Author Archives: Sheila

It is a central tenet of democratic regimes that the state must be accountable to its citizens. In the United States, in particular, contracting out complicates that accountability in a number of ways (Gilmore & Jensen 1998), and raises thorny issues both for the agency charged with responsibility for providing the public good or service, and for the private or non-profit contractor.
Continue reading “Accountability and the New Governance”

As Kennedy and Mohr have noted (2001), the treatment of children by mental health professionals?particularly in an institutional setting?implicates three sets of important, and frequently competing, interests. The first of these is the parental interest in preserving family autonomy: minimizing state interference in decisions made about what constitutes the best interests of their children, and their right to transmit to those children their particular personal and cultural values. The second is the state?s interest in protecting the child, preventing or controlling antisocial behavior, and, in furtherance of those goals, providing a system of mental-health care. Finally, there are the child?s own interests in ?being cared for, loved, and helped to become an autonomous individual with the rights and privileges of an adult? (Hopcroft, 1995).
Continue reading “Legal Aspects of High Risk Interventions”

While lawyers, political scientists and others recognize the more explicitly religious components of America?s current polarization, we fail to appreciate the extent to which conflicting policy preferences are rooted in religiously-shaped normative frameworks. Much like the blind men and the elephant, we encounter different parts of the animal. We see a tree, a wall, a snake?but we fail to apprehend the size, shape and power of the whole elephant.
Continue reading “Religious Paradigms and the Rule of Law: Thinking in Red and Blue”