Factors affecting the sustainability of a community water supply project in Kenya

This paper examines how three sustainability factors (water supply, regulatory policy, local management) are affecting the sustainability of a community water supply project in Kenya. Findings show that after 10 years the project is at a threshold of sustainability – it may yet fail. Changing rainfall patterns and additional withdrawals from new projects are threatening available water supply. The community is resisting compliance with water sector reforms including those intended to benefit community-managed projects. Community management deficiencies and a lack of supportive external relationships are impeding project continuity and sustainable local water management.     

Wrongfulness and Prohibitions

This paper responds to Antje du-Bois Pedain’s discussion of the wrongfulness constraint on the criminal law. Du-Bois Pedain argues that the constraint is best interpreted as stating that φing is legitimately criminalised only if φing is wrongful for other-regarding reasons. We take issue with du-Bois Pedain’s arguments. In our view, it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition of legitimate criminalisation that φing is wrongful in du-Bois Pedain’s sense. Rather, it is a necessary (albeit insufficient) condition of legitimate criminalisation that φing is what we call bare wrongful—that is, that the reasons in favour of φing are defeated by the reasons against. Though du-Bois Pedain is critical of this view, we argue that her criticisms do not convince.     

The History in “Critical Legal Histories”: Robert W. Gordon. 1984. Critical Legal Histories. Stanford Law Review 36:57–125

This commentary explores Robert Gordon's “Critical Legal Histories” from the perspective of the discipline of history. It argues that we are still stalled at the intellectual juncture that Gordon described so well twenty‐five years ago because functionalism and the resulting problems that Gordon addresses in the area of sociolegal studies also pervade the discipline of history. The results reinforce the divide between sociolegal studies and other kinds of historical studies that tend to inhibit the conceptual transformation that Gordon advocates and to marginalize legal studies within the discipline of history.     

Remembering Geoff Pearson

The British criminology community has been orphaned this year. The deaths of Stan Cohen, Mary McIntosh and now Geoff Pearson have left many of us feeling bereft. Barbara Hudson's reflection on Stan's career in the June 2013 issue of Criminal Justice Matters was adorned with memories of his kindness and unerring decency. For those of us fortunate to have known Geoff well and work alongside him there are clear parallels. Geoff Pearson left us a glittering legacy of scholarly works that have become embedded into the ‘common sense’ of criminological theory. Yet, Geoff himself was no lofty scholar, he was one of the most approachable and personable individuals one could wish to meet: generous with his time, interested in the views and experiences of others and a passionate advocate for the outsider.     

Biometric Security and Privacy Using Smart Identity Management and Interoperability: Validation and Vulnerabilities of Various Techniques

The central position of this article is that validation and interoperability are paramount for the effective and ethical use of biometrics. Illuminating the relevance for policymakers of the science underlying the security and privacy aspects of biometrics, this article calls for adequate and enforceable performance metrics that can be independently corroborated. Accordingly, the article considers biometrics and forensics for the dual challenges of addressing security and privacy using smart identity management. The discussion revolves around the concepts of “personally identifiable information” (PII) and interoperability with emphasis on quantitative performance analysis and validation for uncontrolled operational settings, variable demographics, and distributed and federated operations. Validation metrics includes expected rates of identification/misidentification, precision, and recall. The complementary concepts of identity and anonymity are addressed in terms of expected performance, functionality, law and ethics, forensics, and statistical learning. Biometrics encompasses appearance, behavior, and cognitive state or intent. Modes of deployment and performance evaluation for biometrics are detailed, with operational and adversarial challenges for both security and privacy described in terms of trustworthiness, vulnerabilities, functional creep, and feasibility of safeguards. The article underscores how lack of interoperability is mostly due to overfitting and tuning to well‐controlled settings, so that validation merely confirms “teaching to the test” rather than preparation for real‐world deployment. Most important for validation is reproducibility of results including full information on the experimental design used, that forensic exclusion is allowed, and that scientific methods for performance evaluation are followed. The article concludes with expected developments regarding technology use and advancements that bear on security and privacy, including data streams and video, de‐anonymization and reidentification, social media analytics and cyber security, and smart camera networks and surveillance.