Patterns of entry,professional identity,and attitudes toward crime-related education: A study of criminal justice and criminology faculty

In the field of crime-related education, examination of the characteristics of teaching, research, and institutional differences has recently been a concern. This study examines full-time faculty (N=929) and their patterns of entry, including academic degree held, academic major, past academic and agency experience, and type of institution; and the extent to which differing methods of access are associated with attitudes toward research, scholarship, agency practice, academic collegiality, and orientation toward crime-related study. Dual paradigms seem to exist in crime-related education: one centering on teaching, field practice, and professionalism; the other on research, scholarship, and the more traditional values of academe.     

The Investigative Study Role of Canada's House Committees: Expectations Met?

Canada's House of Commons committee system, established to enhance the effectiveness of parliament, has operated in approximately its present form since 1986. However, information about what it accomplishes remains limited. This article focuses on the investigative/policy studies of committees. A questionnaire given to former cabinet ministers and analysis of previously unexplored committee data support the view that these studies have achieved a modest influence on governments, well short of expectations held in the mid-1980s. Furthermore, their influence is as a source of political intelligence more than the collaborative policy work and technical expertise given central importance by creators of the system. This supports scepticism about the influence achieved by the all-party agreement that continues to be reflected in about 70 per cent of committee reports, and may also be reflected in the written responses to committee reports by governments, an estimated 50 per cent of which are ambiguous. Nevertheless, the original vision reflected in the committees persists among many Canadian advocates of parliamentary reform.     

The Cultural Context of Restorative Justice: Journeys Through Our Cultural Forests to a Well-Spring of Healing

In the field of Conflict Transformation, Restorative Justice (RJ) is often perceived as a transformative process focused on healing relationships after a specific harm. The parties considered in a RJ setting are those harmed, those responsible and the community impacted. This is particularly true in the field of criminal and transitional justice, and in an extended and spiritual view, there is reconciliation with the parties and God. Despite cultural differences, RJ theory and concepts have been accepted favorably in the many countries. From a viewpoint focused on methodology and process, however, cultural differences have a significant effect for implementation. For example, important concepts such as control, choice, harm, responsibility, apology, shame, reconciliation and forgiveness vary greatly in the manner in which they are perceived from culture to culture and may create obstacles for successful implementation of a successful process when one culture’s process and definitions are forced upon another. Therefore, promotional factors (i.e., culture and religion) and the implication of semiotics (cultural definition or meaning) are an absolute consideration in developing a RJ process within a particular culture. This paper discusses the cultural differences between the United States and Japan with regard to semiotic obstacles in the implementation of a RJ model in the Japanese criminal justice system. While the exploration of cultural differences, particularly between the United States and Japan is not new and has been the focus of many disciplines, little has been considered regarding the assimilation and implementation of a Western RJ model into the Eastern culture of Japan. In sum, is an attempt to clarify and integrate the effects of cultural differences for some factors (i.e., Control/Choice, Harm, Apology, Responsibility, Shame, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation) as they apply to a RJ based reconciliation process focused in Semiotics, Social psychology and the Sociology of law as they apply to the United States and Japan.     

The political use of victims: The shaping of the challenger disaster

This essay applies Kenneth Burke's concept of victimage to analyze Ronald Reagan's handling of the space shuttle Challenger explosion. The deaths of the Challenger seven could have served as powerful symbols of failed policy and flawed leadership. Yet Reagan reconciled the failure of the shuttle and renewed U.S. commitment to the space program by sanctifying the crew and offering Americans consolation and purgation through sacrifice of the seven in victimage.

Through interpretive textual analysis, the essay makes clear the process by which Reagan enacted the drama. Implications are drawn for the U.S. space program and for understanding the political use of victimage.

The essay suggests that political victimage now must be a reflexive process, enacted after the death, after the fact. Often in our times, ordinary people are slaughtered by forces as random as they are terrible. In order for the drama to give meaning and purpose to their passing, victims must be transformed in and by the drama. Purified and perfected, victims are sanctified and sacrificed after the fact in the dramas created about them.     

Campaign claims,partisan cues,and media effects in the 2011 British Electoral System Referendum

Campaigning in the British Electoral System Referendum of 2011 provoked much controversy. Accusations of negativity and dissemination of misinformation came from both sides. Using panel data spanning the crucial period of the campaign, this paper examines shifts in perceptions and intentions associated with information and opinion. First, it takes into account ‘baseline’ effects such as initial partisan cues. Then, in the context of criticism of the low quality information content of the campaign, it asks how much changes in the attitudes of respondents affected electoral system opinion, and the extent to which these changes reflected learning and the provision of information or misinformation. The roles of the Electoral Commission, television coverage, and newspapers are also examined.