Multi-sector cooperation in preventing crime: the case of a South African Neighbourhood Watch as an effective crime prevention model

Abstract

This case study describes the experience of effective and sustainable multi-sector co-operation in the prevention of crime between the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch (RNW) in Roodepoort, South Africa, the South African Police Service, private security businesses and the local business sector. This case study is illustrated in the context of empowering communities to take ownership of community safety by facilitating a multi-sector approach. Many studies have highlighted the role of the police in driving crime prevention, however, this paper focuses on the role and contribution of communities themselves as an effective vehicle of crime prevention drawing on multi-sector co-operation. Knowledge regarding best practices in this field of crime prevention remains a work in progress, therefore this paper aims to contribute to the general framework for the growth of successful multi-sector community-based crime prevention initiatives.     

Respect for Persons in Bioethics: Towards a Human Rights-Based Account

Human rights have increasingly been put forward as an important framework for bioethics. In this paper, it is argued that human rights offer a potentially fruitful approach to understanding the notion of Respect for Persons in bioethics. The idea that we are owed a certain kind of respect as persons is relatively common, but also quite often understood in terms of respecting people’s autonomous choices. Such accounts do however risk being too narrow, reducing some human beings to a second-class moral status. This paper puts forward a political approach to our standing as persons and a strongly pluralistic account of human rights that lays the ground for a more broadly applicable conception of Respect for Persons. It is further argued that this model also provides an example of a more general approach to philosophical ethics, an approach which is here called taxonomical pluralism. When it comes to Respect for Persons specifically, this principle is developed in terms of five distinct core concerns (autonomy, dignity, integrity, privacy, and vulnerability).     

Bad neighbors? How co-located Chinese and World Bank development projects impact local corruption in Tanzania

The rise of China as a "non-traditional" development partner has been one of the most important phenomena in the field over the past decade. The lack of transparency in Chinese development projects, coupled with an uninterested stance towards governance, lead many to wonder if Chinese engagement will contribute to or undermine existing development efforts. This paper adds to the debate by inquiring as to the relationship of Chinese development efforts with perceptions of, and experiences with, corruption when projects are closely-located to those from a traditional donor, the World Bank. Taking advantage of spatial data, the paper evidences an association between the location of a larger number of Chinese projects and higher experiences with and, to some extent, perceptions of corruption when accounting for co-located World Bank projects. Likewise, while World Bank projects are associated with lower levels of corruption in the absence of Chinese projects, this relationship disappears when Chinese projects are nearby. However, these relationships only hold for Chinese projects which are not "aid-like," suggesting that the differentiation of Chinese overseas flows is an important consideration when studying China as a development partner.     

The Invisible Hand? Critical Information Infrastructures,Commercialisation and National Security

Corporatisation of critical information infrastructure (CII) is rooted in the ‘privatisation wave’ of the 1980s-90s, when the ground was laid for outsourcing public utilities. Despite well-known risks relating to reliability, resilience, and accountability, commitment to efficiency imperatives have driven governments to outsource key public services and infrastructures. A recent illustrative case with enormous implications is the 2017 Swedish ICT scandal, where outsourcing of CII caused major security breaches. With the transfer of the Swedish Transport Agency’s ICT system to IBM and subcontractors, classified data and protected identities were made accessible to non-vetted foreign private employees – sensitive data could thus now be in anyone’s hands. This case clearly demonstrates accountability gaps that can arise in public-private governance of CII.     

Goodbye van Gend en Loos,Hello Bosman? Using Network Analysis to Measure the Importance of Individual CJEU Judgments

It is generally agreed that some judgments by the Court of Justice are more important than others, but the ability of traditional legal methods to identify such judgments is inherently limited. In this article, we apply various tools developed in network analysis to identify which judgments are the most important as legal precedents. The study reveals that certain well‐known judgments, like van Gend en Loos, have limited importance as precedents, while other judgments, like Bosman, PreussenElektra and Schumacker, are likely overlooked.     

The Punitive Repertoire of Children's Homes and Reformatories

Although equality before the law is one of the fundamental principles of modern democracy, current Western research has shown that discrimination exists within the justice system when enforcing traditional crimes. However, in Scandinavian research on economic crime, the question of equal treatment has been neglected. Based on Swedish data of suspected offenders during 2003, we examined whether different social groups received differential treatment in investigations of traditional and economic crimes. Further, we compared the Regular Police with the Economic Crimes Bureau (ECB) to examine whether the professional specialization of street-level bureaucrats influence the occurrence of differential treatment. We also examined the efficiency of the authorities and more specifically to what extent they issue a waiver of prosecution, a prosecutor's fine, or a court indictment. Besides supporting earlier research on traditional crime, our results show that differential treatment also exists in relation to economic crime, but the patterns of differential treatment are not identical with the ones for traditional crimes. We also found that the two agencies, the ECB and the Regular Police, treat diverse social groups differently. Although the ECB is somewhat more efficient, professional specialization does not appear to be an important factor concerning the issue of differential treatment. It exists regardless of investigating authority. Further action is being taken more often in relation to men and those with a lower level of education at both agencies. However, in some cases the suspect's background does have a different effect on the work of the two agencies, with the ECB less often taking further action against ‘Swedes’ and those on ‘high incomes’, while the Regular Police less often take further action against ‘immigrants’ and those on ‘low and middle incomes’.     

Contributory and Incidental Blood Concentrations in Deaths Involving Citalopram

All cases presenting to the New South Wales Department of Forensic Medicine between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2010 in which citalopram was detected were retrieved. A total of 348 cases were identified. Citalopram contributed to death in 21.0%, and was incidental in 79.0%. Cases in which citalopram was contributory to death had significantly higher blood citalopram concentrations than incidental cases (0.50 mg/L vs. 0.30 mg/L). Citalopram concentrations varied significantly by contributory status: sole citalopram toxicity (median = 1.30 mg/L), citalopram/other drug toxicity (0.50 mg/L), and incidental cases (0.30 mg/L). Citalopram concentrations also varied by suicide status, with the highest concentration found in suicides where citalopram contributed to death (0.70 mg/L) compared with 0.50 mg/L for nonsuicide cases where citalopram contributed to death. In almost all contributory cases (69/73), other psychoactive substances were also detected, most commonly benzodiazepines (47.9%), alcohol (45.2%), and opioids (40.1%).     

Sex/gender‐based decision‐making in the criminal justice system as a possible (additional) explanation for the underrepresentation of women in official criminal statistics — a review of international literature

This article represents an analysis of the literature on sex‐based selection processes in the criminal justice system. It is only since the feminist wave of the sixties that sexual discrimination has been considered as an issue of importance in the study of the criminal justice system and that female criminality has been looked at more thoroughly. The article deals with the different assumptions and hypotheses which have come forward in the debate on the possible discrimination of men and women in the criminal justice process. In the first part of the article the various theoretical models are outlined: the chivalry and evil women hypotheses, the legal or etiological model, the social control theory, the family‐based justice model, and a multifactoral model. In the second part of the article, the results of empirical research relevant to these hypotheses are presented. American, British, Belgian, Dutch and some German literature has been taken into account. The review of the literature shows that the chivalry hypothesis cannot offer an all‐embracing explanation for the possibly perceived preferential treatment of women. Similar conclusions can be drawn for the explanatory value of the legal model. Although a more lenient treatment of women can sometimes be explained by legal factors, these factors can offer no more than a partial explanation for observed sex differences in the criminal justice system. Especially in the case of pre‐trial release and sentencing, more particularly when deciding whether or not to send a defendant to prison, a noticeable sex‐effect can still be found. In the literature we find strong suggestions — although not always confirmed — that an (initially observed) more lenient treatment of women at these stages can be explained by stereotypes and expectations about the personality of women as less dangerous and the specific role which women fulfill in western society.