By: Sophie Butchers,
on 2/25/2016
This month, we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. Apart from being an occasion for celebration too good to pass up, it is also a good opportunity to take stock of the last ten years and look to what the next ten might hold.
The post A “quiet revolution” in policing appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Daniel Hall,
on 1/10/2015
It’s important to preface any examination of a ‘typical day’ as a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) with the reminder that the role responsibilities are remarkably varied. The role is interpreted, empowered, and utilised in different ways across each individual constabulary, which is reflected in a number of ways, from the different powers invested with PCSOs by a Chief Constable, to the uniforms that they wear during the course of duty. For example, some PCSOs carry handcuffs and others do not. Communities will have individual needs that you will need to tailor yourself to – a normal day for a town based officer will be noticeably different from that of a rural based officer. This necessity to adapt to ever-changing situations, demands, and challenges is one of the most rewarding elements of the role.
Equally, there are some key core functions that will always be a constant for any officer. The primary function of a PCSO that transcends all policing borders is the localised contact and familiar police presence that they provide on a daily basis. This channel of communication between the police and the local community is often achieved through high visibility patrolling (normally on foot or bicycle), engaging with residents and businesses about emerging issues or concerns, and attendance at key community groups. Other central aspects of the role can include development of community-based projects, the provision of crime prevention and safety advice, and also the employment of problem-solving techniques to resolve low-level incidents that have been referred to you from within the extended policing family.Being a PCSO gives officers continued contact with a particular geographical area so they will often be the first to identify trends in social issues, crime, and anti-social behaviour, as well as more vulnerable members of the community that may require additional support.
As a specialist in a particular community, you are expected to gain vital intelligence that will support the wider policing function, and you will be required to liaise extensively with residents, businesses, and other partner agencies to gain detailed information. The knowledge that you obtain from speaking with people as a PCSO could be crucial in detecting or preventing an offence. Equally your presence may prevent an offence from occurring and offers a considerable amount of public reassurance. All of these activities outlined above can comprise the basis for a typical day as a PCSO, but you may also be presented with something totally unexpected that you have never previously encountered.
There are many elements to the PCSO role that make it a truly outstanding career to pursue. The team ethos within the policing environment is exceptional and the limitless support from colleagues is a true testament to the people that work within the police service, whatever their position. Having personal ownership for a particular community is my favourite aspect of the role as it allows you to develop strong associations with local residents and businesses. You will often be the recognised face of policing for many residents and they will appreciate your presence and assistance: you have a unique opportunity with the role to break down barriers between the police and communities. There is also the potential to develop entirely new ideas and imaginative solutions to problems. Witnessing these self-generated ideas develop and flourish into long term community projects is incredibly rewarding, and you certainly finish each shift knowing that you have made a difference to your particular community.
Personally, I viewed the PCSO role as an excellent opportunity to engage with a diverse range of people, contribute to the development and growth of local communities, whilst also working to address problems that were affecting people from a policing perspective. Having always been passionate about a career within the police service, I felt it could offer unique experiences and challenges, allow me to help others, whilst also being immensely rewarding and stimulating.
I also found the theoretical side of policing and criminal justice extremely interesting and I relished the chance to gain practical experience in the policing field. My career as a PCSO has delivered all of these things and immeasurably more.
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By: Alice,
on 5/26/2014
The mafia never dies; the state can destroy mafiosi but not the mafia – such proclamations are common, especially among mafiosi, who believe the Thing, the Organization, is always out there ready to sanction them. Few law enforcement officials or criminologists are prepared to declare any mafia dead either. For the former, the mafia makes for a colourful enemy, while the latter would have a hard time knowing whether a mafia, as a secretive organization that attempts to sell protection and regulate illegal and legal markets, truly has died. Police departments can get extra funding and government support by playing up to the threat of a conspiratorial, hydra-headed mafia monster. Governments can blame shadowy mafia figures or immigrant alien conspiracies for problems of crime and violence and other failings, while ‘transnational organized crime’ can be invoked to demonize and justify meddling in other countries, particularly in the age of the ‘war on terror’.
Nevertheless, states do occasionally attack mafia-like organizations. There are numerous examples of anti-mafia policies from different countries all with varying levels of success. One such case is the post-Soviet republic of Georgia. An anti-mafia campaign launched there in 2005 has been heralded an overall success. This is curious given how weak the Georgian state is and the supposed embeddedness of organized crime in the post-Soviet part of the world. This leads to a puzzle then: what factors might weaken the strength of mafias and cause their decline, if not their death?
Many studies focus on state-centric factors to explain decline. Governments must make strategic decisions about when to attack the mafia as it may prove to be an expensive activity which reaps few gains in crime control or at the ballot box. In some countries, governments face violent backlashes if the mafia is challenged. In Brazil for example, the First Command of the Capital (the PCC, a prison gang that controls illegal markets on the streets) is able to virtually shut down the city of Sao Paolo if it chooses to oppose the state. Thus, mafias and states often simply exist in wary equilibrium of each other, often maintaining a negotiated connection through corrupt links on local levels. Still, at certain moments states can launch full out attacks on mafias, though success is rarely a given.
In Italy and the United States, anti-mafia legislation has enabled greater punitive measures against those who order the commission of crime and engage in patterned acts of racketeering. In Italy, law enforcement reform as well as civil society mobilization, emerging after the mob killings of the judges Falcone and Borsellino in 1992, has been relatively effective, at least in Sicily. These measures include new law enforcement techniques and heightened police coordination, including longer investigation times, the greater use of wire-tapping, entrapment, state’s witnesses, and confiscation of mafia assets and the criminalization of activities that aid the mafia. Such state policies have been recreated elsewhere, for example and most recently, in post-Soviet Georgia.
However, a simple emphasis on the policies of the state and the changes in the socio-economic environment does not account for the vulnerabilities or resilient qualities that decide whether a mafia survives or succumbs to state attack. In Georgia, I argue that, regardless of the state’s anti-mafia policy, internal contradictions within a group called the ‘thieves-in-law,’ a particularly fearsome mafia, was the real reason for the decline of this network of mafiosi there.
Strength in recruitment, for example, is a key variable in survival. Just like any organization mafias require a flow of high quality individuals to reproduce themselves. The thieves-in-law failed to do this. This failure was due to maladaptive institutional change in difficult conditions: wider criminal conflict in conditions of state-collapse led to quicker recruitment and lower quality human capital. The video embedded below discusses this in more detail.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Similarly, internal and external structuring of relations is vital for robust organization, effective adaptation, flows of information, and efficient monitoring and sanctioning. Yet the organization of criminal activities is often risky, and constantly changing in conditions of permanent insecurity and uncertainty. The thieves-in-law in Georgia did not negotiate the violent, difficult conditions of state collapse that occurred in Georgia in the 1990s at all well. It affected their ability to coordinate and regulate their network. All that was then required was the political will to go on the offensive against what was in fact disorganized crime.
The general conclusions from the Georgian case then are: rather than enjoying a vacuum of state power as we might expect, the mafia actually abhors one. Moreover, focusing on organizational vulnerabilities of organized criminals might aid our understanding of how best to tackle established and seemingly indestructible mafia groups, helping to explode the myth that the mafia is forever.
Dr Gavin Slade is an Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Toronto, Canada, having gained his PhD in Law from the University of Oxford in 2011. He is primarily interested in organized crime and prison sociology; in particular, criminological questions arising from post-Soviet societies, having lived and worked in Russia and Georgia for almost seven years. He maintains a broad interest in criminal justice reform in transitional contexts and has also worked on such issues in the non-governmental sector in Georgia. He is the author of Reorganizing Crime: Mafia and Anti-Mafia in Post-Soviet Georgia.
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Image credit: Historical building in the center of Batumi, Georgia. © Kenan Olgun via iStockphoto.
The post Does the mafia ever die? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Maggie Belnap,
on 4/12/2014
The struggle for food, water, and shelter are problems commonly associated with the poor. Not as widely addressed is the violence that surrounds poor communities. Corrupt law enforcement, rape, and slavery (to name a few), separate families, destroys homes, ruins lives, and imprisons the poor in their current situations. Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros, authors of The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence, have experience in the slums, back alleys, and streets where violence is a living, breathing being — and the work to turn those situations around. Delve into the infographic below and learn how solutions like media coverage and business intervention have begun to positively change countries like the Congo, Cambodia, Peru, and Brazil.
Download a copy of the infographic.
Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros are co-authors of The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence. Gary Haugen is the founder and president of International Justice Mission, a global human rights agency that protects the poor from violence. The largest organization of its kind, IJM has partnered with law enforcement to rescue thousands of victims of violence. Victor Boutros is a federal prosecutor who investigates and tries nationally significant cases of police misconduct, hate crimes, and international human trafficking around the country on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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The post Overcoming everyday violence [infographic] appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice,
on 2/20/2013
In 2010, Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old computer programmer and founder of Reddit, downloaded thousands of scholarly articles from the online journal archive JSTOR. He had legal access to the database through his research fellowship at Harvard University; he also, however, had a history of dramatic activism against pay-for-content online services, having previously downloaded and released roughly 100,000,000 documents from the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database, which charges eight cents per page to access public files. Given his status as a prominent “hacktivist” and the sheer quantity of files involved, law enforcement agents concluded that Swartz planned to distribute the cache of articles and indicted him on multiple felony counts carrying a possible sentence of $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison.
Swartz was slated to go to trial this year but committed suicide in early January, prompting a public outcry against the prosecution in his case. Swartz was a prominent voice in the heated debate surrounding modern copyright law and public access and use (see his 2008 “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto”). New York’s current issue contains a great feature from Wesley Yang discussing Swartz’s activism, his life, and the controversy in which he was embroiled.
In the ongoing debate over Swartz’s prosecution, we’ve pulled together a brief reading list on the issues surrounding American copyright in the digital age from OUP’s stable:
Copyright’s Paradox by Neil Weinstock Netanel
Netanel weighs current IP law against the basic right of freedom of speech. Like Swartz, he finds it unacceptably constricting.
The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Intellectual Property by Dan Hunter
A concise overview of the current state and history of IP law in America from a prominent New York University IP expert.
Copyright and Mass Digitization by Maurizio Borghi and Stavroula Karapapa
Two UK scholars discuss “whether mass digitisation is consistent with existing copyright principles.”
How to Fix Copyright by William Patry
A Senior Copyright Counsel at Google takes a look at the changing economic realities of the globalizing, digitizing world and concludes that our government must “remake our copyright laws to fit our times.”
Democracy of Sound by Alex Sayf Cummings
An overview of music piracy stretching back to the advent of recorded sound. The RIAA made headlines throughout the last decade by litigating against users who shared music online, but musicians, record companies, songwriters, and fans were navigating this territory for nearly a century before the Internet became a factor.
Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein by Gary Rosen
The story of one early 20th century musician who spent decades conducting high-profile lawsuits against the leading pop icons of the day. Though he never won a single case, Ira Arnstein managed to have a significant impact on the shape of music copyright through the decisions in his numerous cases.
Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain by Robert Spoo
Spoo homes in on the contested publication of Ulysses to reveal the impact on copyright of literary modernism (and vice versa). Characters such as Ezra Pound, the infamous publisher Samuel Roth, and of course James Joyce flesh out a revealing story about artists grappling with free speech and authorship.
Oxford University Press is committed to developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners in all areas of the law. Our practitioner programme continues to grow, with key texts in commercial law, arbitration and private international law, plus the innovative new ebook version of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice. We are also delighted to announce the new edition of the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, one of the most trusted reference resources in international law. In addition to the books you can find on this page, OUP publishes a wide range of law journals and online products.
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