Investing in multi-stakeholder dialogue to address natural resource competition and conflict

How can multi-stakeholder dialogue help assess and address the roots of environmental resource competition and conflict? This article summarises the outcomes and lessons from action research in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. Dialogues linking community groups, NGOs and government agencies have reduced local conflict, produced agreements with private investors, and influenced government priorities in ways that respond to the needs of marginalised fishing communities. The article details policy guidance in four areas: building stakeholder commitment, understanding the institutional and governance context, involving local groups in the policy reform process, and embracing adaptability in programme implementation.     

A case of child abandonment--reflections on criminal responsibility in adolescence

The issue of responsibility for delinquent acts has been examined in the light of adolescence as a unique developmental stage, and it has been proposed that the degree to which one should hold an adolescent morally responsible for his/her acts corresponds to the degree to which he/she has individuated from his/her family and become a psychologic adult. A case was presented in which the crime of child abandonment was committed by an adolescent who was still deeply enmeshed interpersonally with her mother and had not yet achieved a separate identity as an adult. The psychiatric findings were presented to the Court after a plea bargain had been struck and prior to sentencing. They conveyed the belief, in lay terms, that moral responsibility for this crime was collective, to be borne in part by the perpetrator's family. The Court responded humanely with a suspended sentence, conditioned on psychotherapy, allowing the young mother to remain together with her first child. Not only does this article suggest the value of an understanding of adolescent psychiatric concepts for the forensic psychiatrist, it also suggests that the more subtle aspects of assigning responsibility can be better evaluated by the court at the time of sentencing than during the trial phase.     

The thin blue line meets the big blue sky: perceptions of police legitimacy and public attitudes towards aerial drones

Police departments across the United States are now integrating new visual monitoring technology (e.g. unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs or ‘drones’], body cameras) into routine police practices. Despite their potential use in multiple areas of proactive and reactive policing, public attitudes toward police use of UAVs, and visual monitoring technology overall, is mixed. As an extension of previous research, the current study uses a national survey to assess how well individuals’ perceptions about police legitimacy, effectiveness, and other criminal justice attitudes predict the level of public receptivity and opposition toward police UAV use in various contexts. The implications of these findings for public policy and law enforcement practices are discussed.