Performance Monitoring Public Services in Australia

The Industry Commission, the former Bureau of Industry Economics and the Economic Planning Advisory Commission have amalgamated on an administrative basis to prepare for the formation of the Productivity Commission. Legislation establishing the new commission is before parliament.
The Industry Commission has been involved in a number of projects that monitor the performance of a range of government services across Australia. The first monitors the performance of a large number of Australia's major government trading enterprises and the second has begun the process of monitoring the performance of a range of government service providers.
This article outlines why measuring and monitoring performance can be used to improve public sector performance and provides two examples of how this tool can successfully be used in practice.     

Reviews

Enrique Leff: Ecologia y Capital: Hacia una perspectiva ambiental del desarrollo (Ecology and Capital: Toward an Environmentalist Perspective on Development). Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, 1986?

Martin Ryle: Ecology and Socialism. Century Hutchinson, London, 1988.

Klaus Eder: Die Vergesellschaftung der Natur: Studien zur sozialen Evolution der praktischen Vernunft (The Socialization of Nature: Studies on the Social Evolution of Practical Reason). Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, 1988.     

Perceiving and Communicating Environmental Contamination and Change: Towards a Green Cultural Criminology with Images

In this article, we will respond to recent calls for a ‘green cultural criminology’ by attempting to open the way for new visual explorations of environmental harms and crimes, and by suggesting some methodological perspectives that can be advanced by the use and analysis of the photographic image. To demonstrate the power, potential and possibility—as well as some potential limitations—of a green cultural criminology with images, we draw on two ethnographic studies carried out in Huelva (Spain) and central Appalachia (United States). The described methods have the advantage of (1) bringing together the multiple and complex experiences of those who live in polluted areas; (2) considering the cultural meaning given to experiences of ecological change and destruction; and (3) exploring how those experiences are represented, communicated and understood. We conclude with a call to use qualitative visual approaches for carrying out research in an emergent green cultural criminology designed to develop a complex understanding of the multiple forms of environmental harms and crimes.     

Developing Public Safety and Crime Indicators in Taiwan

Many countries and international organisations (for example, the USA, England and Wales, Japan, the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) have developed measures of public safety and measures of the effectiveness of criminal justice agencies. This paper briefly considers the background to such comparative developments and relates these to the specific contextual conditions of Taiwan. We report the results of a study which reviewed the state of empirical indicator availability in Taiwan and sought to develop an indicator framework for those charged with the governmental task of ‘public safety’. The paper concludes by considering how such a framework can be implemented in Taiwan.     

The role of beliefs about aggression in cyberbullying and animal abuse

ABSTRACT

The current study sought to examine the associations between involvement in bullying (traditional and cyber), attitudes about aggression, and animal abuse. Four hundred and thirty-nine undergraduate students (267 females and 172 males) enrolled in Introductory Psychology completed surveys assessing bullying involvement, normative beliefs about aggression, and animal abuse tendencies. Results revealed that animal abusers reported significantly higher rates of bullying (traditional and cyber) and significantly more accepting views of aggression when compared to non-abusers. A logistic regression model indicated that bullying perpetration (traditional and cyber), normative beliefs about aggression, and gender were significant predictors of animal abuse. In addition, the findings suggest that normative beliefs about aggression may serve as an underlying mechanism linking traditional bullying, cyberbullying, and animal abuse. Implications for prevention and intervention programs for aggression toward humans and animals are discussed.