Progress or More of the Same? Electronic Monitoring and Parole in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Often billed as an “alternative to incarceration”, electronic monitoring (EM) is widely trumpeted as a key method of reducing incarceration costs while maintaining public safety. However, little research has been done which closely examines EM in the historical context of mass incarceration and the paradigm of punishment. This article focuses on the use of EM in parole in that broader context. Through research into the legal and policy frameworks for EM as well as via personal interviews with people who have been on EM while on parole, the author concludes that the present EM practice reinforces the dominant punishment paradigm and places major obstacles in the way of the successful re-entry for people returning from prison. He concludes with some concrete recommendations about changes in law, policy and implementation guidelines that would allow EM to operate in an environment more conducive to rehabilitation.     

Multijurisdictional drug task forces: An analysis of impacts

In the past decade, municipal police organizations have devoted significant resources toward drug enforcement. One popular strategy in addressing the American drug problem is the formulation of multijurisdictional drug task forces. Despite their popularity, the impact of these cooperative ventures on law enforcement agencies has not been adequately evaluated. The research reported here examined the effect of membership in a drug enforcement task force on levels of drug enforcement outputs and perceptions of effectiveness by comparing law enforcement agencies participating in drug task forces to agencies which do not participate. Results suggest that task force membership impacts perceptions, but does not appear to influence objective measures of drug enforcement outputs.     

Selective Engagement with Islamist Terrorists: Exploring the Prospects

Despite claims to the contrary, governments have frequently talked to groups branded as terrorists in their efforts to find peaceful solutions to longstanding armed conflicts. The rhetoric of the so-called War on Terror has tended to portray an uncompromising and extreme, monolithic Islamist enemy with whom such accommodation is unthinkable. Therefore, it is not surprising that the potential for dialogue and negotiation with Islamist terrorist groups has been relatively neglected. This article examines the character of the contemporary Islamist threat and explores the prospects for selective engagement with terrorist groups that may not share Al Qaeda's global jihadist agenda.     

Shining Some Light Back on the Dark Ages: New York State's Early Environmental Law and Its Implications for Today's Environmental Insurance Coverage Disputes

While many environmental practitioners consider the passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in the 1970s and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act in the 1980s as the dawn of modern environmental law, New York State has a robust body of antipollution law that predates those federal statutes by decades. By the turn of the twentieth century, New York State statutes, embracing well-established common law principles, contained limitations on the disposal of harmful industrial waste into the waters of the state. The New York State Public Health Law required permits for certain discharges of industrial waste, and the common law provided injunctions and monetary damages for those injured by environmental pollution. This body of law should not be overlooked during coverage disputes over historical environmental contamination because it documents an awareness by the state legislature of the impact of pollution on both surface and groundwaters of the state, and because it demonstrates that harmful unpermitted discharges were prohibited by law since the beginning of the twentieth century.     

Project Abstract: an Anglo-American intelligence operation in 1947 to recover guided weapon technical documentation buried in Germany

In early 1947, American intelligence organisations learned that there were hidden collections of technical documentation that pertained to World War II German guided weapon development that were not recovered by Allied investigators in 1945. A joint Anglo-American intelligence operation was initiated in February of that year, dubbed ‘Project Abstract’ by the Americans, to recover the caches. Project Abstract was a concerted effort by British and American scientific and technical intelligence experts to round up the last material remains of the World War II guided weapon programmes at the renowned experimental and testing establishments at Peenemünde in northern Germany.