Publications
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.
Competition and Costing: Indianapolis, IN – 1995 Innovations Winner
During his successful 1991 bid for the indianapolis mayoralty, Stephen Goldsmith is clear about his preference for privatizing city services. Once in office, however, Goldsmith decides on a different, more complex approach. The inefficiency of publicly-provided services, he reflects, may not be the result of their being public but rather a reflection of the lack of competition over who will provide them. In that light, Goldsmith undertakes a bold experiment: to force city departments to bid against private providers. This case focuses on the first stages of the Goldsmith experiment, a time in which city public works crews must, for the first time, compete against private firms for a pothole repair contract. The case raises core questions as to how to structure public-private competitions to ensure that valid comparison will be possible, as well as how to determine the exact nature of public costs. In addition, it allows for discussion of more theoretical questions as to whether some functions must always be public, while others should be private and still others privately-provided but publicly-financed.
CityWork: Louisville, KY – 1995 Innovations Winner
The belief of Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Jerry Abramson in improved service to citizen ”customers” leads to the 1989 establishment of a centralized complaint/information system – a single phone number to which complaints or inquiries about any of the city’s 25 departments can be made. But despite apparent success and a high public profile, managers of the ”CityCALL” system become frustrated with what they view as inefficiencies in their relationships with other city agencies. Some are linked to CityCALL by computer; others show little apparent inclination to cooperate. The case calls for consideration of how CityCALL could be improved through the vehicle of Louisville's ”CityWork” system, in which public employees, in a retreat-style setting, are called upon to offer specific suggestions for change. The case explores the evolution of an innovative program – its unexpected side effects and the sorts of resistance it encounters. It highlights, as well, Mayor Abramson’s contention that a system of cooperative program evaluation – CityWork – can lead to efficiencies which rival public/private competitive bidding and other ”privatization”-style strategies.
Early Warning Program: U.S. Department of the Treasury – 1995 Innovations Winner
In this case, the federal entity responsible for both safeguarding and insuring the private pension systems of the United States (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation) must deal with one of the nation’s largest and arguably most troubled corporate pension systems – that of the General Motors Corporation. When GM proposes to sell off its Electronic Data Systems subsidiary, regulators at PBGC face a decision. Should they permit the deal to go forward if GM does not address an estimated $20 billion unfunded pension liability? In considering the question, PBGC must decide the extent, and potential justification, for demonstrating regulatory flexibility. Insisting on the letter of the law might scotch a deal which could lead to a significant contribution to GM’s pension liability. Too great a leniency, however – for instance, by allowing the value of GM’s own stock to be applied against pension liability – might jeopardize the interests of thousands of retired auto workers. The case is meant both to raise the issue of public sector negotiations flexibility and to facilitate discussion of the dynamics of public-private negotiations. See also Part B (1386.0).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Zach Graves and Daniel Schuman, January 2020
Kathryn Sikkink, Yale University Press, 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.
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).