Secrecy and the making of CFSP

Abstract

How can we understand the role of secrecy in the making of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)? This article analyses the nature of secrecy and questions some of the main assumptions surrounding the concept. In this respect, it argues that secrecy may be of functional necessity for policy-makers and actually compatible with good governance. Moreover, we must not put too much stock in transparency alone in that the relationship between secrecy and transparency is not zero-sum ? historically, transparency has sometimes been an instrument of control and domination. The article considers the case of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) to shed light on what kind of secrecy exists in the foreign policy area, and argues that this is mainly a combination of functional and compound secrecy.     

A National Picture of Prison Downsizing Strategies

Abstract

Many states faced fiscal pressures on their corrections budgets as the country entered a deep recession in 2008. A 2011 survey by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) asked corrections officials in all 50 states about changes in correctional facilities, focusing on closures, new facilities, and altering existing facilities as a response to budget pressures. States employed a combination of these strategies. Between fiscal year (FY) 2007–2008 and FY 2011–2012, 148 facilities were closed, 29 new facilities were opened, and 23 states added 22,740 beds to existing facilities, resulting in about a 19,000 net bed reduction overall. Closures did not necessarily appear to be related to fiscal pressures or always related to reductions in the prison population. Despite the Great Recession, correctional funding is still a large part of state expenses and many states’ correctional populations continue to grow.     

Longitudinal Associations between Maternal Involvement,Cultural Orientations,and Prosocial Behaviors Among Recent Immigrant Latino Adolescents

Prosocial behaviors (i.e., actions that benefit others) are important markers of healthy social functioning, and understanding the factors that predict such outcomes among recent immigrant Latino adolescents is important. The current study examines the longitudinal associations between maternal involvement and prosocial behaviors via collectivism values. Data comes from a longitudinal project (Construyendo Oportunidades Para los Adolescentes Latinos) of 302 recently immigrated U.S. Latina/o adolescents (53.3% male, average age?=?14.51 years old). The current study uses data from three times points across 2 years. The results demonstrated that maternal involvement was positively associated with collectivism values. Collectivism was positively associated with changes in prosocial behaviors. There was also partial support for a reverse-causal model. Discussion focuses on the links among parenting, cultural values, and prosocial behaviors among immigrant U.S. Latina/o adolescents.     

Culture and Relativism

The meanings and implications of cultural relativism have been debated for decades. Reprising this debate, Roger Sandall offers a pointed critique of the anthropological concept of culture and identifies relativism as the internal and corrosive enemy of the open society. I challenge his reading of our predicament. Considering the work of Franz Boas and his debts to the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, I distance the social science concept of culture from positions—the rejection of standards of truth, beauty, and morality; the belief that cultural value systems and practices are all equally true (or untrue); the valorization of primitivism—that are not intrinsic to it. Next, I consider the use of culture in the “philosophy of primitivism” and its meanings in multiculturalism and identity politics. I argue that many ostensibly relativist claims are used to serve non-relativist agendas, or hide universalistic claims in unstated but essential premises and background assumptions. Rather than a world dominated by relativism, where cultural differences are held to be inviolable and cross-cultural judgments have been rendered impossible, I see something like the reverse. Our problem is not that we overvalue cultural differences but that we underestimate them. Even in our multiculturalism, we imagine a sameness of outlook and aspiration, an unwitting projection of ourselves in the end.

Variations in mental health problems, substance use, and delinquency between African American and Caucasian juvenile offenders: implications for reentry services

The incarceration of young people is a growing national problem. Key correlates of incarceration among American youth include mental health problems, substance use, and delinquency. The present study uses a statewide sample of incarcerated youth to examine racial differences in African American and Caucasian juvenile offenders' outcomes related to mental health, substance use, and delinquency. The data indicate that relative to Caucasian offenders, African American offenders report lower levels of mental health problems and substance use but higher levels of delinquent behavior such as violence, weapon carrying, and gang fighting. The data further reveal that African American offenders are more likely than Caucasian offenders to be victims of violence and to experience traumatic events such as witnessing injury and death. Recognition of these patterns may help to improve postrelease services by tailoring or adapting preexisting programs to patterns of risk factors and their relative magnitudes of effect.     

The acetaminophen experience in south Florida

Toxicology records of the Dade County Medical Examiner Department were reviewed for the years 1972 to 1981. Any case in which acetaminophen was detected, regardless of the cause of death, was included in the study. Of 95 cases where acetaminophen was detected, no trends were observable in age, sex, or race. Acetaminophen deaths have increased in recent years, probably because of increased marketing of products containing this substance. Some two thirds of the cases involved suicides or accidental deaths, with 40 cases being directly attributable to overdose with a variety of drugs. It is suggested that acetaminophen may be a useful indicator of polydrug overdoses.