Publications

2020. “1076.0 Ladder and the Scale: Commitment and Accountability at Project Match”. Abstract

Project Match: Illinois – 1988 Innovations Winner

Located in one of the most troubled housing projects in Chicago, the job training program known as Project Match has an unusual approach to the task of bringing welfare recipients into the world of work. Rather than trying to broker a simple job placement, the program tries to encourage long-term change in the habits and living style of its hard-to-place population, in part by creating a social atmosphere in which work and ambition are valued. But because it receives funds from the Illinois Department of Public Aid, Project Match finds itself under pressure to produce job-placement results which demonstrate its success. The program itself urges authorities to find ways to quantify success besides simply finding someone a job – and places a premium on keeping track of those it’s trying to help, long after a first job placement. The case highlights the challenges of social service program evaluation, as well as the problems an innovative agency has explaining itself to traditional bureaucracies with which it must deal.

2020. “928.0 Building the Baltic”. Abstract

Single Room Occupancy Resident Hotel Program: San Diego, CA – 1988 Innovations Winner

When the destruction or conversion of single-room occupancy hotels, or SROs, in San Diego’s downtown seemed to lead to an increase in homelessness, a private real estate developer argued that he could build profitable new SROs if the city would waive or modify key safety and construction standards. In the ensuing debate over the first such SRO, the Baltic Inn, core public housing issues came to the fore: whether regulation was effective and equitable, whether deregulation would serve the poor, and what minimum quality of life society should demand for even the poorest housing consumers. For a different treatment of this issue, see Housing’s Bottom Rung: Single Room Occupancy Hotels in San Diego (C18-95-1293.0 and 1294.0). Housing’s Bottom Rung, the abridged version of Building the Baltic (C16-89-928.0), leaves the dilemma of how best to solve the city’s housing problems to students, rather than describing the route which San Diego actually pursued, as is done in the original case. It describes the decline in single room occupancy hotels for poor single people and early proposals for a preservation ordinance to halt their demolition. The use of the A case first in class, followed by the handout of B, is meant to prompt the realization that careful and imaginative policy analysis can lead in politically unanticipated directions.

2020. “1530.1 Assertive Policing, Plummeting Crime: The NYPD Takes on crime in New York City (Epilogue)”. Abstract

CompStat: New York, NY – 1996 Innovations Winner

The dramatic reduction in crime in New York City during the 1990s grabbed the attention of the U.S. and the world, seeming to provide evidence that new policy and management approaches could make an enormous difference for the better. This case tells the story of key management decisions that the New York Police Department itself credits with the successful attack on the city's crime rate. Specifically, it describes the approach of Police Chief William Bratton in assembling a core, reform-oriented management team and the development of a computerized crime tracking system used as the foundation for the targeting of police manpower. The epilogue raises the dramatic question of whether the goal of minimizing the misuse of force by police officers is also amenable to the measurement techniques successfully employed to the activity of criminals. This case, in addition to the questions it raises, provides a powerful telling of one of the most successful public sector management initiatives of recent times.

2020. “996.2 St. Louis County Police Department (TN)”. Abstract

Computer Assisted Report Entry: St Louis, MO – 1988 Innovations Winner

This case examines a specific technological innovation and tracks its effect on the procedures of an organization. The Computer Assisted Report Entry (CARE) system adopted by the St. Louis County Police Department is designed to replace what is viewed as a cumbersome, if vital, procedure: the filing of written reports by individual police officers involved in responses to calls and in arrests. CARE replaces what the department believes to be an inefficient system of written reports with a system of telephone reporting. Although viewed positively in the text, the case also invites scrutiny of the long-term, perhaps unforeseen, consequences of such a technological change.

2020. “2025.0 Recovery in Aurora: The Public Schools’ Response to the July 2012 Movie”. Abstract
The case prompts students to consider what community recovery entails, especially vis-à-vis mental health issues and resiliency; the role of different institutions therein; and how to accommodate a range of public views on these topics. It also explores broader issues in local government, most notably coordination within and across agencies as well as between the public and private sectors.  
2020. “1904.9 Missouri‘s Therapeutic Approach to Juvenile Offenders (DVD Supplement)”. Abstract

Division of Youth Services: Missouri – 2008 Innovations Winner

This 10-minute video is a companion to ”Taking a Therapeutic Approach to Juvenile Offenders: The ‘Missouri Model,’” Kennedy School case number C16-09-1904.0. In it, Tim Decker, the director of the Missouri Division of Youth Services, lays out the philosophy and practice of the therapeutic process used by the department in its treatment of youth offenders. The video shows the young people as they explore the roots of their behavior and develop tools to process trauma, often by articulating and sharing their feelings and concerns in a group setting. The ultimate goal of the program, Decker explains, is to encourage internalized change and foster social competencies. Powerful testimony from some of the youth sheds light on the main challenges they experience as they struggle to rebuild their lives.

2020. “1904.0 Taking a Therapeutic Approach to Juvenile Offenders: The “Missouri Model””. Abstract

Division of Youth Services: Missouri – 2008 Innovations Winner

In the early 1970s, the Missouri Division of Youth Services (DYS) took its first steps toward radically changing the way it dealt with youthful offenders remanded to its custody. For years, like most states, it had incarcerated juveniles convicted of felony or misdemeanor offenses in large quasi-penal facilities called “training schools.” Instead, DYS began establishing smaller “cottage-style” residential programs that emphasized rehabilitation over punishment and applied a therapeutic approach to its troubled young charges. Over the next three decades, DYS expanded this approach to encompass its entire juvenile offender population. By the mid-2000s, the “Missouri model,” as it became known, was perhaps the most admired – and, many considered, most effective – juvenile corrections system in the U.S.

This case describes the Missouri model – including the population it serves, the educational and therapeutic programs it offers, and the frontline staff of “youth specialists” it employs to work closely with young offenders. The case also provides an overview of Missouri’s impressively low recidivism figures and a brief discussion of the complexities of comparing such figures among states. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges the Missouri DYS has faced in sustaining its highly regarded, but demanding, approach over many years. The case can be used in classes on child welfare policy and criminal justice.

2020. “856.9 Finding Black Parents: Video Exhibit”. Abstract

One Church/One Child Minority Adoption Campaign: Illinois – 1986 Innovations Winner

In 1980, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services faced a crisis. Over 700 black children in cook County, including 69 infants, waited for adoption while the agency was unable to find black parents. A supplement to the case (856.0), this video exhibit brings to life the successful strategy of the One Church, One Child program, focusing on a presentation in a black church designed to encourage adoptions. In addition, the video includes retrospective comments from the program's administrators and vignettes of families who have adopted children as a result of the program. This case will challenge students to examine the assumptions that limit bureaucracies.

2020. “1228.0: Community Voice Mail for the “Phoneless”: Starting Up in Seattle and Minnesota”. Abstract

Community Voice Mail: Seattle, WA – 1993 Innovations Winner

The staff of a Seattle non-profit employment and training agency come to a sudden realization in late 1990: the homeless with whom they deal are handicapped not only by a lack of a permanent residence but their lack of a phone. They lack the means to receive calls, schedule interviews and, ultimately, obtain employment. The insight leads the Seattle Worker Center to seek state and, over time, private funds which permit it to set up a successful “community voice mail“ system, through which the “phoneless“ can store and send messages. The case is designed for students of social policy and allows for examination of those factors which led outside funders and, ultimately, the community at large, to embrace the voice mail idea. Additional description of an attempt to replicate the program in Minnesota portrays a less immediately hospitable situation which a non-profit leader must negotiate.

2020. “875.0 Taking Charge: Rose Washington and Spofford Juvenile Detention Center”. Abstract

Case Management for At-Risk Children in Detention: New York, NY – 1986 Innovations Winner

The latest in a long string of directors of New York City’s toughest juvenile detention facility confronts a staff which is both demoralized and resentful of authority. As the jail’s first black director, she must cope with a predominantly black staff long accustomed to ”getting over” – giving less than full effort and rationalizing its attitude in terms of the perceived indifference of a ”downtown” white power structure. Battles over child abuse, insubordination and union power ensue.

2020. “1047.1 Solving Seattle’s Solid Waste Crisis (Sequel)”. Abstract

Seattle Recycling Program: Seattle, WA – 1990 Innovations Winner


The closing of two landfill sites creates a municipal crisis in Seattle, forced to find new disposal options for the 2,000 tons of garbage it produces each day. Political concerns over what appears to be the most practical disposal option – construction of a major municipal incinerator – prompts the city’s Solid Waste Utility to undertake an innovative study to examine the extent to which recycling could minimize the city’s trash disposal needs. This case broadly examines the “Recycling Potential and Disposal Options“ study with an eye toward understanding the relationship between the political process and the techniques of public policy analysis. The case is designed to frame questions as to the proper relationship between policy analyst and elected official, and the ways in which analysis is constrained, properly or improperly, by political considerations.

2020. “1243.0 Mountaineer Habitat for Humanity and the West Virginia Housing Development Fund: The Prospect of Partnership”. Abstract

Low-Income Assisted Mortgage Program: West Virginia – 1993 Innovations Winner

When a local chapter of the Habitat for Humanity organization learns that a state-chartered development fund might be able to provide it with financial help, the non-profit organization faces a decision. Should it accept funds from a public agency? Would doing so jeopardize its independence and push the organization in directions it might not want to go? So, too, does the Development Fund face decisions as it contemplates aiding the non-profit, which builds small homes for the near-poor, in part through the use of volunteer labor. Should Habitat’s religious affiliation bar the Fund from helping it? Should Habitat be allowed to retain control over who gets to purchase the homes it builds? This case focuses on the intersection of the public and non-profit sectors and raises questions about when they should or shouldn't overlap.

2020. “1204.0 Info/California: Where Do Electronic Government Tellers Belong?”. Abstract

Info/California: California – 1993 Innovations Winner

The growth of the kind of new interactive technologies promise to make it more convenient and less expensive for government, like private providers of consumer goods and services, to serve its customers – whether they seek a driver’s license or unemployment compensation. Incorporating such technologies implies change, however, and, as this case makes clear, requires decisions about when and how automated transactions should be the norm. The story of the Info/California decision focuses on competing visions of a new, interactive system which promises to allow Californians to obtain records, licenses and program information of all sorts. For its champion within state government, it makes most sense for a scarce number of interactive terminals to be placed in public areas – supermarkets, malls and the like. He must, however, face a demand by a state agency that a terminal be used to make up for laid-off employees in a place where the public has been accustomed to going for records and licenses. Developed for the Kennedy School’s Program on Strategic Computing, this case allows for discussion of the relationship between mission and technology.

2020. “1157.0 Wichita Confronts Contamination: Seeking Alternatives to Superfund (Part A)”. Abstract

Environmental Cleanup Program: Wichita, KS – 1992 Innovations Winner

Long-undetected groundwater contamination, discovered in 1990, by the Kansas Department of Health and Environmental Protection, has a potentially catastrophic economic impact on downtown Wichita, Kansas. The four-mile long, one-and-a-half-mile wide site centered at the corners of Gilbert and Mosley Streets lies in the heart of Wichita’s central business district. Although it did not provoke health concerns, the newly discovered contamination prompted lenders to cease making any financial commitments in the district. This case focuses on the strategic approach to this crisis taken by Wichita's city manager. Initially faced with two bad alternatives – forcing hundreds of businesses to share in the clean-up cost, or face designation of the area as a federal Superfund site, portending perhaps a decade of legal wrangling – Wichita creates a more palatable way out of the crisis. The case can be useful both for discussions of constituency-building and political strategy, and for discussions of U.S. federalism.

2020. “1927.0 Bringing Kids Home: The Wraparound Milwaukee Model”. Abstract

Wraparound Milwaukee: Milwaukee County, WI – 2009 Innovations Winner

The Wraparound Milwaukee program was created in 1995 by Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and provides services and treatment to severely emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children and youth. The program utilizes the “wraparound philosophy” to provide the children and youth it serves with a highly individualized, community, and strength-based approach to care. The delivery of services are facilitated by a Care Coordinator who works with the family to choose the right services from Wraparound Milwaukee’s network of individual providers and community based organizations. The program’s funding is pooled from several state and county agencies. Wraparound Milwaukee’s innovative approach to care has brought considerable savings to the county $3,878 per month per child for Wraparound Milwaukee versus $8,000-$10,000 per month per child that the county paid for residential placement. Wraparound Milwaukee has seen positive outcomes in the youth it serves after disenrollment in terms of clinical health indicators as well as other indicators.

2020. “1559.3 The NYPD Takes on Crime in New York City (C): Short-Term Outcomes”. Abstract

CompStat: New York, NY – 1996 Innovations Winner

This abridgement is based on the case ”Assertive Policing, Plummeting Crime: The NYPD Takes on Crime in New York City” (1530.0). The abridgement of the case divides the story of the change in the New York Police Department into three, roughly chronological parts – the diagnosis of the crime and organizational problems, the development of a new system of practices and incentives and a description of the variety of impacts which the new ”assertive policing” regime appeared to have. The three parts (1557.3, 1558.3, 1559.3) and Epilogue (1557.1) can be used individually or together. They should not be used along with the full case and sequel (1530.0, 1530.1) but should, instead, be considered a substitute approach.



Graves, Zach, and Daniel Schuman. 2020. “Science, Technology, & Democracy: Building a Modern Congressional Technology Assessment Office”. Read the full report Abstract

Zach Graves and Daniel Schuman, January 2020

This paper offers recommendations and a road map for the future success of a restarted technology assessment office in Congress. We look at three potential approaches: (1) Building up the Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s OTA-like capacity in its newly created Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team, and giving it greater resources and structural autonomy; (2) Reviving OTA but updating its procedures and statutory authority; and (3) A hybrid approach wherein both GAO and a new OTA develop different capacities and specializations. (Spoiler: we favor the third approach.)

 

The next section of this paper reviews what OTA was and how it functioned. The third section discusses the history of and rationale for the defunding of OTA, other cuts to Congress’s S&T capacity, and why this congressional capacity and expertise matter for democracy. The fourth section reviews efforts to revive OTA and other efforts to build new congressional S&T capacity. The fifth section discusses the political landscape for building S&T capacity, including the legislative branch appropriations process and the different political constituencies for S&T. The final section offers a detailed discussion of various structural recommendations for a new congressional technology assessment office, including an expanded STAA unit in GAO, and a new OTA.

 



Sikkink, Kathryn. 2020. The Hidden Face of Rights. Learn more on the publisher's site Abstract

Kathryn Sikkink, January 2020 

When we debate questions in international law, politics, and justice, we often use the language of rights—and far less often the language of responsibilities. Human rights scholars and activists talk about state responsibility for rights, but they do not articulate clear norms about other actors’ obligations. In this book, Kathryn Sikkink argues that we cannot truly implement human rights unless we also recognize and practice the corresponding human responsibilities.
 
Focusing on five areas—climate change, voting, digital privacy, freedom of speech, and sexual assault—and providing many examples of on-the-ground initiatives where people choose to embrace a close relationship between rights and responsibilities, Sikkink argues for the importance of responsibilities to any comprehensive understanding of political ethics and human rights.

Akee, Randall K.Q., Eric C. Henson, Joseph Kalt, and Miriam R. Jorgensen. 2020. “A Fair and Feasible Formula for the Allocation of CARES Act COVID‐19 Relief Funds to American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Governments”. Read the full report Abstract

Randall K.Q. Akee, Eric C. Henson, Miriam R. Jorgensen, and Joseph P. Kalt; May 2020 

Title V of the CARES Act requires that the Act’s funds earmarked for tribal governments be released immediately and that they be used for actions taken to respond to the COVID‐19 pandemic. These may include costs incurred by tribal governments to respond directly to the crisis, such as medical or public health expenditures by tribal health departments. Eligible costs may also include burdens associated with what the U.S. Treasury Department calls “second‐order effects,” such as having to provide economic support to those suffering from employment or business interruptions due to pandemic‐driven business closures. Determining eligible costs is problematic.

Title V of the CARES Act instructs that the costs to be covered are those incurred between March 1, 2020 and December 30, 2020. Not only does this create the need for some means of approximating expenditures that are not yet incurred or known, but the Act’s emphasis on the rapid release of funds to tribes also makes it imperative that a fair and feasible formula be devised to allocate the funds across 574 tribes without imposing undue delay and costs on either the federal government or the tribes.

Recognizing the need for reasonable estimation of the burdens of the pandemic on tribes, the authors of this report propose an allocation formula that uses data‐ready drivers of those burdens.  Specifically, they propose a three‐part formula that puts 60% weight on each tribe’s population of enrolled citizens, 20% weight on each tribe’s total of tribal government and tribal enterprise employees, and 20% weight on each tribe’s background rate of coronavirus infections (as predicted by available, peer‐reviewed incidence models for Indian Country).

2020. “2016.1 Inundation: The Slow-Moving Crisis of Pakistan”. Abstract
By August 2011, one year after the apex of Pakistan’s 2010 flooding crisis, recovery efforts had progressed substantially – but many Pakistanis still needed assistance. This epilogue highlights key accomplishments as well as some of the remaining challenges associated with the recovery, while also exploring actions taken by the national government to address problems experienced during the 2010 response. It closes by exploring how Pakistan and the international humanitarian community dealt with yet another round of severe flooding that occurred in late summer 2011.

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