Political Practices of Care: Needs and Rights*

Abstract. In this paper the authors argue that the exploration of the nature of needs and rights should begin with the actually existing organization of care and of justice in society. The authors raise two key concerns with this organization: 1) the invisibility of care to some, and 2) the inaccessibility of rights to others. Recent work by care scholars has called attention to the ways the current organization of care work perpetuates the myth of self‐sufficiency for some, while reducing others to mere dependents. Law and Society scholars have demonstrated the problems of uneven access to legal remedies within the current organization of the legal system. Addressing these concerns simultaneously reveals both the problems of the current organization of needs and rights as well as illuminating alternative possibilities. The authors argue, first, that a justice perspective, based on rights is inadequate because its presumed universality is belied by the reality of the inaccessibility of rights to many. Second, the authors argue that a care perspective, currently formulated upon the assumption that only some people have needs, is also flawed because its presumed particularity distorts the human experience and subsequent policies. Instead, the authors need to conceive of care in a public way that permits both rights and needs to be understood as applicable to all. The authors propose some initial thoughts about how to create such a public concept of care.     

A Multilayered Jurisdictional Patchwork: Immigration Federalism in the United States

This article focuses on the immigration‐related demands currently being placed on local police in the United States and the emergence of what we call a “multilayered jurisdictional patchwork” (MJP) of immigration enforcement. We report results from nationwide surveys of city police chiefs and county sheriffs and intensive fieldwork in three jurisdictions. The enforcement landscape we describe is complicated by the varying and overlapping responsibilities of sheriffs and city police, and by the tendency for sheriffs to maintain closer relationships with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the MJP—for immigrants, for their communities, and for the evolving relationship between levels of government in the federal system.     

IT WAS MY IDEA: CONSIDERING THE INSTIGATION OF CO‐OFFENDING*

More than twenty years ago, Albert Reiss (1988) recognized that some individuals are responsible for instigating group offending, whereas others follow accomplices into crime (or offend alone). Since this initial discussion by Reiss, however, little clarity has emerged regarding the factors that predict or explain the instigation of co‐offending. Specifically, some literature has suggested that the tendency to instigate varies systematically across individuals, such that chronic or serious offenders are more likely to instigate group crime. Instigation also may vary across crime types (i.e., within‐individuals), according to whether individuals have crime‐specific skill or experience. Using data from inmates in the Colorado Department of Corrections to investigate these hypotheses, the results reveal that individuals with earlier ages of criminal onset are more likely to report they instigate group crime, net of controls. At the same time, indicators of crime‐specific expertise predict the tendency to instigate group crime. The Discussion section considers the implications of these results and offers directions for future research.     

GUARDIANSHIP IN CONTEXT: IMPLICATIONS FOR BURGLARY VICTIMIZATION RISK AND PREVENTION*

Survey data from 4,227 Seattle residents nested within 100 “neighborhoods” (census tracts) were analyzed to discern interrelationships between various dimensions of individual‐level and neighborhood‐level guardianship. We focused on four dimensions of guardianship–physical (target hardening), personal (home occupancy), social (informal control), and natural (surveillance through environmental design)–at both individual and neighborhood levels. A multilevel opportunity, theoretical framework guided hypotheses, which suggests that each of the four dimensions of individual guardianship would be related more negatively to burglary as each of the four dimensions of aggregate guardianship increased. Multilevel logistic regression analysis revealed support for many of such hypothesized moderating effects of aggregate guardianship. More specifically, 6 of the 16 possible interaction effects were statistically significant at the .05 level and an additional 3 interaction effects were significant at the .10 level. In particular, individuallevel target hardening, place management, and natural surveillancewere related more negatively to burglary as neighborhood‐level target hardening increased, as neighborhood‐level informal social control increased, and as neighborhood‐level natural surveillance increased.