Browsing by Department "Sanford School of Public Policy/Public Policy Studies"

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Open Access
911, Is There an Emergency? The Effects of Gentrification on 911 Calls in Durham, NC
(2021-02) Vila, Audrey
In recent years, urbanization in the United States has led to the displacement of low-income, minority communities for middle and high-income individuals, a process termed gentrification. Scholars debate the benefits and consequences of these changes for the existing populations. One possible effect is the changing of expectations and norms in city neighborhoods as the population shifts. Similarly, it raises questions about the interactions between new populations and existing residents. The following analysis uses urban block groups and Calls to Service data in Durham County between 2006 and 2018. According to established indicators of gentrification, Durham block groups are gentrifying within this time period with increased population, decreased Black populations, increased rent, increased education levels, and increased income. Importantly, the majority of Durham’s urban block groups are experiencing an influx of Hispanic residents, which is different from previous gentrification trends. Next, the paper assesses implications from previous literature that with population mixing, conflict from changing norms and perceptions would lead to increased conflict and result in greater use of the police for minor incidents. The paper uses simple linear regression with all indicators on a dependent variable that measures per capita call frequency. For 911 noise complaints, disturbances, alcohol and drug incidents, and suspicion calls, the regression results demonstrate that gentrification’s common indicators did not correlate with increased calls. The same result is found when focusing on block groups generally susceptible to the effects of gentrification. Therefore, the paper concludes that the city of Durham did not experience an increase in disturbance calls with gentrification as predicted by the literature, providing important information as the city continues to grow.
Open Access
A Home of Our Own: Social Reproduction of a Precarious, Migrant Class
(2019-04-29) Aguilar, Erick
Many of the recent migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico have experienced the rise of drug-related gang violence and declining economic conditions in their home countries brought on by transnational agreements. With the ongoing collapse of their communities and homes via these conditions, many of these migrants move to the United States and join precarious jobs, such as agricultural labor. This thesis explores the ways in which family connections, inside and outside the home, affects the decision-making processes that leads migrant parents to join these precarious labor regimes. Through participant-observation and semi-structured interviews with migrant mothers and fathers from Honduras and Mexico living in rural towns in Eastern North Carolina, I investigate the social reproductive forces of the family that help fuel mass migration into rural North Carolina. Furthermore, I use my own experience as the son of an agricultural worker to complement my findings within the fields. My findings show that migrant mothers choose to migrate to North Carolina to raise their sons in proximity to their fathers, which they believe will allow their sons to learn how to become successful laborers in the future. Additionally, migrant parents believe that the home can be a place where the trauma of displacement can be undone. These findings show a glimmer of how lives can be structured and shaped outside of wage labor.
Open Access
A Policy Analysis of No Hit Zones: What are barriers to No Hit Zone implementation?
(2018-12-05) Mastrangelo, Madison
No Hit Zones (NHZs) represent a new policy to prevent corporal punishment and to ensure healthy environments for children and their families. NHZs designate spaces where no hitting of any kind is tolerated and serve as an intervention to shift cultural norms away from physical discipline, starting at the institution-wide level. This mixed-methods thesis is divided into two studies that address the substantial research gap in this nascent field. Study 1 provides an overview of the approximately 50 NHZs nationwide and answers the research question, “What are the barriers to No Hit Zone implementation in institutions, such as hospitals and District Attorney’s offices?” Through the analysis of qualitative data from 44 interviews with professionals involved in NHZ implementation, this thesis establishes a comprehensive list of NHZs and their distribution across states and institution types. Study 1 identifies four central barriers to NHZ implementation: social norms surrounding corporal punishment, framing of the NHZ policy, resource issues, and lack of data surrounding training initiatives. Based on Study 1’s identification of the training barrier, Study 2 analyzes quantitative data from surveys administered before and after NHZ training at Children’s Hospital New Orleans and provides preliminary evidence that training programs can impact healthcare professionals’ views about the use of corporal punishment and increase their perceived ability to intervene when they witness hitting.
Open Access
Amateur Hour: Using Historical Lessons to Assess the Trump-Kim Summits
(2019-12-06) Borda, Sebastian
My research examines President Donald J. Trump’s approach to recent summits with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, drawing on historical lessons from five summits since 1955. After President Trump entered office, U.S.-North Korea tensions increased dramatically, with the president threatening to counter North Korean aggression with “fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”1 However, the administration soon pursued a diplomatic path, convening a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018. Since then, Trump and Kim have met on two other occasions, though each of these summits has failed to secure North Korea’s denuclearization. My qualitative analysis of five case studies—the 1955 Geneva Summit, the 1961 Vienna Summit, Nixon’s 1972 trip to China, Carter’s 1978 Camp David Summit, and the 1986 Reykjavik Summit—suggests the president is ignoring important historical lessons on summitry and pursuing a flawed approach in his dealings with Kim. However, with proper adjustments, President Trump’s summit negotiations could secure an interim nuclear agreement—an imperfect but preferable outcome—and further the conflict’s resolution.
Open Access
Are Refugees and Immigrants Different? Gauging the Correlation Between Refugee Status and Economic and Educational Success
(2015-12-15) Westfall, Matthew
Little previous research has analyzed the long-term economic and educational trajectories of refugee and immigrant arrivals in the U.S. Studies have found that refugees outperform immigrants in long-term earnings and economic outcomes because their inability to return to their countries of origin forces them to invest in country-specific human capital. This study revisits this research with a new methodology that increases the sensitivity of identifying refugees. The analysis uses American Community Survey data taken from 2001-2013 and focuses on immigrants and refugees who arrived in the U.S. from 1989-2000. Refugee status was correlated with 11-13% lower earnings relative to immigrants and lower levels of occupational prestige for males but higher earnings and occupational prestige for females. Refugees who arrive as children seem to outperform immigrant children. Disadvantages stemming from sending-country conditions may account for adult refugee under-performance relative to immigrants while refugee services may assist refugee children in outperforming comparablesituated immigrants.
Open Access
Assessing Human Rights Risk within U.S. and UN Private Security Contracts
(2018-12) Garrett, Celia
Recent trends in privatization have affected the way governments wage war and direct security services. The past two decades have witnessed the rise of Private Security Companies (PSCs) and an increasing reliance on private security contractors by governments. The pace at which the private security industry has grown outstrips normative debates about the ethical presence of PSCs and use of private security by governments, instead demanding more accountable and responsible contracts and government regulation to protect against misconduct and human rights violations. This thesis explores the recent explosion of private security in U.S. and UN operations. The U.S. and UN both report significant increases in their use of private security contractors in the last ten years. Additionally, examinations of various private security contracts reveal inadequate accountability measures both in the U.S. and at the UN, particularly through an over-reliance on reporting mechanisms and contractor self-supervision. Similarly, policy documents and guidelines relating to private security contracting show weak oversight and poor management of private security contracts by both the U.S. and UN, from monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to insufficient government capacity to lacking disciplinary procedures. However, the two governance institutions diverge in their approaches to contracting private security services and risk assessment policies. U.S. agencies have internalized private security contracting as a core competency, essential to various operations, yet this study found the UN to be more cautious in its approach to contracting private security. The UN mandates comprehensive approval, risk analysis, and mitigation procedures and promotes a culture of responsibility, which are all absent from U.S. contracting policies and practices.
Open Access
Assessing the Evaluation Methods of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Latin American Compact Projects
(2020-11-20) Norman, Savannah
International development agencies have, for decades, worked to remedy global development challenges. One of these agencies is the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). This study explores the MCC’s Latin American programming via its evaluations. It specifically assesses the technical soundness of the MCC’s Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador evaluations, as well what the findings and soundness of evaluations mean for future projects in the region. Through document analysis, this study found that the average evaluation was technically sound, as it employed consistent, appropriate, and objective metrics. However, evaluation structure varied according to author and proprietor agency. External evaluations did not directly contradict the findings of MCC-sponsored evaluations. Evaluations were not inclusive to the intended recipients of MCC programming, beneficiary groups. Interviews with the authors of evaluations confirmed these findings. The implications of findings include the importance of culturally competent, inclusive, and multi-faceted development processes that assimilate learning from prior programming. Findings are applicable to development and evaluation processes in Latin America.
Open Access
At Home or On Campus? How Duke Students Decide Where to Register to Vote
(2021-12) Callard, Lucy
Before they ever step into the voting booth, eligible Duke students must first decide whether to register at their permanent home address or their Duke address in North Carolina. 84 Duke students were surveyed to assess what factors play a role in the registration decision and whether the competitiveness of elections was among the most important factors. Four qualitative interviews were also conducted to collect quotes and anecdotes to highlight the trends found through the survey. Student who rated their home state as Not Competitive at All were the most likely to vote in North Carolina. No matter the competitiveness of their home state or major, survey respondents valued the competitiveness of elections as more important in their registration decision than the importance of registering where it is easiest. Students’ political engagement was positively correlated with a likelihood to register strategically, while lower levels of political engagement was associated with registering in their state where the process is easiest. Major and academic area of study were not found to significantly affect registration decisions and the factors that were most important.
Open Access
Blockchain’s Democratic Promise?
(2018-12-01) Goldstein, Maxwell
Though blockchain may not reshape lives in the next five years, it may very well reshape those of future generations. As a result, individuals should be aware of the morality of its potential impacts. This thesis will explore three main areas: blockchain’s technical capacity, the necessary conditions which must exist for a government to consider blockchain adoption for public policy use, and how receptive users would be to adopting blockchain technology.
Open Access
Building a Trauma-Informed Foster Care System: Giving Foster Parents the Tools to Help Children Heal
(2019-04) Giordano, Gianna
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, which shows a correlation between exposure to childhood adversity and negative health outcomes such as heart disease, cancer, and lower life expectancy, makes a compelling argument for why we need to pay attention to childhood trauma. Despite the fact that all children in foster care have had at least one adverse childhood experience, the emerging scientific body of knowledge on childhood trauma has not yet produced major changes in the policies and practices of state foster care systems. One of the reasons that key actors in state foster care systems have not yet acted on recent information about trauma is they lack concrete skills on how to use this information to help children. This thesis seeks to address the gap between information and action amongst foster parents, who spend the most time with children and therefore have many opportunities to use trauma information to help children heal. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with and survey responses from foster parents and staff at child welfare agencies in four counties in North Carolina, this study provides insight on the strengths and shortcomings of current foster parent training in North Carolina, essential skills foster parents need to work with children who have experienced trauma, and barriers to equipping foster parents with these tools. The results demonstrate that child welfare agencies in North Carolina must equip foster parents with a skill set of communication skills, sensory-based regulation strategies, and discipline techniques, and, above all, treat foster parents as critical actors in children’s healing processes.
Open Access
Burnout by Drugs: Emergency Department Nurses and the Opioid Epidemic
(2018-12-10) McKim, Carrie
Open Access
Carbon Price Pass-Through in the Chinese Emissions Trading Scheme: Lessons from Korea and the European Union
(2021-12) Murphy, Julia
On July 16, 2021, the Chinese Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) opened trading. Covering more than 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the ETS accounts for 40% of China’s national carbon emissions and is the largest carbon market in the world by volume. However, as it stands, the cost of carbon is not being reflected in electricity prices for consumers due to government regulation of the Chinese power market. This study examines the relationship between the Chinese ETS design and power market design to make a recommendation to facilitate the pass-through of carbon costs to consumers. Specifically, the study confronts the feasibility of two potential reform pathways for price pass-through, (1) power market deregulation, and (2) evolution in design of the Chinese emissions trading scheme. Comparative case study analysis of price-signaling methods in the Republic of Korea and the European Union informs the ultimate recommendation. The findings indicate that Chinese ETS design should optimize long-term coordination and mutual efficiency between the Chinese ETS and power market by implementing the regulation of indirect emissions with an upstream coefficient in the short-term to respond to the long-term gradual deregulation of the Chinese power market.
Open Access
Carceral Care: Examining the Quality of Health Care for Pregnant Women in Jails in North Carolina
(2021-12-06) Jain, Rhea
Most women who are incarcerated are of childbearing age and some individuals experience pregnancy while incarcerated. However, research on pregnancy in correctional facilities is limited to within prisons, even though healthcare provision in jails is more variable and inconsistent. This study aims to address the gap in the literature about the quality of health care for pregnant women in jails, rather than prisons, in North Carolina. This purpose of this study is to understand the provision of pregnancy-related health care in jail facilities, and to what extent jails meet the recommended standards of care established by public health agencies. To collect data, surveys were administered among administrators and health care providers from 45 jail facilities across North Carolina and 6 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results indicate a high level of variability in the provision of pregnancy care across detention facilities in North Carolina. Moreover, jails could improve quality of care in the following categories: pregnancy testing, counseling and contraception, postpartum care, HIV screenings, and substance use treatment. Findings suggest that NC jails do not follow the standards of care set by public health agencies in all areas of pregnancy care except prenatal care. Therefore, policymakers should seek to standardize jail health policies according to the benchmark standards of care offered by the American Public Health Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and National Commission on Correctional Health Care, to improve reproductive health care for pregnant, justice-involved individuals.
Open Access
Coming Home to Bull City: A Program Evaluation of Durham’s Local Reentry Council
(2021-01-19) Dowrich, Thea
Since the 1970s, the U.S. has seen a 500% increase in its total incarcerated population. Not only are people formally incarcerated, but as of 2016, there were about 6.6 million individuals under any kind of criminal supervision, including parole and probation. Although sentencing policies have changed such that people are facing longer sentences, more than 95% of them will eventually be released. Re-entry programs are designed to help returning citizens acclimate to society after their period of incarceration. Their goal is to decrease recidivism, maintain public safety and save money. Many re-entry institutions provide employment readiness training and access to post-secondary education. North Carolina began its efforts to aid formerly incarcerated individuals in 2009. The state’s programming for reintegration is led by local re-entry councils (LRCs). As of 2017, there were 14 re-entry councils serving 20 counties. According to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, local reentry councils are meant to “coordinate resources in the community for formerly incarcerated people and their families that will facilitate a successful transition from the criminal justice system back into society.” Looking specifically at Durham County, I sought to investigate how well its local reentry council is fulfilling its mandate to help justice-involved individuals reintegrate into society. Durham’s LRC does not effectively collect data, as such it is virtually impossible to determine their success rate. Therefore, I am recommending that the LRC adds a data analyst and begins collecting data at person-level, rather than the offense-level.
Open Access
Crack-Whores and Pretty Woman: The Media Framing of Sex Workers
(2018-12-05) Wang, Victoria
International human rights organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and Amnesty International have advised nations to decriminalize sex work in order to protect the rights and safety of sex workers (“Sex Workers,” 2018; “Sex Workers,” 2014; “Q&A: Policy to Protect the Human Rights of Sex Workers,” 2016). However, policy-makers in the US ignore these recommendations in favor of the full criminalization of sex work (Weitzer, 2010). Media largely influence public perception and policing of sex work, and media framings of sex workers align more with the current policies on sex work in the US than the research conducted and the proposals made by accredited human rights organizations (Nelson, 1997). This study examines newspapers published in California and Texas between 2002 and 2018 to uncover how media frame sex workers. The dominant frames in this dataset, the criminal frame and the victim frame, perpetuate and are reinforced by the US’ stringent sex work policies. The same moral convictions which influenced the criminalization of sex work in the US underlay the dominant frames in the dataset.
Open Access
Delaying Child Marriage in the World’s Most Afflicted Country: Evaluating Whether or Not Ethiopia’s ‘Berhane Hewan’ Intervention Program Could Be Replicated with Success in Niger
(2020-11-25) Chulack, Anna
Niger has the highest child marriage prevalence rate in the world, with 76% of girls married by 18, and 28% of girls married by 15. Although Niger’s government has made stated, policy, and legal commitments to eliminate the practice, and non-profit organisations are researching and conducting work to fight against child marriage in Niger, there continues to be a lack of significant improvement on this issue. By comparison, Ethiopia has seen a substantial reduction in its child marriage prevalence rate in recent decades due to the success of various intervention programs – notably, the Berhane Hewan program in the rural Amhara region. Indeed, UNICEF reported in 2018 that the percentage of girls married by 18 in Ethiopia dropped substantially, from 47% to 25%, over the last decade (Clark, 2019). In the search for an impactful, sustainable, and cost-effective intervention program that could be implemented in Niger, we can look to Berhane Hewan as a potential example. This study uses open-ended qualitative interviews, both over the phone and over email, of nine research and program experts on child marriage to ascertain the extent to which Berhane Hewan might feasibly be replicated with success in Niger. While recognising that intervention programs must be tailored to the particular nature of child marriage in different local contexts, this paper finds that the various programmatic arms employed by the Berhane Hewan program are likely to be strategically successful in reducing, or delaying, child marriage in Niger. This is because, among other contextual similarities to Ethiopia, child marriage in Niger is driven strongly by a lack of access to education, as well as by traditional gender norms and patriarchal values. For example, to the latter point, married women possess little household decision-making power in both countries, and unmarried girls are likely to have even less self-agency: in Niger, only 3.5% of married women are the principal decisionmaker of their own health, and in Ethiopia during the Berhane Hewan program, this measure stood at only 14.6% (Niger DHS, 2012 & Ethiopia DHS, 2005). Despite these similarities, however, Niger experiences funding and military conflict challenges that are likely to mean that, in the short-term, only certain arms of the program will be cost-effective, and certain areas may not be able to sustain the program. In addition, the current legislative landscape may prove a barrier to sustainable, long-term change. Accordingly, key recommendations are delineated into short-, medium-, and long-term goals. In the short-term: (1) work with local community leaders and government officials to tailor the design and implementation of the various version(s) of the Berhane Hewan program; and (2) show proof of concept, by implementing two condensed studies of the Berhane Hewan program at small-scale. In the medium-term: (3) improve access to education in rural areas of Niger. In the long-term: (4) include additional arms of the program and scale the program to the national level; and (5) mobilise legal partners, local community leaders, and government officials to help assess the obstacles impeding attempts to increase the legal minimum age of marriage to 18 for girls.
Open Access
Dialogue in a Divided Nation: Student Perspectives on the Policies and Culture Surrounding Campus Speech
(2020-11-20) Sommer, Luke
Free speech policy on college campuses faces the unique challenge of balancing the allowance of open expression with the protection of a safe, inclusive community. In an effort to address the growing concern of self-censorship and limited civil discourse on college campuses, researchers have conducted nationwide surveys measuring student perception. While these surveys provide valuable insight into understanding general trends in free speech opinions, they fail to explore the motivation and rationale behind these beliefs. This study analyzes comprehensive interview data from 17 Duke undergraduates who shared their thoughts on controversial free speech incidents. It found that interviewees typically demonstrated a strong understanding of the core principles of free speech but failed to differentiate between protected versus unprotected speech; interviewees also revealed poor familiarity with Duke speech policy. Respondents’ perceptions of contentious free speech incidents fell consistently along party lines, but respondents overall demonstrated a nuanced understanding of hate speech and how it differs from other racist/bigoted speech. Finally, interviewees regarded Duke’s speech policy as vague, superficial, and overly subjective. This study leverages students’ sentiments in order to recommend a more comprehensive, concrete speech policy that balances a dedication to open expression with key protections for marginalized students.
Open Access
Examining Family Separation Through Narratives of Family, Migration, and Separation Among Deported Mexican-U.S. Family Members
(2019-12-06) Kopp, Tyler
Family separation entered the U.S. political mainstream in the spring of 2018 when the Trump administration began separating thousands of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. While this policy is the first of its kind to deliberately use family separation as immigration enforcement in contemporary U.S. history, the U.S. has a much more extensive history of separating families, especially Mexican-U.S. families, through deportation. This research examines how deportation-induced family separation of Mexican-U.S. family members impacts familial relationships, as told through the narratives of deported family members in Mexico. These narratives suggest that family can be a broad and dynamic community that often includes people outside one’s biological or adopted family network. They also present a conception of family through the lens of mutually supportive relationships and shared experiences with family members. The narratives suggest that the physical aspects of family separation inhibit one’s ability to fully serve one’s familial role of support and to share experiences with one’s family members. For these reasons, family separation often stagnates or deteriorates familial relationships. Transnational and national policy reform can end family separation in the U.S. and Mexico, reunite families that have been separated, and allow the U.S. to come to terms with its past of family separation and address the victims of separation.
Open Access
Exploration of Multiple Perceived Obstacles to Abortion Access for Women in North Carolina
(2019-12-06) Jaffe, Stephanie
Existing research shows that legislation such as mandatory waiting periods, restriction of federal funding to pay for abortion services, and regulations causing clinic closures can make it more difficult for women to get an abortion. In 2019, North Carolina was one of the 29 states in the US considered to be extremely hostile to abortion rights based on legislative abortion restrictions, and in 2014, 90% of women in North Carolina had no clinics that provided abortions in their counties. Thus, women in North Carolina are likely to experience many challenges in attaining abortions. This qualitative study of multiple obstacles to abortion among a sample of women in North Carolina adds to existing literature on the impact of obstacles to accessing abortion by assessing the cumulative effect of multiple obstacles on women’s perceptions of obtaining an abortion. I collected survey data and conducted qualitative interviews with women in North Carolina who had recently received an abortion and analyzed this data to find four key themes in women’s experiences: cost obstacles, logistical obstacles, access to information, and personal/emotional obstacles. These themes reveal that multiple obstacles experienced at once interact to influence women’s perceptions of their experiences in getting abortions, and that these experiences vary based on external factors, such as income, profession, upbringing, and support networks. This research demonstrates the importance of highlighting women’s narratives when advocating changes in abortion policy.
Open Access
Fake News as a Threat to the Democratic Media Environment: Past Conditions of Media Regulation and Their Contemporary Applicability to New Media in the United States of America and South Korea
(2018-12) Park, Jae Hyun Jackie
This study uses a comparative case study policy analysis to evaluate whether the media regulation standards that the governments of the United States of America and South Korea used in the past apply to fake news on social media and the Internet today. We first identify the shared conditions based on which the two governments intervened in the free press. Then we examine media regulation laws regarding these conditions and review court cases in which they were utilized. In each section, we draw similarities and differences between the two governments’ courses of action. The comparative analysis will serve useful in the conclusion, where we assess the applicability of those conditions to fake news on new media platforms in each country and deliberate policy recommendations as well as policy flow between the two countries.

Browsing by Department "Sanford School of Public Policy/Public Policy Studies"

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