The Dock on Trial: Courtroom Design and the Presumption of Innocence

This article examines the place of the criminal dock in courtroom design. Challenges to the use of the dock have been based upon the inability of the defendants to hear effectively, to communicate with counsel, to maintain their dignity, and to benefit from the presumption of innocence. Increasingly courts are incorporating secure docks, where defendants are partially or completely surrounded by glass (or in some countries, metal bars). To what extent do these changes and modifications undermine the right to the presumption of innocence? We present the results of an experimental mock jury study that was designed to test whether the placement of the accused influences jurors’ perceptions. We find that jurors are more likely to convict defendants when they are located in a traditional dock or a secure dock, compared to sitting next to their counsel at the bar table. We conclude by discussing the implications for trial procedures, counsel communications, and courtroom design.     

Ten key developments in modern policing: an Australian perspective

In this paper we endeavour to isolate the top ten innovations and developments that have occurred in policing in the last thirty years. We consider that each of them brought about a new mindset, pattern or trend into contemporary police practice. We have focused our attention on the last thirty years because it is during this time that we have both maintained a keen academic interest in the field. While we have focused our attention on the way in which each has affected Australian policing, we are cognisant of the fact that many of them had their roots in other settings long before Australian policy-makers adopted or adapted them.     

Canada: new report on HIV,HCV, and women prisoners

In March, 2003, the Prisoners' HIV/AIDS Support Action Network (PASAN) released Unlocking Our Futures: A National Study on Women, Prisons, HIV and Hepatitis C, a qualitative, evaluative study investigating the perceptions and lived experiences of federally incarcerated women regarding HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C (HCV).     

“Mitigating Instigation”: Cultural Phenomenological Influences of Anger and Fighting Among “Big-Boned” and “Baby-Faced” African American Youth

While the violent behavior of youth continues to strike fear in the hearts of American citizens, researchers still are unable to make sense of interpersonal and ecological cultural factors that mitigate anger acted out toward others and turned inward. A cultural phenomenological perspective was applied to investigate if self- and other-perceived physical maturity and racial socialization experiences were influential in the expressions of anger and aggression among African American youth. Cross-validation of self-reports of fighting variables was found. Results indicate that the initiation and frequency of fighting behavior is higher for boys, youth who look physically mature, who report lower levels of calamity fear, lower levels of racial socialization, higher levels of anger acting out, and lower levels of anger control. Racial socialization is proposed as 1 way to manage cultural ecological demands that may lead to the use of aggression. Implications for community psychological intervention of violence are proposed.     

Something old,something new,something borrowed: Explaining varieties of professionalism in citizen collaboration through identity theory

Public professionals are increasingly involved in collaborative relationships with citizens to design, implement and evaluate public services. We investigate how actors derive a specific social identity from the institutional logic of cross‐sectoral collaboration and how this social identity translates into the self‐identities of professionals. Based on an analysis of 44 semi‐structured interviews in Germany, we examine how public professionals combine the different social identities in collaborative projects and extract three varieties of professionalism: the protective professional, the tripartite professional and the collaboration professional. Our study contributes to recent discussions on hybrid identities and identity conflicts in public management. The findings raise questions on the compatibility of different social identities in collaborative settings and thus shed light on the difficulties public professionals face in citizen collaboration.     

Developing a short scale to assess public leadership

Tummers and Knies (2016) have recently introduced a 21-item scale for the measurement of public leadership to the burgeoning field of leadership research in public administration. However, due to restrictions in survey length and response time, scholars often face practical difficulties when adopting measurement scales of such length. In many subfields of public administration, this results in a proliferation of ad hoc measures of unknown validity, which impedes scholarly progress. The goal of the present study is to develop a short form of the public leadership scale. We build on data from a two-wave study in the German public sector and follow a step-by-step scale reduction procedure. The result is a reliable and valid 11-item scale of public leadership for utilization in public administration research. Since a short scale allows researchers to include additional measures of other constructs, it facilitates the exploration of the nomological network of public leadership.