Despite a decline in crime rates, the 1990s witnessed extensive media coverage of several high‐profile stranger abductions and murders of children. State legislators' swift response to the public's growing fear of sex offenders with the adoption of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws raises questions about the role of politics. Punctuated equilibrium theory and the diffusion of innovation jointly provide a context to conduct an event history analysis to assess the extent to which politics enhanced legislative responsiveness to public opinion in SORN policymaking. Contrary to the commonly held belief that attributes legislative interest in SORN to salient crimes against children, the results suggest that factors such as the percentage of a conservative population, district‐level competition, and state innovativeness accelerated the diffusion of innovation of the laws.

Objectives The growing number of veterans on court dockets with mental health and substance abuse issues has resulted in the proliferation of veterans treatment courts (VTCs). Given the ubiquity of substance abuse and mental illness across communities, it is unclear why some local courts innovate and, more importantly, why some do so earlier than others. Methods Using data from 2008 to 2014, the study applies event history modeling to investigate the extent to which, if any, presiding judges’ connection to the armed forces, either personally or through immediate family members (e.g., parents, children), accelerates the adoption of states’ initial VTCs. Results Findings show significant support for both the hastening effect of personal knowledge of the military and, to a lesser extent, the increased presence VA Community‐Based Outpatient Clinics have on VTC innovation. Conclusions Judges’ social group membership and the availability of government resources in a community influence court organization innovation.

Under what conditions does judicial responsiveness to the public's policy preferences compromise the court's role as a countermajoritarian institution? Scholars have yet to examine whether and how quickly state appellate court justices respond to valence issues. This study investigates the relationship between retention elections and judicial responsiveness to the initial sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws popularized in the 1990s. Findings show that judges who participated in nonpartisan retention elections exhibited greater democratic accountability by engaging in judicial review of SORN laws earlier than judges in other retention election systems. Valence issues create political challenges for nonpartisan judges who, like their counterparts in other retention systems, are expected to balance majoritarian interests with minority rights.

No abstract

No abstract