Assessing Police Attitudes Toward Drugs and Drug Enforcement

The American War on Drugs has been a long and protracted battle. On the front lines are local, state and federal drug enforcement officers who are tasked with pursuing drug users and dealers. Empirically, officers’ attitudes about the laws they uphold have been shown to impact how aggressively they enforce those laws and the discretion they employ. Although there is a well established body of literature which documents the importance of discretionary dynamics in many areas of law enforcement, we know almost nothing about narcotics officers’ attitudes toward drugs and drug enforcement. Hence, we are unaware of extremely important variables that almost certainly impact and influence front line drug officers. This study fills that gap by examining the survey responses of over 1,000 drug interdiction officers at all levels of law enforcement, measuring their attitudes toward various drugs and the relative harm they incur, along with existing and proposed policies and strategies. The results are discussed in terms of their enforcement and policy implications.     

Assessing sheriff’s office emergency and disaster website communications

Sheriff’s offices are an integral component of the public health emergency preparedness and response system in the USA. During a public health emergency or disaster, sheriff’s offices need to communicate with people affected by the event. Sheriff’s office websites are logical sources for information about disaster preparedness and response efforts. No prior research evaluates emergency preparedness and response resources available through sheriff’s office websites. The current research is a national study of sheriff’s office websites to assess the availability of information relating to emergency preparedness and response. A content analysis of 2590 sheriff’s office website homepages was conducted to determine the presence or absence of nine communications elements important to people seeking information during an emergency or disaster. We found that 71.9% of sheriff’s office website homepages include links to agency services and programs, but only 6.5% provide links to emergency preparedness information. The findings of the study are useful to assess emergency preparedness and the amount of response information available, as well as to identify opportunities to improve sheriff’s office website homepages.     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in DSM-5: New Criteria,New Measures,and Implications for Assessment

The diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were substantially revised for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—5th edition (DSM-5). This in turn necessitated revision of DSM-correspondent assessment measures of PTSD. We describe the various changes to the PTSD diagnostic criteria and the corresponding changes to National Center for PTSD measures. We also discuss the implications of the new criteria for assessment of trauma exposure and PTSD. Although the DSM-5 version of PTSD departs significantly in some respects from previous versions, we conclude that there is fundamental continuity with the original DSM-III conceptualization of PTSD as a chronic, debilitating mental disorder that develops in response to catastrophic life events.     

Co-operation,Contestation and Complexity in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform

ABSTRACT

Security Sector Reform (SSR) remains a key feature of peacebuilding interventions and is usually undertaken by a state alongside national and international partners. External actors engaged in SSR tend to follow a normative agenda that often has little regard for the context in post-conflict societies. Despite recurrent criticism, SSR practices of international organisations and bilateral donors often remain focused on state institutions, and often do not sufficiently attend to alternative providers of security or existing normative frameworks of security. This article provides a critical overview of existing research and introduces the special issue on ‘Co-operation, Contestation and Complexity in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform’. We explore three aspects that add an important piece to the puzzle of what constitutes effective SSR. First, the variation of norm adoption, norm contestation and norm imposition in post-conflict countries that might explain the mixed results in terms of peacebuilding. Second, the multitude of different security actors within and beyond the state which often leads to multiple patterns of co-operation and contestation within reform programmes. And third, how both the multiplicity of and tension between norms and actors further complicate efforts to build peace or, as complexity theory would posit, influence the complex and non-linear social system that is the conflict-affected environment.     

Gender and Defence Sector Reform: Problematising the Place of Women in Conflict-Affected Environments

ABSTRACT

While gender-responsive Security Sector Reform (SSR) is increasingly recognised as being key to successful SSR programmes, women continue to be marginalised in post-conflict SSR programmes, particularly defence sector reform. By focussing on developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Colombia, this article explores the paradox of women’s marginalisation in defence sector reform and post-reform defence structures in places where women were active combatants during the preceding conflict. This article refers to examples of women’s engagement in combat to challenge some of the reasons given for women’s marginalisation, including reference to women’s skillset, aptitude and interests. The article adopts a feminist institutionalist approach to show how SSR helps security sector institutions construct and reconstruct gender power relations, reinforce gendered dynamics of exclusion, and determine gendered outcomes. It concludes by drawing attention to the transformational potential of SSR to alter gender power relations, and thereby enhance the security of women and the sustainability of peacebuilding efforts.     

Attributions for Improvement in Children Bullied at School

ABSTRACT

This mixed methods study describes attributions for improvement following reductions in victimization for children who were bullied at school. It also tests hypotheses from attribution theory about attributions associated with improvements. The sample was a subset of families who participated in an RCT of a family cognitive-behavioral program to reduce victimization; to be included, both the parent and child needed to report reductions in child victimization at 9 months. Attributions were compared across conditions, respondents (parents versus children) and time. Both parents and children attributed improvements most often to actions by the target child. Intervention families were more likely than control families to attribute changes to their own efforts than to external factors. The relevance of internal attributions for the success of interventions is discussed.     

Economic agendas old and new and chinese administrative reform

Facing new agenda economic development issues, China like other developing states is forced to coordinate policies regionally. As need for decentralization “downward” stretches to include delegation “outward,” Beijing must find its best response to the new trend. Four tests reveal no reason for China to stay aloof from simple Membership in Pacific-Asian regional organizations. Three tests reveal no problem with China taking an Activist role in such regional organizations. Three final tests reveal potential costs China would pay for seeking a regional Leadership role, especially before Beijing's post-succession direction is determined.