In an effort to evaluate the situational determinants of crime, principal components analysis was used to reduce 59 demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of 840 American cities to six independent factors: affluence, stage in life cycle, economic specialization, expenditures policy, poverty, and urbanization. When regressed upon crime rates two of these six factors, urbanization and poverty, were found to be the more important criminogenic forces. The exception to this generalization was the South, where stage in life cycle was more important than poverty in explaining crime. One reason for this exception may be that the South, though having a lower standard of living than other regions of the country, does not have the “culture of poverty” usually associated with lower income. Contrary to the assumption upon which most ecology of crime studies are based, larger cities (over 100,000 in population) are not representative of all cities. Greater association between socioeconomic variables and crime was found in larger than in smaller cities.
Continuous Quality Improvement is the term used to measure progress toward achieving safety, permanency, and well-being for children in foster care. This report highlights the results of a 2014 survey conducted by the National Resource Center on Legal and Judicial Issues asking states to identify how they are using performance measures to improve the lives of children in care, which measures are being used, whether the newly-created well-being measures are being integrated into the original set of court performance measures, and how performance measures are being used to support Continuous Quality Improvement. Although there is much more to do, the number of performance measures being used, the number of states sharing data between courts and child welfare agencies, and the number of documented examples of improvement in lives of abuse and neglected children are all encouraging signs.
"Continuous quality improvement is the complete process of identifying, describing, and analyzing strengths and problems and then testing, implementing, learning from, and revising solutions." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children's BureauThe Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) process begins with identifying specific desired outcomes. In child welfare, those desired outcomes of safety, permanency, and well-being of every child in foster care were enshrined in the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. But how is progress towards goal achievement measured? Outcome
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