Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Analysis Of The Use Of Special Masters For Assuring Compliance With Judicial Decrees In Corrections Litigation, Richard J. Liles

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to analyze the recent practice of judges appointing remedial special masters to oversee the implementation of consent decrees and court orders. These orders are a response to the spate of inmate suits demanding compliance with the constitutional guarantees provided in the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. As more courts have become involved in adjudging the constitutionality of conditions in correctional institutions, there has been a trend toward the judge becoming a quasi-manager in assuring compliance with the court's orders. To conduct this oversight, they have turned more and more to the practice of hiring …

Policy Gambit: Conservative Think Tanks Take On The Welfare State, David Stoesz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Conservative policy institutes have reevaluated their position regarding welfare and begun to present proposals to change social welfare policy. Instrumental in this development are the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, conservative think tanks which have developed projects for the purpose of making social policy more consonant with conservative philosophy. If progressive organizations are to reassert their role in the policy process, they will have to use some of the aggressive techniques pioneered by the conservative think tanks.

Sexual Abuse At Charity House: A Case Study Of Social Policies In Action, Maureen Kelleher

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper explores Wiseman's theory of policy intervention using a case study of institutional abuse for illustration. Social policy intervention is an ongoing process. In this case, a single policy agenda, deinstitutionalization, was modified by a variety of stakeholders and compounded by a series of other child specific policy agenda including child abuse reporting procedures

Development Of Michigan Jtpa Title Iia Performance Standards Regression Models Under The New Federalism, Yung Sung Wu

Dissertations

The purpose of this study has been to make some contribution toward an understanding of the United States Department of Labor's (USDOL) JTPA Title IIA performance standards models and their policy implications. The major objective of the study has been to construct, evaluate, and document short-run econometric models which would be available for policy analysis and ex ante forecasting. The consequences of job training programs may have important effects on participants and the manpower service delivery system--hence, this study of the relationship between program activities and their consequences.

The State of Michigan has been using USDOL's JTPA Title IIA performance …

The Idea Of Good Government: The Evolution Of Administrative Thought And Practice In The American Republic, James Robert Wieber

Dissertations

This study analyzes the evolution of the proper role of public administration in American government. American public administration traces its roots to the founding of American constitutional government in 1789, but divergent opinions continue regarding the discipline's proper role in a democracy. This question has never been settled in the American experiment. Considering the size, scope, and complexity of today's administrative state, it may well never be. Recent efforts have sought to define public administrations's role as proactive on behalf of clients for reasons of social equity and human dignity. Further attempts have been made to define administration as a …

Privatization: Reforming The Welfare State, David Stoesz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The American social welfare institution is in transition. Constituencies of the welfare state-the public, clients, and professionals-have registered dissatisfaction with traditional methods of providing services. Analysts from liberal and conservative think tanks have proposed relying less on government and more on the private sector to provide for welfare. To a substantial degree privatization is already evident in several areas: the expansion of for-profit health and welfare corporations, the application of entrepreneurial methods in community development, and the encouragement of private retirement plans. The liberal response to privatization is poorly developed, and could benefit from insights by welfare professionals who seek …

The Failure Of The Destitute Mother's Bill: The Use Of Political Power In Social Welfare, Eve P. Smith

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Although social and economic conditions and prevailing popular philosophies may affect the success or failure of an attempt at change in social welfare policy and practice, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the political forces for and against the change may be more important. In 1897, fourteen years before the passage of the first U.S. Mothers' Pension law in Illinois, New York State Senator John Ahearn attempted such a law in New York. Although the bill was passed unanimously by both houses of the State Legislature, it was never signed into law. The reason was that the children's institutions and …

Book Review, Maurice M. Vance

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Trattner, Walter I., editor. Biographical Dictionary of Social Welfare in America. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

School District Current Operating Expenditures: A Comparative Analysis Of Michigan School Districts Having A Student Population Of 10,000 To 50,000 For 1984-85, James Ross Constandt

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare line item current operating expenses among school districts in Michigan having a student population of 10,000 but less than 50,000 and to present a budget model which establishes minimum and maximum line item current operating expenses for such school districts. Line item expenditures were compared and analyzed among those school districts within the same student population grouping.

Local school districts in Michigan are categorized by the State Board of Education into 14 groupings based on pupil membership. School districts in Groups B and C were studied. Group B included four school districts …

The Effect Of Changes In The Federal Disability Programs On State And Local General Assistance Programs, Courtney Scherer Petersen, Eric R. Kingson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Since early 1981, there has been a large-scale removal of persons from the SSI and Social Security disability programs as a result of the Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980. This article reports on the findings of a national survey designed to determine whether the removal of persons from the federal disability programs had an impact on state and local General Assistance programs and the extent to which older recipients of General Assistance are in need of long-term income assistance for health and other reasons.

Some states and jurisdictions have noticed an increase in applications as a result of federal …

The Impact Of Program Centralization On The Utilization Of Social Services: The Case Of The Ssi Program, Yossef Meller, Nancy Mudrick

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

When the Old Age Assistance (OAA), Aid to the Blind (AB), and Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled (APTD) caseloads were converted to SSI in 1974, only cash payments were transferred to the Social Security Administration; social services remained available through public welfare agencies. This paper assesses the extent to which the service utilization of low income aged and disabled persons changed with the social service delivery system changes associated with the implementation of SSI. We found that the proportion of persons receiving social services decreased slightly between the last year of the old programs and the first year …