In this project, I sought to understand how evidence-based practices are understood and implemented by individuals who work within the criminal justice system, with specific focus on the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (ICIW). I collected interviews in the summer and fall of 2016 and observations at local criminal justice agencies from summer 2016 to summer 2017. Thirty-eight individuals agreed to be interviewed, including ICIW staff, Department of Corrections (DOC) staff, prison volunteers, and prisoner advocates. I found that how individuals understand “what works” in prison policy and practice is shaped by three main factors. First, their ideological standpoints on what purpose prison ought to serve influenced how they thought evidence should be used to inform policy, whether they believed it should achieve humanitarian goals of giving offenders second chances, utilitarian goals of keeping the community safe, or bureaucratic goals of ensuring that prisons are run efficiently and rationally. Second, their experiences with prisoners shaped their acceptance or skepticism of certain types of evidence, and respondents placed more value in experiential and anecdotal evidence in the case of women-centered policies. Third, the respondents’ stereotypes about who women are and what their place is in the larger correctional system contributed to more ready acceptance of women-centered practices, and more skepticism of statewide or uniform evidence-based practices. In turn, these different interpretations of evidence and the policies based upon it contributed to conflict and resistance to statewide DOC policy, as well as greater feelings of frustration and disenchantment among correctional stakeholders.

During a time of national and local debate over welfare reform, research is needed to determine the effectiveness of specific welfare programs and the impact on the lives of households participating in these programs. The objective of this study was to determine the effect housing and food expenditures have on the diet quality of low-income families. Participants for the study were drawn from government-subsidized housing rolls and housing assistance waiting lists. Diet quality was measured by 16 variables: percent RDA protein, fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium consumed; percent calories from protein, carbohydrates, fat, and alcohol; and the number of servings from each food group: bread and cereal, fruit, vegetable, meat and protein, dairy, and fats and sweets food groups. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationship between the percent poverty level of the household and the percent of income spent on housing and food with each diet quality variable. No statistically significant correlations were found. Mann-Whitney U tests and t tests were used to determine if diet quality of participants who received housing assistance was different from participants who did not receive assistance. No statistical significance was found. Participant's diets who received food assistance and diets of participants who do not receive food assistance were also analyzed to determine any differences in diet quality. Again, no statistical significance was found between the two groups. The diets of the sample population were found to be fairly average in comparison to overall food consumption patterns of the United States. Consumption of fiber, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products was low. Increased consumer education programs are recommended to improve overall diet.

My study examines how religion operates as a form of social control in the politics of memory and memory making in the case of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (1900-2011), a state reform school in Marianna, Florida. Collective memory making is a dynamic process that reflects the social, economic, and political tensions of the present. It is a process most evident during circumstances of reconciliation following conflict, violence, or cases of turmoil resulting in death and in conflicting memories of the experience. Emergence of a dominant narrative about the tragedy or traumatizing event and subjugation of conflicting stories and memories often follows. At this intersection, memory becomes a weapon or reflection of power. Religion has been defined as operating as means of social control, particularly in the face of uncertainty, fear, and conflict. This study explores dynamics of power with respect to memorialization and ways in which religion informs the present and the past through processes of collective memory making. I also explore ways in which Christianity is employed as a means of bringing about reconciliation through public memory making and memorialization efforts as in the case of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys located in Marianna, Florida. In 2013, a team of anthropologists from the University of South Florida (USF) received approval from the State of Florida to investigate the location of missing children buried at Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. This research, known as the Boot Hill Burial Ground Project, resulted in the excavation of 55 burials. The Boot Hill Burial Ground Project is integral to the memorialization efforts and processes at Dozier as multiple stakeholders utilize the findings of the project for the construction of collective and public memories. The purpose of this study is to analyze tensions involved in processes of memory making resulting from the discovery, excavation, and identification of bodies at the Boot Hill Burial Ground on the Dozier campus and ways power is expressed within this process.

My research analyzes the way in which Ludovico Antonio Muratori portrayed marginal peoples of the New World in his Il Cristianesimo Felice nelle Missioni De' Padri della Compagnia di Gesù nel Paraguai, published in 1743. I argue that Muratori used his portrayal of the native people of Paraguay as a means to express his ideas of how to reform the Catholic Church, at a time when Catholicism was just experiencing the first waves of enlightened influence from the north. I engage with scholarship on the Enlightenment that has addressed specifically the cultural impact of what has been called the Catholic Enlightenment in Italy. In this scholarship Il Cristianesimo Felice has been virtually unrepresented, and I argue that it is a valuable resource in gaining a better understanding the reform agendas of Muratori and the Catholic Enlightenment movement in Italy. I center my analysis on two specific elements in Il Cristianesimo Felice. First, I address Muratori's assessment of the four political systems administered simultaneously by the native population, the Spaniards, the Mamelusses, and the Jesuits. Through my analysis of Muratori's representation of these systems, I situate him in the politically conservative Catholic Enlightenment and establish his commitment to the paternalistic social order prevailing in Europe in the eighteenth century. Second, I show that Muratori reveals broader ideas about religion and superstition as conceived by the Catholic Enlightenment movement in his account of the interaction between the Jesuit missionaries and the Paraguayans in the reductions. In conclusion, this study shows that Il Cristianesimo Felice is a source that historians of the Catholic Enlightenment movement should revisit, as it represents Ludivico Antonio Muratori's Pubblica Felicita in the flesh.

No description available.

No description available.

The last two decades of the twentieth century saw unprecedented change in the Western Australian public sector. Legislative reform, royal commissions and new policies aimed at enhancing public sector accountability, transparency and efficiency have served to highlight the critical role of CEOs in delivering change. Underpinning sustainable organisational change is cultural change, which in-turn is most effectively driven by a transformational leadership style. There has been little research into CEOs' perceptions of their role in leading cultural change in their organisations. This thesis details an exploratory study of WA public sector CEOs. It discovered that CEOs identified with elements characterising the theoretical construct of a transformational leader. They perceived cultural change as the realignment of organisational values and behaviour with mission, government and community expectations, efficiency and effectiveness. CEOs actively deployed a number of strategies to bring about cultural change but were uncertain about the extent which substantive cultural change was taking place within the public sector. Factors they saw as impacting on their capacity to lead such change included the Government's policy agenda, management theory and potentially, peer support. CEOs who participated in the study were predominantly career public servants, male, over the age of fifty, had worked exclusively in the public sector and only led a small number of organisations. They had mixed views about the impact of such demographics on a CEO's capacity to effectively lead cultural change citing situational factors and personal attributes as being significant variables. There were a number of clear findings from the study that have significant, practical implications for the public sector. CEOs would benefit from a government that communicated a stronger sense of vision about the ++ / future directions of the sector. CEOs require structured opportunities to enhance their competencies in the leadership of change and incentives to commit to change agendas that may extend well beyond the tenure of their employment contacts. Finally, CEOs cannot effectively transform organisational culture without support from other leaders and strategic plans that take account of emerging demographic shifts in the workforce that will inevitably impact on staff values, behaviours and expectations.

China is moving towards a market economy. The greater use of market forces has made China richer, accelerated modernisation and increased productive efficiency but has created new problems, including, in the health sector, problems of inequity and allocative inefficiency. From 1997, the Chinese government committed to a national policy of regional health planning (RHP), as part of a broader commitment to harmonising social and economic development. However, RHP has been slow to impact on the equity and efficiency problems in health care. Planning requires information; better health decision-making requires better health information. Information systems constitute a resource that is vital for the health planning and the management of the health system. Properly developed, managed and used, health information systems are a highly cost-effective resource for the nation and its regions. Bureaucratic resistance, one of critical reasons is that regional health planners gained insufficient support from information system. Health information needs to adopt into the new way of government health management. The objective of the study is to contribute to the development of China�s health information system (HIS) over the next 5-10 years, in particular to suggest how provincial health information systems could be made more useful as a basis for RHP. The existing HIS is examined in relation to its support for and relevance to RHP, including policy framework, institutional structures and resources, networks and relationships, data collection, analysis, quality and accessibility of information as well as the use of information in support of health planning. Data sources include key informant interviews, a questionnaire survey and various policy documents. Qualitative (questionnaire survey on provincial HIS) and quantitative (key informant interviews) approaches are used in this study. Document analysis is also conducted. The research examines information for planning within the macro and historical context of health planning in China, in particular having regard to the impacts and implications of the transition to a market economy. It is evident that the implementation of RHP has been retarded by poor performance of information system, particularly at the provincial level. However, the implementation of RHP has also been complicated by fragmented administrative hierarchies, weak implementation mechanisms and contradictions between different policies, for example, between improved planning and the encouragement of market forces in health care. To support RHP which is needs based, has a focus on improving allocative efficiency and is adapted to the new market development will require new information products and supports including infrastructure reform and capacity development. Provincial HIS needs to move from being data generators and transmitters to becoming information producers and providers. Health planning has moved to greater use of population-based benchmark and demand-side control. Therefore, information products should be widened from supply side data collection (in particular assets and resources) to include demand-side collection and analysis (including utilisation patterns and community surveys of opinion and experience). The interaction between users (the planners) and producers (the HIS) should be strengthened and regional networks of information producers and planners should be established.

During the transition from a planned economy to a decentralized, market socialist economy, the Chinese healthcare system has evolved from a centralized, egalitarian public system (1949-1979) to one which is largely self-governed and can be characterized as �public identity, private behavior� healthcare system (1980-1999). With blurring of the distinction between public and private governing systems, and a shift in norms towards profit orientation, major concern has arisen about the extent of high cost, high volume services being offered through excessive entrepreneurial practices. This thesis is concerned with the regulatory strategies and options to reach 2010 health reform objectives of equity and efficiency under a mixed public/private market. While possible lessons can be drawn from established economies and transitional economies, China faces some unique challenges, given the diverse market structures and fragmented healthcare system across the country, and the underdeveloped framework for the rule of law. The thesis reviews policy documents from 1949 to 2004 and draws from interviews with senior health policy-makers and hospital directors in three different locations, in order to explore the role of the state in market regulation, the effectiveness of technical and social regulations, and how policy implementation and regulatory compliance occur. The research has found that the dynamics of the healthcare system are shaped by the financing arrangements for healthcare and the absence of arms-length governance of hospitals by health departments. Without an effective state health financing tool, nor mature market institutions, China is not able to use neither performance-based regulation nor technology-based regulation. China has adopted a management-based regulatory strategy but the absence of effective governance structure hinders effective regulation. If the reform objectives of improving healthcare quality while costs are to be attained, China will need to develop purchasing tools to alter the current perverse incentives for provider behavior. Government will also need to work with civil society organizations to develop tools for clinical governance, such as clinical audit for risk management and hospital accreditation programs. To do so requires establishing arms-length governance mechanisms between health departments and hospitals, and appropriate corporate governance structures within hospitals. Specifically, MOH needs to establish a technical policy think tank to investigate all the policy issues arising from the announcement of the 1997 health reform, including coordination with other line ministries and provincial authorities, and formulation and implementation of a policy research agenda, in order to attain a market-based governance system for health by 2010.

'Social development' and 'economic development' are complex concepts, concepts that may be interpreted very differently in different contexts and at different times. Not only may the processes involved be different in different contexts, so too may be the criteria by which success is judged. It is argued here that successive Solomon Islands governments have striven for social and economic development without taking full account of the real nature of Solomon Islands society. What is needed is national development policy, planning and implementation that arise out of, and take fully into account, the historical, geographic and cultural context of Solomon Islands. On the whole, the socio-economic structure of Solomon Islands society is currently underpinned by a tri-partite hierarchy in which, for the majority of Solomon Islanders, kastom (traditional beliefs and practices) and church (the beliefs and practices endorsed by the church) take precedence over the state as legitimate forms of authority. This inevitably poses problems for state-led development. If socio-economic development activities are to be successful in achieving a better quality of life for all Solomon Islanders, including those who live in rural areas, they must take full account of the role of kastom and church in the lives of the people. This must include an understanding of the differing concepts of development of people in different areas of the country such as those of Ulawa islanders that are discussed here. The thesis begins with an introduction to the research (Chapter 1) in which the theoretical framework is located broadly within the postmodern paradigm. In Chapter 2 the essentially qualitative and interpretive nature of the methodology is outlined and explained. Chapter 3 provides a critical review of international development literature in which it is argued that official definitions and descriptions of development are based on production and deficit models. The need to accommodate an indigenous and organic concept of development, one that takes account of the diversity of human experience, is stressed. Chapter 4 provides an outline of Solomon Islands society. Here, the historical narrative is complemented by three metaphors - 'island', wantok and betelnut - which serve to reinforce and explain the nature of Solomon Islands society and the ways in which that society has been shaped by historical processes. Chapter 5 is devoted to a discussion of modern development activity in Solomon Islands, the main focus being on the period immediately preceding and following independence. Chapter 6 explores, with particular reference to Ulawa Island, indigenous concepts of development and the impact of national development activities on rural-dwelling islanders. It also engages the issue of state reform, proposing a model based on a two tier system, with central government in its current form dealing directly with the people at constituency rather than provincial level. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the main conclusions reached. It is noted that the failure of both pre- and post-independence governments to take full account of the nature of Solomon Islands society has been a major factor in the lack of effective development in the islands.