Translating police research into policy: some implications of the National Academies report on proactive policing for policymakers and researchers

ABSTRACT

In February 2018, the U.S. Committee on Proactive Policing published its report on the evidence regarding the effects of different forms of proactive policing, particularly on crime and disorder. In this essay, we explore three obstacles to evidence-based policymaking in policing, some of which were raised by the Committee, but we take occasion to develop here: (1) the mistrust of science; (2) the paucity of cost-efficiency analyses; and (3) the challenge of managing competing values. For each of these we describe the nature of the problem before identifying some possibilities for mitigating or overcoming it. Our goals are two-fold: (1) to provide some considerations that police leaders might take into account when making decisions about proactive policing; and (2) to illuminate avenues for future research.     

"The Scale of the Postcommunist Disaster Is Not Understood Outside Russia" : Interview with Eric Hobsbawm by Vladislav Inozemtsev

In July 1985, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee examined and approved proposals on construction, including housing and cultural and service facilities, of youth housing complexes created with the direct labor participation of youth.¹     

Barriers to safety* for victims of domestic homicide

ABSTRACT

Research on domestic homicide has focused on risk factors presented by perpetrators such as prior violence, threats to kill, stalking, access to weapons, mental health concerns, controlling behaviour and separation. However, there has been less focus on the barriers that victims face regarding finding support, increasing personal safety and decreasing violence and risk of homicide. The present study explored 20 potential barriers that female domestic homicide victims faced using 183 cases occurring between 2002 and 2012 from the Ontario (Canada) Domestic Violence Death Review Committee to examine the presence and frequency of these barriers within the sample. Using two-step cluster analysis, different profiles of barriers were identified that centred on victims’ fear, social isolation and mental health. The study is limited in being a post hoc analysis of homicides and no causal links can be made. The implications of this finding are discussed in the context of risk assessment, risk management and safety planning.     

Select committees in the UK House of Lords: the economic affairs committee

ABSTRACT

The Select Committees of the House of Lords enjoy a high reputation. But is this merited? In particular, do their reports have any effect on real-world policy? A detailed analysis of the work of the Economic Affairs Committee from 2010 to 2014 by Lord Lipsey, a member of the committee, reveals a patchy record though with some striking results, for example, with regard to reform of the ‘Big 4’ auditors. It shows that obtaining press coverage of the committee's reports was central to their subsequent effect on policy-making.     

Regional parliaments questioning EU affairs

ABSTRACT

Since the Treaty of Lisbon, the desire of parliaments to adapt to their new powers has led to a new wave of Europeanisation. However, the early warning system (EWS) and the political dialogue with the Commission constitute only a small part of parliamentary scrutiny for regional parliaments, which still largely rely on traditional tools such as mandates, debates and questions. Therefore, this paper studies a traditional mechanism of scrutiny, parliamentary questions, in order to understand how they can be used in an EU context. The study shows that Europeanisation is progressing slowly. Interestingly, the vast majority of MPs who ask EU-related questions are not members of the European Affairs Committee. In addition, questions focus primarily on the implementation stage rather than the policy-making stage. Finally, the content of parliamentary questions shows that regional parliaments have a distinctive territorial approach to EU affairs.     

Marguerite Q. Warren

Abstract

Marguerite (Rita) Warren is remembered as a respected teacher, committed mentor, and good friend. She is perhaps best known, for the experimental study of the Community Treatment Project (CTP). CTP operationalized the Theory of Interpersonal Maturity (I-Level) to provide differential treatment to delinquent offenders. Rita Warren received her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. With graduate school colleagues, she formulated the I-Level Theory. Her focus on correctional treatment began with research on Navy recruits, followed by work with the California Youth Authority, service to the NIMH's Crime and Delinquency Committee, and participation on the Task Force on Corrections for President Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. Academe followed; for 11 years, she was a faculty member at the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany. This article is a biography of Rita Warren, focusing primarily upon her career and her research.     

The Rights of the Soviet Police and Socialist Legality

According to the decisions of the November (1982) and June (1983) Plenums of the CPSU Central Committee, the police [militsiia] and other law-enforcement agencies are to mobilize all their forces in order to strengthen public order, to guarantee the comfort and personal safety of citizens, to display a high measure of proficiency and efficiency in their work, and to adhere strictly to Soviet legislation. "The normal course of our society's development," Iu. V. Andropov emphasized, "is inconceivable without the strictest observance of the laws that protect the interests of society and the rights of citizens."¹     

Committee Parliamentary Specialization Index. Explaining MPs’ specialisation in the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados*

ABSTRACT

Nowadays legislatures are largely based on committee systems. This enables a division of work and specialisation, in the context of highly complex politics and policy development. It seems clear that MP specialisation in the field of the committee they serve on is an important political asset, both for MPs and their parliamentary party group. This paper presents the Committee Parliamentary Specialization Index. This index measures the degree an MP is specialised in the jurisdiction of the committee they serve on. In the second part of the paper, the index is applied to the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados, an interesting case for testing this multi-faceted index, to find institutional, political and individual factors that better explain the degree of MP specialisation.     

Reforming security industry training standards: an Australian case study

ABSTRACT

This article critiques recent developments in training in the Australian security industry. Regulation of the industry is state- and territory-based, with eight jurisdictions enacting purpose-built legislation. Training was a key area of reform in the 1990s and early 2000s, but standards remained fragmented until 2008 when the Committee of Australian Governments agreed on a national competency framework to be implemented by 2010. However, despite the adoption of a common curriculum for core security tasks, the project derailed spectacularly in terms of consistency of standards, as revealed by a number of major inquiries and associated sources. This article analyses the reasons for this situation and recommends an alternative model to optimise competency standards in security work that includes much greater specificity in hours of instruction and in teaching and assessment methods. The lessons from this study have wider application given that deficits in security training appear to be a common problem internationally.     

Part one: Turnitin and the perils of entering the evil house of cheat at cheathouse.com

Abstract

Plagiarism is one of the most serious offences in the academic world. It has occurred as long as there have been teachers and students, but the recent growth of the Internet has made the problem much worse. Recent studies indicate that approximately 30% of all students may be plagiarising on every written assignment they complete. The “information technology revolution” is almost always presented as having cataclysmic consequences for education. In post‐secondary circles, perhaps the most commonly apprehended cataclysm is “Internet plagiarism”. Academics at all British universities and colleges can now test students’ work for cheating using the anti‐plagiarism program Turnitin. The program, run by the Joint Information Systems Committee and thought to be the first national system of its kind, offers free advice and a plagiarism detection service to all further education institutions in the UK. This article will try to: first, define exactly what plagiarism is; second, give examples and reports on samples of the new plagiarism detection software; and finally suggest strategies that lecturers can use before turning to the new software.     

European human rights law and the United Kingdom—A note

This article asserts that established concerns about access to, and widening participation in higher education, are now reflected in interest around retention. Those law schools with inclusive admissions policies and widening participation practices face a number of challenges around the financial and human costs of poor retention. Most of these law schools fall within the “new university” sector.

This article argues that poor retention among first‐year law students often reflects a lack of engagement. This lack of engagement exists in two key relationships; first that of between students and the teaching and learning structures of their law school and university, and second between first year law students and many of the staff who teach them. It is argued that this lack of engagement reflects a clash of cultures, first between the requirements and structures of the law school and the everyday life experience of our students, and second between ourselves as teachers and our students.

The utilisation of aspects of the Oxbridge tutorial model of higher education together with an appropriate use of new technology is suggested as a response to this cultural clash and as a way of increasing engagement with our students.

In support of these arguments, the article refers extensively to the evidence presented to the House of Commons Education and Employment Committee hearings on retention in higher education, and to the Committee's conclusions.     

Dilemmas and Dimensions of Non-indigenous Organisms and Pathogens in the Marine Environment: A Sea Change

“Although scientific and technical approaches are indispensable in managing the problem, bioinvasions are fundamentally a human phenomenon, driven by economic activity and by our choices as consumers, travelers, gardeners, pet owners, fishermen, and so on … No one advocates an attempt to unscramble the world's biota and return it to some historical state, even if that were possible … Our ultimate goal ust be … to preserve or restore something we value: native biodiversity and the wild places and systems where it can thrive, the look of a landscape, a sense of place, the functioning of an ecosystem, the economic productivity of our working lands and waters, the health of people, animals, and plants.” ^{2 2} Yvonne Baskin, A Plague of Rats and Rubbervines: The Growing Threat of Species Invasions, 8, 17 (2002).      

“Passionate and Willful” Girls

ABSTRACT

Despite attempts at legislative reform girls are still being held in juvenile justice and medical facilities, both public and private, on the basis of relatively minor, status and ^cnon-legal offences and behaviour.¹ This paper questions some of the understandings of girlhood, in particular in regard to their sexuality and independence, that underpin these practices. Drawing upon research in education, psychology and adolescent studies, it is argued that practices which seek to protect girls by denying their sexuality and independence, may not ultimately be in the girls' best interests.     

To have a voice in the matter: A comparative study of the Swedish and Danish European committees

This article deals with the issue of how the national parliaments might be strengthened in order to decrease the democratic deficit within the EU. It examines the parliamentary European committees in the Danish and Swedish Parliaments and concludes that their potential to influence and control their respective governments’ EU policies mainly depends on the Government's parliamentary base and opportunities for legislative influence open to parliamentary oppositions. Moreover, it examines various organisational aspects of the European committees, including distribution of tasks and internal co‐ordination within the Parliament, at what stage in the decision‐making process the European Committee and the Parliament are involved and information management. With some conspicuous exceptions, Denmark and Sweden have chosen the same organisational arrangements for dealing with EU affairs both in the Parliament as a whole and, specifically, in the European committees. The principal conclusion is that the European committees in Sweden and Denmark are effective means for giving the national parliaments a voice in EU matters, but the article also addresses some reforms to strengthen their positions.     

The neuroendocrine effects of the TASER X26®: A brief report

IntroductionLaw enforcement officers use conducted electrical weapons (CEW) such as the TASER X26^® to control violently resistive subjects. There are no studies in the medical literature examining the effects of these weapons on the human stress response. This is the first study to compare the human stress response to conducted electrical weapons, oleoresin capsicum (O.C.), a cold-water tank immersion, and a defensive tactics drill.MethodsSubjects were randomized to one of the four interventions studied. Subjects received either a 5-s exposure from the TASER X26 CEW with the probes fired into the back from 7 ft, a 5-s spray of O.C., a skin and mucous membrane irritant, to the eyes, a 45-s exposure of the hand and forearm in a 0 °C cold water tank, or a 1-min defensive tactics drill.ResultsAlpha-amylase had the greatest increase from baseline at 10–15 min with the defensive tactics drill. Cortisol had the greatest increase at 15–20 min with O.C. Cortisol remained most elevated at 40–60 min in the defensive tactics drill group.ConclusionsOur preliminary data suggests that physical exertion during custodial arrest may be most activating of the human stress response, particularly the sympathetic–adrenal–medulla axis. This may suggest that techniques to limit the duration of this exertion may be the safest means to apprehend subjects, particularly those at high-risk for in-custody death. Conducted electrical weapons were not more activating of the human stress response than other uses of force.     

Low-cost policy specialisation,district characteristics and gender. Patterns of committee assignment in Romania

ABSTRACT

Committee assignment can influence the efficiency of legislative work, the success of parties in reaching their policy goals and even the electoral fates of individual legislators. Nevertheless, little is known about this process in the legislatures established in the Central and Eastern European democracies. These legislatures faced severe informational, electoral and partisan challenges which raised the stakes of efficient committee-seat allocation. Simultaneously, most parliaments in the region were endowed with strong committees. The Romanian Parliament is representative for this combination of conditions. Drawing on a dataset that covers the careers, sector knowledge, partisan and electoral attributes of all the members serving in five terms of the Chamber of Deputies the article shows that committee assignment is used to facilitate low-cost policy specialisation, district characteristics matter for gaining seats in committees with distributive potentials, while female legislators are confined to committees dealing with feminised policy areas.     

Unincorporated Treaties and Small States

For small, developing, common law dualist jurisdictions aspiring to good governance based on the rule of law, their written constitutions are normally expressed to be their supreme law which regulates the allocation of governmental powers and accords their citizens a measure of predictability in the evaluation of their civil rights and determining their civic responsibilities. Predictably, therefore, competent decision‐makers of such states are extremely wary of international developments in treaty‐making and judicial decision‐making which, unwittingly or by design, operate to subject the interpretation and application of their supreme law to external determinants hostile or indifferent to their indigenous value systems. In the premises, dualism as historically understood and practiced by small, weak, sovereignties is seen as a normative prophylactic device for safeguarding and sustaining their preferred values. Drawing on a wealth of case law and legal literature, this article undertakes an in‐depth evaluation of the legal ramifications of unincorporated treaties on dualist jurisdictions, with particular emphasis on small Caricom Member States. Reference is made to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which has been called upon to examine and pronounce on recent innovative determinations of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) and which have been expressed by competent regional decision‐makers to introduce unacceptable levels of uncertainty into the administration of criminal justice in the Caribbean Community. It is submitted that the determinations of the JCPC reached in Thomas v Baptiste and reaffirmed in Neville Lewis v Attorney‐General of Jamaica, which ratified unincorporated treaties concluded by the executive, appear to have far‐reaching negative implications for the Member States of the Caribbean Community.     

Keeping national parliaments informed: The problem of European legislation

Since Maastricht there has been a growing realisation in the institutions of the European Union, that the unfettered flow of information is vital to the health of the whole European project. Some moves have been made towards more transparent decision‐making, but progress has been slow and is limited by a culture which values confidentiality, particularly in intergovernmental negotiations. The free flow of information is especially important to national parliaments if they are to exercise any influence in the EU. The House of Commons Select Committee on European Legislation has recently pronounced the scrutiny system to be ‘in deep crisis’ because of chaotic decision‐making and a disregard for the rights of national parliaments. Many Westminster MPs feel frustrated by the difficulty of keeping track of EU legislation. The paper suggests that the ingredients of an improved information system already exist. A wealth of current information can be derived from EU‐related electronic databases and through direct links between the European Parliament and national parliaments. It proposes that a new current awareness service for the House of Commons, distributed via the parliamentary network and as hard copy, could focus information for MPs in a much more accessible way.     

The power of legislative hot air: Informal rules and the enlargement debate in the European parliament

Integration theorists disagree over the extent to which the European Parliament can substantially influence policy‐making processes in the absence of formal agenda‐setting power. This article discusses the impact the European Parliament had on the current enlargement negotiations. Although the legislature does not yet possess the means to alter the stance of the European Council, it has tried to reverse the status quo through the use of its informal bargaining power. We argue based on a principal‐agent framework of analysis that the effectiveness of this strategy is largely a consequence of the ability to speak with one voice. The article evaluates various mechanisms to help the European Parliament build a unified position. It refutes socialisation and specialisation theories, showing that party group pressure towards a unified position overrode national concerns and constituted a necessary precondition in the development of an integrationist attitude. A statistical analysis of the pre‐bargaining positions inside the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee largely confirms the insights from qualitative interviews with participants and observers.     

Systematical method for polyacrylamide and residual acrylamide detection in cosmetic surgery products and example application

IntroductionIn this paper, the authors presented a case of acrylamide poisoning in a middle-aged woman who had underwent unsuccessful cosmetic surgery six years earlier. The victim was told that the product that had been injected into her face was Restylane®, which mainly contained sodium hyaluronate and was the first and only Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved dermal filler for lip enhancement in the USA for more than 20 years. Widespread facial infections occurred several years post-injection; finally, the victim had to undergo removal surgery. Acrylamide poisoning was strongly suspected based on the victim's clinical manifestation. The product that had been injected into the victim's face was probably polyacrylamide hydrogel-based product, which had been prohibited by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) in China in 2006. To confirm this suspicion, a systematical method was established to differentiate varieties of cosmetic surgery products and identify residential acrylamide.MethodsThe removed objects, original products and a certified reference sample of Restylane® were collected for examination. A direct microscopic examination was applied as a rapid screening method. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy analysis was subsequently performed to distinguish the main components from each sample. Automated solid phase extraction, ultra high performance liquid chromatography (SPE UHPLC) analysis was ultimately utilised and optimised to detect the residual acrylamide. Chromatographic separation was achieved on an ACQUITY UHPLC HSS T3 column. The mobile phase consisted of 0.01% aqueous formic acid solution and acetonitrile. The tunable UV (TUV) detection wavelength was at 202 nm.ResultsThe microscopic examination indicated that different samples had different morphological characteristics, depending on their main components. The FTIR spectrum showed that different polymers could be distinguished according to the CO stretching vibration (1655 cm^? 1), NH bending vibration (1540 cm^? 1) and CO stretching vibration (1078 and 1045 cm^? 1). The UHPLC results demonstrated that the calibration curve was linear in the range of 0.5–20.0 μg/mL, with a correlation coefficient of 0.999. The average recoveries of the method were 99–107% with an RSD of 1.6–6.3%. The detection limit was 0.1 μg/mL (S/N = 3). The analytical time was 6 min per sample. Acrylamide was detected in the allegedly Restylane® injection.ConclusionsThis systematical method provides a rapid, accurate and sensitive determination of polyacrylamide and residual acrylamide. The microscopic and FTIR spectroscopic examinations help to verify the existence of polyacrylamide quickly and easily. The optimised SPE UHPLC-TUV method offers a simpler and more sensitive approach to confirm the amount of acrylamide, comparing to the methods in the literature.