The Appointment, Removal and Responsibilities of Public Sector Chief Executives in Australia: Some Recent Developments

In the little over the decade since the publication of Smith's Public Employment Law and McCarry's Aspects of Public Sector Employment Law, much as changed in the law of public sector employment in Australia. This article briefly surveys some of the major developments in public sector employment law in Australia during the 1990s in relation to departmental chief executive departmental heads.     

Rise of xenophobic nationalism in Europe: A case of Slovenia

The article focuses on rise of nationalism and xenophobia in Slovenia. It starts by considering the issue of unrecognized minorities in Slovenia (former Yugoslavia nations) that have no minority rights, despite being large groups, as many international organizations for the protection of minorities have pointed out. A particular issue in this relation for Slovenia is the ‘Erased’ – the individuals who did not acquire Slovenian citizenship when Slovenia seceded from federal Yugoslavia – and despite the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision, the Slovenian state has still not recognized their rights, which were violated in the post-independence period. The article also examines two other minorities in Slovenia, the Jews and the Roma. The article finds Slovenia to be a closed, non-globalised society which, in spite of its constitutional declaration to protect the rights of minorities and other national communities, is seeking to retain a politically and culturally homogeneous nation state.     

Literatur

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Victimization and fear of crime in an entertainment district crime “hot spot:” A test of structural-choice theory

Theories of criminal opportunity and criminal victimization (lifestyles, routine activities, and structuralchoice) all stress the convergence of motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of guardianship in time and space. They each assert the chances of victimization increase as proximity to motivated offenders, exposure to highrisk environments, target attractiveness, and ineffective guardianship increase. This study tests Miethe and Meier’s structuralchoice theory by examining domainspecific victimization and fear of crime among patrons of an entertainment district crime “hot spot. ”Regression results show both victimization experience and fear of crime are associated significantly with indicators of proximity and guardianship, but not with exposure or target attractiveness. White patrons of this area are more likely to be victimized, nonwhites report significantly higher levels of fear. The research for this paper was supported by Grant No. 97PRWX0298 from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Inter-comparison of unrelated fiber evidence

The foreign textile fibers recovered from one item of evidence from each of 20 unrelated crimes in three categories (bank robbery, kidnapping, and homicide) were cross-compared. The items of evidence were scraped to remove the trace evidence and a sample of the collected fibers was examined using a standard scheme of analysis. The fibers were examined with light microscopy (including polarized light microscopy), fluorescence microscopy, and microspectrophotometry. The fibers were divided into natural and manufactured groups and then categorized by color and generic (polymer) class. Cross-comparing all 2083 fibers resulted in 2,168,403 comparisons, after removing duplicate (same fiber) comparisons. Colorless and denim fibers were excluded from this study. No two fibers were found to exhibit the same microscopic characteristics and analytical properties. Therefore, it is rare to find two unrelated items that have foreign fibers that are analytically indistinguishable. These results corroborate other population studies conducted in Europe and target fiber studies conducted both in the US and in Europe.