Street‐level bureaucrats,policy learning,and refugee resettlement: The case of Syrian refugees in Saskatoon,Canada

In late 2015 and early 2016, the Canadian government resettled 25,000 Syrian refugees within roughly a three‐month period. This initiative brought a much higher number of refugees to Canada than are usually accepted in that time frame and put pressure on the resettlement system. This article focuses on policy learning on the part of street‐level bureaucrats—employees of the organizations that do the work of resettling Government Assisted Refugees at the community level—and how they dealt with the pressure created by this situation. The findings indicate that the Syrian initiative exposed weaknesses in the existing system and created new obstacles with which street‐level bureaucrats working for Service Provider Organizations (SPOs) had to contend. Presented with an overwhelming strain on the system, street‐level bureaucrats at Saskatoon SPOs performed a real‐time evaluation of the system in which they work and devised solutions to issues as they arose.     

Management,markets and democracy: Australian local government reform in the 1990s

Australian local government has been subjected to extensive reform during the 1990s. This article considers the three main dimensions of the reforms — changes to management structures, the introduction of competition policy, and municipal consolidation. It reviews the evidence available about the nature of outcomes and examines the impact of the reforms on governance values. It is argued that, so far, economic considerations have been balanced by a commitment to community particpation. Recent political developments, however, may yet prove to be an emerging threat.     

Arbitrary decision making in the absence of evidence: an examination of factors related to treatment selection and recidivism for female sexual offenders

ABSTRACT

As criminal justice professionals are asked to assign risk levels and treat females who sexually offend, identifying risk factors for recidivism prediction and treatment targets is important. Although the majority of risk and treatment studies have focused on males, general female offender research and developing research with female sex offenders both provide some evidence for possible factors related to sexual offending behaviour in women. The purpose of this study was to explore what possible factors were related to treatment selection in a sample of 506 females serving prison sentences for a sexual offense, and, in turn, to examine which factors predicted non-sexual and sexual recidivism. Results demonstrated that exploratory variables were significantly related to treatment selection, as opposed to variables previously supported in research. Furthermore, living with a significant other for more than two years, and prior sexual offending arrests predicted sexual recidivism, while decreased age and treatment participation predicted non-sexual recidivism. These findings indicate that while similarities between male and female sexual offenders exist, females still demonstrate gender-specific risk factors.     

A National Survey of Mental Health Services Available to Offenders with Mental Illness: Who Is Doing What?

The purpose of this study was to examine the national practices of psychotherapy services for male offenders with mental illness (OMI) in state correctional facilities. Participants consisted of 230 correctional mental health service providers from 165 state correctional facilities. Results indicated that mental health professionals provided a variety of services to OMI that can be conceptualized by six goals considered important in their work: mental illness recovery, emotions management, institutional functioning, re-entry, risk-need, and personal growth. Mental health professionals in this study generally viewed mental illness recovery, institutional functioning, and personal growth as significantly more important and spent more time focused on these goals than emotions management, re-entry, and risk-need. Mental health professionals tended to believe the services they provided were effective across four key treatment foci including mental illness, skill development, behavioral functioning, and criminogenic needs with more progress perceived in areas related to mental illness and skill development than their ability to effectively change behavioral functioning. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Minimum velocity necessary for nonconventional projectiles to penetrate the eye: an experimental study using pig eyes

To satisfy the Criminal Code of Canada's definition of a firearm, a barreled weapon must be capable of causing serious bodily injury or death to a person. Canadian courts have accepted the forensically established criteria of "penetration or rupture of an eye" as serious bodily injury. The minimal velocity of nonconventional ammunition required to penetrate the eye including airsoft projectiles has yet to be established. To establish minimal threshold requirements for eye penetration, empirical tests were conducted using a variety of airsoft projectiles. Using the data obtained from these tests, and previous research using "air gun" projectiles, an "energy density" parameter was calculated for the minimum penetration threshold of an eye. Airsoft guns capable of achieving velocities in excess of 99 m/s (325 ft/s) using conventional 6-mm airsoft ammunition will satisfy the forensically established criteria of "serious bodily injury." The energy density parameter for typical 6-mm plastic airsoft projectiles is 4.3 to 4.8 J/cm2. This calculation also encompasses 4.5-mm steel BBs.     

Risk management in local communities

This article discusses the current state of risk-management practices in local communities in the United States and offers some alternatives to present policies, which are mainly implicit rather than explicit attempts to limit overall risks of death and injury due to technological and natural causes. The article is divided into three sections. The first discusses the concept of risk-management as presently used in local government. The second section results from a limited survey of local risk-managers. The third section offers some policy alternatives. While generalization is itself risky, all of our observations point toward the conclusion that local government officials have little understanding of, hence little concern for, the quantity of risk posed for citizens by various hazards. If it seems desirable to place risk-management decisions in the hands of local officials, then some capacity for risk quantification, hence comparison, must be developed. The bulk of the policy suggestions at the end of this article concerns possible means through which this capacity might be augmented.     

Book reviews

Volodymyr Kubijovy? (ed.), Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia. Prepared by Shevchenko Scientific Society. Foreword by Ernest J. Simmons. Volume II. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971. xliii + 1394 pp.

Ellendea Proffer (ed.), The Early Plays of Mikhail Bulgakov. Translated by Carl R. Proffer and Ellendea Proffer. Bloomington and London: Indiana UP, 1972. xxvii + 418 pp. $10.00. £4.75.

Ellendea Proffer and Carl R. Proffer (eds.), Mikhail Bulgakov: Diaboliad and Other Stories. Translated by Carl R. Proffer. Bloomington and London: Indiana UP, 1972. xx + 236 pp. $5.95. £2.85.

Philip Hanson, The Development of Advertising in Eastern Europe. London: The Advertising Association [1973]. (Research Studies in Advertising No. 7.) 140 pp. £1.75 (paperback).

Josef Breburda (ed.), Landwirtschaftliche Probleme der Ukraine. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1971. 235 pp.

Werner G. Hahn, The Politics of Soviet Agriculture, 1960–1970. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1972. xix + 311 pp. £5.65.

Gayle Durham Hollander, Soviet Political Indoctrination. Developments in Mass Media and Propaganda Since Stalin. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. (Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Public Affairs.) xviii + 244 pp. £6.25.

Zvi Y. Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics. The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917–1930. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1972, and London: OUP, 1973. xii + 573 pp. $20.00. £10.00.

Michael Waller, The Language of Communism. A Commentary. London: The Bodley Head, 1972. 183 pp. £2.00.

Joseph S. Berliner, Economy, Society and Welfare: A Study in Social Economics. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. xvii + 196 pp. £5.75.

James R. Millar (ed.), The Soviet Rural Community. A Symposium. Urbana and London: University of Illinois Press, 1971. xv + 420 pp. $12.50. £6.00.

J. Wilczynski, Profit, Risk and Incentives under Socialist Economic Planning. London: Macmillan, 1973. viii + 232 pp. £5.50.

E. L. Johnson, An Introduction to the Soviet Legal System. London: Methuen, 1972. viii + 243 pp. £1.60 (paperback).

Roy D. Laird, The Soviet Paradigm. An Experiment in Creating a Mono‐hierarchical Polity. New York: The Free Press and London: Collier‐Macmillan Publishers, 1971. xxviii + 272 pp. £4.00.

George R. Feiwel, Industrialization and Planning under Polish Socialism. Vol. I—Poland's Industrialization Policy: A Current Analysis. Sources of Economic Growth and Retrogression. Vol. II—Problems in Polish Economic Planning. Continuity, Change, and Prospects. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971 and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) xxv + 748 pp. and xvii + 454 pp. £10.50 and £8.50.

Dorothy W. Douglas, Transitional Economic Systems: The Polish‐Czech Example. Introduction by Lynn Turgeon, New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972. xxxii + 375 pp. £4.90.

David McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx. An Introduction. London: Macmillan, 1971. ix + 237 pp. £3.50. £1.50 (paperback).

Daniel Tarschys, Beyond the State. The Future Polity in Classical and Soviet Marxism. Stockholm: Scandinavian University Books, 1971. 261 pp. (paperback).