Disrupting the new orthodoxy: Emergency intervention and Indigenous social policy

This article develops a critical analysis of the ideological framework that informed the Australian Federal government’s 2007 intervention into Northern Territory Indigenous communities (ostensibly to address the problem of child sexual abuse). Continued by recently elected Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the NT ‘emergency response’ has aroused considerable public debate and scholarly inquiry. In addressing what amounts to a broad bi-partisan approach to Indigenous issues we highlight the way in which Indigenous communities are problematised and therefore subject to interventionist regimes that override differentiated Indigenous voices and intensify an internalised sense of rage occasioned by disempowering interventionist projects. We further argue that in rushing through the emergency legislation and suspending parts of the Racial Discrimination Act, the Howard and Rudd governments have in various ways perpetuated racialised and neo-colonial forms of intervention that override the rights of Indigenous people. Such policy approaches require critical understanding on the part of professions involved most directly in community practice, particularly when it comes to mounting effective opposition campaigns. The article offers a contribution to this end

Essays and studies in youth justice, crime and social control

The thesis contains a report on the published work of Richard HiI covering the nature, thematic content, significance and origins of this work in relation to selected areas of inquiry. The document also contains, as appendices, a full bibliography of selected work published by Richard Hil, a significantly abbreviated curriculum vitae, and a chronology of select research and allied publications.The following report examines the contribution my publications have made over the course of a twenty-year career in government departments (in Britain) and academic institutions (in Australia) to advancing scholarly inquiry in the areas of Youth Justice, Young People and Social Welfare, and Criminology. In the section dealing with Youth Justice publications I have given patiicular attention to a dominant and coherent area of study under the heading Families, Crime and Juvenile Justice. The conmmon thematic content of my publications focuses on the ways in which celiain individuals and social groups perceive and experience systems of social control. Additionally, the report highlights a range of allied pUblications that have dealt with the consequences of largely state-sponsored policies and practices in relation to a range of 'subject populations'. It is argued that my contribution to advancing knowledge in the above areas has been achieved in two primary ways: (a) through a range of original pubEcations based on theoretical and empirical studies, and substantial polemical and critical work; (b) through significant engagement in scholarly debate and discussion (including citation of my work in the publications of other academics) and facilitation of reflexive discussion an10ng social welfare practitioners and policy makers. Finally, the report attempts to contextualise my publications through a detailed discussion of the personal and intellectual origins of my work over the past two decades. The latter involves a general review of the sociological, criminological and social welfare literature relating to a prevailing concern with what I have broadly tenned the 'phenomenology of social control'

Synchronization of the parkinsonian globus pallidus by gap junctions

We introduce pallidal gap junctional coupling as a possible mechanism for synchronization of the GPe after dopamine depletion. In a confocal imaging study, we show the presence of the neural gap junction protein Cx36 in the human GPe, including a possible remodeling process in PD patients. Dopamine has been shown to down-regulate the conductance of gap junctions in different regions of the brain [2,3], making dopamine depletion a possible candidate for increased influence of gap junctional coupling in PD

Ideology in Public Policy: An Examination of Aggressive Paternalism and Enculturation in Indigenous Assistance Programs

Although Australian Government officially rejected a paternal assimilation strategy as public policy in the late 1960s, its policy increasingly encourages Indigenous people to adopt 'mainstream' values and objectives. This paper examines contemporary Australian policy directions for their desire to promote conformity. By exploring recent policy responses to Indigenous affairs it considers the resistance that ideologically-imposed objectives foment in subject populations. The paper highlights the weakness of coercive approaches to public policy. The discussion concludes that imposed problem definitions and solutions will not satisfy the needs that liberal traditions uphold as the social agenda of western democratic Government. More importantly, they fail to address the needs and aspirations of Australia's Indigenous people in any meaningful way

Counting the cost : Juvenile Crime, Parents and Restitution. by Richard Hil

The idea of punishing parents for the transgression of their children is hardly new