Narrative accounts from the citizens,victims, and offenders restoring justice program

This paper describes the Citizens, Victims, and Offenders Restoring Justice (CVORJ) program, a prison-based program conducted as a pilot study at the Washington State Reformatory. The program brings together offenders and victims - though not involved in the same crime - in the company of interested community members to discuss restorative justice principles. The program focuses on the sharing of personal narratives of crime to explore how the harms resulting from crime can best be addressed and justice achieved. Of interest was how a restorative justice model that highlighted community participation could be incorporated into a correctional setting and whether healing could result from the use of surrogate offenders, victims, and community members. The restorative nature of the program, its method of operation, results from the qualitative evaluation, and key implementation challenges are presented.     

Prison Recruitment as a Policy Tool of Local Economic Development: A Critical Evaluation

Like the sports franchises and foreign auto plants that preceded them, state and local governments are touting prisons as the latest means of economic miracle‐making, often for small towns and communities that are economically depressed. The building of prisons is supposedly tied to the development of a just, fair, and rational criminal justice policy in a civil democratic society. Prison building has positive and negative social and political consequences for these communities. This critical essay explores some of these consequences in light of the literature on prison siting, the experiences of communities and prisoners, and relevant statistical data in the public domain. It also offers an alternative framework for evaluating prison recruitment as a strategy for local economic development.     

Gang activity in English prisons: The prisoners’ perspective

Abstract

Gang activity in American prisons has resulted in serious problems for prisoners and staff. This study assessed prisoners’ perceptions of gang-event frequency in the UK. Interviews with 360 prisoners from nine prisons in England and Wales indicated gang-related events were perceived as more frequent in all male categories of prison than they were in female institutions. Prisoners reported drug possession and prisoner groups being formed along regional origins as the most frequent gang-related activities. Recidivists perceived higher levels of gang-related activity than did first-time prisoners. Gang-related variables also predicted prisoners’ perceptions that groups of prisoners have more control over events in the prison than do staff and that order in the prison may not be maintained. The merits of interviewing prisoners and the implications of the results for maintaining order in prison are discussed.     

When Law and Order Returned to Denmark

The international trend toward increased use of punishment has been visible in Denmark since the early 1990s and has accelerated in the first years of the new millennium. As in other countries the trend cannot be explained by changes in crime or a political turn to the right. The increased use of punishment in (post) modern societies undoubtedly has a very complex background. The primary explanation put forth in this article is that it is based on a radical change in the human conditions and in the way people relate to their world. It is an existential revolution and, as such, it has emerged ‘from the bottom’ of society. This suggestion is not offered as an alternative to existing explanations that have been mainly dealing with factors and matters ‘from the top’ of society, such as changes in and of the political system (e.g. populism), the mass media (e.g. alarmism), the social organization of society (e.g. bureaucratization and/or industrialization), and globalization (e.g. imitation and/or internationalization of penal law). Rather, the hypothesis should be viewed as an important supplement to these existing theories and explanations.     

The Fall of the Finnish Prison Population

At the beginning of the 1950s, the prisoner rate in Finland was four times higher than in the other Nordic countries and among the highest in Europe. However, the steady decrease that started soon after the Second World War has continued, and in the beginning of the 1990s Finland reached the Nordic level. The paper discusses some backgound factors behind this ''success story''. In addition, the paper examines the relation of prisoner rates and recorded crime. A comparison between the Nordic countries reveals that the major crime trends have been practically similar despite striking differpractices ences in the use of imprisonment. As concluded in the paper, the decrease in the prison population is one of the major victories of Finnish crime policy.     

完善城市治安巡逻动态勤务机制若干问题的思考

近年来,随着人、财、物的大流动,社会治安形势发生了巨大变化,城市治安状况呈现出明显的动态化趋势.当前城市基层公安机关街面治安巡逻工作中存在的主要问题表现在认识上对巡逻工作的定位存在偏差,警力配备与所担负的过重工作任务不相适应,现有的勤务方式与实际工作任务不相适应,现有的装备保障难以适应现实工作的需要.我们应充分认识巡逻工作在服务民生方面的重要地位和作用,减负巡逻队“110”的接处警工作压力,结合本辖区特点,施行科学、合理、可操作的动态治安巡逻勤务模式,并对巡逻辅助力量开展必要的培训和有效的管理使用.     

网络群体性事件中政府危机管理的哲学思考

网络群体性事件的产生有复杂的经济和政治原因,包括社会经济、政治的不和谐、人民群众认识水平差异、敌对势力的鼓动、政府在应对事件过程中方式方法欠妥等.与传统群体性事件相比,网络群体性事件有规模巨大、破坏力强等显著特征.网络属于新生事物,网络群体性事件也是我国面临的非传统安全之一.能不能做好网络群体性事件的管理,已经成为政府管理能力的试金石.只有不断地加强政府管理的效率,加强网络立法,加强网络监管,区分事件性质,打击网上敌对分子,网络才能成为一片净土,成为广大网民的“美丽世界”.     

社会管理法治化中的社区警务——基于衢州市“公安群众工作综合体”的实证研究

公安机关社会管理是政府社会管理的重要组成部分,其管理成效直接影响到群众生活和社会稳定。一直以来,公安作为国家的专政工具,围绕着高度集权的政府行使专政与社会管理,在政治、经济、社会领域承担着管控的职能。随着服务型政府的转型,公安行政也面临着服务转型,尤其是社区警务,必须以服务社区为导向,寓管理于服务之中。“公安群众工作综合体”将社区警务嵌入社区生活,为社区警务的转型提供了有效的载体,推动了社会管理的创新。     

基于安全系统学原理的爆炸物品管理

爆炸物品管理是一个繁杂而艰巨的系统工程,运用安全系统学原理研究和指导爆炸物品管理工作是十分契合的,又是十分必要和重要的。在构建爆炸物品管理的安全系统结构模型,确定爆炸物品管理安全系统综合指标体系及其权重的基础上,提出了爆炸物品管理系统安全、科学、高效运行的措施。     

Shareholder value and Financialization: consultancy promises,management moves

In the pages of the daily financial press, 'shareholder value' is a loose rhetoric. For business consultants who sell financial metrics and implementation, shareholder value is also a product and a promise that purposive management action will be rewarded. This paper begins by considering the consultant's promise and the more guarded academic responses. It then presents empirics on micro performance and the meso limits to shareholder value and argues that most corporate managements cannot easily deliver what consultants promise and the capital markets demand. The paper ends by taking a broader view of value-based management as part of a process of financialization. If the results are contradictory and disappointing, a persistent gap between expectations and outcomes can nevertheless drive management behaviours, which change the world.