirm (or reject) this proposition. This paper contends that a theoretical preoccupation with the overall generosity of social policies obscures more than it reveals about the mechanisms through which the state can shape how individuals experience spells of unemployment. Social support regimes for the unemployed typically include some combination of active and passive labor market measures. Passive measures provide recipients with various forms of income support during unemployment spells, while active measures help individuals find new and better jobs by improving their overall employability. Several factors-the decreasing marginal utility of income, hedonic adaptation to material conditions, and the substantial non-pecuniary costs associated with unemployment-suggest that investments in active labor market measures will yield relatively greater gains in subjective well-being among the unemployed. These intuitions are confirmed in an analysis of data from three rounds of the European Social Survey (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007) using a combination of fixed-effects and random-effects modeling techniques. While the overall generosity of public expenditures on labor market policy exerts no significant effect on the life satisfaction of the unemployed, the analysis supports the notion that active labor market measures are more effective in promoting life satisfaction among the unemployed than passive measures.
To what extent does state intervention in the market condition how individuals subjectively experience the lives that they lead? Prevailing attempts to understand the relationship between state intervention and subjective well‐being have yielded mixed empirical results. However, these differences result from omitted variable biases, not different methodological choices. Drawing on insights from the new social risk and quality of governance literatures, this article contends that the policy orientation and administrative quality of welfare state programs jointly condition the effect of state intervention on life satisfaction. State intervention exerts a strong positive effect on perceived satisfaction with life when the quality of administrative institutions is high and policy interventions focus on insuring individuals against newer, post‐industrial forms of market risk. This main hypothesis is tested and confirmed against an empirical analysis of survey data taken from Wave 5 of the World Values Survey. Related Articles: Related Media: Film Clips: Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. . “Videos of Morning Sessions.” http://www.stiglitz‐sen‐fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm RuutVeenhoven. . “World Database of Happiness.” http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/
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