Citizen police academies: Community policing or community politics?

Citizen police academies (CPAs) have become common in the United States. These programs have a great deal of potential to enhance community-policing efforts in two ways. First, they provide a setting where citizens can learn more about the operations of their local law enforcement agencies. Second, they allow participants to enter into an open and ongoing dialogue with agency representatives. This paper reports findings from a national survey of CPA coordinators. It questions the current status of CPAs as an element of community policing, as opposed to public or political relations. A draft of this paper was presented at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Toronto, Ontario. Data collection for this project was supported by a Florida State University Dissertation Research Grant.     

Women and conflict transformation: Influences,roles, and experiences

At first glance it would appear that despite women's vital participation in peace-making processes, they are for the most part marginalised or belittled. However, moving away from the idea of women as outsiders and/or victims, we find evidence of their involvement in projects initiated and driven by them and/or in activities in which they work in equal roles alongside men. Many women in conflict areas are advocating and working effectively with approaches to lasting positive peace that transcend traditional male-dominated structures and ideologies. Large numbers of ordinary women, men, and children are working mostly behind the scenes to achieve justice and equality. Women are very much involved but get far less recognition than men. The scale and diversity of largely unacknowledged but effective grassroots peace efforts worldwide, particularly among women, requires much greater recognition by the international community. This article is based on a research project that uses an oral testimony approach and a multicultural perspective to give voice to women working in the field in a wide range of transformational processes.     

Is Something Better Than Nothing? The Effect of Short Terms of Mandatory Parole Supervision

This article reports the findings of a quasi-experimental evaluation of a mandatory early parole program. New Jersey’s Statutory Early Release (SER) law required that all inmates, with few exceptions, be released onto parole six months before the expiration of their sentence. SER participants (n = 405) were matched using propensity scores to two groups of similar offenders who left prison in the year prior to the implementation of the SER statute. Comparison groups include former inmates that were released either unconditionally (n = 4,507) or onto standard parole (n = 5,657). At the conclusion of the matching routines, 395 SER-parolee pairs and 394 SER-unconditional release pairs were identified. Outcomes measures, including comparisons of rearrest and reconviction rates, are reported pre and post matching, and at 6-, 12-, and 18-month intervals. Individuals enrolled in the SER program demonstrated significantly reduced arrest rates during the SER supervision period when compared to unconditionally released offenders, though differences do not persist past six months. Offending rates for both SER participants and matched parolees were generally similar, with some significant variation in arrest rates emerging after 12 months.     

Stealing from the past: Globalisation,strategic formation and the use of indigenous intellectual property in the biotechnology industry

Biotechnology has proven itself to be one of the most promising and volatile sectors in the world economy. From genetic engineering to the mapping of human cell lines, biotechnology is now a multibillion dollar venture. As a result the trade in biological specimens has increased, with researchers continually seeking new sources for specimens. The goal of our research is to explore two fundamental questions related to the biotechnology industry: (1) what has been the driving force behind the relatively recent explosive growth in the biotechnology industry; (2) what has been the impact on the developing world - which houses the natural resources that are the bases for many of these new biotechnology discoveries? We argue that globalisation has pushed governments, biotechnology firms and universities into strategic alliances that have unfairly included another partner in the creation of these new products: the developing world.     

Political Ambivalence as Praxis: The Limits of Consensus in Habermas's Theory of the Public Sphere

This paper argues that ambivalence can serve as a proxy for consensus-based debates in public discourse as it allows for individuals to maintain flexible and analytic perspectives on matters that otherwise appear contradictory. In particular, an affirmative understanding of ambivalence will be presented to supplement the highly influential Habermasian approach by drawing from sociological theories of ambivalence found in the work of Simmel, Bauman and Ko?akowski. While the theme of ambivalence is not completely absent from Habermas’s work on the public sphere, it is typically described as a structural consequence of contradiction rather than a form of action that is capable of working with and around inconsistencies in ethics, knowledge and social values. This allows for participation to be sustained through contradiction, rather than being withdrawn in frustration, while also encouraging open-minded judgements capable of avoiding forms of fanaticism.