Biopolitics and Movement: A History of Travellers and the Law

This article will briefly trace the travellers’ legal position in Britain from their sixteenth century emergence as a tangible (although imprecise) identity until now. It will be argued that although the position of the law has changed considerably in its waning severity, travellers’ legal status continues to be conditioned by enduring and shifting concerns around norms of labour and residence. Moreover, it is overly-simplistic to interpret their changing predicament as simply a more humane and multicultural relaxation of previously Draconian measures. Using Michel Foucault’s writings on discipline and ‘biopolitics’, it will be proposed that those extreme legal sanctions—which during certain periods included the death penalty—have been replaced by a much more nuanced matrix of regulation and control that seeks to assimilate traveller lifestyles into a mainstream understanding of human life and society.     

The Association Between Different Types of Intimate Partner Violence Experienced by Women

Those who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are often subjected to multiple types of victimization such as physical violence, sexual violence, psychological aggression, and stalking. However, relatively few studies have used a national population-based sample and multivariate methods to analyze the associations between these different types of violence. This study uses multivariate methods to analyze a national population-based sample of women in order to document empirically the extent to which different types of IPV overlap, while controlling for personal and behavioral characteristics. Results indicated significant levels of overlap, with victims often experiencing more than one type of victimization by an intimate partner. Findings also indicated that women who had experienced violence by non-intimate partners were often more likely to experience violence by intimates. Finally, women who had experienced stalking by an intimate were more likely to experience more forms of IPV on average than those who had experienced physical violence, sexual violence, or emotional aggression.     

Envisioning the next generation of behavioral health and criminal justice interventions

The purpose of this paper is to cast a vision for the next generation of behavioral health and criminal justice interventions for persons with serious mental illnesses in the criminal justice system. The limitations of first generation interventions, including their primary focus on mental health treatment connection, are discussed. A person–place framework for understanding the complex factors that contribute to criminal justice involvement for this population is presented. We discuss practice and research recommendations for building more effective interventions to address both criminal justice and mental health outcomes.     

Correctional destabilization and jail violence: The consequences of prison depopulation legislation

Purpose

This study explored the effects of prison depopulation on local jail violence through a general systems perspective – where an abrupt shift in the processing of offenders had the potential to create ripple effects through other organizations – of the criminal justice system.

Methods

In 2011, California passed the Criminal Justice Realignment legislation aimed to reduce prison population by making low-level felony offenders ineligible for state incarceration and diverting those already in state prison for the included offenses from state to county-level community supervision once paroled. This study incorporated bivariate and negative binomial regression analyses to model officially-recorded county jail panel data to estimate the effects of state prison depopulation on California county jails.

Results

Findings demonstrated support for the general systems framework as there was a significant decrease in jail utility in the bivariate analysis and a significant increase in jail violence in the multivariate analysis associated with passage of California’s prison depopulation legislation.

Conclusions

The results supported the notion of an interconnected criminal justice system. Policy implications include the consequences of increased violence on jail operations, the potential for a cadre of habitual offenders, and generalizing these findings to the community.     

More Westminster than Westminster? The Office of Speaker across the Commonwealth

The office of Speaker at Westminster is one which has been used as a model for those who preside over the parliaments and assemblies of the countries that make up the Commonwealth. While the Westminster speakership has evolved and adapted itself to changing needs, those within the Commonwealth have stuck more rigidly to their origins. This paper will compare and contrast the different speakerships in the parliaments that follow the Westminster tradition. It will analyse just how closely they have managed to keep to those long-established traditions and assess how successful they have been in achieving the impartiality that is necessary for a neutral umpire. The duties and responsibilities both within and beyond the legislature will also be explored, as will the ceremonies associated with this office.     

The determinants of election to the United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the foremost international body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Members vote on issues of global importance and consequently receive perks—election to the UNSC predicts, for instance, World Bank and IMF loans. But who gets elected to the UNSC? Addressing this question empirically is not straightforward as it requires a model that allows for discrete choices at the regional and international levels; the former nominates candidates while the latter ratifies them. Using an original multiple discrete choice model to analyze a dataset of 180 elections from 1970 to 2005, we find that UNSC election appears to derive from a compromise between the demands of populous countries to win election more frequently and a norm of giving each country its turn. We also find evidence that richer countries from the developing world win election more often, while involvement in warfare lowers election probability. By contrast, development aid does not predict election.     

Towards a theory of cultural evaluation

From which evaluative base should we develop public policies designed to promote wellbeing among different cultural groups in different circumstances? This article attempts to advance an objective, universal theory of cultural evaluation grounded in a eudaemonistic account of human wellbeing. The approach evaluates cultures on the success with which they enable societies to promote the wellbeing of individuals through provision of needs and capabilities within their given, determinate circumstances. This provides the basis for a normative functionalism capable of identifying and explaining cultural deficits.     

Campaign Intensity and Voting Correctly in Senate Elections

Starting from the premise that campaigns ought to have informational benefits for voters this study examines the characteristics of Senate electoral campaigns and their ability to facilitate “correct voting” as first described by Lau and Redlawsk (1997) Lau, Richard R. &; Redlawsk, David P. (1997) Voting correctly. American Political Science Review, 91(3), pp. 585–599. doi: 10.2307/2952076[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Here, the political values and beliefs of voters are measured from the 1990 and 1992 Senate Election Studies to assess how far such beliefs match to their state's Senate candidates. The variation within Senate campaigns allows for a wider range of hypotheses to be tested about the conditions under which voting correctly occurs compared with prior studies that have focused on presidential elections. The findings are important in that they show a lower incidence of correct voting in Senate elections than in presidential races. However, this is moderated by individual knowledge, ideological sophistication, and a higher level of campaign intensity, all of which increase correct voting. The implications lend support to the normative value of campaigns in American politics.     

Information terrorism: Political violence in the information age

Information warfare represents a threat to American national security and defense. There are two general methods in which a terrorist might employ an information terrorist attack: (1) when information technology (IT) is a target, and/or (2) when IT is the tool of a larger operation. The first method would target an information system for sabotage, either electronic or physical, thus destroying or disrupting the information system itself and any information infrastructure (e.g., power, communications, etc.) dependent upon it. The second would manipulate and exploit an information system, altering or stealing data, or forcing the system to perform a function for which it was not meant (such as spoofing air traffic control). A perennial dilemma of combating terrorism in a democratic society is finding the right balance between civil liberties and civil security. The special problems associated with IT are examined. The US national security establishment needs to use a flexible, integrated response to counter information terrorists ‐ one which employs information warfare tactics tailored to counter gray‐area phenomena, but which also pools resources from ‘conventional’ counter‐terrorism and law enforcement authorities.