Al Qaeda's Operational Intelligence—A Key Prerequisite to Action

For Al Qaeda, intelligence is a critical operational resource. Its vigorous collection, scrutiny, and dissemination within the organization have proven fundamental to its capacity to engage in carefully crafted acts of terrorism. In addition to its operational utility, intelligence fulfills a range of other functions, including an ability to contribute to Al Qaeda's symbolic goals and elevate the confidence of operatives and leadership alike. Ultimately, however, Al Qaeda's collection and use of detailed intelligence reveals a capacity to calculate the consequences of alternative courses of action, thereby helping to dispel notions of an irrationality or fanaticism in which decision making is somehow removed from reality.     

Referrers' views of structured professional judgement risk assessment of sexual offenders: A qualitative study

Abstract

The Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol is a structured professional judgement (SPJ) tool that aids risk assessment of sexual violence. It is widely used internationally. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical practice of SPJ risk assessment and risk management through qualitative analysis of the accounts of users of these assessments. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 31 criminal justice professionals in southeast Scotland. The participants' accounts were explored using the framework method. Five themes emerged from this analysis: informing risk management; confirming what was known and giving weight; understanding personality; treatment; and the usefulness and limitations of risk assessment. The participants reported that the assessments were influential with respect to risk management. The study revealed some important implications for service development. The authors suggest possible future use of the framework method in research investigating the risk assessment of sexual violence.     

Mental Health and Educational Experiences Among Black Youth: A Latent Class Analysis

Disproportionately lower educational achievement, coupled with higher grade retention, suspensions, expulsions, and lower school bonding make educational success among Black adolescents a major public health concern. Mental health is a key developmental factor related to educational outcomes among adolescents; however, traditional models of mental health focus on absence of dysfunction as a way to conceptualize mental health. The dual-factor model of mental health incorporates indicators of both subjective wellbeing and psychopathology, supporting more recent research that both are needed to comprehensively assess mental health. This study applied the dual-factor model to measure mental health using the National Survey of American Life—Adolescent Supplement (NSAL-A), a representative cross-sectional survey. The sample included 1170 Black adolescents (52% female; mean age 15). Latent class analysis was conducted with positive indicators of subjective wellbeing (emotional, psychological, and social) as well as measures of psychopathology. Four mental health groups were identified, based on having high or low subjective wellbeing and high or low psychopathology. Accordingly, associations between mental health groups and educational outcomes were investigated. Significant associations were observed in school bonding, suspensions, and grade retention, with the positive mental health group (high subjective wellbeing, low psychopathology) experiencing more beneficial outcomes. The results support a strong association between school bonding and better mental health and have implications for a more comprehensive view of mental health in interventions targeting improved educational experiences and mental health among Black adolescents.     

The Reasonable Expectation of Privacy and the Criminal Suspect

In In re JR38, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed an appeal from a 14 year‐old boy who argued that the dissemination of his image, taken whilst he was participating in sectarian rioting, to local newspapers, violated his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, the Court was divided on whether or not the measures taken by the police engaged the applicant's Article 8(1) rights at all. This case raises fundamental questions as to the scope of private life in the context of criminal investigations, and the place of the European Court of Human Rights’ ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ test in determining whether Article 8(1) of the ECHR is engaged. This case comment subjects the majority's interpretation of Article 8(1) to critical scrutiny, concluding that this interpretation may unduly restrict the scope of Article 8 protection for those subject to criminal investigations.     

Status and Power: The Principal Inputs to Influence for Public Managers

The authors identify status and power as the principal bases of influence for public managers and describe how managers can use this conceptual distinction to increase their influence. Status is defined as the degree to which one is respected by one's colleagues, and power is defined as asymmetric control over valued resources. Different social and relational processes govern (1) how people determine who is, and who ought to be, high status versus powerful and (2) how status and power affect individual psychology and behavior. To illustrate key points, the authors provide examples of individuals from the public sector and public service organizations. The framework of interpersonal influence gives practitioners behavioral strategies for increasing their status and power as well as a way to assess and diagnose interpersonal dimensions of their own performance in their jobs and careers.     

‘Paedophile Hunters’, Criminal Procedure,and Fundamental Human Rights

‘Paedophile hunters’ have attracted global media attention. The limited literature on paedophile hunters, which documents their emergence in contemporary liberal democracies, pays scant attention to how their use of intrusive investigative methods may threaten the procedural rights of suspects and undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system. This article fills this normative ‘gap’ in the literature. It draws upon media coverage, criminal procedure jurisprudence, and criminological scholarship to analyse the regulation of paedophile hunting in English and Welsh law. The article suggests that domestic law does not afford adequate protection to due process and the fundamental human rights of those falling under the paedophile hunter's purview. Unless paedophile hunting is constrained by a narrower and more robustly enforced regulatory regime, it should not be permitted, let alone encouraged, in contemporary liberal democracies.     

Book Review: Considering Social Justice: A Review of David Miller's Principles of Social Justice

Miller's volume is a useful, thorough, and innovating overview of the subject of social justice. It inspires three lines of critical response. The first involves the symbiotic role of philosophy and empirical inquiry in the analysis of justice. The second involves the qualities of opportunity that ought to underlie justice. Finally, there are a few lessons regarding the status of justice in the overall evaluation of society that can be learned from the case of the United States, which has an anomalously bad record with respect to distributive justice. The centrality of politics is one of the implications of the analysis.