State crimes and state harms: a tale of two definitional frameworks

Criminologists have long debated the issue of how to define crime, and hence, the scope of criminological inquiry. For years, some critical criminologists have argued for expanded definitions of crime that include harmful behaviors of the state that may not be officially defined as criminal. Other critical criminologists have argued that existing legal frameworks may be used to study varieties of state crime, and that defining the harmful actions of the state as criminal is important to help mobilize public support for their control. In this paper, we first trace the historical development of these two perspectives, and then offer a tentative solution to the seeming tension between these two perspectives.     

Global custody of endowment funds

This article explores the law relating to the global custodianship of funds, notably as managed for endowed charities such as universities and independent schools. Is global custody based on the legal concept of bailment or of trusts? Just how secure are the legal underpinnings of this financial mechanism? The conclusions are that the legal foundations to the concepts of custodianship, and especially on a global level with the appointment of sub-custodians, is surprisingly uncertain and confused in English Law, providing rather less reassurance to charity trustees concerning the security of the financial assets for which they are accountable than they might reasonably have expected.     

Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments

COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how COMPSTAT operates and for understanding the implications of this reform. This article compares two different perspectives on organizations—technical/rational and institutional—to COMPSTAT's adoption and operation in three municipal police departments. Based on fieldwork, our analysis suggests that relative to technical considerations for changing each organization to improve its effectiveness, all three sites adopted COMPSTAT in response to strong institutional pressures to appear progressive and successful. Furthermore, institutional theory better explained the nature of the changes we observed under COMPSTAT than the technical/rational model. The greatest collective emphasis was on those COMPSTAT elements that were most likely to confer legitimacy, and on implementing them in ways that would minimize disruption to existing organizational routines. COMPSTAT was less successful when trying to provide a basis for rigorously assessing organizational performance, and when trying to change those structures and routines widely accepted as being "appropriate." We posit that it will take profound changes in the technical and institutional environments of American police agencies for police departments to restructure in the ways anticipated by a technically efficient COMPSTAT.     

WHERE IS THE VILLAGE GOING? MAINTAINING AND INCLUDING CULTURAL STRENGTHS TO PROTECT CHILDREN ORPHANED IN KENYA

This article is the result of a master's thesis about children and their universal right to be included in a family environment. This is not only protected under international law, but also intuitive to human beings. HIV‐AIDS continues to threaten lives of children, particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa in the form of orphaning. Looking at a case study from Kenya, it is revealed that, while legal protection is yet to be fully realized in the state, strong cultural norms of value are alive. Currently, the extended family system is the greatest protection to children orphaned or at risk of being orphaned. However, this system was made invisible in the domestic laws of Kenya under the Children Act 2001. This neglect calls for questions not only regarding the protection cultural norms may offer, according to the best interests of children, but also as to the cultural environment being created with the new law.     

Using the state to change society: The example of ‘domestic violence’

North American research on the policing of ‘domestic violence’ has been very influential among policy makers in Great Britain. In particular, research which purports to verify the deterrence value of arrest has prompted the establishment of over thirty domestic violence units in London and similar initiatives elsewhere in Britain. The paper will outline the nature of the traditional police response to ‘family violence’ in London and the nature of the experimental innovations. Changes in police practice with regard to this type of violence will be put in the context of the organizational constraints and possibilities of policing. Finally, changing police responses to domestic violence will be evaluated in terms of the debate over the possibility of using the state or its organs to achieve social change.