In Houston, Texas, court-appointed attorneys represent indigent criminal defendants. Are defendants with court-appointed attorneys more likely to receive a punitive disposition (conviction versus nonconviction; a prison sentence rather than probation or a fine) than defendants represented by private, retained counsel? Five hundred and eighty-six defendants were selected at the time of charge and followed for one year or until their cases were disposed. When charge and previous convictions were controlled, court-appointed attorneys and private counsel appeared to be equally successful in obtaining nonconvictions for their clients. Although private attorneys obtained nonprison dispositions more often than court-appointed attorneys did, the differences disappeared when pretrial status was controlled. The data suggest several trends in the Houston courts. Some low-income defendants appeared to be boycotting court-appointed counsel. Pretrial detention was the most significant factor in case disposition. Some defendants detained in jail before trial were there apparently because of ineffective counsel. While the type of attorney did not seem to be signifi cant, advocacy-oriented counsel working to ensure bonding of appropriate defendants is recommended as a means of improving justice in Houston.

Factors identified from normative interaction, resource theory, and family development theory were related to female, shared, and male household task responsibilities of wives and husbands. The sample consisted of 68 couples in a Southeastern city. A questionnaire was used to obtain information from both wives and husbands. Findings tended to support all three frameworks. Liking of household tasks was significantly related to female, shared, and male task responsibility for wives and husbands. The husbands' educational levels and atti tudes toward women were significantly related to responsibility of husbands for non‐ traditional tasks. Attitudes toward women and educational levels of each of the spouses were related to responsibility for non‐traditional tasks of the other spouses. Employed wives tended to reduce their reponsibility for female household tasks with little or no change in the responsibility of the husband. Implications and recommendations are discussed.

What are the differences in household and child care task responsibility by the employment role responsibility of spouses? What are the differences in the relationships between task preference, quality of task performance, and sex‐role ideology and household and child care task responsibility of spouses by the employment role responsibility of the spouses? What are the most important variables in determining household and child care responsibility? Data were collected from a random sample of wives and husbands in Houston, Texas. The sample (n = 151) was generally characterized as white, middle‐aged, upper income, and middle class. Wives who shared the employment role had less responsibility for female and child care tasks and husbands had more responsibility for female tasks than spouses in families in which the husband had total responsibility for the employment role. However, spouses who shared the employment role maintained major responsibility for their traditional household and child care tasks. Although liking of the tasks, quality of task performance, and sex‐role attitudes were related to household and child care task responsibility, these relationships were not significantly different when the employment role was shared or was the total responsibility of the husband. Multiple regression analyses revealed that quality of task performance was the most frequent significant variable in determining household and child care task responsibility. Implications and recommendations are given.

Bail reform is under attack by public officials historically identified with the cause of social justice. Release on personal recognizance is increasingly assailed as significantly contributing to the problem of pretrial flight and crime. Are these observations valid or have such reforms represented a step toward equal justice-without seriously threatening public safety? To test the argument against bail reform, the authors analyzed the outcome of randomly selected felony cases in Houston, Texas. All defendants were monitored by a computerized information system for athirty month period. Copyright 1981 by The Policy Studies Organization.