GENDER,SOCIAL NETWORKS,AND RESIDENTIAL BURGLARY*

Criminological researchers have devoted substantial attention to the nature and dynamics of residential burglary, but the role played by gender in shaping this offense remains largely unexplored. Feminist ethnographers have documented the fact that streetlife is highly gendered, and that this typically serves to marginalize women's participation in criminal networks and activities. Therefore, it appears likely that residential burglary—a prototypically social offense that requires good network connections—will be strongly influenced by gender dynamics. In this study, we analyze in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 18 female and 36 male active residential burglars to examine the ways in which gender structures access to, participation in, and potential desistance from, residential burglary. In doing so, we aim to provide an insider's view of how gender stereotypes are expressed, reinforced, and exploited within streetlife social networks, and how these networks shape the lived experience of men and women engaged in residential burglary.     

Secret Law and the Value of Publicity*

Abstract. Revelations in the United States of secret legal opinions by the Department of Justice, dramatically altering the conventional interpretations of laws governing torture, interrogation, and surveillance, have made the issue of “secret law” newly prominent. The dangers of secret law from the perspective of democratic accountability are clear, and need no elaboration. But distaste for secret law goes beyond questions of democracy. Since Plato, and continuing through such non‐democratic thinkers as Bodin and Hobbes, secret law has been seen as a mark of tyranny, inconsistent with the notion of law itself. This raises both theoretical and practical questions. The theoretical questions involve the consistency of secret law with positivist legal theory. In principle, while a legal system as a whole could not be secret, publicity need not be part of the validity criteria for particular laws. The practical questions arise from the fact that secret laws, and secret governmental operations, are a common and often well‐accepted aspect of governmental power. This paper argues that the flaw of secret law goes beyond accountability and beyond efficiency to the role that law plays, and can only play, in situating subjects’ understanding of themselves in relation to the state. Secret law, as such, is inconsistent with this fundamental claim of the law to orient us in moral and political space, and undermines the claim to legitimacy of the state's rulers.     

In Pursuit of a Pacific Strategy:British Planning for the Defeat of Japan, 1943–45

This article seeks to explain why the British pushed for a role in Pacific operations during the Second World War when it faced other strategic priorities in Southeast Asia, as well as a powerful American military that maintained tight control over operational decision-making. Although several quarters in Whitehall, including the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had doubts about the necessity of a Pacific strategy, there were sensible reasons behind pursuing such a course. It would illustrate to an “anti-imperialist” America that Britain was not only interested in recovering its colonial possessions but also prepared to fight the Japanese on their homeland. More importantly, taking part in the main operations would allow the British to claim a voice at the peace table while helping to encourage the Americans to cement their close working relationship with Britain in the postwar period.     

IT'S PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION,ROD, BUT MAYBE NOT AS WE KNOW IT: BRITISH PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE 2000s

This paper assesses what happened to academic public administration (PA) in Britain in the 2000s in the light of Rod Rhodes' gloomy prognostications about the future of the subject in the late 1990s. It argues that British PA had such a good decade in the 2000s, in funding, output, academic‐practitioner interaction and institutional developments, that it could almost be said to have ‘never had it so good’, even if ‘British PA’ was probably less internationally distinctive in the 2000s than a century before. But even if the subject flourished against the odds in the 2000s, Rhodes' sombre assessment of its future cannot be dismissed. British public administration faces several potential threats in the 2010s and beyond: in funding, research, and teaching capacity. But extinction still seems an unlikely fate for British PA even when a sombre view is taken of the funding outlook and the changing balance of supply and demand.     

PREDICTING THE VIOLENT OFFENDER:THE DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY OF THE SUBCULTURE OF VIOLENCE*

This study tests the extent to which an adherence to the subculture of violence uniquely predicts a tendency to favor violence or instead predicts a more generalized offending repertoire, of which violence is part. Specifically, we use a unique analytic technique that provides the opportunity to distinguish empirically between the “violent offender” and/or the “frequent offender.” The results suggest that holding values favorable toward violence consistently predicts general offending but do not identify youth who systematically favor violence over nonviolence. This discussion considers the impact of these findings for the continued utility of the subculture of violence perspective.     

The Great Experiment Begins

This impression of the opening stage of life at the UniversityCollege of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is by a graduate of a SouthAfrican university who spent some time in Salisbury in closecontact with students of all races.     

POLICY-MAKING AND THE SCOTTISH OFFICE: THE DESIGNATION OF CUMBERNAULD NEW TOWN

The role of the Scottish Office in policy-making has been subject to a number of interpretations. It is difficult to regard it as having its own reserved policy spheres but it is clear that in certain circumstances it has the ability to forge its own policy lines. In the 1950s, in contradiction to the stated policy of the then Conservative Government. the Scottish Office was able to secure the designation of a new town at Cumbernauld. The main impetus for this policy came from the civil servants in the Department of Health for Scotland, seeking to preserve the philosophy of the 1946 Clyde Valley Plan. The case study throws considerable light on the bargaining process within government, the role of the secretary of state as spokesman for Scottish interests and the way in which the Scottish Office can gain Cabinet approval for its proposals.