Report of the Law Reform Commission of Tanzania on Congestion in Prisons

Since its formal inauguration in the year 2006, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has arguably shown itself to be quite capable of effectively dispensing with its overarching aims of consistency, coherence and legal certainty in the process of adjudication. Indeed, through the adoption of a teleological approach to the construction of the Revised Treaty of Chaguramas, the CCJ has positioned itself as a major operational component in the new Caribbean legal order, serving, as the European Court of Justice as well as several domestic courts have done, to ensure transparency and accountability. The court’s relatively nuanced purpose-driven approach has arguably been the single biggest contributing factor to the region’s quickly evolving ‘indigenous jurisprudence’. Nevertheless, some of the court’s most recent original jurisdiction decisions reveal a growing trend towards judicial restraint. The varying degrees to which the CCJ has adopted a teleological approach to the interpretation of the Revised Treaty of Chaguramas, the concomitant effects of this important development as well as the challenges which invariably arise in this connection are the subject of this article.     

Race and General Strain Theory: Microaggressions As Mundane Extreme Environmental Stresses

This article spotlights racial microaggressions as relevant for understanding delinquency and the race gap in offending among middle-schoolers. In doing so, we draw on an emerging body of delinquency research rooted in general strain theory that demonstrates the emotional and behavioral tolls of face-to-face discrimination. We contend that this body of research has not established the full impact of racial microaggressions on delinquency because it has not considered that the specter of microaggressive encounters follows African American youth in particular from experience to experience. Specifically, we propose that racial microaggressions influence juvenile offending both directly—as previously documented—and by exacerbating the impact of co-occurring stressful events and experiences on negative emotions and delinquency. Using data collected at a southeastern middle-school, we find support for this proposition, empirically documenting that racial microaggressions interact with co-occurring stressful experiences in OLS models predicting delinquency.     

To be committed or not: examining effects of personal and workplace variables on the organizational commitment of Southern prison staff

This study examined how personal and workplace variables were related to organizational commitment among staff working at a large Southern prison. The personal variables were gender, age, position, tenure, educational level, and supervisory status. The workplace variables were assessment of training, job variety, role clarity, input into decision-making, and instrumental communication. The results indicate workplace variables play a greater role in shaping affective commitment of surveyed Southern prison staff than do personal variables. The personal variables explained only 10% of the variance in the commitment index, while workplace factors accounted for approximately 59% of the variance and were significant determinants of organizational commitment among the respondents. In the multivariate regression analysis, age, assessment of training, job variety, role clarity, input into decision-making, and instrumental communication all had positive associations with commitment. Educational level had a negative relationship with commitment. Implications of these findings for policy and future research are also discussed.     

Differences in the Validity of Self-Reported Drug Use Across Five Factors: Gender,Race, Age,Type of Drug,and Offense Seriousness

This study expands our knowledge about the validity of self-reported drug use by examining how gender, race, age, type of drug, and offense seriousness interact to affect the validity of self-reported drug use. This study also provides a conceptual framework that can be used to examine the validity of self-reported drug use. Differences in the validity of self-reported drug use are explained by examining differences in underreporting and overreporting. Differences in underreporting and overreporting are then further examined while controlling for differences in base rates of drug use. As shown, whether one controls for base rates of use may drastically affect estimates of underreporting and overreporting. By using hierarchical loglinear, logit, and logistic regression models with the Drug Use Forecasting data, we show that Black offenders provide less accurate self-reports than White offenders. Black offenders do so because they are more likely to underreport crack/cocaine use than White offenders. This difference, however, disappears once differences in base rates are controlled. A Black offender who tests positive is not more likely to underreport crack/cocaine use than a White offender who tests positive. Black offenders are also more likely to overreport both marijuana and crack/cocaine use relative to White offenders. Contrary to the first, this difference is not attributable to a difference in base rates. Methodological and substantive implications of this distinction are discussed. No differences across gender, age, or offense seriousness were found.

Globalisation masculinities,empire building and forced prostitution: a critical analysis of the gendered impact of the neoliberal economic agenda in post-invasion/occupation Iraq

Adopting a transnational feminist lens and using a political economy approach, this article addresses both the direct and indirect consequences of the 2003 war in Iraq, specifically the impact on civilian women. Pre-war security and gender relations in Iraq will be compared with the situation post-invasion/occupation. The article examines the globalised processes of capitalism, neoliberalism and neo-colonialism and their impact on the political, social and economic infrastructure in Iraq. Particular attention will be paid to illicit and informal economies: coping, combat and criminal. The 2003 Iraq war was fought using masculinities of empire, post-colonialism and neoliberalism. Using the example of forced prostitution, the article will argue that these globalisation masculinities – specifically the privatisation agenda of the West and its illegal economic occupation – have resulted in women either being forced into the illicit (coping) economy as a means of survival, or trafficked for sexual slavery by profit-seeking criminal networks who exploit the informal economy in a post-invasion/occupation Iraq.