We examined the effect on attendance of a truancy court-diversion program for elementary students. Truancy court-diversion programs represent a shift from a law-and-order approach toward a public health model to address school absenteeism. Instead of directly referring parents of truant elementary students to child protection services or juvenile…

Just 18 minutes before the midnight signing deadline on May 15, 2010, Minnesota state legislators breathed a sigh of relief. Their bipartisan pension reform legislation, which passed both chambers by large margins and aimed to help shore up a potentially failing pension system, had just escaped a veto threat. Under pressure from his Republican…

Research examining disparities in sentencing outcomes under federal sentencing guidelines has focused almost exclusively on aggregate national data. Although these studies contribute considerably to the criminological literature on sentencing disparity, their findings may have masked contextual variation in relation to case processing across…

This article examines postcollege criminal convictions among students who recorded a substance use-related arrest while attending college from 1996-99. Specifically, this study assesses whether Greek or athletic membership offered protective or elevated odds of a conviction over the next 14-17 years, relative to non-Greeks and non-athletes. The…

An analysis of 428 newspaper issues published in Minnesota during one month revealed that a significantly smaller percentage of the issues from smaller communities contained court news than did those from larger communities. Of all court items found (regardless of community size) only four percent were not spot news coverage of specific…

This article examines a brief period of Lake Superior Ojibway history in detail. It describes the territorial dimensions of usufructuary rights and tells how one Ojibway community at Keweenaw Bay, William Jondreau's home, reorganized itself as an Anishnabe state in the 1840s and early 1850s. It also argues that this state-building grew out of…

The purpose of this guidebook is to give Minnesota legislators an overview of all laws affecting young people in order to have a reference aid on current state policies toward youth. State statutes and cases that provide rights, responsibilities, and protections for young people under age 18 are described. Part 1 of this guide, "The…

This resource guide describes one state's statutes and cases so as to profile those rights, responsibilities, and protections for young people which are different from those applicable to adults. The purpose of this guidebook is to give legislators an overview of all laws affecting young people in order to have a reference aid on current state…

A guardian ad litem or court appointed special advocate (CASA) is appointed by a judge to speak for the child's best interests in court hearings related to allegations of child abuse or neglect. This paper examines the need for more American Indians to become involved as volunteer guardians ad litem. The first part provides historical information…