Heroic Action and Its Discontents: Safe Horizon’s Response to 9/11

Based on first-hand qualitative research, this article describes and analyzes the significant role that a local, New York City-based social service agency played in responding to 9/11; the sources of its notable ability to provide assistance to individuals and families affected by this terrorist attack; and the structural strains and unanticipated divisions within the agency that the heroism of its fervid engagement nevertheless engendered.

The benefit and cost of prison in the UK. The results of a model of lifetime re-offending

With prisons in the UK reaching full capacity, and with similar trends in other European countries and the USA, there is much political debate about the efficacy of prison and community sentences. This paper aims to inform this debate by testing the hypothesis that prisons are an effective and efficient way of reducing re-offending. A rapid review of effectiveness studies was performed to determine the relative impact of prison and community sentences on re-offending. An economic analysis was undertaken to transform the estimates of effect into estimates of the economic efficiency of alternative sentencing options in the context of the UK. When compared with standard prison sentences, a number of community-based interventions and enhancements of standard prison sentences were found to save money, both for the public sector and for society more broadly. Diverting adult offenders from standard prison sentences to alternative interventions saves the UK public sector between ￡19,000 and ￡88,000 per offender. When victim costs are considered, diverting offenders from standard prison sentences saves UK society between ￡17,500 and ￡203,000 per offender. It was concluded that standard prison sentences are not an economically efficient means for reducing re-offending.

“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.     

Reason‐Giving in Administrative Law: Where are We and Why have the Courts not Embraced the ‘General Common Law Duty to Give Reasons’?

This article has two aims. Firstly, it explores a body of modern challenges to administrative reason‐giving, decided in the five‐year period 2014–2018. Three main themes are drawn out: outright failures to give reasons now seem to be a rare occurrence; a number of considerations help to ensure that at least an outline of reasons is usually offered by decision‐makers; common law fairness plays a limited role in testing the adequacy of reasons. Secondly, it addresses the question of why the courts have not embraced a ‘general common law duty to give reasons.’ Four factors are discussed: doubts that introducing a general duty would add something of substance to the law; difficulties inherent in developing a general formulation of the reasons required; weaknesses in the ‘hortatory’ case for a general duty and weaker commitment on the part of judges than academics to generality as a central feature of administrative law doctrine.     

Living in a Policy State: From Trust for Sale to Trust of Land

The Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996has transformed the nature of co-ownership interests in land.The trust for sale, which governed dealings in co-ownedproperty under the Law of Property Act 1925, and whichmade sale the presumptive object of co-ownership, has been replaced by a trust of land, under which co-owners retainan interest in the land itself, rather than its capital value.This article considers the likely impact of this legislativepolicy departure, particularly in relation to the court'swillingness to grant an order for the sale of co-owned propertyon application by a creditor, and against the wishes of anon-debtor co-owner occupier.     

Introduction: New directions in agrarian political economy

For four decades, The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) has served as a principal arena for the formation and dissemination of cutting-edge research and theory. It is globally renowned as a key site for documenting and analyzing variegated trajectories of agrarian change across space and time. Over the years, authors have taken new angles as they reinvigorated classic questions and debates about agrarian transition, resource access and rural livelihoods. This introductory essay highlights the four classic themes represented in Volume 1 of the JPS anniversary collection: land and resource dispossession, the financialization of food and agriculture, vulnerability and marginalization, and the blurring of the rural-urban relations through hybrid livelihoods. Contributors show both how new iterations of long-evident processes continue to catch peasants and smallholders in the crosshairs of crises and how many manage to face these challenges, developing new sources and sites of livelihood production.