DESIGNING EFFECTIVE TRANSITIONS FOR NEW CORRECTIONAL LEADERS

Leadership transitions in corrections pose both risks and opportunities. A four phase model of the transition process is presented which identifies key issues of each phase. Two directions for action are recommended. First, a structured support network of correctional leaders across state lines can be strengthened to share experiences and advice. Second, internal strategies are offered that help a new commissioner join with the department both to build effective working relationships and to identify the major challenges to the organization.     

Criminalizing Big Tobacco: Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Responsibility for Health Risks in the United States

This article reinterprets the discursive terms and cultural meanings that redefined the legal campaign against Big Tobacco during recent decades. We underline the palpable shift from a conventional tort‐based logic of products liability claims, which most analysts emphasize, to a logic incorporating key features identified with criminal law or “crimtorts.” The study builds on legal mobilization theory and combines narrative history of events with systematic analysis of media coverage across a twenty‐year period to demonstrate how Big Tobacco was criminalized over two decades.     

Germany: a good model for Labour Party renewal?

The policy debate within the British Labour Party after its traumatic electoral defeat in 2010 has been marked by a concern with Germany's system of economic governance as a potential model for renewal. The desirability of emulating key aspects of its institutions of economic democracy (codetermination) has been a particular subject of debate. This article analyses the source of Germany's attraction for many would-be reformers in the Labour movement. It then examines whether emulating German codetermination is either a feasible or appropriate strategy for Labour reformers whose goal is to rebalance power between capital and labour. Codetermination is deeply embedded in a wider set of governance institutions that have been subject to substantial reform in recent years. It concludes that effective institutional borrowing from Germany would require a far broader and more radical set of economic governance reforms than Labour reformers appear to recognise.     

Implementation: Making Hard Work of Something Simple

Early in 2012 the Rural Property Addressing Project in South Australia announced that it had substantially met its outcomes, and that the whole of the project was soon to be completed. In 2003, one of the recommendations to cabinet from the South Australian Premier's Bushfire Summit was to endorse the development of a standard property addressing system for rural properties across the state. This was formally endorsed by cabinet, and was a direct response to the fact that essential services such as ambulance, medical and social care were hindered in providing services to the residents of Eyre Peninsula during and after the bushfires. Overall, this was not a controversial decision, nor was it a huge implementation challenge, yet it took nine years to come into effect. This is a classic case of the tyranny of small decisions. This article outlines some of the implementation challenges faced by this apparently simple project, and provides some thoughts for implementation challenges of the future. The take‐away message is that if something so comparatively simple was made so complex, how can we adapt our public services to the cross‐cutting challenges of the future?