Are We Being Served? Emotional Labour in Local Government in Victoria,Australia

This paper explores how front‐line street‐level bureaucrats (SLBs) cope with the expectations of citizens, clients, or ‘customers’ in daily work and how SLBs may be impacted by emotional labour. The study analyses data from 41 interviews with SLBs in local councils in Victoria, Australia. Although exploratory, it builds awareness and understanding of the emotional labour associated with public service. The situations that SLBs engage with on a daily basis are many and varied and take the form of increased expectations and intense encounters. Respondents experienced abuse, threats, violence, but also ‘sparkle moments’. Resources that helped SLBs cope are diverse and located both within and outside organisations. Implications are discussed and issues that merit additional investigation are raised concerning how SLBs can be supported to better meet the demands of the public. The research is of value to public managers and SLBs operating in a changing society with increased ‘customer’ expectations.     

论黑恶势力犯罪的成因及防控对策--以控制理论和理性选择理论为视角

威胁政治安全、社会安定和人民幸福的黑恶势力犯罪非常猖獗。控制理论认为,黑恶势力犯罪可以归结为合法社会控制力量的削弱,尤其是非正式社会控制力量的弱化,以及罪犯在家庭教育缺失情况下导致的低自我控制能力。理性选择理论认为,黑恶势力犯罪是犯罪分子基于犯罪收益与犯罪成本对比关系的理性选择。控制理论对黑恶势力犯罪防治的启示是强化合法社会控制力量,加强基层组织建设和强化基础素质教育,矫正低自我控制能力。理性选择理论的启示则是加强"犯罪预防环境设计",提升黑恶势力犯罪成本和提高对黑恶势力犯罪的防范意识,构筑起心理栅栏。     

The ‘African gangs’ narrative: associating Blackness with criminality and other anti-Black racist tropes in Australia

ABSTRACT

This article explores and theorizes anti-Black racist discourses that shape the ways in which the Australian media and other mainstream Australian institutions talk about and view Black Africans. It argues that the long-standing racist trope of synonymizing Blackness with criminality is widespread in Australia. Thus, among other things, this paper theorizes the Australian media narrative of ‘African gangs’ who are supposedly causing havoc in the State of Victoria, Australia. It argues that the January 2018 media reporting about the so-called ‘African gangs’ is a good example that illustrates how the long-standing racist trope of conflating Blackness with criminality is employed in Australia. The discussion is framed within a Black/African Diaspora theoretical framework that allows this study to conceptualize and connect the lived experiences of Black people globally.     

Emotions,reason, and character

Utilizing a contractualist framework for understanding the basis and limits for the use of force by police, this article offers five limiting principles—respect for status as moral agents, proportionality, minimum force necessary, ends likely to be accomplished, and appropriate motivation—and then discusses uses of force that violate or risk violating those principles. These include, but are not limited to, unseemly invasions, strip searches, perp walks, handcuffing practices, post-chase apprehensions, contempt-of-cop arrests, overuse of intermediate force measures, coerced confessions, profiling, stop and frisk practices, and the administration of street justice.     

Street-level Politics: Labour Protests in Post-authoritarian Indonesia

This article discusses the promotion of economic “reintegration” programs among migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. The programs include training migrants in savings and investment, business planning and entrepreneurship, with the immediate aim of helping them to achieve some steady income as an alternative to continued working overseas, and the longer-term objective of channelling migrant savings into national economic development “back home.” The reintegration programs are analysed in the context of hegemonic neo-liberal or popular capitalism, which inter alia, encourages the transformation of citizens with rights into entrepreneurs who can be held responsible for their own failures. It argues that such programs discipline rather than liberate migrant workers and that despite good intentions on the part of progressive non-government organisations (NGOs), represent individualistic solutions to structural problems which may undermine campaigns like the campaign for the rights of migrant workers and their families.     

‘The biggest gang in Oakland’: re-thinking police legitimacy

Literature defining ‘police legitimacy’ lacks qualitative research on those populations most often targeted by law enforcement agencies, including people of color in urban areas. This same literature defines police legitimacy as something unquestionable and automatic. Exploration of this concept is limited to strategies to increase public ‘trust’ in police, and public compliance to their authority. We address these limitations in the available scholarship through an analysis of interviews with a diverse sample of Oakland (CA) residents on their experiences with the Oakland Police Department (OPD). Their narratives are presented in the historical context of controversy, budget problems, federal investigations, and racialized violence that help to define the relationship between OPD and Oakland communities. Those interviewed, universally observed OPD’s failure to address the most common crime problems in the city, while others, particularly people of color, found them to be a personal or public threat to safety. Their narratives fly in the face of the manifest functions of municipal police forces, are fully supported by the contemporary empirical history of the OPD, and suggest the illegitimate authority – including the monopoly on the use of force – of organizations like OPD in a democratic society.     

Gang activity in english prisons: The staff perspective

Abstract

Gang behaviour has been associated with serious problems in American prisons (e.g., Fong and Buentello, 1991). This study explored the possible existence of indicators of gang activity in English prisons. Surveys of problems consistent with gang activity were completed by 374 prison staff in 16 prisons that were representative of the English Prison Estate. Results showed significant differences between categories of institution. The most gang-related activity was reported in male Medium security prisons and Young Offender Institutions. The lowest reported incidence was in both male Low and High security prisons. Female establishments demonstrated levels lower only than Medium security male prisons. Discussion focuses concern on the levels of gang activity apparently present in the Medium security English Prisons and suggests directions for further research.     

Propensity to support prison gangs: its relationship to gang membership,victimisation, aggression and other disruptive behaviours

Propensity to support prison gangs and its association with aggression, victimisation and disruptive behaviour is explored. The sample comprised 423 adult male prisoners from three Canadian prisons. Participants completed the PGB (Propensity to support Gang-related Behaviour scale) and DIPC-R (Direct and Indirect Prisoner behaviour Checklist-Revised). The former indicated gang membership propensity and included a direct question on whether or not participants considered themselves a gang member. It was hypothesised that prison-based aggression would be predicted by a propensity to support prison gangs and by gang membership. It was also hypothesised that aggression and disruptive behaviours would be reported more frequently by gang members than non-gang members. Propensity to support prison gangs was associated with aggression and other disruptive behaviours, as was actual gang membership. Aggression and other disruptive behaviours were reported more frequently by gang members. Prisoners reporting both aggression perpetration and victimisation simultaneously (i.e. ‘perpetrator/victims’) were over-represented as gang members. Gang membership did not appear to protect against being victimised. Propensity to support prison gangs was composed of beliefs that gangs were supportive, well-ordered and protective, and comprised of friends. The importance of accounting for propensity to support prison gangs and not just self-reported gang membership is discussed.     

Incapacitation and imprisonment: prisoners' involvement in community-based crime

Abstract

The impact of incapacitation on prisoners' offending behaviour is a neglected area of research. The aim of this study was to examine the extent and nature of prisoners' involvement in community-based crime in the UK. Participants were selected from nine prisons in the UK and consisted of 360 prisoners, 81 females and 279 males. Offenders were interviewed to assess levels and forms of involvement in community-based crime and perceptions of other prisoners' involvement. Levels of prisonization and institutional and demographic characteristics were used to identify vulnerability to involvement in community-based crime. Twenty-five per cent of the sample admitted personal involvement and 63% reported other prisoners' involvement in a diverse range of crimes. Analyses revealed prisoners involved in community-based crime are likely to be young, male recidivists who hold prisonized attitudes. Prisoners who are white, prisonized and recidivist reported highest levels of other prisoners' involvement in community-based crime. No age or gender differences delineated prisoners' reports of others' involvement. The results show that incarcerating offenders may not prevent their involvement in community-based offending. Discussion centres on the characteristics of involved prisoners and considers the implications of the results for rehabilitation and penal policy.     

THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF PUBLIC SPACE: ACTIVE STREETS AND VIOLENT CRIME IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Drawing on one element of the discussion by Jacobs ( 1961 ) of the social control benefits of “eyes on the street,” this article explores the link between the prevalence of active streets and violence in urban neighborhoods. Three distinct data sources from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods are merged to explore the functional form and potential contingency of the active streets–violence relationship: 1) video data capturing the presence of people on neighborhood streets; 2) longitudinal data on adolescents (11 to 16 years of age) and their self‐reports of witnessing severe violence; and (3) community survey data on neighborhood social organizational characteristics. The results from multilevel models indicate that the proportion of neighborhood streets with adults present exhibits a nonlinear association with exposure to severe violence. At low prevalence, the increasing prevalence of active streets is positively associated with violence exposure. Beyond a threshold, however, increases in the prevalence of active streets serve to reduce the likelihood of violence exposure. The analyses offer no evidence that the curvilinear association between active streets and violence varies by levels of collective efficacy, and only limited evidence that it varies by anonymity. Analyses of data on homicide and violent victimization corroborate these findings.