From “Queue Jumpers” to “Absolute Scum of the Earth”: Refugee and Organised Criminal Deviance in Australian Asylum Policy

The arrival of asylum seekers by boat in Australia is no longer represented as a threat by the Australian government because of characteristics of asylum seekers themselves, but is instead predominantly represented as threatening because of the involvement of transnational organised crime in the form of people smugglers. This progression, which is demonstrated by comparison of the approach of the Howard coalition government with that of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, is best understood by reference to conventional understandings of organised crime and irregular migration, and critical accounts of both phenomena. Understood in this way, organised crime and people‐smuggling discourses serve to externalise the asylum seeker “problem” and maintain punitive policies, inhibiting the development of effective regional responses to the issue.     

Staying Out: Reentry Protective Factors Among Rural Women Offenders

The current study examines protective factors for women who transition from county jails to rural Appalachian communities, areas with limited health and behavioral health services. The study included drug-using women recruited from three jails in rural Appalachia and followed-up at 12-months post-release. Analyses focused on differences between women who remained in the community and those who returned to custody, as well as a multivariate model to determine protective factors for reentry success. At the bivariate level, staying out of jail was associated with being older, having a job, not using drugs, stable housing, receiving health treatment, and having prosocial peers. In the multivariate model, the most robust predictors of staying out of jail were drug use abstinence, health care utilization, and prosocial peers. Most research on criminogenic needs associated with reentry success have focused on men, and most focused on reentry to urban communities where services and resources are more accessible. These findings have important implications for criminal justice systems to implement reentry programs for women offenders during the transition to the community.     

Toulmin's philosophy of argument and its relevance to offender profiling

This study sought to identify the extent to which claims about the probable characteristics of offenders in ‘offender profiles’ were based on substantive arguments. Because Toulmin's (1958) philosophy of argument has been demonstrated as a useful way of breaking down arguments into their constituent parts (Burleson, 1979) we examined the extent to which profiles contained grounds, warrants, backing and rebuttals to support or refute various claims about offenders. Twenty-one profiles, representing a range of ‘profiling styles’, were obtained from a variety of sources. All of these had been used in major criminal investigations either in the UK or internationally. Of the nearly 4,000 claims made, nearly 80% were unsubstantiated. That is, they contained no grounds, warrant, backing or rebuttal. Moreover, less than 31% of the claims were falsifiable. We argue that (a) this demonstrates the need for a careful, systematic evaluation of profiling advice (b) Toulmin's structure is one useful method for evaluating such material and for providing a possible framework for such advice.     

Families,frontiers and the new imperial history

One of the more recent developments in historiography has been the emergence of 'new imperial history'. The articles within this special edition of the History of the Family offer examples of how some historians have dealt with the histories of both empires and families.     

The violent reconvictions of sexual offenders

The violent reconvictions of a sample of sexual offenders discharged from prison between 1992 and 1996 (who had not been reconvicted of a sexual offence) were examined. The hypothesis was that a proportion of these violent reconvictions would have a sexual motivation. The sample consisted of 104 adult male sexual offenders for whom detailed information regarding their violent reconviction was available. The sample was categorized according to the motivation of the violent reconviction. It was found that a proportion of the violent reconvictions were sexually motivated (12%) and that some of these had resulted from an original charge for a sexual offence. Significant differences were found between the sexual motivation and violent motivation group on the number of criminal history and victim characteristic variables. It was concluded that, in the case of sexual offenders, violent convictions might mask the true motivation of the offence.     

Deconstructing myth: low-carbon sustainability

Informed by a semiotics that directs attention to the context of the message, this paper contributes to work on the meanings of terms such as “low-carbon”, “green”, and “sustainability”. Interview-based evidence and printed material are used to assess the interest of hundreds of financial institutions in data on carbon emissions levels and environmental projects. The collection of such data is where for most interviewees its usefulness stopped. Such is typical of myth. By collecting carbon data, financial institutions can connote they are doing something about addressing the risks posed by global warming, without actually describing what it is they are doing.     

Localism and coordination under three different electoral systems: The national district of the Japanese House of Councillors

Democratic representation involves tradeoffs between collective actors – political parties seeking to maximize seats – and individual actors – candidates seeking to use their personal vote-earning attributes (PVEAs) to maximize their own chance of election and reelection. We analyze these tradeoffs across three different electoral systems used at different times for the large-magnitude nationwide tier of Japan's House of Councillors. These electoral systems – closed and open-list proportional systems and the single non-transferable vote – differ in the extent to which they entail candidates seeking individual preference votes and in whether collective vote shares affect overall party performance. We use local resources as a proxy for PVEA and seek to determine the extent to which parties nominate “locals” and how much the presence of such locals affects party performance at the level of Japan's prefectures.     

Social Identity and Social Capital: The Collective Self at Work

Organizational scholars and institutional theorists have shown a great deal of interest in the concept of social capital. To a large extent, this interest has been fueled by accumulating evidence that social capital plays a vital role in the development of more cooperative, productive, and stable relationships within organizations and institutions. Recognizing these benefits, a major focus of recent theoretical efforts has been explicating the antecedents of social capital. Drawing on concepts from social identity theory and related theories of the self, this paper develops a framework for conceptualizing how individuals' psychological identification with a collective enhances their willingness to engage in behaviors that contribute to the creation and maintenance of social capital. The paper reviews empirical evidence in favor of the framework and draws out some of its theoretical and applied implications.     

Embedding the 'new economy' in Europe: a study in the institutional specificities of knowledge-based growth

Aspirations for a 'new economy' currently feature prominently in the economic policy debate within the EU. So pronounced is elite interest in the 'new economy' that the issue of knowledge-based growth dominated the Special European Council organized for Lisbon in May 2000. However, the Presidential Conclusions to that Council failed to address the question of whether the European economy is institutionally compatible with knowledge-based growth. The 'new economy' is currently most developed within the United States, and the institutional specificities of the American high-tech sector suggest that it may be impossible simply to import the 'new economy' into Europe. The EU may lack both the labour market and the capital market conditions necessary for successfully embedding the 'new economy' in Europe.