Latino Immigrant Acculturation and Crime

Recent debate on the future of immigration policy in the United States has spawned much discussion on social costs and consequences for immigrants, such as employment, education, health care, and most notably, crime. Although recent Latino immigrants are often portrayed as outsiders in popular media, their successful acculturation into the American way of life may present more crime-related risk rather than less. This study examines arrest records for Latinos in two southwestern American cities to determine the extent to which Latino acculturation is related to arrests and convictions for both misdemeanors and felonies after controlling for certain legal and extra-legal factors. Results indicate that acculturation is consistently and positively associated with all four crime-related outcomes in this sample. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Something old,something new: security governance in Iraq

The lack of a coherent security paradigm capable of explaining the concerns of both traditional and ‘new’ security is evident from the US-led occupation of Iraq. Security is the critical element in Iraq's reconstruction, and understanding the multiple meanings and relationships through which it is exercised is essential for empirical and analytical reasons, yet policy is flawed and the debate remains polarized. Thus Washington assumes that conventional security can be provided—and US power employed—independently of the relationship in which it is to be exercised, whereas Iraqi concerns focus on security at the level of the individual. The result can be seen in the paradigmatic examples of coalition operations in Basra in 2003 and Falluja in 2004. This article suggests that the interaction between coalition authorities and Iraqis, and, by extension, conventional and new forms of security, is best understood in terms of power relations; a comprehensive understanding of security must incorporate a relational dimension.     

Strangers at the gate: the role of multidimensional ideas,policy anomalies and institutional gatekeepers in biofuel policy developments in the USA and European Union

Policy Sciences - This article contributes to scholarly understanding of how policy ideas and institutions interact to affect policy change by investigating why legislation mandating the use of...     

From St Petersburg to Rome: Understanding the Evolution of the Modern Laws of War

Despite arguments to the contrary, the state continues to defiantly resist efforts to “extend the reach of legality”, especially as it pertains to attempts to bound the use of organised violence within international legal mechanisms. Yet this defiance is something of a paradox, where the evolution of the modern laws of war are characterised by a contradictory pattern. By focusing on important junctures in the short evolution of the codification of the laws of war it will be argued here that the writings of Swiss jurist Emer de Vattel provide the best insights into this contradictory development.     

Landmark reforms

After more than one hundred years, the future of a unified Probation Service looks bleak in the face of current proposals by the Ministry of Justice to open up the market for rehabilitation services to new providers from the private, voluntary and community sectors.