Allocation of aid for adaptation to climate change: Do vulnerable countries receive more support?

Wealthy countries spend increasing amounts of aid to support adaptation to climate change in developing countries and have committed under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to prioritize adaptation aid to those “particularly vulnerable” to climate change. While research has started to track this aid, it has not yet examined its allocation across all donor and recipient countries. We thus do not know to what extent vulnerable countries indeed receive more support for adaptation. We address this research gap and ask: how does this commitment to prioritizing particularly vulnerable countries translate into actual adaptation aid allocation? To what extent do vulnerable countries receive more adaptation aid? We address these questions though a quantitative analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on bilateral adaptation aid from 2011 through 2014. In contrast to other studies, we find that vulnerability—or more precisely, vulnerability indicators—matter for adaptation aid allocation. Countries that are more exposed to climate change risks, such as extreme weather events or sea level rise, receive more adaptation aid, both on a per capita basis and as a percentage of all adaptation aid. These results indicate that collectively (even if not at the level of each individual donor) donors align their bilateral adaptation aid allocation with global promises.     

The Prisoner's Perspective: A Needed View in Policy Formulation

The need for soliciting attitudes of convicted adult criminals towards the public system of criminal justice remains a neglected area of study. To the exclusion of the “prisoner's perspective”, criminological thought has relied extensively and, at times, exclusively on traditional criminological sources, public opinion polls and simulation studies, for relevant information regarding the criminal justice system. This paper seeks to break the cabal of silence by contending that the “prisoner's perspective” must be a requisite in any effort directed at making better decisions. The relationship between attitudes and behaviour, the sense of participation, the implementation of sound business practices, and the adherence to democratic principles are offered as possible rationales for the acceptance of the “prisoner's perspective”. It certainly cannot be suggested that the majority of ills confronting the criminal justice system are due to the non-recognition of the prisoner; however, unilateral and archaic policy construction and continued bypassing of the “prisoner's perspective” can serve only to harden the apparent resentment and contempt for a criminal justice system predicated on brass-bound policy ideals.     

Advancing Competency Development: A White Paper for Pennsylvania

One of the fundamental purposes of Pennsylvania's juvenile justice system is to develop “competencies” in delinquent youth. But what does that mean? Why is it important? How is it done? The White Paper. originally published in 2005, attempted to answer those questions, articulating basic principles and identifying research‐supported practices for competency development, the least understood of the three balanced and restorative justice goals. Practitioners and policy makers in other states who are interested in helping juvenile offenders acquire the knowledge and skills they need to become productive, connected, and law‐abiding community members will find it directly relevant.     

Evolutionary psychology and the origins of justice

Justice defines our discipline in both name and substance; yet its origin is a neglected topic. I explore the origins of the human “sense of justice” from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. My thesis is that the human sense of justice is a biological adaptation in the fullest sense of the word: That is, an evolved solution to problems faced by our distant ancestors. I explore the role of reciprocal altruism and of “cheating” and cheater detection as exerting pressure for the selection of moral outrage in our species. Moral outrage leads to the desire to punish, which serves an expiatory role. This punishment can be tempered with mercy by tapping into the evolved emotions of empathy and sympathy as cultural ideas defining all human beings as intrinsically valuable. Reconciliation and reintegration as contained in restorative justice are also examined from this naturalistic perspective. I conclude by exploring how cultural variability can be accommodated.     

Access and allocation in food governance,a decadal view 2008–2018

Achieving food security worldwide raises a number of issues with regard to the distribution of global resources. On the one hand, access to resources and ecospace is essential for individuals in order to survive; on the other hand, the allocation of the earth’s resources as well as risks and responsibilities are relevant for the global community. Yet, elements of access and allocation are various and complex, encompassing social, environmental, and economic dimensions in an increasingly fragmented global governance structure. Drawing on the multidisciplinary governance framework on access and allocation by Gupta and Lebel, this paper provides a synoptical review of the literature on food security of the past decade from the perspective of the earth system governance scholarship. This article addresses the question: what have we learnt about access and allocation issues in the area of food governance and its implications for food security? In addressing this question, this review examines how institutions, norms and power affect access to and allocation of resources. The paper draws out key trends and lessons from the literature to conclude that research needs to be sensitive to the complexity and intersectionality of food, the systemic challenges that it poses, and the broader political economy around it.

     

Epistemological and ethical understandings of access and allocation in Earth System Governance: a 10-year review of the literature

“Access and allocation” is one of the five analytical problems identified as key for analysing earth system governance in the first Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan officially published in 2009. Ten years later and with a new Science and Implementation Plan in place, it is time to take stock. Therefore, this paper addresses the question: What does a decadal review of the Earth System Governance literature tell us about how to conceptualize and define access and allocation, what ethical norms and epistemologies underlie access and allocation research, and what does Earth System Governance scholarship reveal about the interplay between access and allocation and other norms? We find that: (a) there is a relatively small body of the Earth System Governance literature on access and allocation, albeit growing; (b) this literature is largely empirical and dispersed across a variety of topics; and (c) there is a diversity of ethical norms and principles emphasized in Earth System Governance scholarship, but the dynamics between different forms of access and related implications for allocation are relatively underexplored. In light of these findings and with a new Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan in place, this paper highlights key areas for further research and development.

     

Measuring Procedural Justice in Police-Citizen Encounters

Procedural justice has dominated recent discussions of police interactions with the public. It has mostly been measured from the perspective of citizens (using surveys or interviews), but several important questions about predictors and outcomes of fair police treatment are best answered using direct observations of police-citizen interactions. Building on prior observational studies, we develop and validate an instrument for measuring procedural justice as it is exercised by the police in the natural setting of their encounters with the public. In doing so, we adopt a “formative” rather than the common “reflective” approach, based on the assumption that specific behaviors that make up procedural justice do not reflect a single underlying construct but rather form one. We justify this approach and validate our instrument accordingly. We also discuss the implications of our measurement for future research on procedural justice in police behavior.     

INTERORGANIZATIONAL UTILITY OF WELFARE STIGMA IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM*

The appropriation of “welfare stigma” or stereotypes about poor people's overreliance and abuse of public aid in two core criminal justice functions is examined: felony adjudication in a court system and space allocation in a jail. Through a comparative ethnographic study in which an abductive analysis of data (20 months of fieldwork) was used, we show that criminal justice gatekeepers utilize welfare stigma to create stricter eligibility criteria for due process in criminal courts and occupancy in jails. Specifically, the number of court appearances, motions, trials, jail beds, food, showers, and medical services is considered by professionals to be the benefits that individuals seek to access and abuse. Professionals view their role as preventing (rather than granting) access to these resources. The comparative nature of our data reveals that welfare stigma has interorganizational utility by serving two different organizational goals: It streamlines convictions in courts, which pulls defendants through adjudication, and conversely, it expands early release from jails, which pulls inmates out of the custody population. In the context of diminishing social safety nets, our findings have implications for understanding how discretion is exercised in an American criminal justice system increasingly tasked with the distribution of social services to the urban poor.     

Speak About It,Be About It: Spoken-Word Poetry Communities and Transformative Social Justice

“Spoken-word poetry” and the knowledge we can gain from the poets who perform it are integral to the successful recovery of members of oppressed communities. Also known as “performance poetry,” these powerful testimonials often mirror oral traditions, such as speaking circles from the African diaspora, Indigenous oral traditions in the Americas, and the spoken-word poetic communities of color and marginalized peoples. Poets within the spoken-word poetry communities of San Diego, California, who have been oppressed by interpersonal and state violence, mass incarceration, militarized policing, poverty, racism, sexism, the War on Drugs, and other systemic inequalities, learn from and support one another. This article views spoken-word poetry as public testimonials that may add to transformative social justice models for structurally-oppressed communities. It seeks to understand critical criminological approaches and analysis that add to the growing scholarship centering structurally-oppressed communities without pathologizing them in order to inform programming, policy and funding toward transformative social justice initiatives focused on healing communities and their members.

     

Does Racial Balance in Workforce Representation Yield Equal Justice? Race Relations of Sentencing in Federal Court Organizations*

Increasing racial and ethnic group representation in justice‐related occupations is considered a potential remedy to racial inequality in justice administration, including sentencing disparity. Studies to date yield little evidence of such an effect; however, research limitations may account for the mixed and limited evidence of the significance of justice workforce racial diversity. Specifically, few studies consider group‐level dynamics of race and representation, thus failing to contextualize racial group power relations in justice administration. To consider these contextual dynamics we combine court organizational and case‐level data from 89 federal districts and use hierarchical models to assess whether variably “representative” work groups relate to district‐level differences in sentencing. Using district‐specific indexes of population and work group dissimilarity to define representation, we find no relationships between black judge representation and sentencing in general across districts, but that districts with more black representation among prosecutors are significantly less likely to sentence defendants to terms of imprisonment. We also find in districts with increased black representation among prosecutors, and to a lesser degree among judges, that black defendants are less likely to be imprisoned and white defendants are more likely to be imprisoned, with the effect of narrowing black‐white disparities in sentencing. Consistent with the “power‐threat” perspective, and perhaps “implicit racial bias” research, findings encourage modeling diversity to account for relative racial group power in processes of social control and suggest that racial justice may be moderately advanced by equal representation among authorities.     

Trial and Error: Lawyers and Nonlawyer Advocates

Nonlawyer advocates are one proposed solution to the access to justice crisis. Theory and research suggest that nonlawyers might be effective, yet scholars know very little, empirically, about nonlawyer practice in the United States. Using data from more than 5,000 unemployment insurance appeal hearings and interviews with lawyers and nonlawyers who represent employers in these hearings, this article explores how both types of representatives develop expertise and what this means for effectiveness. We find judges play a critical role in shaping nonlawyer legal expertise and nonlawyers develop expertise almost exclusively through “trial and error.” We find evidence that while experienced nonlawyers can help parties through their expertise with common court procedures and basic substantive legal concepts, they are not equipped to challenge judges on contested issues of substantive or procedural law in individual cases, advance novel legal claims, or advocate for law reform on a broader scale. These findings have implications for future access to justice research and interventions.     

少捕慎诉慎押刑事司法政策研究

少捕慎诉慎押刑事司法政策是推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化,实现强制措施制度回归诉讼保障功能,应对犯罪结构发生重大变化和深化落实宽严相济刑事政策的必然要求。贯彻少捕慎诉慎押刑事司法政策应当在厘清其内涵的基础上规范其适用范围并遵循一定的原则,其实施路径包括正确把握逮捕的条件;进行实质化的羁押必要性审查;用好、用足不起诉制度;与认罪认罚从宽制度合理衔接以及充分发挥辩护制度的重要作用等。检察机关作为捕诉职能的承担者,是该政策有效施行的“第一责任人”,应当充分发挥“司法纽带”作用。时机成熟时,应当对该政策进行延伸,形成“少拘少捕慎诉慎押慎判”的系统的刑事司法理念和政策。     

习近平法治思想中的刑事法要义

有关刑事法治的丰富论述是习近平法治思想的重要组成部分,可以将习近平法治思想中的刑事法要义概括为“宽严相济,以发展眼光看问题”的刑事政策论、“完善对违法犯罪行为的惩治和矫正法律”的刑事立法论、“守住防范冤错案件的底线”的刑事司法论、“综合施策、标本兼治”的犯罪治理论。习近平法治思想中的刑事法要义在吸收国际社会刑事法治文明成果的同时,较为集中地体现了对中华法治文明的传承与弘扬。刑事法治建设与刑事法研究必须以习近平刑事法治思想为根本遵循,深刻领悟和把握习近平刑事法治思想的博大精深,避免做西方刑事法治经验与理论的“搬运工”。     

In the light of equity and science: scientific expertise and climate justice after Paris

The Paris Agreement is built on a tension between the common goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C and the differentiation that follows from the principle of equity. Scientific expertise is commonly seen as providing important means to overcome this tension, for example in the Agreement’s “global stocktake”, which is said to be undertaken “in the light of equity and the best available science”. This raises the question of how scholarly communities best can contribute to deliberations on equitable differentiation in the effort required to meet common temperature goals. To discuss this question, the paper looks to the literature within Science and Technology Studies on the role of science in policymaking, where disagreement exists over the merits of “heating up” controversies through politicization, versus “cooling down” issues by seeking consensus. It assesses two cases in which scientific expertise has engaged with questions of equitable effort-sharing in international climate politics: The “Bali Box” of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, and the “Civil Society Equity Review” undertaken prior to COP21 in Paris. Based on a comparison of the two cases, it is argued that scientific contributions should not shy away from highlighting conflicts in values and interests, and that “heating up” discussions about climate justice may be a valuable contribution to overcoming the tensions of the Paris Agreement.     

The Dynamics of Running Away,Deinstitutionalization Policies and the Police

Abstract Over the last decade, public concern about the risks associated with running away has risen, and conservative policy makers have advocated for a “rethinking” of the juvenile justice system's liberal reforms of the 1970s, especially the deinstitutionalization of status offenders (DSO). Yet questions over the impact of DSO remain unanswered. This study examines the emergence of and debates about DSO to understand the contemporary “status” of runaways. Official reports on runaways and interviews with police and youth workers suggest that most youth return home and that police efforts to locate and assist runaways are constrained by legal and practical forces.     

Gender and Case Processing Decisions

ABSTRACT

Research conducted during the past twenty years has not provided definitive answers to questions concerning the effect of gender on criminal justice decision making. Some researchers conclude that females receive preferential treatment, while other conclude either that there are no differences or that females are treated more harshly than males. This study uses data on male and female defendants charged with violent felonies to examine the effect of gender on seven case processing decisions. We also probe for interactions between defendant gender and defendant race. We find that female defendants are more likely than male defendants to have all of the charges against them dismissed and that females are sentenced less harshly than males. We also find that gender and race interact. The results of our analysis cast doubt on the validity of the so-called “evil woman thesis” and highlight the importance of testing an interactive model that incorporates the effects of both gender and race.     

Judicial Procedural Involvement (JPI): A Metric for Judges’ Role in Civil Litigation,Settlement, and Access to Justice

We examine judges’ role in civil litigation by studying empirically the relationship between judicial procedural involvement (JPI) and lawsuits’ mode of disposition (MoD). Furthermore, we propose JPI as a metric for the allocation of judicial attention to litigants. Applying the framework to Israeli trial court data, we find that 60 per cent of cases included JPI (through hearings and rulings on motions) whereas 40 per cent involved only the court's institutional function. By juxtaposing JPI and MoD data, we shed light on the scope of judicial involvement in settlements, the ratio between judges’ normative public-life function and their problem-solving function, and other pertinent questions. Since nowadays lawsuits are rarely adjudicated, trial rates are low, and litigants in person (pro se litigants) are common, we argue that access to justice should also be construed in terms of access to judicial attention throughout the proceeding, which is readily measurable through JPI.     

Access and allocation in earth system governance: water and climate change compared

A significant percentage of the global population does not yet have access to safe drinking water, sufficient food or energy to live in dignity. There is a continuous struggle to allocate the earth’s resources among users and uses. This article argues that distributional problems have two faces: access to basic resources or ecospace; and, the allocation of environmental resources, risks, burdens, and responsibilities for causing problems. Furthermore, addressing problems of access and allocation often requires access to social processes (science, movements and law). Analysts, however, have tended to take a narrow, disciplinary approach although an integrated conceptual approach may yield better answers. This article proposes a multi-disciplinary perspective to the problem of access and allocation and illustrates its application to water management and climate change.     

Toward More Interesting Research Questions: Problematizing Theory in Social Justice

The majority of research in social justice, indeed in all of social science, is incremental, has received few citations, has garnered little attention in the public, and can be viewed as dull and uninteresting by both academics and lay readers. Although often well versed in a variety of methodological techniques for testing research questions, we rarely receive explicit guidance in how to construct them in a way that is interesting, useful, and pushes theory forward. A novel “problematization” approach for constructing interesting research questions has been proposed by Alvesson and Sandberg (Constructing research questions: doing interesting research. Sage Publications, London, 2013). In this essay, I introduce the problematization method to social justice scholars in a comprehensive review and critique that identifies the benefits and limitations of the approach. Then, to provide a cursory illustration of the method in practice, I problematize the domain of retributive justice, attempting to identify potentially interesting directions for future research inquiry.     

What’s Wrong with Penal Populism? Politics,the Public,and Criminological Expertise

This article discusses “penal populism” and its conflict with criminological expertise. It considers the proper balance between professional expertise and community sentiment in the formulation of crime control and penal policy—especially in respect of policy measures where moral rather than instrumental considerations are involved. It raises theoretical questions about the nature of “public opinion”—does it exist other than as an artifact of survey instruments?—and its proper role in a democratic polity. And it considers the professional responsibility of criminological experts in relation to policy formation and political debate. The performance of public health experts during the COVID pandemic is presented as an instructive case in point. Can criminology establish itself as a credible form of social scientific knowledge worthy of public trust? And how should criminologists comport themselves when engaging with questions of public policy and political controversy?