Civil liability of private security: Enforcer of moral obligations to right legal wrongs

The private security industry in the United States now has approximately twice as many personnel as does the public police. Private Security personnel have authority over the liberty, and sometimes the lives, of customers and employees. Often they exercise this awesome responsibility with little if any background and training. In most instances private security personnel are not considered law officers or peace officers and are, therefore, not bound by the same rules and regulations that apply to public police. More and more frequently, untrained or minimally trained, and basically unqualified security officers are taking actions against customers and employees which are excessive and unreasonable. Without the Constitutional protections which would be available if the act were committed by a public police officer, the only recourse for a private individual against reckless and wanton conduct on the part of private security personnel is a civil action, seeking compensation for the inconvenience caused or injuries received. The courts have found that companies and their security personnel have an obligation to be reasonable in their investigations of suspected criminal violations by employees and customers. Failure to conduct a proper and reasonable investigation will open the individual directing the investigation, and the company authorizing it, to liabililty for the injury their improper actions have caused. Civil liability suits have become the moral enforcer for improper and excessive conduct by private security personnel.     

Entrapped on the Web? Applying the Entrapment Defense to Cases Involving Online Sting Operations

Many law enforcement agencies are currently responding to the problem of online crime by establishing proactive investigative units that track criminals on the Internet. Not only do these specialized teams face problems in the area of emerging technology, they are also faced with handling emerging legal issues. The current research examined the issue of the entrapment defense, and how previously established physical realm doctrine could be applied to the investigation of online crimes such as child pornography. Relying on previous case law it would appear that entrapment claims related to online sting operations involve consideration of: a) did the law enforcement officer continuously contact the suspect with the intention of trying to convince the individual to engage in a particular type of behavior, b) how long was the relationship between the undercover officer and the suspect, and c) how much, if any, reluctance to commit the criminal act did the suspect provide evidence of?     

Terrorist Decision Making and the Deterrence Problem

An ongoing debate among policymakers and terrorism scholars concerns the effectiveness of deterrence as a counterterrorism tool. Absent from the debate is a discussion of the complex nature of terrorist decision making. Decisions are made at varying levels in a terrorist organization, often by actors having different motives, resulting in behavior that is not always fully rational. This article identifies several circumstances when terrorist behavior is not the product of an entirely unitary, rational decision-making process, and therefore highlights when deterrence policies will be least effective. It concludes with some policy implications for understanding when deterrence policies are most likely to succeed and how to address terrorism in other situations.     

Buddhism,Mindfulness, and Transformative Politics

This article examines whether the American cultural phenomena of the practice of Buddhism or the Buddhism-derived technique of mindfulness are likely to be helpful to the political left. It summarizes the central teachings of the ancient Buddhist texts, with particular focus on the issues of mindfulness and politics. It also reviews the political history of Buddhist countries. The author argues that although modern Buddhism has shed its historical embrace of absolutist monarchy in favor of republicanism, and although there is some ideological overlap between Buddhism and the American Left, Buddhism in America is too small a movement for it to be of much significance for progressive politics. Mindfulness appears to be capable of becoming a much larger phenomenon, but its separation from its Buddhist origins makes it also unlikely to be strategically important for the Left.     

From Reflection to Refraction: Rethinking Paradigms of Cultural Interaction and Identity in Peru and Mexico

This article explores the construction and reworking of paradigms of culture contact and identity by social scientists and cultural critics in response to contradictory sociocultural experiences of modernity in Peru and Mexico. It seeks to do so in the context of calls made by the Peruvian critic Antonio Cornejo Polar for greater historicism and critical thinking about these, and the concern that this appeal has since generated in the field of Latin American Cultural Studies. Focusing first on the postcolonial, ideologically driven model of 'mestizaje', the article then traces continuities and discontinuities between it and latter–day thinking about cultural pluralism.     

ADHD among incarcerated youth: An investigation on the congruency with ADHD prevalence and correlates among the general population

The limited literature on the topic speculates that the rate of ADHD would be higher among incarcerated youth than found in the general population. However, to our knowledge no such published figures exist for juveniles in the United States. This study investigates the likelihood of ADHD diagnosis among 453 incarcerated youth and compares and contrasts a variety of demographic, social, educational, psychological, and criminal characteristics to the general literature on ADHD. Both similarities and differences are reported. This project was supported by Grant #99-RT-VX-K020 awarded by the National Institute of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. An early version of the paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Science in Chicago, Illinois.