The Highs and Lows of Teaching IR Theory: Using Popular Films for Theoretical Critique

This article introduces an approach to IR that uses popular films to teach students how to critically analyze IR theory. By pairing IR traditions (like Realism) and the slogans that go with them (like "international anarchy is the permissive cause of war") with popular films (like Lord of the Flies ), this approach poses questions not about the truth or falsity of IR theories but about how IR theories appear to be true. This technique works because it draws upon visual analytical skills that students already possess and transfers them to analyses of IR theory and international politics. Overall, it challenges the positioning of IR theory as beyond culture and politics rather than as part and parcel of it, transforms what we think of as doing critical IR theory, and repositions students from passive recipients of IR truths into critically active and engaged analysts of IR theory's commonsense views of the world.     

“How Can We Stay Sober?” Homeless Women’s Experience in a Substance Abuse Treatment Center

This article presents findings from an exploratory, qualitative examination of an intensive outpatient treatment program for homeless women recovering from substance dependence disorders. Structured interviews of seven current program clients and three graduates of the program were conducted to ascertain how clients maintain their sobriety in addition to meeting the unique challenges of being homeless. Based on these interviews, there are four main concerns discussed: lack of communication between service providers, inconsistency in personnel during recovery, inconsistency in relapse policies, and clients feeling ill prepared to live in the “real world” after program completion.     

Building on the Greenbook: A Perpetrator Pattern‐Based Approach to Improve Child Welfare’s Response to Domestic Violence

The Greenbook Initiative has acted as a catalyst for change across the United States and globe. In this article, the authors discuss how the Greenbook has shaped the environment related to perpetrator accountability in child welfare, how a paradigm shift in work with fathers can advance domestic violence‐informed practice, and how a perpetrator pattern‐based approach, as exemplified by the Safe & Together Model, can help advance the vision of the Greenbook.     

The impact of license plate recognition technology (LPR) on trust in law enforcement: a survey-experiment

Objectives

We examine the extent to which individuals' knowledge of an advanced police technology (license plate recognition or "LPR") may impact perceptions of police. Technologies with the capacity to track individuals' movements are becoming increasingly common in police practice. Although these technologies may yield positive benefits, their use may also heighten community concerns about increased surveillance, data storage, and data security, thereby potentially negatively impacting community-police relationships.

Methods

We utilize a survey-based experiment with randomized assignment of participants (n=405) to investigate the impact of individuals' knowledge of LPR use on a variety of police perceptions, including trust in police, community approval, respect for citizens, and respect for individual rights.

Results

Most respondents were unaware of LPR use prior to the survey. When compared with a control group, respondents who encountered brief mentions of LPR functions on the survey expressed significantly lower levels of trust in police. Additionally, "strong agreement" with other positive statements about police also appears to have declined in this sample in response to LPR information. Notably, the sample contained high pre-existing levels of trust and support for police, factors which may have moderated the impacts of LPR information.

Conclusions

These results support the hypothesis that awareness of LPR use may negatively impact perceptions of police, including trust in police. More generally, although technologies like LPR represent technological innovations, they may also yield unintended consequences, including the potential to undermine police-community relations if adoption decisions are not accompanied by sufficient transparency or community support.

     

Robots vs migrants? Reconfiguring the future of Japanese institutional eldercare

Japan faces a large and rapidly growing care labor shortage. A common assumption is that the government has a choice between alternatives that will shape the future of its institutional elderly care provision: increase the number of migrant caregivers, or use robots and other emergent technologies to substitute for human carers. This article, based on data from seven months’ ethnographic fieldwork at an elderly care home in Japan that was introducing three different types of care robot, challenges this binary framing. The introduction of these robots served to reconfigure care – increasing the amount of work tasks for human caregivers, deskilling aspects of care labor, and raising overall costs. The robots displaced rather than replaced human labor, recalibrating the distance between carers and recipients of care. While such devices may have been intended by politicians and engineers to solve Japan’s care crisis by replacing human caregivers, the reality of robot use makes this unlikely in the foreseeable future. Yet by reconfiguring care and helping overcome linguistic and cultural barriers – rendering it “culturally odorless” – robots may facilitate the introduction of migrant caregivers at the cost of the further precaritization, commodification, and devaluation of care work.     

Constructing a surveillance impact assessment

This paper describes surveillance impact assessment (SIA), a methodology for identifying, assessing and resolving risks, in consultation with stakeholders, posed by the development of surveillance systems. This paper appears to be the first such to elaborate an SIA methodology. It argues that the process of conducting an SIA should be similar to that of a privacy impact assessment (PIA), but that an SIA must take account of a wider range of issues, impacts and stakeholders. The paper categorises the issues and impacts to be considered in the conduct of an SIA and identifies the benefits of a properly conducted SIA.     

Managing an on-the-spot lottery in reentry services

Objectives

Describe the authors?? experiences in designing and conducting a randomized field experiment of a community-based, reentry program for ex-offenders.

Methods

Two surveys: one with reentry clients not involved in our outcome evaluation, and a follow-up survey of participants who underwent randomization in order to participate in the outcome study. Qualitative input from program staff and clients were also recorded, supplemented with observations of the authors.

Results

Having a research staff member located at the program site proved to be a key advantage for monitoring frustrations voiced by program staff and prospective clients, thereby allowing for the modification of the selection procedures over time to minimize resistance. Ultimately, the simplest approach proved to be the most acceptable. The importance of certain procedural justice themes were suggested by the survey results and the observed acceptability of our on-the-spot lottery approach to randomization.

Conclusions

The survey results (and our onsite experiences) provided unequivocal evidence that randomization was unpopular, but that resistance can be partially mitigated by adhering to basic principles of procedural justice.     

Characteristics Differentiating Neglected Children from Other Reported Children

The aims of this study were twofold: first, to identify the characteristics that distinguish neglected children from other children reported to youth protection services; and second, to assess the relative importance of each of these characteristics in the differentiation of such children. Researchers analyzed data from the Quebec Incidence Study (QIS), which documented all reports retained for in-depth assessment out of 4,774 reports filed with youth protection services over a 3-month period. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses examined variables on different levels to establish which of the factors linked to the phenomenon of neglect were most significant. Results indicate that neglected children tend to be younger than other reported children, and have a greater frequency of prior referrals and a greater number of learning and development problems; their parents have a greater tendency to have personal, economic, and social problems and childhood histories of maltreatment.