County Jurisdictions Research Articles

The Texas Landscape: Accounting for Migrant Mortality and the Challenges of a Justice of the Peace Medicolegal System

Executive Summary This paper details the structural and resource challenges in Texas related to identifying migrant decedents, investigating their deaths, repatriating them, and adhering to legal and ethical requirements in addressing this humanitarian tragedy. While actors working on migrant decedent investigations in Arizona can map and provide accurate counts of migrant deaths, this is not yet possible for Texas cases. Texas’ mixed Medical Examiner/Justice of the Peace medicolegal system suffers from fragmentation across county jurisdictions, lack of resources, and minimal access to investigative tools for transnational families. These challenges produce a landscape where unidentified presumed migrants may structurally disappear (e.g., buried in temporarily marked graves as unidentified persons with no investigation or case tracking). The article highlights the work of Operation Identification (OpID), a humanitarian project formed to assist border counties with recovering, identifying, and repatriating migrant decedents. OpID’s extensive community outreach and collaboration with governmental and nongovernmental partners in the United States and Latin America have improved practices in some Texas counties. However, systemic change is still needed to address this humanitarian disaster. The article proposes that presumed migrant decedents be managed using a disaster victim identification (DVI) approach, which prioritizes identification, rather than how and why someone dies. It also proposes the establishment of regional Migrant Identification Centers (MICs) to streamline identification and repatriation efforts, while ensuring compliance with Texas law by Justices of the Peace (JPs). Centralization, the article argues, can lead to more accurate counts of migrant deaths and lay the groundwork for greater resources. The article also supports increased access to national databases including the National Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). It argues that transnational families of missing persons be afforded expanded access to investigative tools (e.g., NamUs)

Draft Dodger, Soldier’s Wife: Trans Feminine Lives, Civic Duty, and World War II


 
 
 
 This article examines trans feminine lived experiences in the United States during the Second World War amid persecution amplified by the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, the May Act of 1941, and heightened visibility through local and national news publications. This article contends that there is a longer and more complicated linked history between trans feminine Americans and the U.S. military than has been acknowledged by both scholarship and public discourse. Federal statutes like the STSA and the May Act lent authority to the state and its auxiliaries beyond the singular municipal or county jurisdiction. These factors aided the legal persecution of innumerable Americans with perjury, draft evasion, ‘moral’, and fraud charges. Through case studies of the disparate circumstances surrounding the ‘discovery of sex’ of three individuals, Sadie Acosta, Lucy Hicks Anderson, and Georgia Black, this study illuminates the role of various actors involved in investigating and policing their ‘moral’ crimes and gender variance in the 1940s and 1950s. In the post-war years, the figure of the ‘ex-G.I.’ woman is seen through numerous well-publicized cases in the U.S. and the U.K., showing that trans feminine experiences of World War II could be found both at home and abroad.
 
 
 

Drug-related deaths among housed and homeless individuals in the UK and the USA: comparative retrospective cohort study.

The UK and USA currently report their highest number of drug-related deaths since records began, with higher rates among individuals experiencing homelessness. Given that overdose prevention in homeless populations may require unique strategies, we evaluated whether substances implicated in death differed between (a) housed decedents and those experiencing homelessness and (b) between US and UK homeless populations. We conducted an internationally comparative retrospective cohort study utilising multilevel multinomial regression modelling of coronial/medical examiner-verified drug-related deaths from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2021. UK data were available for England, Wales and Northern Ireland; US data were collated from eight county jurisdictions. Data were available on decedent age, sex, ethnicity, housing status and substances implicated in death. Homeless individuals accounted for 16.3% of US decedents versus 3.4% in the UK. Opioids were implicated in 66.3 and 50.4% of all studied drug-related deaths in the UK and the USA respectively. UK homeless decedents had a significantly increased risk of having only opioids implicated in death compared with only non-opioids implicated (relative risk ratio RRR = 1.87, 95% CI 1.76-1.98, P < 0.001); conversely, US homeless decedents had a significantly decreased risk (RRR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.29-0.48, P < 0.001). Methamphetamine was implicated in two-thirds (66.7%) of deaths among US homeless decedents compared with 0.4% in the UK. Both the rate and type of drug-related deaths differ significantly between homeless and housed populations in the UK and USA. The two countries also differ in drugs implicated in death. Targeted programmes for country-specific implicated drug profiles appear warranted.

Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program expansion evaluation—A qualitative study

AbstractResearch SummaryWe conducted a multisite qualitative evaluation of the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP) expansion states that received federal funding in 2019 to measurably augment, adopt, and/or use ODMAP in their service areas. Across five states, 11 agencies including law enforcement agencies, county health departments, and local health coalitions were invited to participate in in‐depth interviews to assess their experiences with ODMAP implementation, including facilitators, barriers, and best practices. Guided by implementation science principles and the Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model framework, we identified 12 key elements impacting progress toward ODMAP expansion, including the importance of leveraging interorganizational partnerships, competing environmental priorities, organizational perspectives on readiness for adoption, usability, and burden, organizational leadership support, and the presence of champions, dedicated implementation teams, and key adopter supports.Policy ImplicationsSince 2016, ODMAP has rapidly expanded in response to the opioid crisis. The system is currently used by a wide range of public safety and public health agencies including multiple state and county jurisdictions funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Overdose Data to Action program. Ongoing, critical, and innovative evaluation of this nascent surveillance system is required.

It Was Only a Dream

It Was Only a Dream Drew Swanson (bio) Paul Musselwhite, Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth: The Rise of Plantation Society in the Chesapeake. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. xii + 341 pp. Figures, maps, abbreviations, notes, and index. $50.00. Cities are nodal, geographers inform us. Within their sprawl, individuals and neighborhoods are connected one to another, while the sum of these communities is itself bound by intricate threads to the suburbs and hinterlands. Neither city nor countryside stands alone. Paul Musselwhite offers an intriguing study of the abortive roots of one set of these urban-rural relationships in Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth: The Rise of Plantation Society in the Chesapeake. He seeks new answers to an old question: why did the Chesapeake develop as such a rural, planter-dominated landscape by the eighteenth century? He concludes that “the absence of urban places was no mere coincidental product of Chesapeake plantation agriculture. In fact, the relationship between plantations and towns was quite the opposite. A century of failed urban development was instrumental in forging the contours of Chesapeake society” (p. 2). The end result of Musselwhite’s study is a book that intimately explores urban planning and civic ideology, but which sometimes ignores other contexts that were central to life in the Chesapeake before the American Revolution. The book is organized in a clear and logical fashion; it unfolds in chronological order from the years preceding Jamestown’s founding until the mid-eighteenth century, with each chapter focusing on English urban visions during a period of one or two decades. Musselwhite notes that city plans were central to the Virginia Colony’s foundations, thanks in part to investors who hoped that the English borough model of civic communities would foster a stable and diversified colonial economy. Jamestown was a planned community, as were the unsuccessful Bermuda City and Argall City. The coordinated Powhatan attack led by Opechancanough in 1622 destroyed many of the nascent boroughs, contributed to the revocation of the Virginia Company’s charter, and thus undermined these initial urban efforts. Fluctuating tobacco prices and Crown worries that a luxury crop was a poor foundation for a colonial economy prompted renewed efforts at town founding in the 1620s, led in Virginia by Governor John Harvey. Planters resisted Harvey’s plans, however, and worked [End Page 7] to install their own vision of proper governance and an economic structure rooted in county jurisdictions. The Calvert family—granted proprietorship of Maryland by King Charles I in 1632—also undertook colonization with grand visions of the St. Mary’s settlement as an urban hub, but the colony would ultimately adopt the county structure as well. Parliament’s victory in the English Civil War generated a new set of urban visions. Puritans questioned the emerging Chesapeake model of county governments and personal patronage that had developed under William Berkeley and the Calverts, renewing an imperial emphasis on town centers that might serve as social and religious models as well as economic engines. Musselwhite argues that the 1651 Navigation Act hoped in part to funnel trade through colonial towns, where it might be better regulated (and taxed), though this regulation was often framed in a language of civic virtue (pp. 101–2). This Parliamentary vision gained more traction in Maryland than in Virginia, where planters increasingly touted agrarian independence and clandestinely traded with Dutch ships in violation of the Navigation Act. As a consequence of this resistance to Parliament’s plans, Jamestown actually shrank during the 1650s, and then, in the 1660s, “proposals for urban development once again had the counter-intuitive effect of reinforcing planters’ faith in their own rural civic authority within the empire” (p. 129). Musselwhite also sees urban development as a root cause of Bacon’s Rebellion, the armed revolt beginning in 1676 that nearly toppled Governor Berkeley’s rule and also unsettled Maryland’s government. He portrays Chesapeake residents who were upset with the particular form town development had taken—especially Berkeley’s grand vision for an expanded Jamestown and the Calverts’ dream of a network of new port cities—as more crucial to colonial unrest than the Indian troubles on the frontier or resentment of corrupt county governments and...

Expropriation of feudal property in the interwar period

Prior to the agricultural reform, the free and royal town of Varaždin owned 1.228 jutros of arable land. The agricultural reform divided 1.038 jutros, the army claimed 100 jutros for its needs, whereas only 90 jutros were left under the ownership of the Town. Previous to the agricultural reform, in the war year of 1917, money received from the lease of the land made up more than 5 percent of the town income. However, having entered the new state union and due to the introduction of the agricultural reform as well as new and higher taxes in 1923, the land lease revenue made up barely 0,2 percent of the town budget. A buyer could enter expropriated land of the Town of Varaždin into the land register only when reimbursement had been payed off, and he also had to build a house there within the next three years. Farmers obtained the land on a temporary one-year lease. Having taken everything into consideration, the agricultural reform failed to increase prosperity, on the contrary, it brought along direct financial losses for the Town of Varaždin. Namely, in March 1939, during a Municipal Council sitting members commented that the Town of Varaždin ceased to be the administration centre of the northern Croatia due to the loss of financial directive and county jurisdiction, whereas it also lost significant financial income due to the seizure of large amounts of land for the agricultural reform. For the purpose of illustration, it would be interesting to see where the properties owned by the Town of Varaždin were located; however, due to the large number of cadastral parcels, its drawing is beyond the scope of this paper. Regarding the seniorate possession of the Stari grad, Rudolf II Habsburg gave it to count Toma Erdödy and his heirs who managed the property up to the first half of the 20th century. As opposed to the property belonging to the Town of Varaždin, in this case, the number of cadastral parcels is smaller and therefore it was be possible to make an illustration depicting the surface it occupied in the area of the Town of Varaždin. The seniorate possession belonging to the counts of Erdödy was smaller than the then Town of Varaždin and consisted of 1.091 jutros of land. After the agrarian reform had been conducted, 825 cadastral jutros remained. Moreover, the process caused conflicts within the Erdödy family and short time after they vanished from Varaždin.

Strength of Strong Ties in Intercity Government Information Sharing and County Jurisdictional Boundaries

AbstractStudies have found that information sharing between city governments can be easily observed within the same county jurisdiction, but less attention has been paid to the reasons why the jurisdictional boundary matters. This article fills this lacuna, drawing on the insight of the “strength of strong ties” argument that “people help their friends first.” The analysis reveals that city governments in the Orlando, Florida, metropolitan area are more likely to share economic development information (EDI) with governments in the same county as the collective demand for such information in that area increases. This study additionally finds that the greater the demand for EDI, the more likely it is that city governments will seek the information from their county members. As a result, as the demand for information increases among city governments in a metropolitan area, the likelihood that it will be shared by all members of the area beyond the county boundaries decreases.

#WeNeedANewCounty: Enduring Division and Conquest in the Indigenous Southwest

AbstractPernicious threats to tribal sovereignty and Indigenous empowerment at local scales of governance have often evaded the scrutiny applied to other formations of the settler state. To illustrate this point, I draw on recent attempts to divide and redistrict county jurisdictions that overlap with the Navajo Nation. I argue that such efforts become a pretext to treat Navajo citizens as an economic liability and to exclude them from upwardly mobile settler polities in historically racialized ways. As a result, rural politics becomes a crucial site for understanding the contemporary struggles of the 573 federally recognized tribal nations in the United States. I conclude that considerations of rurality must be attentive to how histories of dispossession continue to surface in and permeate the present political moment.

Safety Performance Functions for Low-Volume Rural Stop-Controlled Intersections

This study involved the development of safety performance functions for rural, low-volume, minor road stop-controlled intersections in Michigan. Facility types included three-leg stop-controlled (3ST) and four-leg stop-controlled (4ST) intersections under state or county jurisdiction and were sampled from each of Michigan’s 83 counties. To isolate lower-volume rural intersections, major roadway traffic volumes were limited to the range of 400–2,000 vehicles per day (vpd). Data were compiled from several sources for 2,023 intersections statewide. These data included traffic crashes, volumes, roadway classification, geometry, cross-sectional features, and other site characteristics covering the period of 2011–2015. Random effects negative binomial regression models were specified for each stop-controlled intersection type considering factors such as driveway density, lighting presence, turn lane presence, and intersection skew, in addition to volume. To account for the unobserved heterogeneity between counties, mixed effects negative binomial models with a county-specific random effect were utilized. Furthermore, unobserved temporal effects were controlled through the use of a year-specific random effect. Separate models were developed for fatal/injury crashes, property damage crashes, and select target crash types. The analysis found that skew angles of greater than five degrees led to significantly greater crash occurrence for both 3ST and 4ST intersections, while greater than two driveways near the intersection led to significantly greater angle crashes at 4ST intersections. Other factors were found to have little impact on crash occurrence. Comparison with the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) base models showed that the HSM models over-predict crashes on 4ST intersections and 3ST intersections with volumes between 1,200 and 2,000 vpd.

Detecting DUI (Non) deterrence: A macro-methodology to uncover “restrictive v permissive” county jurisdictions in California

This paper builds a method to detect the apparent restrictiveness or permissiveness of communities towards drunk-driving. A framework of three mutually interacting community domains is used to motivate a minimum set of DUI patterns to be expected from an appropriately deterrent environment. Based on the (simplified) system dynamics model, an empirical estimation strategy and scoring methodology is outlined. This “macroscopic” approach is demonstrated using results from time-series panel analyses of California’s 58 counties for the years 1990 to 2010 (Van Vleck et al., 2017). The process successfully classified three-quarters of California counties, encompassing almost 90% of the state population. The paper demonstrates a potential tool to classify communities’ systemic behavior toward drinking-and-driving and other enforcement-sensitive subjects.

Determinants of Police and Community Cooperation in Policing: A Case of Imenti North Sub-County, Meru County (Kenya)

ABSTRACT This study sought to examine the determinants of police and community cooperation in policing Imenti North Sub – County within Meru County Jurisdiction. The focus was on five locations of Imenti North Sub – County namely; Municipality, Ntima East, Ntima West, Nyaki East and Nyaki West. The study used interview schedule method to collect data from 183 respondents who included household heads, Chiefs, Community Policing Committee members and police officers. Data was analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Lack of trust and confidence in the police were found to be the key hindrances to community – police co-operation in Imenti North Sub-County. This study recommends that police agencies should build partnerships with the citizens in order to increase their ability to maintain law and order and therefore solve crimes.

Jurisdiction Scale Matters: County Size and External Political Efficacy in China

Despite considerable scholarly interest and recent advances in research, our knowledge of how jurisdiction size influences political efficacy remains fragmentary. This study contributes to the literature by exploring the linkage between the size of county jurisdiction, in terms of county population, and external political efficacy in China. Results from simple regressions indicate that, on average, external political efficacy declines with the size of county jurisdiction. Further analysis via a quantile perspective provides evidence that the influence of size upon external political efficacy varies across different parts of the outcome distribution. We observe a negative and pronounced effect in the lower tail of the distribution, but a positive and trivial effect in the upper tail. Our study highlights citizens’ divergent perceptions about the size of political jurisdiction and offers new insights into the research on jurisdictional design and political efficacy.

Hounded Women: The IPV Protocol and the Autonomy of Abuse Victims

Abstract In the early 90s, many jurisdictions adopted a special protocol in an effort to stop and punish intimate partner abuse. This article focuses on the particular form this policy has taken in the New York County jurisdiction, as it is a source of deep disagreement among feminists. In this article, I explore this disagreement in order to demonstrate two things. First, that like many other contentious issues, this controversy revolves around the question of how oppressed individuals’ autonomy should be conceived. Second, that a structural understanding of autonomy, such as the one pioneered by the philosopher Joseph Raz, can be of great use to resolve disagreements on this protocol. I offer an interpretation of his account which enables us to acknowledge the agency of ‘hounded women’ while legitimizing interventions aimed at eradicating the coercion they are victims of.

Where are the cost savings in city–county consolidation?

ABSTRACTAlthough proposals for city–county consolidation are often justified on the basis of reducing government expenditures or improving efficiency, few studies find that expenditures are actually reduced after consolidation. This study examines long‐term spending trends in four consolidated city–county jurisdictions for periods of eight to ten years pre‐ and post‐consolidation. Although the results of the four cases are mixed, we find that in some cases there are cost savings associated with cit5y–county consolidation, more frequently in specific functional categories than in overall spending. We also find that it is necessary to examine spending patterns over several years after consolidation. In some cases, short‐term savings dissipate over time. In other cases, initially modest savings grow over time due to a reduction in spending growth.

Did Drug Courts Lead to Increased Arrest and Punishment of Minor Drug Offenses?

Drug courts were implemented nationwide during the 1990s to expand alternatives to incarceration for individuals with substance use disorders that were charged with nonviolent felonies or misdemeanors. Although these courts were publicized as a facilitator of treatment and alternative to incarceration, researchers and advocates have suggested that this approach may have unintentionally intensified law enforcement focus on casual drug users and individuals with minor substance dependency. The primary objective of this study was to determine whether there is evidence that drug courts systemically increased the arrest and punishment of misdemeanor drug use and possession by conducting a series of panel data analyses among more than 8,000 city and county jurisdictions while controlling for economic, demographic, and nationwide law enforcement trends. Analyses in this study provide evidence that local police increased their attention toward minor drug offenses in jurisdictions where drug courts were implemented across the nation.

Incorporating Archaeology Into Local Government Historic Preservation and Planning: A Review of Current Practice

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The fate of archaeological sites in cities, towns, and county jurisdictions are greatly affected by the decisions of local governments and planning departments, which usually operate with little formal guidance regarding archaeological site stewardship. What strategies do local governments use to effectively manage archaeological sites in their jurisdictions? Which ones work best? To address these questions, we carried out an exploratory study of mechanisms used by local government planners for archaeological resource protection in 24 states between 2008 and 2015, obtaining information from 69 local governments. We use questionnaires and interviews with local government staff, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs), and State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs), identifying the range of practices employed. Within the jurisdictions we studied, the most elaborate programs a) have local ordinances protecting archaeology, on-staff archaeologists, and use special archaeological districts and zoning overlays, survey, and development guidelines linked to archaeological site probability models; b) maintain cost-saving partnerships with SHPOs, THPOs, universities, and local nonprofit heritage organizations; c) or use a combination of these practices.Takeaway for practice: Virtually all local governments possess archaeological resources and an archaeological heritage worthy of protection. Local site preservation is most effective when it moves from project-based compliance to become an integral part of the overall planning process. By protecting these places and educating the public regarding their importance, local governments help to bolster local economies, local pride, and local amenities in a way that benefits residents, tourists, and generations to come.

Analysis of regulatory guidance values for six commonly regulated chlorophenols

Regulatory guidance values (RGVs) are developed by regulators to protect human health by establishing maximum allowable contaminant concentrations. Contamination of residential surface soil is of particular concern because of its potential impact on the general population, especially children. As part of an ongoing examination of soil RGVs, this study analyses guidance values applied to chlorophenols, a class of chemicals used as pesticides, herbicides, and disinfectants. Chlorophenol RGVs have been promulgated by at least 45 US states, 38 United Nations member states, four Native American tribes, five federal agencies, and several city, county, and territorial jurisdictions. An analysis of the six most commonly regulated chlorophenols (2-chlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2,4,5-trichlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol, and pentachlorophenol) demonstrates that there is great variability in the guidance values, which vary by six to eight orders of magnitude and have distributions similar to those of lognormal random variables. Clearly, there is little universal agreement on the appropriate maximum contamination levels for chlorophenols.

Local Health Departments and Specific Maternal and Child Health Expenditures

As a part of the Public Health Activities and Service Tracking study and in collaboration with partners in 2 Public Health Practice-Based Research Network states, we examined relationships between local health department (LHD) maternal and child health (MCH) expenditures and local needs. We used a multivariate pooled time-series design to estimate ecologic associations between expenditures in 3 MCH-specific service areas and related measures of need from 2005 to 2010 while controlling for other factors. Retrospective expenditure data from LHDs and for 3 MCH services represented annual investments in (1) Special Supplemental Nutrition for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), (2) family planning, and (3) a composite of Maternal, Infant, Child, and Adolescent (MICA) service. Expenditure data from all LHDs in Florida and Washington were then combined with "need" and control variables. Our sample consisted of the 102 LHDs in Florida and Washington and the county (or multicounty) jurisdictions they serve. Expenditures for WIC and for our composite of MICA services were strongly associated with need among LHDs in the sample states. For WIC, this association was positive, and for MICA services, this association was negative. Family planning expenditures were weakly associated, in a positive direction. Findings demonstrate wide variations across programs and LHDs in relation to need and may underscore differences in how programs are funded. Programs with financial disbursements based on guidelines that factor in local needs may be better able to provide service as local needs grow than programs with less needs-based funding allocations.

Why Age Matters in the Work Preferences of Public Employees: A Comparison of Three Age-Related Explanations

Age diversity is a major issue in the American public sector workplace. Public managers must figure out how to retain and motivate highly skilled older employees who are transitioning out of the workplace, while at the same time remaining attractive to lesser skilled younger employees who are entering into the workplace. Fulfilling this goal is more difficult in light of the evidence that older and younger public employees desire different work opportunities. Before managers develop effective strategies to respond to these age differences, they must first understand why these differences are present. This study sought to explore why age differences are present by comparing three explanations. Using a sample of three hundred and forty-nine public employees drawn from a large county jurisdiction in Oregon, this study revealed that the reasons why age matters depends on employees' generational differences, access to desirable work opportunities, and socialization experiences in public organizations. The implications of this study for theory and practice in the field of public administration are discussed.

Evaluating Local Flood Mitigation Strategies in Texas and Florida

In the United States, mitigating the adverse impacts of flooding has increasingly become the responsibility of local decision-makers. Despite the importance of understanding how and why flood mitigation techniques are implemented at the local level, few large-scale, empirical studies have been conducted in recent years. Our study examines the current status and extensiveness of flood mitigation among localities in coastal Texas and Florida. Specifically, we analyze twenty-one different structural and non-structural mitigation strategies based on the results of a survey of over 470 floodplain administrators and planning officials across the two states. We also evaluate various characteristics of organizational capacity which may underlie the ability of local city and county jurisdictions to adopt and implement various flood policies. Results show distinct variation in the type and degree of flood mitigation occurring at the local level, as well as highlight important differences in mitigation efforts between Texas and Florida.