Coordinated European Governance: Self‐Organizing or Centrally Steered?

Now that it is widely accepted that the European Union (EU) constitutes a system of governance, analysts need actively to explore precisely how it may affect the continuing struggle better to coordinate national and European administrations. In its 2001 White Paper on governance, the European Commission interpreted governance to mean less central control and more network-led steering. Its interpretation of such networks is that they are self-organizing. Drawing upon an empirical study of environmental policy integration (EPI) in the EU, this article shows that this vision may not adequately fit the multi-actor, multi-level coordination challenges associated with some EU problems. By studying the administrative capacities that the European Commission and three member states have created to achieve better environmental coordination, this article shows significant administrative weaknesses. It concludes that the coordination challenges now troubling the EU require a more thoughtful discussion of network management than the White Paper suggests.     

Attracting females and racial/ethnic minorities to law enforcement

Using a national survey of law enforcement agencies, this study (1) measured agencies' ability to fill sworn positions, (2) identified the strategies used to attract and hire females and minorities, (3) measured agencies' success in filling sworn positions with females and minorities, and (4) measured through negative binomial regression the impact of agency strategies and agency/jurisdiction characteristics on levels of female and minority applications and hires. The results indicated great variation in agencies' ability to fill sworn positions and fill them with females and minorities and considerable variation in the extent to which mechanisms are used to attract females and minorities to policing. Just one in five agencies has adopted targeted recruitment strategies for women and minorities. Agency success in attracting the applications of and hiring females and minorities varies greatly. The multivariate analyses indicate that recruiting budget and targeting minorities and women do positively affect hiring.     

Post-disaster reconstruction: lessons from Nagapattinam district,India

As disaster losses continue to rise around the world, it has become increasingly important to understand the long-term outcomes of post-disaster recovery programmes. Often, disaster recovery projects have an abbreviated planning period, involve multiple NGOs, and lack long-term plans for evaluation. This article describes outcomes of the shelter reconstruction programme following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Nagapattinam, India. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected to assess the effect of the programme on housing, community infrastructure, and livelihoods. The study provides useful lessons for future reconstruction programmes and demonstrates the importance of evaluating post-disaster recovery programmes after projects end.     

Queer Contestations and the Future of a Critical “Queer” Criminology

It is intuitive to include critical criminologists in early conversations about “queering” criminology given that the paradigms and methods of critical criminology can be employed to challenge subordination and inequality in its several dimensions. The first part (and main focus) of this article problematizes this intuition, which is easy to accept at face value, by reflecting backwards and explaining how early influential critical criminological views perpetuated damaging stereotypes and representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people as sexual deviants. The second part reflects forward, and discusses the difficulties of carving a space in the discipline for critical queer perspectives. Drawing on critical and critical race theories, this article advocates a relational, intersectional approach to conceptualize sexual orientation and gender identity in criminological theory and research. This approach considers the connections among sexual orientation or gender identity and other differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, gender, etc.) without assuming or attaching fixed meanings to those differences.     

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?

A novel and important issue in contemporary security policy is the impact of natural disasters on terrorism. Natural disasters can strain a society and its government, creating vulnerabilities which terrorist groups might exploit. Using a structured methodology and detailed data on terrorism, disasters, and other relevant controls for 167 countries between 1970 and 2007, we find a strong positive impact of disaster-related deaths on subsequent terrorism incidence and fatalities. Furthermore, the effects differ by disaster type and GDP per capita. The results consistently are significant and robust across a multitude of disaster and terrorism measures for a diverse set of model specifications.     

Epidemiology of homicide-suicide events: Oklahoma, 1994-2001

In Oklahoma, all nonnatural deaths must be reported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (ME), whose trained investigators report cause of death using a centralized, statewide, standardized reporting system. The purpose of this study was to determine temporal trends of Oklahoma homicide-suicide events and characterize the epidemiology of these events. By reviewing all ME reports of homicides and suicides from 1994 through 2001, we identified 73 homicide-suicide events resulting in 73 suicides and 89 homicides. Suicidal perpetrators of homicide-suicide events were most often white men aged >or=30 years who killed a current or ex-spouse or intimate partner. Homicide victims tended to be younger women the same race as their killer. Firearms were the predominant method of death in both homicides and suicides, with handguns used most frequently. Divorce/estrangement was the main contributing factor to these events, and the most common relationship type was possessive. The existence of a statewide, centralized, and computerized ME system and the ability to access the detailed information in the ME narratives were critical to identifying homicide-suicide events and obtaining the type of detailed information necessary to fully investigate these events.     

Intimate partner violence and the justice system: an examination of the interface

Women entering the court system face a challenging experience, in part, because a courtroom can be an intimidating and difficult place for any person, and in part because women victimized by crimes in which the offender is known to them face distinctive difficulties when they seek the court's remedies. The interface is also made more challenging for women as the literature offers disparate findings as to the efficacy of criminal justice responses and civil remedies. This article briefly explores the unique characteristics of intimate partner violence cases that influence the interface of these victims with the court system. Areviewis provided of research on the criminal justice interventions in cases of intimate partner violence; and research on the efficacy of civil protective orders.