According to this morning’s Globe, even her fellow criminologists aren’t happy with Kerry Healey’s campaign. Contained within the article is a discussion of her work for the Justice Department while working for Abt Associates. As someone whose worked on a number of Federal contracts during his career, let me suggest some questions that could help clarify Healey’s role:
1) Did Abt have to submit a proposal to win the contract under which the work was performed?
2) Did Healey contribute to the writing of that proposal?
3) Was her resume submitted to the Justice Dept. as part of that proposal?
4) Was she listed as a key contributor in the proposal? Naming someone as a key contributor serves as a promise that the person will actually work the contract if its awarded.
5) While she worked on the contract, did she work independently or was she taking direction from someone more senior?
6) What was her original contribution to the research?
Why does any of this matter? Because there’s a big difference between personally helping persuade DOJ to award the contract and just filling a slot once the project’s been defined and the money needs to be spent. Saying “I worked for the Department of Justice” implies that they actually cared that it was you doing the work. From what I’ve been able to read so far, that would be a stretch.
from the Justice Department.
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It would be nice to know how much $$$ those grants were. Also it kind of puts a different light on “writing a book”. I mean, most people write a book and take a chance that it will pay off economically. But if I’m getting paid from a grant to write a book, I really don’t care if it sells. It now is just a job.
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What was their scope and duration? Did she meet those requirements? etc. Seems like they would be part of the federal public record somewhere?
Repeat after me, “Google is my friend”. Case Management in the Criminal Justice System. It’s a 12 page white paper with 37 footnotes. On the last page…
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“Prepared under contract OJP-94-C-007 (Research Applications Contract) to Abt Associates Inc. from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice”
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The 94 in the contract number indicates that the contract was awarded in 1994. This paper was published in February 1999, 5 years later. I’ll let the professional criminologists in the group evaluate the quality of the content, but it looks like a well-researched college term paper to me.
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— Pioneers in Batterer Intervention: Program Models, p. 53, by Kerry Murphy Healey, Ph.D. and Christine Smith, with Chris OSullivan, Ph.D.
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— Pioneers in Batterer Intervention: Program Models, p. 76, by Kerry Murphy Healey, Ph.D. and Christine Smith, with Chris OSullivan, Ph.D
Maybe Healey can be asked about quotes in her own book at the debate? Anybody talk to the other authors to see how much muffy really contributed (work and or $$$???) to get her name on the jacket?
Dude, you’ve got to promote those quotes up to a separate post. They’ll get buried down here in the comments and I think everybody has to read those. Outstanding catch! I limited my Google search to the DOJ website; didn’t think to try Abt. Nice job.
The contract code you posted helped in searching.
Having worked with batterers in a previous life, what she writes here is lunacy. Yes, if you’re “nicer” to them, they might stay longer, but they are less likely to stop being abusive. The role of intervention with batterers is not to make sure everyone has the type of donut on his plate he likes most. It is to get people who blame victims for their own behavior to own their behavior, realize they have to change it, and then learn how to change it.