Under the George W. Bush presidency, we can expect a continuation of welfare and criminal policies developed during the Clinton years. The Democratic and Republican platforms on these issues were interchangeable. With Clinton in the White House, the Democrats seized the low ground of "law and order" and completed a total break with liberal agendas of the past. Although the Clinton and Bush administrations share similar assumptions about welfare and crime policies, there are some new developments. The supply-side tax cutters now in ascendance in Washington seek ultimately to shrink the size and mandate of the federal government, further reducing the aim of promoting social welfare, and rationalizing such cuts with bloated, deficit-producing military budgets, if the rhetoric of compassion is insufficient.

Key words: social welfare, welfare and punishment, budget -- United States, welfare reform -- United States, criminal justice

Ian Taylor, a pioneer in radical criminology and a long-time supporter of Social Justice, died on January 19, 2001. The spirit and content of Ian's contributions are expressed in Jock Young's tribute.

Key words: Taylor, Ian, obit., radical criminology -- history

The author raises concerns about the dangers of mixing church and state in the funding and support of community-based services. To promote religious alternatives to government, President George W. Bush launched his faith-based initiative on January 29, 2001. The initiative includes establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, centers in five cabinet departments to facilitate church-state cooperation, tax cuts for charitable donations, and grants to religious groups. The new White House office would review and propose revisions to government regulations that impede participation in government programs by groups with a religious character and mission. It was also to lead the effort to proliferate charitable choice provisions in social welfare policy. Mink outlines the controversies this provoked: charitable choice crosses the church-state divide by publicly financing institutions that convey religious messages, bringing government directly into the business of establishing religion. Civil libertarians worry about the theocratic implications of government-sponsored religion, while some on the Right wonder whether government grants for faith activities might sap the vitality of religious social programs. In addition, charitable choice invites government to express dangerous preferences among religions, as government must decide which faith-based programs to fund. Moreover, charitable choice requires government to acquiesce to the employment discrimination it prohibits under the Civil Rights Act, because groups with a religious mission are exempted from major Title VII prohibitions. It reorients social policy away from ensuring opportunity and security and toward assuring faith and moral rescue. A fifth objection, Mink notes, is that charitable choice moves us down the road toward a government of heavy-handed faith-based rules implemented through privatized, faith-based social service delivery.

Key words: social welfare, charitable choice, faith-based welfare programs, Bush, George W., public welfare -- United States, United States -- religion, religious Right

Solinger views plans for the White House Office of Faith Based Action as an engine of exclusion and division, the justification for subordination and supremacy. The essay concentrates on how women stand to lose full access to citizenship status when such faith-based proposals prevail. George W. Bush explained that faith-based initiatives would strengthen anti-abortion work by involving religious institutions in changing the culture of the United States -- the inference being that federal money would support only those religious groups that oppose abortion rights. The author argues that women have the possibility of full citizenship only when they can control their own bodies and fertility.

Key words: social welfare, faith-based welfare programs, public welfare -- United States, United States -- religion, women -- United States -- social conditions

Kutchins goes to the ideological source of Bush's "compassionate conservatism" in his devastating critique of Marvin Olasky's pseudo-scholarship. As the distinction between church and state is increasingly blurred, Olasky's aim becomes clear: the goal of charity is to save souls, not to provide food, shelter, or other amenities. His mission is to assure salvation, not to feed the hungry or eliminate poverty.

Key words: right wing, book review, charities, conservatism, compassionate -- United States, Olasky, Marvin N., poverty, public welfare -- United States, social classes -- United States, United States -- history

Weiss investigates the White House's point man for articulating faith's place in government, John DiIulio. The essay views this development in terms of emergent Republican electoral strategies and the labor market conditions of the New Economy. The author argues that charitable choice is a political maneuver, serving a narrowly partisan political goal for conservative Republicans of capturing more Latino, Asian, and African American votes by appealing to the growing forces of "multicultural conservatism."

Key words: social welfare, Bush, George W., faith-based welfare programs, African Americans, charities, conservatism -- United States, criminal justice, Mexican Americans, poverty, United States -- religion

In the early 1990s, devolution of power to administer social programs and services in the United States occurred from the federal to state and local governmental units. Devolution (the transference of rights, powers, or responsibility to another, especially the surrender of powers to local authorities by a central government) has proved to be a divisive issue in the United States. Supporters of devolution argue that governmental units that are closer to the people (whether state or local) are more knowledgeable about and better positioned to respond to people's needs and challenges with greater imagination and insight than are federal units. Those who oppose devolution contend that block granting of welfare programs to states is based on inaccurate premises and will hurt the poor and the nation at large. The authors address the following questions: How does the decentralization of welfare administration responsibilities to states and local governments fit within the context of evolution of welfare programs and services in the United States? Why did state and local political units support the welfare devolution legislation of 1996? How does this differ from earlier governmental moves to decentralize power? What is the true function of welfare in the U.S.? Are certain governmental units better suited to undertake the responsibility of welfare administration than others? Finally, what are the limitations of the welfare legislation of 1996?

Key words: social welfare, welfare reform -- United States, decentralization in government, equality -- inequality, poverty, public welfare -- United States

This article presents an analysis of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). Since the act is premised on federalist ideology, it is important to consider characteristics of states that influence how welfare policy decisions are made. After examining the federalist characteristics of PRWORA, the authors analyze the social and legal implications for welfare reform of inequalities between states. Federalism promotes shifting responsibility for certain social policies and programs from the federal government to the states. For proponents of federalism, giving states the authority to make decisions concerning programs promotes the creation of better programs since states are not constrained by federal guidelines that may inhibit innovation. The decentralization, or devolution, of decision-making that accompanies federalism is promoted as a means by which states can better identify and meet the needs of their populations.

Key words: social welfare, states -- inequality, decentralization in government, equality -- inequality, families, poverty, welfare reform -- United States

This chronology is a classroom resource that is especially useful for revealing the interconnections between past and present welfare policies. It is designed to introduce future social workers to significant events, policies, people, and publications in the history of welfare policy and social work in the United States. Drawing upon the richly complex literature that has been generated by post-1960s historians, this chronology reflects the debates and conflicts that have taken place about the effectiveness and equity of welfare policies, about the ethical and unethical conduct of the profession, and about whose ideas and interests speak for social work. Issues of race and racism, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality are central to the chronology's perspective.

Key words: social welfare, welfare policy -- United States, poverty, public welfare -- United States, racism, sexism, social classes -- United States, social work -- history

Platt's article provides strong empirical support for the analysis that in the last 35 years, there has been a qualitative transformation of the U.S. criminal justice system, which has become increasingly influenced by national politics and policies, with less and less local accountability. Police and prisons expanded at unprecedented rates in the 1970s and 1980s, paid for primarily by drastic cuts in public health, welfare, and education. Moreover, the increasing racialization of social control (from San Quentin to city planning) reinforces the conclusion that the struggle for civil rights remains very much unfinished.

Key words: criminal justice, public safety, courts, crime and criminals, criminal justice, juvenile delinquency, police, prisons -- United States, United States -- politics and government -- privatization

In Bass' article, the tenuous and often contentious relationship between racial minorities and the police is examined. She argues that de jure segregation and discrimination have given way to de facto discriminatory policies and practices that perpetuate a relationship between racial minorities and the police that is substantially authoritarian, regulatory, and punitive in character.

Key words: police, policing gangs, civil liberties, African Americans -- history, criminal justice, law -- social control, police, United States -- race relations, United States -- social policy -- drug control policy

Richards and Ross introduce a "convict criminology" as an emerging school and social movement concerned with the humanitarian reform of criminal justice. The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the Western world. If legislators, practitioners, researchers, and scholars are serious about addressing the corrections crisis, we must be more honest and creative with respect to the research we conduct and the policies we advocate, implement, and evaluate. This essay reviews the theoretical and historical grounding, current initiatives, and dominant themes of this emerging school of convict criminology as a social movement. Covered are our interrelated movements, factors, and methodologies that led to the birth of convict criminology: theoretical developments in criminology, the failure of prisons, the authenticity of insider perspectives, and the centrality of ethnography.

Key words: prison, prison theory, criminal justice, criminology, prisoners, prisons -- United States

This essay addresses George W. Bush's "charitable choice" welfare policy from the perspective of a Texas prisoner. He notes that George W. Bush, as governor of Texas, was most known for killing low-income prisoners, rather than rehabilitating them with (Christian) religion. The Jester Two Unit, Institutional Division, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's "faith-based prison program," consisted of approximately 700 handpicked prisoners.

Key words: prison, Bush, George W., criminal justice, prisons -- offender rehabilitation, prisons -- United States, United States -- religion

Martel studies the damaging effects of the confinement of women in segregation in Western Canadian prisons and lends support to the literature suggesting that since the 17th century, surveillance and regulation often have been closer and more omnipresent toward women prisoners than that usually directed at men.

Key words: prison, segregation units -- prisons, Canada -- Indians, prisoners -- women -- Canada, prisons -- Canada

Yeager looks at the demise of a pilot project on sentencing advocacy in Ottawa, Ontario, in which social workers prepared alternative disposition reports for defense counsel. In this struggle over jurisdictional hegemony, marginal populations were deprived of resources, power, and access to property, and were thus deprived of legal services.

Key words: criminal justice, Canada -- criminal justice, Canada -- legal aid clinics, law -- legal aid

Alarid and Wang study the little-examined relationship of Buddhism to the death penalty in Southeast Asia. Since the death penalty is inconsistent with Buddhist teachings, the authors explore reasons for the continuing existence of capital punishment there.

Key words: death penalty, Buddhism, capital punishment -- United States, nonviolence, United States -- religion

According to Molina-Mejía, Jonas' Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala's Peace Process is a sound, accurate, and in-depth analysis of the Guatemalan peace process, which ended the 36-year-old internal armed conflict and began the reconstruction of the Guatemalan state and society as a multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural nation. Jonas did not to limit the scope of this book to the stages that led to the signing of the Firm and Lasting Peace Accord on December 29, 1996, but expands her analysis to consider its immediate aftermath, that is, the period from January 1997 to mid-1999, when important attempts were made to implement some of the transformations mandated by the accord. Consequently, the book illustrates the extraordinary significance of the peace agreements as a historic opportunity for the Guatemalan people, and the difficulties of trying to transform conditions in Guatemala that have defied change for decades and, in some respects, for centuries.

Key words: Central America, Guatemala peace process, Guatemala -- social movements, Guatemala -- politics and government -- 1985-, Guatemala -- relations -- U.S., Relations -- Guatemala -- U.S., negotiation -- Guatemala -- history, human rights -- Guatemala -- history