Law Enforcement Fusion Centers: Cultivating an Information Sharing Environment while Safeguarding Privacy

The national network of fusion centers, of which there are currently 78 nationwide, was created in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and continue to play an integral role in contemporary law enforcement. Their mission, put simply, is to facilitate information sharing across disparate agencies and organizations. Despite a significant presence within the law enforcement landscape, fusion centers have received relatively minimal scholarly attention. This limited literature alludes to operational challenges and public concerns that inhibit fusion center effectiveness. More specifically, little information is known about how fusion centers develop relationships with external partners as well as institute mechanisms to safeguard against violations of individual privacy. The present research employs a combination of national survey data and three in-depth case studies of fusion centers in Florida, Nevada, and Michigan to provide initial answers to these questions. Implications for improved policy and practice are discussed.     

Emphasising the Problem or the Solution in Charitable Fundraising for International Development

We conduct a laboratory experiment to test the effect on charitable donations to international development NGOs (INGOs) of emphasising current deprivation in a developing country, versus emphasising the potential good a donation can achieve. Using a double-blind dictator experiment with earned endowments, we find that varying the information/emphasis has no significant effect on total donations, nor on the probability of donating. We find suggestive evidence that an emphasis on current deprivation may raise the variance of donations, and thus the size of donations conditional on donating, but the effect is not significant in hurdle models that explicitly recognise this.     

Enhancing Australian Regional Policy: A Conceptual Framework for Assessing the Role of Regional Development Australia

Australian regional development has suffered from ‘fragmentation’ with policy responsibility shared between different tiers of government. The Rudd government sought to improve regional policy with the establishment of the Regional Development Australia (RDA) network. However, uncertainty surrounds the role of RDA. This paper seeks to illuminate this problem by drawing on the literature on types of multi-tiered governance, especially the work of Hooghe and Marks and Skelcher on Type I and Type II bodies. It is argued in a normative framework that the RDA network has the characteristics of Type II entities and that this gives it a comparative advantage in specific respects.     

Book reviews

Ephraim Maisel, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1991–1926 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 1994), £35. ISBN 1–898723–04–4.

Timothy P. Maga, The World of Jimmy Carter: U.S. Foreign Policy 1977–1981 (West Haven, CT: University of New Haven Press, 1994). 189 pp. ISBN 0–936385–23–0.

Michael Leifer, Dictionary of the Modern Politics of South‐East Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), xii + 271pp. £45. ISBN 0–415–04219–4.

Christopher C. Harmon and David Tucker (eds.), Statecraft and Power: Essays in Honor of Harold W. Rood (Lanham and London: University Press of America with the National Institute for Public Policy, 1994), 284pp ISBN 0–8191–8718–6.     

Cue utilization in the product authentication process: a framework and research agenda for product counterfeit prevention

Scholars suggest that consumers rely on heuristics to evaluate products. They employ both extrinsic and intrinsic cues to evaluate product quality and utilize the same cues to differentiate between counterfeit and genuine products. This has far-reaching public health, economic, product authentication, and even criminal justice policy implications due to the emerging ideas of criminalizing the purchase of counterfeit goods. In order to predict the viability and the possible effects of such a policy, a thorough understanding of consumer attitudes toward counterfeits, purchase motivation, and behavior, as well as of their ability to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit goods, is imperative. Building on cue utilization theory, this article develops a framework for understanding how consumers develop and utilize heuristics for product authentication in the context of intellectual property infringements and outlines a research agenda. Additionally, it helps to inform the development of prevention and enforcement efforts, in consumer education and enforcement agent training, as well as a basis for policy decisions.     

The development and initial testing of the AIM2 framework to assess risk and strengths in young people who sexually offend

Abstract

This paper describes the AIM2 assessment framework and the process of its development and initial testing. AIM2 is used to assess areas of concerns and strengths of young people. Some preliminary analysis is described, including the correlation of assessment items, their ability to discriminate between cases, their inter-rater reliability and a small-scale recidivist study. These analyses were used to develop AIM2. Results from the recidivist study identified a particular set of concern and strength factors associated with recidivism in the sample. We conclude that the inclusion of strengths-related items are important to consider as protective factors when assessing the risk of further sexually abusive behaviours. Limitations and future directions of AIM2 are also discussed.     

Dilemmas and Dimensions of Non-indigenous Organisms and Pathogens in the Marine Environment: A Sea Change

“Although scientific and technical approaches are indispensable in managing the problem, bioinvasions are fundamentally a human phenomenon, driven by economic activity and by our choices as consumers, travelers, gardeners, pet owners, fishermen, and so on … No one advocates an attempt to unscramble the world's biota and return it to some historical state, even if that were possible … Our ultimate goal ust be … to preserve or restore something we value: native biodiversity and the wild places and systems where it can thrive, the look of a landscape, a sense of place, the functioning of an ecosystem, the economic productivity of our working lands and waters, the health of people, animals, and plants.” ^{2 2} Yvonne Baskin, A Plague of Rats and Rubbervines: The Growing Threat of Species Invasions, 8, 17 (2002).