The challenges and opportunities of implementing the integrity pact as a strategy for combating corruption in Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta region

In recent years, significant local and transnational concerted initiatives have been instituted to curb the incidence of corruption that has undermined socio‐economic development in Nigeria. Drawing on the critiques of such initiatives, and the experience from the process of implementing the Integrity Pact in the Niger Delta Development Commission, this article suggests that the Integrity Pact in principle offers real opportunities that can both reinforce and complement existing anti‐corruption initiatives in Nigeria's public sector. However, political instability, lack of continuity in civil service leadership and limited capacity are core challenges that confront the successful implementation and institutionalisation of the Integrity Pact as a means of fighting corruption and meeting sustainable development objectives in the Niger Delta. The article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for the fight against corruption in Nigeria. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

South African women: an intercultural perspective

SUMMARY

Misrepresentation of local whisky as a genuine Scotch whisky was the centre of a high-powered legal wrangle in South Africa. As South African courts tend to favour informed expertise over empirical surveys, the author was asked to act as an expert witness for the plaintiffs. Evidence focused upon brand perceptions created by the label, specifically dominant features as opposed to small print.     

Risk assessment and geography teachers: a survey

Recently the issue of health and safety procedures on field trips and school visits has come to the fore, as a result of a series of tragedies involving the deaths of pupils. A review of some of the recent court cases and inquests involving the victims of field trips was undertaken. This indicated that schools and teachers are failing to implement risk assessment procedures which are a requirement of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The research focuses on the perceptions and practices of geography teachers as leaders of field trips. A central question is whether or not geography field trips are operating to acceptable safety standards. A questionnaire was constructed which set out to explore a sample of Northern Ireland geography teachers' attitudes to issues of liability and risk assessment. The findings indicate that teachers' compliance with Regulation 3, the requirement to conduct adequate risk assessments is variable, and a small proportion never undertake any risk assessments. The majority of respondents indicated that they had not received any training in conducting risk assessments. The findings raise concerns about the self‐regulation of safety procedures by teachers on field trips.     

受虐妇女综合症专家证据在澳大利亚司法实践中的运用

在涉及家庭暴力的刑事案件中,如何处理以暴制暴杀夫的女性,保证她们获得公正的处遇,是法官面临的难题,受虐妇女综合症专家证据的运用,为破解此难题,提供了一种有效途径。本文立足澳大利亚若干个案,分析了受虐妇女综合症的含义及其在刑事审判中的运用原则、类型与效果,并阐述了受虐妇女综合症专家证据对刑事审判带来的挑战。这对于中国司法官员在刑事审判中如何导入受虐妇女综合症专家证据,具有很强的借鉴意义。     

Resisting ‘progressive’ carceral expansion: lessons for abolitionists from anti-colonial resistance

This article documents a government-led strategy to more closely integrate policing with community-based ‘crime prevention’ programming in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. These initiatives have targeted neighborhoods with large Indigenous populations. In this article I illustrate how community-level conflicts over responses to ‘crime’ are also sites of settler colonial conflict, and how settler colonial governance is reproduced and resisted through the governance of crime. Interviews with politicians, policy-makers, bureaucrats in the crime prevention branch of the provincial government, and directors and employees at community-based organizations suggest that the pursuit of the government strategy of integrated crime prevention and suppression has been more a project of attempting to ‘manage’ urban Indigenous people than serve their interests. As a contribution to abolitionist thought and theory, this article profiles sites of conflict between community police and community-based organizations over definitions of the ‘crime’ problem in city-center Winnipeg. These examples highlight a kinship between carceral abolitionist and decolonial politics.     

Assessing the Direct and Indirect Effects of Legitimacy on Public Empowerment of Police: A Study of Public Support for Police Militarization in America

The process‐based model dominates contemporary American research on police‐community relations and perceptions of police. A sizable literature has examined the linkages between procedural justice, legitimacy, compliance with the law, and cooperation with police. Less examined is the relationship between legitimacy and public empowerment of police. This study examines this relationship, focusing on police militarization. We first examine the direct effect of legitimacy on public willingness to allow police to become more militarized. Drawing from cognitive psychology and rational choice theories, we then consider indirect paths between legitimacy and empowerment, concentrating on two anticipated consequences of militarization—an increase in police effectiveness and possible harm to civil liberties. Using a national sample of over 700 American adults, and structural equation modeling, results indicate legitimacy has both direct and indirect effects on police empowerment, in part by shaping assessments of the possible consequences of empowerment. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.     

Technology-Mediated Exposure to Police–Citizen Encounters: A Quasi-Experimental Assessment of Consequences for Citizen Perceptions

Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent video-recorded police–citizen encounters have undermined police legitimacy and fueled civil unrest across the United States. Drawing from the process-based model of policing, social cognitive theory, and past research on media effects, we assess the influence of viewing cell phone videos of police–citizen encounters on perceptions of law enforcement. Using quasi-experimental methods and video footage of an actual police–citizen encounter captured on cell phones, the effects of viewing these videos are assessed using a series of repeated measure ANOVAs. Results indicate that viewing cell phone videos of police–citizen encounters significantly impacts perceptions of law enforcement, though little evidence of differing effects based on point-of-view, number of video exposures, or ordering of video exposures was found. The process-based model of policing should consider further incorporating the contributions of technology to provide a more holistic account of the factors influencing perceptions of police.