AN EVALUATION OF SUPERVISED ACCESS I

This study describes the Supervised Access Pilot Project, implemented in 14 locations in Ontario, from the perspective of those offering the service and community organizations whose members use the service. Two services were offered: visits and exchanges. The average cost of a visit varied considerably across centers (range $15 to $309), a result that is partly attributable to economies of scale. Centers in large urban centers were more cost-efficient than those situated in small communities. Centers provided neutral and safe circumstances for visiting. Only 1.6 serious rule violations occurred during every 1,000 visits. It was estimated that about 3 out of every 10,000 persons used the service. Intake and safety procedures, essential to the smooth running of the centers, have been outlined. Staff fell that they would benefit from increased training in the areas of conflict resolution and the effects of divorce on family members.     

Crime and human nature

Crime, Law and Social Change -     

Constructing the Market: Commercialization and Privatization in the Royal Mail

The public sector in the UK has become the object of constant reform and change as part of the government's project to increase the remit of the private sector and the role of markets. There is much debate about the effect such a move to market relations has on public services. There is increasing concern with the way market–based reforms are linked to a new pattern of organizational structure and strategy that negates and/or opposes the traditional political processes associated with the public sector. This article focuses on the case of the Royal Mail to explore how such a transformation is both complex and contested. It reveals how 'the market' within the public sector is to a large extent politically constructed, and that the public–private dichotomy over–simplifies what is a complex process of negotiating meaning, forming alliances, lobbying for support, handling conflict and exerting influence. It demonstrates how various readings of 'the market' emerge, and that any solutions of how to become more commercial can be the result of political machinations. The implications of this analysis go beyond Royal Mail and can be generalized across the public sector.     

Commonwealth Diplomacy and the End of Apartheid

This article recounts the struggle that those fighting for an end to apartheid in South Africa faced and the role that the Commonwealth played in that struggle. The author recounts the contribution of the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke administrations in Australia in bringing down the apartheid regime but stresses that these leaders chose the Commonwealth as their primary vehicle for change. In the author’s view, the fight against apartheid was, arguably, the finest achievement of the modern Commonwealth.     

Accounts and accountability: Theoretical implications of the right-to-information movement in India

The work of a small and unusual activist group in the north Indian state of Rajasthan has raised a series of practical and theoretical issues concerning the best means for combating specific instances of corruption, and for promoting accountability more generally. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)-literally-:Workers' and Farmers' Power Organisation-has waged a campaign to secure the right of ordinary people to gain access to information held by government officials. In the process of experimenting with methods of compiling, sharing and verifying expenditure data at very local levels-thus far, in the absence of a statutory entitlement to such informationthe MKSS has developed a radical interpretation of the notion that citizens have a right both to know how they are governed and to participate actively in the process of auditing their representatives. This article examines the process by which this campaign emerged and the means by which it pursues its goals. It then analyses the implications of the MKSS experience, and the larger movement it has spawned, for contemporary debates in three areas: human rights, participatory development and, of course, anti-corruption.