Developing a peace course in police studies: how a culture of peace can enhance police legitimacy in a democratic society

This paper reflects my experiences developing a course within the Criminal Justice Technology Associates of Science degree program at Valencia College that fuses topics unique to peace and police studies. The key challenge in developing this course was in confronting the paradox of the police as instruments of both peace and conflict. In dealing with this paradox, students examine the role of the police in a democratic society and the authority of the police to use coercive force. Key topics covered in this course include defining peace, the police role in peace movements, the history, structure and strategies affecting the police, causes of violence, conflict analysis and conflict intervention, and ethical foundations for peace. In addition, this course examines occupational, organizational, institutional factors that contribute to the development of a unique police subculture that values crime fighting as its core responsibility and the impact of that orientation on police attitudes and behaviors toward the public. Throughout the course, students are challenged to envision a new paradigm for policing that emphasizes a culture of peace rather than a culture of conflict.     

Perpetuating the Military Myth – Why the Psychology of the 2014 Australian Defence Pay Deal Is Irrelevant

There is a widespread belief that members of the armed forces have a unique psychological relationship with their institution and their nation, and that it is this relationship that leads to loyalty and self‐sacrifice. Yet this ‘military myth’ does not hold. Many soldiers serve for ‘occupational’ rather than ‘institutional’ reasons, and as the experience of private military contractors demonstrates, this need not reduce operational effectiveness. In this article, we argue that the concern expressed in the recent commentary in this journal by Williamson et. al. (2015) that the dispute over the 2014 Australian Defence Pay Deal may damage the ‘psychological contract’, turn it from ‘relational’ to ‘transactional’, and undermine operational effectiveness is unfounded and seems to buy into this military myth.     

Silicosis: Diagnosis and Medicolegal Implications

Despite well‐publicized sources of occupational hazard, silicosis continues to threaten industrial workers in the United States. We performed a retrospective search of the University of Wisconsin electronic pathology database to retrieve autopsy cases of silicosis and collaborated with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to obtain statewide epidemiologic data regarding silicosis morbidity/mortality since 2003. Three silicosis autopsy cases were retrieved: all were men with ≥ 30 years of occupational crystalline silica exposure and similar histologic features of collagenous pulmonary nodules with admixed refractile particles. Overall, our state exceeds the national rate of silicosis‐related hospitalizations and mortality, that is, 10.1 hospitalizations per million WI residents versus 1.2 nationally and 1.2 deaths per million WI residents versus 0.4 nationally. Surveillance is crucial to identify emerging occupational hazards and protect workers. A diagnosis of silicosis must be carefully considered at autopsy since it carries substantial implications for worker's compensation, compensatory losses, and employer liability.     

Medicolegal death investigator workplace safety hazards: A scoping review of the literature

In the United States, medicolegal death investigation practices and policies pertaining to sudden unexpected deaths are mandated by state government. Practices vary across states, which contributes to inconsistency in job prerequisites and training. In preparation for a study focused on occupational safety and health of medicolegal death investigators in their on-scene and follow-up activities, a scoping review was conducted to document known occupational safety risks and health-related conditions associated with death investigation. Searches used Boolean and subject heading operators both broad and narrow in scope, and search terms included scene responder, hazard, investigator, forensic pathology, injury, and safety. Twenty-five articles met inclusion criteria, which included seventeen survey-mixed method designs, two systematic reviews, five quasi-experimental designs, and one case study. Twelve articles addressed mental health and eleven focused on risks associated with infectious disease. One article addressed the risk of chemical exposure from cyanide among autopsy personnel (including forensic pathologists) and nine included a wide range of employees within the setting of medical examiner or coroner offices. One article, addressing burnout, included employees in a forensic science laboratory setting as well as medicolegal death investigators and two articles included forensic pathologists and medicolegal death investigators. Only one article addressed medicolegal death investigators specifically. Articles addressing occupational and environmental hazards of medicolegal death investigators associated with musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, radiological, nuclear, electrical, or explosive threats were not identified. There is little published about safety risks inherent in conducting death investigations. Research is needed to adequately inform health promotion and injury prevention strategies.     

Evaluating the Potential of a Web-based Portal to Support the Leverage of Professional Expertise across Local Authority Boundaries

The national strategy for local e-government identifies joining up services and the sharing of information as key components in improving the quality and efficiency of public services. A project to design and evaluate a web-based portal to support leverage of professional health and safety enforcement expertise across local authority (LA) boundaries was undertaken. The project clearly demonstrated that there was support by operational officers for the concept of knowledge sharing but there was limited uptake of the portal, particularly those functions that were designed to facilitate collaborative working. The research identified the significance of management commitment to knowledge sharing and the importance of users understanding the rationale for, and benefits of, engagement with IT systems which are not developed in-house. It also indicated that whilst web-based systems can provide a means by which profession knowledge can be levered across LAs, the complexity of linking over 400 LAs with their pluralistic structures and cultures should not be under-estimated.     

The Working Out of Modernization in the Public Sector: The Case of an E-government Initiative in Greece

It has become common place for governments to initiate electronic-government projects in order to reform public administration. This paper seeks to explore the ways in which an e-government project, as a potential mode of reformation, is established and made to work, and then, further, to account for some of its consequences for conventional public administration. To do so we draw upon a detailed empirical study of a Greek e-government initiative, the establishment of Citizen Service Centres (CSCs). CSCs represent a significant part of Greece's e-government strategy, which has sought to modernize public administration and make the provision of public services more efficient, accessible and responsive to citizens. Drawing upon Foucault's work on power/knowledge we show that the e-government initiative is established through various technologies of power that intend to discipline public sector staff towards a particular mode of working. We also illustrate that the establishment of these modernization practices is the outcome of considerable negotiation, improvisation and enactment as different occupational groups seek to collaborate (or not) across professional and institutional boundaries. Finally, we show and argue that rather than reforming the provision of public services, such e-government based modernization projects are more likely to reproduce, in more complex ways, the long established public sector practices it sought to change.     

The Korean economic crisis and working women

This article evaluates the impact of the 1997 Korean economic crisis on female employees. Facts on employment, labour force participation, and the changing nature of jobs (permanent/temporary) tend to support “buffer” theories of women's employment. Occupational sex segregation was reduced substantially between 1997 and 2002; nonetheless, the unexplained portion of the wage differential between men and women (a proxy for wage discrimination) increased. The crisis created setbacks for the equality of working women in Korea; however, new realities stimulated a changed strategy in the form of a union for contingent and small-firm workers among Korean women.     

Gender inequality in Russia's rural formal economy

Gender inequality in Russia's rural formal economy is examined using quantitative and qualitative data. Rural women continue to be underrepresented in farm managerial positions, and gendered income differences remain the norm. Rural women are underrepresented because they continue to have responsibility for most of the housework and child care. The traditional division of labor inside the household continues to dominate, thereby affecting women's career trajectories and earning potential. Value change about gendered roles in the formal economy has been minimal.     

论工人职业安全卫生参与权及其法律保护

我国安全生产事故频发,职业病危害严重,职业安全卫生形势不容乐观。应借鉴国外工人参与职业安全卫生的立法,完善我国现有的职业安全卫生相关法律制度,通过设立安全卫生代表和安全卫生委员会,构建工人参与途径,扩大雇主参与责任,共同确保我国工人职业安全卫生参与权的实现。     

State anti‐labor legislation: Texas — A case study

Previous research on the Great Migration in the USA has focused on the economic outcomes of black migrants in the North. In comparison, the economic outcomes of black migrants in the West, particularly during the second wave of the Great Migration that occurred between 1940 and 1970, have not been fully explored in the literature. This article analyzes the occupational mobility of southern-born black male migrants in the West in the 1950s relative to various subgroups residing in the West: western-born white and black males and southern-born white males. Regression results from the 1% 1950 and the 1960 census microdata samples indicate that unlike in the North in the 1910s where southern-born blacks were not as upwardly mobile as northern-born blacks during the first wave of the Great Migration, there was no difference between western-born blacks and southern-born blacks in their probability of getting employed in a particular occupational class in the West in the 1950s, during the second wave of the Great Migration. However, compared to white males, although the majority of black males remained employed in lower-blue-collar occupations (as laborers and service workers), southern-born blacks were successful at increasing their representation in upper-blue-collar occupations (into Crafts/Sales).