Criminal Injustice

As its title suggests, Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free is a wide-ranging critique of our criminal justice system. While it is hardly the first, it offers a number of distinctive insights. Most of the now voluminous work on this topic is written by scholars, policy analysts, or journalists and is addressed to the legislature or the executive. This certainly makes sense. External observers are well positioned to critique a system that punishes without purpose, and the major determinants of its dysfunction are the legislature that enacts the criminal law and the executive that enforces it. In contrast, the author of this book, Jed S. Rakoff, is a sitting federal judge, and he provides a specifically judicial perspective. This appears in at least two of the book’s most notable features: its juxtaposition of its subject matter and its discussion of the way that general trends in our criminal law impact the work of judges

Crisis Response and IT Use Literature Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Crisis response highly depends on managers’ use of information technologies (IT). Given the growing frequency of crisis, it is urgent to concretely investigate IT use in crisis response. Still, crisis characteristics have been tacitly overlooked in the literature on IT usage. As a result, both researchers and managers rely on a routine view of IT usage that does not match to the reality of crisis. Knowledge on IT usage in crisis response is missing and managers lack specific recommendations regarding IT use. The objective of this paper is to respond to that gap by proposing a literature review of the variables that affect crisis response and are likely to differ from routine to crisis situation. From this review, we suggest some potential questions for future research on IT usage. Doing so, we promote more salient recommendations on IT use to managers and IT professionals

Measuring the Efficacy of Leaders to Assess Information and Make Decisions in a Crisis: The C-LEAD Scale

Based on literature and expert interviews, we developed the Crisis Leader Efficacy in Assessing and Deciding scale (C-LEAD) to capture the efficacy of leaders to assess information and make decisions in a public health and safety crisis. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that C-LEAD predicts decision-making difficulty and confidence in a crisis better than a measure of general leadership efficacy. In Study 3, C-LEAD predicts greater motivation to lead in a crisis, more crisis leader role-taking, and more accurate performance while in a crisis leader role. These findings support the scale's construct validity and broaden our theoretical understanding of the nature of crisis leader efficacy.

Good practices in inter-institutional collaboration in managing the migrant crisis

In 2021, Lithuania faced the challenge of managing the crisis of new type of migration across the Belarusian border, which threatened the security of the country and its citizens. A broad set of inter-institutional collaboration strategies and methods were used among the public institutions to address this crisis. Such inter-institutional collaboration has been a multifaceted and complex process, involving both known and new good practices. The aim of this article is to provide insights into good collaborative practices between the Lithuanian national defence and internal affairs systems in managing the migrant crisis. Following the expert interview results, the study identified three good practices of inter-institutional collaboration: (i) the creation of a single dissemination channel for the crisis response services, which ensured that all actors were in the same information field; (ii) the delegation of representatives of the institutions to teams at strategic, operational and tactical levels; and (iii) inter-institutional information sharing ensured good situational awareness at an early stage of emergency management. Lessons learned from the collaboration between the institutions of the national defence and internal affairs systems can be applied to improve inter-institutional collaboration in other areas. The results of the research can be used to enhance the process of such collaboration in addressing current emergency management issues and serve as a basis for effective and smooth emergency preparedness and response where inter-institutional synergy is needed

DECISIONS IN THE DARK: A FRAMEWORK FOR DECISION-MAKING IN UNFAMILIAR SITUATIONS

This thesis seeks to understand an appropriate decision-making framework for the fire service to use in unfamiliar situations. Firefighters and emergency responders rely on pattern recognition when they are presented with familiar situations; however, relying on such intuition can result in costly time delays. A case study method was used to evaluate decision-making during disasters in the fire service and the mining industry. The fire service cases include the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire and the fire service response to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The mining case studies, both of which occurred in 2010, include the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the Chilean mine collapse. The fire service cases were assessed to determine which decision-making tools were utilized and what additional factors influenced positive and negative outcomes throughout the events. The mining cases were evaluated to understand organizational structures and response systems. This thesis recommends that fire service leaders utilize expanded interdisciplinary teams to creatively seek alternative solutions when addressing unfamiliar problems. Using such teams will require leaders to expand response frameworks and alter familiar patterns of response to include outside agencies and nontraditional emergency responders. Finally, leaders should deliberately encourage open communication about successes and failures to encourage collaboration and innovation throughout the response.Civilian, Portland Fire and RescueApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Measuring the Efficacy of Leaders to Assess Information and Make Decisions in a Crisis: The C-LEAD Scale.

Based on literature and expert interviews, we developed the Crisis Leader Efficacy in Assessing and Deciding scale (C-LEAD) to capture the efficacy of leaders to assess information and make decisions in a public health and safety crisis. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that C-LEAD predicts decision-making difficulty and confidence in a crisis better than a measure of general leadership efficacy. In Study 3, C-LEAD predicts greater motivation to lead in a crisis, more crisis leader role-taking, and more accurate performance while in a crisis leader role. These findings support the scale’s construct validity and broaden our theoretical understanding of the nature of crisis leader efficacy

Measuring the Efficacy of Leaders to Assess Information and Make Decisions in a Crisis: The C-LEAD Scale

Based on literature and expert interviews, we developed the Crisis Leader Efficacy in Assessing and Deciding scale (C-LEAD) to capture the efficacy of leaders to assess information and make decisions in a public health and safety crisis. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that C-LEAD predicts decision-making difficulty and confidence in a crisis better than a measure of general leadership efficacy. In Study 3, C-LEAD predicts greater motivation to lead in a crisis, more crisis leader role-taking, and more accurate performance while in a crisis leader role. These findings support the scale’s construct validity and broaden our theoretical understanding of the nature of crisis leader efficacy

Transboundary impacts of the 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster : focus on legal dilemmas in South Florida

Catastrophic disasters affect not just the areas/regions and countries where they strike, but also have transboundary effects and repercussions on neighboring countries, which often serve as receiving areas for displaced survivors. South Florida, for example, served as a receiving area for earthquake survivors after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. To understand the transboundary sociolegal impacts on host communities, we draw theoretical insights from research on transboundary crises and interviewed key members of school districts, city and county governments, non-profit organizations, relief task forces, the Haitian-American diaspora, and local government agencies. We also looked at relevant plans/policies modified by governmental and non-governmental institutions in response to the legal issues that arose. The findings highlight the manner in which street-level workers in state and non-state organizations deal with legal complexities and ramifications, along with the role played by the Haitian-American diaspora actors and their networks. Los desastres por catástrofes no afectan solo a las áreas/regiones y países a los que golpean, sino que también tienen efectos transfronterizos y repercuten en los países vecinos, que a menudo sirven como áreas de recepción para los sobrevivientes desplazados. El sur de Florida, por ejemplo, sirvió como área de acogida para los supervivientes del terremoto de Haiti de 2010. Para entender el impacto sociojurídico a nivel transfronterizo en las comunidades de acogida, se trazan nuevas percepciones teóricas a partir de la investigación de crisis transfronterizas, y mediante entrevistas a miembros clave de distritos escolares, gobiernos de ciudades y condados, organizaciones sin ánimos de lucro, grupos de trabajo de auxilio, la diáspora haitiano-estadounidense, y agencias del gobierno local. También se estudian los planes/políticas relevantes, modificados por las instituciones gubernamentales y no gubernamentales para responder a las cuestiones jurídicas que se plantearon. Los resultados destacan cómo se enfrentan los trabajadores a nivel de calle de las organizaciones estatales y no estatales a las complejidades y consecuencias legales, junto con el papel desempeñado por los protagonistas de la diáspora haitiano-estadounidense y sus redes de contactos