COMMUNITY COUNCILS IN SCOTLAND: SOME LESSONS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The concept of "community councils" is one which has gained increasing prominence in Scottish local government during the last few years. Their main function is simply to advise local councillors on the views of the local community. Our basic contention is that the local government system in New South Wales (and, probably, other states) could benefit from studying the Scottish experience.     

A Letter Sent,Waiting to be Received: Queer Correspondence,Feminism and Black British Art

Abstract

This article examines what the published letter does as a form that is both intimate and public, and how it is particularly resonant when dealing with the silences and absences around queer and feminist artist of colour histories. Connections are made between three letters published in feminist and queer journals and books, written for readers who may include the writers’ loved ones, friends, contemporaries, and future readers. These three letters are contained within the following publications: Surviving Art School (2016) by the group Collective Creativity, a QTIPOC artist group who made the publication as part of a wider project examining the history of Black British Art (members are: Evan Ifekoya, Raisa Kabur, Rudy Lowe and Raju Rage); a special issue of FAN (Feminist Arts News) edited by Lubaina Himid and Maud Sulter in 1988, the precursor to the more well-known collection Passion, edited by Sulter in 1990; ending with Himid's recent reflections on her curation in the 1980s through a series of ‘Letters to Susan’ published in the 2011 catalogue for the exhibition Thin Black Line(s) at Tate Britain. Through close examination of these examples, this article explores the particularities of the letter form, asking if it allows feminist and queer artists of colour to present their experiences in a manner that encourages all their readers to take part in the conversation, whilst prioritizing calls for other people of colour to respond. The article proposes that the published letter form keeps feminist histories alive and creates a counterpublic that speaks to and for a community that is imagined as both geographically and temporally diffuse.     

Dignity and Equality

Inequality remains one of the most challenging issues on theglobal human rights agenda. It is widely recognised that a formalapproach to the assessment of inequality has failed to eliminateentrenched structural social and economic inequality and thata different approach is required in order to tackle the rootsof inequality and achieve substantive equality. In seeking toimplement an approach to equality that addresses the historyof apartheid and the social and economic inequality endemicin South African society, the South African Constitutional Courthas rejected formal equality, and is in the process of developinga substantive interpretation of equality based on the protectionof human dignity. Critics of this approach have argued thatthe concept of human dignity is too indeterminate to providea stable foundation for equality law and that it promotes anexcessively individualistic conception of equality. Focussingon key developments in defining human dignity in German andSouth African constitutional law, this article argues that theconcept of dignity is rooted in a rich tradition which is capableof underpinning an approach to equality which avoids excessiveindividualism and fully recognises the interplay between individualand community needs. A detailed exploration of the equalityjurisprudence of the South African Constitutional Court revealshow the dignity-based approach has been developed in order toprovide a framework within which the actual experience of victimsof discrimination can be explored. It is concluded that thisapproach has the potential to engage with the realities of thewide range of divisions within South African society and theireffects in order to address not only the legacy of apartheidbut also to contribute to the creation of a society in whichevery person is valued equally.     

Assessing the impact of casino gambling on crime in Mississippi

The introduction of legalized gambling into a community has generated a great deal of hubris regarding concomitant criminality. While Las Vegas has long been synonymous with organized crime, the recent focus has been on the connection between traditional crime and legalized gambling. The conventional wisdom among opponents of this new source of revenue is that casinos attract many undesirables to the community, thereby increasing crime and social disorganization. Routine activities theory would suggest that with increased numbers of tourists, more opportunities for crime will exist. To test this proposition, the frequency of crime before and after the introduction of legalized gambling in Biloxi, Mississippi was examined. Larcey-theft and motor vehicle theft were the only categories of crime to show statistically significant change. Robbery and aggravated assault increased, while murder and rape declined, although the change was not statistically significant for any category of violent crime.