To execute or not to execute? Examining public support for capital punishment of sex offenders

In the 1990s, states enacted a plethora of new “get tough” laws targeting sex crime. These included extending the death penalty—a punishment typically reserved for murderers—to convicted sex offenders. Little attention, however, has been given to explaining why these tougher responses emerged and, in particular, whether the public supported extending the use of the death penalty to sex offenders. The goal of this paper was to examine whether public perceptions about executing sex offenders accorded with the punitive shift in policy and, more broadly, to contribute to scholarship on the death penalty. To this end, this paper examined data from a 1991 national public opinion poll, conducted just prior to the punitive shift in sex crime policies. The study found that views about executing sex offenders depended heavily on whether the victim was a child, that support for executing sex offenders was substantially lower than for executing murderers, and that few social and demographic divides differentially predicted support for executing sex offenders versus murderers. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Sense-making and secondary victimization among unsolved homicide co-victims

Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contributes to identity reconstruction. This qualitative study examines how perceived communication with the criminal justice system can inhibit sense-making among unsolved homicide co-victims. One-time intensive interviews were conducted with 37 co-victims about their interactions with police and prosecutors. A grounded theory approach suggest that co-victims held negative views of the police and prosecutors because they perceived them as inhibiting their ability to adequately locate information needed to understand the crime and achieve justice. Results also suggest that race and ethnicity play a role in reducing sense-making because constructions of meaning were based on perceptions of discrimination. In the end, the intense desire for information, resolution, and justice led several co-victims to investigate their loved one's murder. Policies that law enforcement should adopt to promote better communication with co-victims and facilitate sense-making are examined.     

Effective approaches to regulate mobile advertising: Moving towards a coordinated legal,self-regulatory and technical response

This article aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse about the issue of privacy in the mobile advertising domain. The article discusses the fundamental principles and information practices used in digital environments for protecting individuals' private data. Major challenges are identified that should be addressed, so that fair information principles can be applied in the context of m-advertising. It also points out the limitations of these principles. Furthermore, the article discusses a range of models that is available for regulating the collection, use and disclosure of personal data, such as legislation, self-regulation and technical approaches. It is intended to promote an effective approach to improve consumer privacy in the mobile advertising domain.     

The Dynamic Prediction of Criminal Recidivism: A Three-wave Prospective Study

A three-wave, prospective panel design was used to assess the extent to which static and dynamic risk factors could predict criminal recidivism in a sample of 136 adult male offenders released from Canadian federal prisons. Static measures were assessed only once, prior to release while dynamic measures were assessed on three separate occasions: pre-release, 1 month, and 3 months post-release. Recidivism was coded during an average of 10.2-month follow-up period (SD = 19.2). A series of Cox regression survival analyses with time-dependent covariates and Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to assess predictive validity. Although the combined static and time-dependent dynamic model (AUC = .89, CI = .81–.93) significantly (p < .01) outperformed the pure static model (AUC = .81, CI = .73–.87) the confidence intervals did overlap to some extent. Implications for dynamic risk assessment and management are discussed.

Five years of the APEC Privacy Framework: Failure or promise?

The APEC Privacy Framework was developed from 2003, adopted by APEC in 2004 and finalised in 2005. It was intended as a means of improving the standard of information privacy protection throughout the APEC countries of the Asia–Pacific, and of facilitating the trans-border flow of personal information between those countries. In 2007 a number of ‘Pathfinder’ projects for cross-border data transfers were launched under the Framework. In the five years since the process commenced, what has it achieved, and what is it likely to achieve? This paper argues that the APEC Privacy Framework has had many flaws from its inception, including Privacy Principles that are unnecessarily weak, and no meaningful enforcement requirements. Since its adoption in 2004, little attempt has been made to encourage its use as a minimal standard for privacy legislation in developing countries (which might have been useful), and it is having little impact on the significant number of legislative developments now taking place.     

Counterinsurgency Principles for the Diplomat

The recent resurgence of interest in insurgency and counterinsurgency has revealed a deficit in material written by and for the diplomat, the actor ostensibly responsible for the political component of a counterinsurgency campaign. Classical theorists stress that progress along the political track is essential for ultimate success. Recent commentary, in shedding new light on the characteristics of modern insurgencies, reaffirms this principle. To make political headway the diplomat-counterinsurgent needs to develop a strategic narrative, build a political strategy around the narrative, acquire expertise, become a catalyst for political change, and maximize contact with the local population. In doing so, he will make important contributions to and help accelerate success in a counterinsurgency campaign.

“War and diplomacy are different but intimately related aspects of national policy. Diplomats and warriors who recall this will therefore act as brothers in a potentially lethal common endeavor.…they will consider together when to fight and when to talk and when to press and when to stop.”

Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., The Diplomat's Dictionary (1995)

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Saving NATO: Renunciation of the Article 5 Guarantee

The purpose of this article is to offer a radical proposal: NATO should unleash its potential as the world's premier cooperative and collective security organization by stepping down from being a European collective defense alliance. In other words, I argue that without renouncing territorial security guarantees in Europe, NATO will sacrifice its effectiveness in the new security environment.     

The Bush Doctrine: The Foreign Policy of Republican Empire

The dominant narrative concerning the Bush Doctrine maintains that it is a dangerous innovation, an anomaly that violates the principles of sound policy as articulated by the Founders. According to the conventional wisdom, the Bush Doctrine represents the exploitation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, by a small group of ideologues—the “neoconservatives”—to gain control of national policy and lead the United States into the war in Iraq, a war that should never have been fought. But far from a being a neoconservative innovation, the Bush Doctrine is, in fact, well within the mainstream of U.S. foreign policy and very much in keeping with the vision of America's founding generation and the practice of the statesmen in the Early Republic. The Bush Doctrine is only the latest manifestation of the fact that U.S. national interest has always been concerned with more than simple security.