Large Jurisdictions Research Articles

How Long is Long Enough: Using Abbreviated Criminal Histories for Pretrial Assessment Instruments?

The debate over pretrial assessment instruments focuses largely on the potential for instruments to exacerbate racial disparities. This study examines the effects of using different recall periods for the criminal history items on the New Criminal Arrest (NCA) scale from the Public Safety Assessment. Using jail admission data from a large jurisdiction in the southeast of the US, we varied the recall period from 1 to 10 years for the criminal history items on the NCA scale and examined scoring differences and the predictive validity of the tool by race. The results showed that shorter criminal history recall periods could result in reductions in the proportion of individuals scored as high risk and no loss in validity. The current study demonstrates that shorter recall periods for criminal history items on pretrial instruments could potentially provide a practical strategy to mitigate disparities across groups, while maintaining predictive validity of the assessment.

Do Community Views of Local Police Agencies Change During “Crises of Legitimacy”? Results of a Multi-wave Random Sample Community Survey in a Large Suburban Jurisdiction

AbstractGeorge Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis Police Department officer on May 25, 2020, was arguably one of the most impactful events in modern policing in the United States. However, several controversial and highly publicized use-of-force events preceded it during the 2010s, leading to this entire period being labeled a “crisis of legitimacy” or “reckoning” for the police. Nationally, perceptions of the police declined during this period, especially after Floyd’s death, prompting a great deal of debate, protest, and discussion about police reform (including arguments about defunding the police). However, a great deal of variation exists in these perceptions at the local level. This study presents a rare insight into this issue, pooling two random-sample household mail surveys that researchers collected in 2015 and 2021 in a large urban-suburban county. It seeks to determine whether changes in specific measures of perceived police legitimacy and effectiveness found in national-level polls were also found in this jurisdiction, and more specifically, across different racial groups. Although this racially and ethnically diverse county is also a progressive Democratic stronghold, the results suggest that local views about police—even when disaggregated by race—may not align with national perspectives or events as expected, which, in turn, may impact support for police reforms at the local and national levels.

Public vs Private Bodies: Who Should Run Advanced AI Evaluations and Audits? A Three-Step Logic Based on Case Studies of High-Risk Industries

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Institutes and governments worldwide are deciding whether they evaluate and audit advanced AI themselves, support a private auditor ecosystem or do both. Auditing regimes have been established in a wide range of industry contexts to monitor and evaluate firms’ compliance with regulation. Auditing is a necessary governance tool to understand and manage the risks of a technology. This paper draws from nine such regimes to inform (i) who should audit which parts of advanced AI; and (ii) how much resources, competence and access public bodies may need to audit advanced AI effectively. First, the effective responsibility distribution between public and private auditors depends heavily on specific industry and audit conditions. On the basis of advanced AI’s risk profile, the sensitivity of information involved in the auditing process, and the high costs of verifying safety and benefit claims of AI Labs, we recommend that public bodies become directly involved in safety critical, especially gray- and white-box, AI model audits. Governance and security audits, which are well-established in other industry contexts, as well as black-box model audits, may be more efficiently provided by a private market of auditors under public oversight. Secondly, to effectively fulfill their role in advanced AI audits, public bodies need extensive access to models and facilities. Public bodies’ capacity should scale with the industry's risk level, size and market concentration, potentially requiring 100s of employees for auditing in large jurisdictions like the EU or US, like in nuclear safety and life sciences.

Innovative advances for neglected tropical disease (NTD): A global perspective from intellectual property

This study examines innovative advances related to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which have severe health, social, and economic consequences that affect more than one billion people worldwide. It addresses the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals in tackling some of the “Grand Challenges,” such as dengue fever (DF), one of the primary and re-emerging diseases that have advanced worldwide in recent years. One of the challenges is the requirement that high investments in innovation can be rationalized by the potential returns sustained by the intellectual property protection system. This study answers the question: “How have dengue-related innovations been approached globally from an intellectual property perspective?” Seeking to shed light on innovative advances in NTD, this exploratory study adopted a (i) longitudinal approach, assessing the global impact of DF, and (ii) historical analysis from the intellectual property perspective, seeking the effectiveness of commercially viable solutions against the disease. An extensive search was conducted in international patent databases using Questel® Orbit Intelligence software to address the proposed objective. This study selected 2307 invention patent families (FamPat) from 1993 to 2023, of which nearly half have expired or been revoked. China is the largest jurisdiction, with 415 FamPat filings. However, many regions with a high global burden of DF lack intellectual protection for DF-related innovations. Although the number of Fampat is relatively high for DF, and the interaction between universities, government, and private companies shows the potential development of an innovation ecosystem, few technological solutions are available. This study concludes that the capacity to absorb knowledge influences the effectiveness of making a technology available as a commercial product.

Successful Distribution of Tecovirimat During the Peak of the Mpox Outbreak - Los Angeles County, June 2022-January 2023.

Tecovirimat is the first-line antiviral treatment recommended for severe mpox or for persons with mpox who are at risk for severe disease; tecovirimat is available in the United States under an expanded access investigational new drug (IND) protocol. During the 2022-2023 mpox outbreak, local U.S. health jurisdictions facilitated access to tecovirimat. In June 2022, Los Angeles County (LAC) rapidly developed strategies for tecovirimat distribution using existing medical countermeasure distribution networks established by the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program and the Hospital Preparedness Program, creating a hub and spoke distribution network consisting of 44 hub facilities serving 456 satellite sites across LAC. IND patient intake forms were analyzed to describe mpox patients treated with tecovirimat. Tecovirimat treatment data were matched with case surveillance data to calculate time from specimen collection to patients receiving tecovirimat. Among 2,281 patients with mpox in LAC, 735 (32%) received tecovirimat during June 2022-January 2023. Among treated patients, approximately two thirds (508; 69%) received treatment through community clinics and pharmacies. The median interval from specimen collection to treatment was 2 days (IQR=0-5 days). Local data collection and analysis helped to minimize gaps in treatment access and facilitated network performance monitoring. During public health emergencies, medical countermeasures can be rapidly deployed across a large jurisdiction using existing distribution networks, including clinics and pharmacies.

Process mapping homicide investigations and estimating resource requirements for homicide units: Findings from a case study in the United States

A research team worked with a large urban jurisdiction in the southeastern United States, conducted detective interviews, developed process maps, and estimated the work hours associated with various phases of homicide investigations. The investigative process was organized into separate stages and presented as process maps. The average time elapsed for the initial investigative stage was 72.0 hours, while time to complete the second stage was 10.3 days. Plea-bargained cases consumed 12 hours of lead investigator’s time; homicide trials required an additional 13.2 workdays. These workflow maps and workload estimates could be used to help determine staffing allocations in similar agencies.

License to pollute? A longitudinal analysis of environmental performance, compliance, and enforcement in 232 licensed projects in Brazil

Environmental legislation in most countries mandates a wide range of development projects to obtain environmental licenses prior to construction and operation, thus hoping to prevent and control adverse impacts. Authorities almost always decide to grant such licenses but conditioned to the implementation of mitigation and compensation programs. The effectiveness of such programs has long been a matter of controversy due to the weak accountability of licensed projects’ environmental performance. Aware of this knowledge gap, this article set out to: (1) evaluate the norms and procedures of post-approval control in Minas Gerais, a large Brazilian jurisdiction that requires frequent evaluations of environmental performance; and; (2) evaluate post-approval environmental performance and enforcement in a sample of 232 licensed projects. The evaluation of norms and procedures was based on best practice criteria drawn from the literature. The content of hundreds of documents (e.g., performance evaluations, sanctions, license conditions) associated with the 232 projects was coded and organized in spreadsheets, thus allowing for statistical analysis. Findings suggest that the post-approval legal requirements of Minas Gerais are similar and at times stronger than those commonly found in international jurisdictions. However, the content analysis of post-approval records revealed numerous implementation problems. Most projects (74%) reported poor performance issues and almost 90% of the projects received administrative sanctions (e.g., fines) due to legal violations. The state authority lacks clear post-approval decision-making criteria and reacts late to performance problems. Findings suggest that impact assessment and licensing in Minas Gerais are unable to prevent environmental pollution. The study discusses its implications and likely solutions.

Under the radar: Ireland, maritime security capacity, and the governance of subsea infrastructure

ABSTRACT Subsea infrastructure is typically out of sight, but in recent times, seldom out of mind. The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in October 2022 has magnified the vulnerability and critical importance of subsea infrastructure. It also exposed a lack of understanding on how subsea networks operate, how they are regulated, who controls them and how they are protected. Ireland matters in this context. Despite its official policy of neutrality, Ireland occupies an important strategic position in terms of transatlantic telecommunications cables between the United States, Britain and continental Europe. The conflict in Ukraine has amplified tensions in this context in terms of the increased threat of grey-zone/hybrid warfare activity. This article will consider for the first time how a global connectivity hub on the western periphery of Europe governs critical underwater infrastructure. It will discuss the context and agencies involved in subsea cable governance in Ireland and identify the gaps in this protection before formulating suggestions for the long-term improvement of Ireland’s maritime security capacity. The Irish case is important as it can help inform defence policy and security practice in other island states with large maritime jurisdictions and in particular states with small navies.

Assessing the ‘forgotten fundamental’ in policy advisory systems research: Policy shops and the role(s) of core policy professionals

AbstractDuring the past 30 years, research on policy analytical capacity's multidimensional nature and the evolution of policy advisory systems (PASs) has both increased knowledge of these processes and structures and opened new avenues of inquiry. While it is clear that changes in PASs in many countries have occurred ‐ featuring processes such as the increased externalisation and politicisation of policy advice ‐ studies of changes among the roles played by core policy professionals in advice provision have lagged. One aspect of this question concerns the nature and extent of changes in this ‘forgotten fundamental’ of advice systems related to how these professionals are arrayed within ‘policy shops’—that is organisational units identified in the 1960s and 1970s as the main organisational home of policy professionals in government. Whether or not such shops have changed from the central‐integrated model identified in early studies and, if so, how, remain outstanding and foundational questions. Recent research in Canada has mapped the distribution of policy professionals at the central and provincial level and found more types of analysts and venues than in earlier eras— which range from the ‘classical’ integrated policy shops of the 1960s and 1970s which remain in central agencies and single‐purpose line departments to the much more 'distributed' patterns found in many departments dealing with multiple or complex controversial issues. Using Canadian data, this study outlines the development of these organisational types and their distribution in government and discusses the implications of these changes for better understanding the work, and needs, of core professionals in policy advice systems. .Points for practitioners ‘Policy professionals’ or public employees specifically tasked with policy analysis in government are key players in policy advisory systems despite the addition of more external and internal actors in policy advice systems in recent years. How these advisors and analysts are organised in government, whether they work in clusters or small groups, and how they interact with other civil servants and policy‐makers are a key determinant of their activities and influence in policy‐making. In the policy sciences, work in the 1960s and 1970s established ‘the policy shop’, that is relatively small centrally located organisational units employing mainly policy analysts, as the main home of policy professionals in government. These units often enjoyed a monopoly in analysis and played a key role in policy‐making. However, research on these organisations has not kept up with changes in advisory relations within and outside of governments and the impact such changes have had on the influence and activities of core professionals. Recent work by the authors looking at the large Canadian province of Ontario has identified more than a single type of arrangement of analysts in the current era. This paper expands this analysis to both small and large jurisdictions in Canada, including the federal government, and develops two detailed case studies of the current organisation of policy professionals in smaller central agencies like Ministries of Justice as well as in larger omnibus Ministries of the Environment. The study finds a ‘distributed’ model of policy shops—in which multiple policy units exist throughout the agency—to be dominant in both cases and in all the governments examined and suggests this is now the new normal, replacing the dominance of the older more integrated central shop model. The predominance of the distributed model contributes to the fragmentation of policy advice already underway in government due to the growth in the number of external advisors such as consultants and think tanks, and internal ones such as political staffers.

Can text messages reduce incarceration in rural and vulnerable populations?

AbstractReducing failures to appear (FTA) in court is a top priority for criminal justice practitioners and advocates. However, existing work on reducing FTAs through text message reminders focuses on large urban jurisdictions and defendants who are housed. Using a field study in Shasta County, California, we evaluate whether text message outreach can increase court appearances for housed and unhoused populations. We find housed defendants randomly assigned to the treatment group were 10% less likely to miss their next scheduled court date than defendants in the control group. We find no statistical difference in the FTA rate of unhoused individuals assigned to treatment or control groups, and cannot rule out large positive or negative effects. We find that improving the quality of contact information in court records could lead to large reductions in FTAs. Partnering with local social service providers may not, but more research is needed.

Pathways to Offense Charging: Examining Defense Decision-Making During Case Processing

Prosecutors are afforded significant discretionary power in the current justice system. While much attention has been given to the factors that influence charging decisions, little is known about decision-making in the charging process itself. Moreover, research has yet to examine the mechanisms used to initiate charging: grand jury indictments or the information. As these charging processes are characteristically different and may have significant implications for case processing and justice outcomes, it is important to explore what factors influence decision-making at this early stage. The current study addresses these shortcomings using case-processing data from a large urban jurisdiction. Results indicate significant differences between defendants charged via grand jury and information processes. In addition, charging pathways have important consequences for case outcomes.

Disparities in the Pretrial Process: Race, Ethnicity, and Citizenship

Prior work establishes that Black and Latino people face harsher treatment during the pretrial phase of the justice system. Yet, the mechanisms underlying pretrial racial and ethnic disparities remain unclear. Using multiple administrative data sources from a large jurisdiction in the southeast, we examined the influence of race, ethnicity, and citizenship on judicial decisions and defendant outcomes among people booked for a felony (n = 29,735). Of particular interest was the extent to which previously observed racial and ethnic disparities may be attributable to citizenship. Our results indicate that (1) Black and Latino people receive more punitive judicial decisions and experience worse pretrial outcomes than Whites, net of citizenship status; (2) noncitizens receive more lenient judicial decisions and experience better pretrial outcomes than citizens; and (3) citizenship status interacts with ethnicity, such that among noncitizens, Latinos suffer the worst outcomes of all groups. Implications for research and theorizing are discussed.

Sexual Health and Communication Between Foster Youth and Their Caregivers.

Foster youth are at increased risk for negative sexual health outcomes and rarely receive the information or social/familial support needed to reduce risks. Foster and kinship caregivers report lacking the information and skills needed to effectively talk to youth in their care about sexual health. In a sample of caregivers from 2 large urban jurisdictions, our goals were to: 1) describe caregiver sexual health variables including communication and monitoring characteristics; and 2) assess associations between self-reported emotion regulation and caregiver-youth conflict and these variables. We administered surveys to foster and kinship caregivers in New York, New York and Los Angeles, California. Surveys assessed caregiver emotion regulation, caregiver-youth conflict, sexual/reproductive health knowledge, communication expectations and behaviors, and caregiver monitoring/youth disclosure. We generated descriptive statistics for all variables (aim 1) then performed multivariate regression analyses for aim 2. Our sample included 127 foster and kinship caregivers who were primarily female (92%) and African American (55%). Most reported having >4 years of caregiving experience with foster youth (66%). On average, caregivers answered sexual health knowledge questions correctly 68% of the time. Caregiver-youth conflict was the only variable significantly associated with assessed sexual health variables; it was inversely associated with percent correct on the knowledge scale, outcomes expectations, number of topics discussed, and monitoring/disclosure. Our study suggests that caregiver-youth conflict behaviors are related to sexual health knowledge, communication, and monitoring variables. Further prospective and longitudinal investigation is warranted to better characterize the complex relationship between these variables.

Increasing Patient Tracking Compliance by Harnessing Frontline Clinician Engagement

Introduction:A large urban jurisdiction identified a lack of experience and knowledge in use of the established regional patient tracking system among frontline emergency department employees. Lack of nursing retention, shifted departmental priorities throughout the pandemic response, and decreased opportunities for exercising were notable causes of this identified knowledge gap. Effective patient tracking has a significant impact during response to any event with the capacity to strain the hospital and healthcare system. Mass casualty incidents pose a global threat to all jurisdictions. Recognition of this threat magnifies the importance of establishing a patient tracking system and empowering frontline staff, through education and training, to immediately implement the exercised patient tracking platform.Method:Bolstering hospital readiness through site visits and first-receiver clinician engagement during special event planning improved effective use of a citywide patient tracking system during planned events. “Just-in-time” training tools were developed and distributed during site visits. Notably, identification of key clinical staff at each institution was an important step in meaningful clinician engagement. Utilization of these systems during special events is an opportunity to exercise a high stakes procedure during a low stakes incident.Results:Site visits and training material distribution effectively enhanced first-receiver participation in patient tracking during a special event in comparison to previous special events. Users required less prompting throughout the response, and the post-intervention survey indicated an increase in user confidence levels. Increased utilization of the system improved visibility into the hospital's lived experience while engaged in the response.Conclusion:Targeted site visits and educational material tailored to first-receiver clinicians during special events improved patient tracking efforts throughout a large urban healthcare system. During real and planned events, person and patient tracking allows for patient load balancing across the healthcare system, assists with patient and family reunification, and directs future planning, funding, and first responder and receiver education.

Online shopping can redistribute local tax revenue from urban to rural America

What is the effect of e-commerce on the geographic distribution of local sales tax revenues? Using COVID-19 as a shock to online shopping and hand-collected high-frequency data on local sales tax revenue, we document an important shift in the state and local public finance landscape. As e-commerce increases, a destination basis for remote sales taxes results in higher growth in local sales tax collections in smaller, generally more rural jurisdictions. This increase comes at the expense of larger urban retail centers, which previously enjoyed an origin basis for sales tax collections. As households replace in-person commerce with online shopping, sales taxes no longer accrue to urban centers with large concentrations of retail establishments and instead expand the tax base of smaller jurisdictions. State-level reforms that enforce sales tax compliance generally mitigate the revenue falls in larger jurisdictions and amplify the increases in smaller jurisdictions.

Michigan Local Leaders Report Near-Term Improvements in Fiscal Health, Especially in Large Jurisdictions, yet Long-Term Concerns Increase

Michigan Local Leaders Report Near-Term Improvements in Fiscal Health, Especially in Large Jurisdictions, yet Long-Term Concerns Increase

Facing a New Ocean Decade: Geopolitical Change and Challenges in Ocean Governance

ABSTRACT The fifty-year period since UNESCO announced its ‘Decades’ devoted to the oceans has witnessed some deep changes in ocean geopolitics: a new international community made up of a greater number of nation-states that have transformed their territorial bases through the inclusion of large maritime jurisdictions. This, and the decline in the international regulatory ideal, have led to marine governance being addressed very differently from the way it was in the 1970s and presenting a challenge for the future governance of the oceans. This article explores the political change that has occurred during this time and focuses on the State, its maritime territory and the effects of jurisdictional expansion. Methodologically, the geopolitical focus is framed in geographical premises supported with data prepared by the author and premises formulated in the fields of law and political science. The conclusions include some of the effects of unilateral action in marine governance and show that differences and inequalities are the most visible aspects of this new marine territoriality.

Assessing benefits and costs of expanded green hydrogen production to facilitate fossil fuel exit in a net-zero transition

Large jurisdictions—including Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—are aggressively pursuing a role for hydrogen in the net-zero transition. Past assessments focus on pilot projects or hydrogen hubs and assume cost-competitive hydrogen production by a certain date. Here, we simulate a production facility that couples offshore wind with electrolysis to produce green hydrogen in Canada’s Atlantic Maritimes—a region with a size and energy profile similar to other nations’, with fossil and nuclear infrastructure that will retire prior to the 2050 net-zero target. We employ growth and learning rates derived from industrial experience and estimate the installed capacity, cost, and emissions of this integrated energy system. Various scenarios are considered, including ones with and without hydrogen storage; one that integrates offshore wind into the grid instead; and one that serves the hydrogen needs of freight transportation. Hydrogen production is at least four times more expensive than grid integration. Projects could only be implemented by 2050 and at <2 $/kgH2 by assuming aggressive growth rates, learning rates, and electrolyzer capital costs of 500 $/kW. This analysis gives policymakers an appreciation of the effort, costs, and emission benefits of producing green hydrogen at scale.

Public Health Readiness for Citizen Science: Health Department Experiences.

The aim of this study was to examine the experiences of US health departments with citizen science. In 2019, we conducted a national survey of 272 local health department (LHD) representatives about knowledge and attitudes, readiness, experiences, and barriers related to citizen science (response rate = 45%). LHDs in the United States in 2019. LHD representatives. Knowledge and attitudes, readiness, experiences, and barriers related to citizen science. Sixty-two percent of respondents reported LHD experience with citizen science in areas such as health promotion, emergency preparedness, and environmental health. LHDs in large jurisdictions (78%) were more likely to report staff familiarity with citizen science than small (51%) and medium (59%) jurisdictions ( P = .01). Although 64% reported readiness for citizen science, only 32% reported readiness for community-led activities. We found that LHDs use citizen science more for community engagement activities, such as public education, than data collection activities. Respondents indicated that staff education and training in citizen science methods, funding, and partners with relevant expertise were priority needs. LHDs have leveraged citizen science for community engagement, but barriers to technical uses remain.

Effect of flight connectivity on the introduction and evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak in Canadian provinces and territories.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has challenged health services and governments in Canada and around the world. Our research aims to evaluate the effect of domestic and international air travel patterns on the COVID-19 pandemic in Canadian provinces and territories.MethodsAir travel data were obtained through licensed access to the ‘BlueDot Intelligence Platform’, BlueDot Inc. Daily provincial and territorial COVID-19 cases for Canada and global figures, including mortality, cases recovered, and population data were downloaded from public datasets. The effects of domestic and international air travel and passenger volume on the number of local and non-local infected people in each Canadian province and territory were evaluated with a semi-Markov model. Provinces and territories are grouped into large (>100 000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and > 1 000 000 inhabitants) and small jurisdictions (≤100 000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and ≤ 1 000 000 inhabitants).ResultsOur results show a clear decline in passenger volumes from March 2020 due to public health policies, interventions, and other measures taken to limit or control the spread of COVID-19. As the measures were eased, some provinces and territories saw small increases in passenger volumes, although travel remained below pre-pandemic levels. During the early phase of disease introduction, the burden of illness is determined by the connectivity of jurisdictions. In provinces with a larger population and greater connectivity, the burden of illness is driven by case importation, although local transmission rapidly replaces imported cases as the most important driver of increasing new infections. In smaller jurisdictions, a steep increase in cases is seen after importation, leading to outbreaks within the community.ConclusionsHistorical travel volumes, combined with data on an emerging infection, are useful to understand the behaviour of an infectious agent in regions of Canada with different connectivity and population size. Historical travel information is important for public health planning and pandemic resource allocation.