Crime among irregular immigrants and the influence of internal border control

Both the number of crime suspects without legal status and the number of irregular or undocumented immigrants held in detention facilities increased substantially in theNetherlands between 1997 and 2003. In this period, theDutch state increasingly attempted to exclude irregular immigrants from the formal labour market and public provisions. At the same time the registered crime among irregular migrants rose. The 'marginalisation thesis' asserts that a larger number of migrants have become involved in crime in response to a decrease in conventional life chances. Using police and administrative data, the present study takes four alternative interpretations into consideration based on: 1) reclassification of immigrant statuses by the state and redefinition of the law, 2) criminal migration and crossborder crime, 3) changes in policing, and 4) demographic changes. A combination of factors is found to have caused the rise in crime, but the marginalisation thesis still accounts for at least 28%. These findings accentuate the need for a more thorough discussion on the intended and unintended consequences of border control for immigrant crime

Unpaid Entitlement Recovery in the Federal Industrial Relations System: Strategy and Outcomes 1952-95

Despite awards and industrial agreements providing legally binding conditions of employment, many Australian employees do not always secure their employment entitlements. The inspection and prosecution strategies adopted by or forced upon the agency tasked with monitoring and enforcing the regulations are a key factor affecting whether or not employees will recover monies owed from non-compliant employers. This article examines the outcomes of different inspection and prosecution regimes between 1952 and 1995 in the Australian federal industrial relations system, and makes three points. The first is that employer evasion of employee entitlements has been significant, and sustained. Second, the shift from routine inspections to a complaints-based inspection strategy has reduced the probability of detection and subsequently encourages employer evasion. Third, the use of prosecution as a tool of `last resort' has provided little deterrence to employer non-compliance. The extent of evasion in a centralized industrial relations system raises questions about evasion in decentralized systems

Remembering probation in Scotland

Set within the contexts of probation’s upcoming centenary in Scotland (in 2005) and the current debate about the future of criminal justice social work in Scotland (and probation in England and Wales), this article provides an account of the early history of probation in Scotland, focussing on the rarely discussed period between 1905 and 1968. Following Nellis’s (2001) injunction to develop a ‘historically tutored memory’ as a defence against the narrowing of our visions for the future, and drawing on Vanstone’s (2004) recent work on the history of the service in England and Wales, the article pieces together and seeks to understand a significant change in Scottish probation’s core identity and purpose from providing supervision as an alternative to punishment to providing ‘treatment’ as a means of reforming offenders. In the concluding discussion, the article briefly summarises the subsequent move towards a welfare-oriented approach after 1968 and, more recently the drift towards public protection as an overarching purpose (Robinson and McNeill, 2004). The article concludes that the current debate in Scotland should shift from ‘second order’ questions around organizational arrangements to ‘first order’ questions around which aspects of these various purposes and identities should endure in the 21st century