Incarceration is a pervasive issue in the United States that is enormously costly to families, communities, and society at large. The path from prison back to prison may depend on the relationship a person has with their probation or parole officer (PPO). If the relationship lacks appropriate care and trust, violations and recidivism (return to jail or prison) may be more likely to occur. Here, we test whether an “empathic supervision” intervention with PPOs—that aims to reduce collective blame against and promote empathy for the perspectives of adults on probation or parole (APPs)—can reduce rates of violations and recidivism. The intervention highlights the unreasonable expectation that all APPs will reoffend (collective blame) and the benefits of empathy—valuing APPs’ perspectives. Using both within-subject (monthly official records for 10 mo) and between-subject (treatment versus control) comparisons in a longitudinal study with PPOs in a large US city (NPPOs = 216; NAPPs=∼20,478), we find that the empathic supervision intervention reduced collective blame against APPs 10 mo postintervention and reduced between-subject violations and recidivism, a 13% reduction that would translate to less taxpayer costs if scaled. Together, these findings illustrate that very low-cost psychological interventions that target empathy in relationships can be cost effective and combat important societal outcomes in a lasting manner.

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Researchers have long used end-of-year discipline rates to identify punitive schools, explore sources of inequitable treatment, and evaluate interventions designed to stem both discipline and racial disparities in discipline. Yet, this approach leaves us with a “static view”—with no sense of how disciplinary responses fluctuate throughout the year. What if daily discipline rates, and daily discipline disparities, shift over the school year in ways that could inform when and where to intervene? This research takes a “dynamic view” of discipline. It leverages 4 years of atypically detailed data regarding the daily disciplinary experiences of 46,964 students from 61 middle schools in one of the nation’s largest school districts. Reviewing these data, we find that discipline rates are indeed dynamic. For all student groups, the daily discipline rate grows from the beginning of the school year to the weeks leading up to the Thanksgiving break, falls before major breaks, and grows following major breaks. During periods of escalation, the daily discipline rate for Black students grows significantly faster than the rate for White students—widening racial disparities. Given this, districts hoping to stem discipline and disparities may benefit from timing interventions to precede these disciplinary spikes. In addition, early-year Black–White disparities can be used to identify the schools in which Black–White disparities are most likely to emerge by the end of the school year. Thus, the results reported here provide insights regarding not only when to intervene, but where to intervene to reduce discipline rates and disparities.

This paper presents an experimental study of the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a single phase high heat flux microchannel cooling system with spiraling radial inflow. The heat sink provides enhanced heat transfer with a simple inlet and outlet design while providing uniform flow distribution. The system is heated from one conducting wall made of copper and uses water as a working fluid. The microchannel has a 1 cm radius and a 300 μm gap height. Experimental results show, on average, a 76% larger pressure drop compared to an analytic model for laminar flow in a parallel disk system with spiral radial inflow. The mean heat transfer coefficients measured are up to four times the heat transfer coefficient for unidirectional laminar fully developed flow between parallel plates with the same gap height. Flow visualization studies indicate the presence of secondary flows and the onset of turbulence at higher flow rates. Combined with the thermally developing nature of the flow, these characteristics lead to enhanced heat transfer coefficients relative to the laminar parallel plate values. Another beneficial feature of this device, for high heat flux cooling applications, is that the thermal gradients on the surface are small. The average variation in surface temperature is 18% of the total bulk fluid temperature gain across the device. The system showed promising cooling characteristics for electronics and concentrated photovoltaics applications with a heat flux of 113 W/cm2 at a surface temperature of 77 °C and a ratio of pumping power to heat rate of 0.03%.

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