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The article presents an introduction which discusses articles on topics including flaws of the U.S. based correctional systems and an importance of social workers in minimization of the flaws.

In this article, the authors analyze the intertwined problems of judgment and explanation through a comprehensive study of judicial override opinions. Of the 33 states that employ capital punishment, three--Alabama, Delaware, and Florida--are unusual in that the final decision on the death sentence is made by the trial judge after a sentence recommendation from the jury (rather than ultimately by the jury, as in all other death penalty states). Although capital statutes in these states have passed constitutional muster, they remain controversial because in approximately 220 cases trial judges have overridden jury recommendations for life and sentenced defendants to death. These states require the judge to write a sentencing opinion explaining his or her findings on aggravation and mitigation. Unlike any other arena in the legal landscape of America's death penalty, judge-overridden death sentences require something close to an explanation of the judgment. This study analyzes the total population of these opinions to study the problems of judgment and explanation by tracing the metaphysical, moral, and ideological aspects of what judges say when sentencing persons to death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Evidence Based Policy has been articulated and practiced in Europe, particularly under the ‘New Labour’ policies of the former Labour government in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the impact of research on policy has been inconsistent due to differing relationships between researchers and policy makers. This paper gives an overview of evidence based policy and presents critiques based on its reliance on positivist methods and technical approach to policy making. Using these critiques as a framework, the paper discusses the case of Housing First, a policy adopted by the Bush Administration in order to address the problem of chronic homelessness. The case is an example of research driven policy making but also resulted in a progressive policy being promoted by a conservative administration. In discussing the case, the paper elaborates on the relationship between evidence and policy, arguing that evidence based policy fails to integrate evidence and values into policy deliberations. The paper concludes with alternative models of policy decision making and their implications for research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Law and society scholars have theorized about the link between capital punishment and the hegemony of individualism, but few offer empirical investigations to illustrate how individualism makes capital punishment possible (and vice versa) in the contemporary United States. In order to fill this gap, we analyze the legal and human service records that were compiled in the construction of one executable subject, Daniel Farnsworth. Using a critical discourse approach, we look at what was said and not said about Daniel in the records created by various helping agencies. In our analysis, we demonstrate how the helping agencies involved in Daniel's life repeatedly relied on an individuating psychological paradigm that led them to produce decontextualized catalogs of his actions and characteristics. Next, we illustrate how these pathologizing accounts were, ironically, later invoked in court in the name of preserving his life. Finally, we explain how “helping” discourses, along with the rules that regulate capital defense practice, straightjacket defense attorneys into reinforcing individualism in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores momentous changes to Delaware's death penalty statute in 1991, reforms that made it one of the USA's premier killing states. Reflecting on media coverage of a high profile crime and the legislative debates that led to the law change sheds light on how static conceptions of spaces (i.e. 'the dangerous city') and persons (i.e. 'non-white invaders from Philadelphia') reveal lawmakers' commonsense racism as inextricably bound to such momentous legislative action. By situating the decision in the context of the intense urgency to act set in motion by a high profile racially charged crime and a taken-for-granted compliance to an aggressive pro-death legal formalism, lawmakers appeared to act in a manner that was racially neutral. However and perhaps most strikingly, the debate lacked any dissenting voices of representatives from racially aggrieved communities long neglected by the state. Such a racially insensitive rush to appear 'tough on crime' reveals how Delaware lawmakers acted according to a commonsense of racialized persons, places, and channels that enforced racial hierarchy (i.e. actions that hurt minorities and favor whites). More broadly, we argue that Haney- Lopez's (2003) theory of commonsense racism helps to clarify Simon's (2007) theory of governing through crime as it applies to the 'toughening' of already punitive criminal laws at the state level, if not especially the death penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The properties of Si and O donors in wurtzite AlN have been studied by means of hybrid functional calculations, finding that both impurities form DX centres. In the case of Si, the stable DX centre is close in energy to the substitutional donor state and to a second metastable DX centre, thus explaining both the persistent effects and the broad range of activation energies observed experimentally. Ionisation energies have been computed for both Si and O donor states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We study the origin of photoluminescence (PL) in Si nanocrystals embedded in a silicon-rich matrix. PL properties as a function of time and temperature were investigated for nanocrystal diameters ranging from about 1.5 to 4nm. All our observations (logarithmic evolution of the timescale as a function of energy, gap associated temperature shift of the PL energy, and logarithmic evolution of size as a function of confinement energy) indicates that PL occurring in small nanocrystals originates from quantum confinement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, the authors analyze the intertwined problems of judgment and explanation through a comprehensive study of judicial override opinions. Of the 33 states that employ capital punishment, three--Alabama, Delaware, and Florida--are unusual in that the final decision on the death sentence is made by the trial judge after a sentence recommendation from the jury (rather than ultimately by the jury, as in all other death penalty states). Although capital statutes in these states have passed constitutional muster, they remain controversial because in approximately 220 cases trial judges have overridden jury recommendations for life and sentenced defendants to death. These states require the judge to write a sentencing opinion explaining his or her findings on aggravation and mitigation. Unlike any other arena in the legal landscape of America's death penalty, judge-overridden death sentences require something close to an explanation of the judgment. This study analyzes the total population of these opinions to study the problems of judgment and explanation by tracing the metaphysical, moral, and ideological aspects of what judges say when sentencing persons to death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a special educator's reflections on her first day of teaching at a self-contained classroom for special children in the United States. Students' behavioral and educational problems; Use of picture books to hold children's attention; Advantages of reading books aloud to special students.

Over the last decade healthcare policies and practices in the US have placed significant emphasis on healthcare integration, mental health parity, and implementation of team-based practice models to improve quality, safety, and affordability of service. With these incentives in mind, schools of social work have joined with national and international health education organizations to reduce disciplinary silos and increase shared learning opportunities across professions and programs. The social work profession has long supported collaborative practice however, students are rarely paired with others in the classroom or intentionally taught about counterparts' roles and expertise. Social work leaders are also responsible for addressing the intersectionality between collaborative competencies and sociocultural factors. The 2015 EPAS and 2016 Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice create multi-level opportunities for social work educators to provide Interprofessional Education (IPE) innovation and leadership across common curricula and educational settings. The authors examine historic challenges to integrating IPE in social work curricula, provide three examples of IPE/social work initiatives in higher education, describe the intersectionality of the EPAS and the IPEC competencies, and identify institutional benefits associated with the integration of IPE in schools of social work culture and curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]