The Deviance of the Zookeepers

In May 1968 Alvin Gouldner published his attack on the ‘Becker School’ of sociology (‘The Sociologist as Partisan’). The essay was a sometimes sarcastic and brutal but characteristically insightful and sharp critique of what he called the ‘Becker School’ of sociology – especially as it related to law-breaking and norm-transgressing outsiders. In attacking the failure of ‘sceptical deviancy theory’ to confront the wider structural sources of power and authority, its seeming inability to address gross social divisions of wealth and status, and its lack of attention to the larger political and economic interests that were embedded in departments of State and industrial and financial corporations alike, Gouldner pinpointed with some accuracy the radical motivations of the soon-to-emerge ‘new criminology’ – in both its ‘left idealist’ and ‘left realist’ guises. What Gouldner’s essay really exposed was a certain kind of ‘deviant imagination’ (c.f., Pearson, 1975) prevalent in the emerging critical criminologies of 1960s America (and then the UK, see Young, 1969). In this paper I use Gouldner’s essay as a lens to investigate the ‘deviant imagination’ of contemporary critical criminologies and ask: who are the zookeepers of contemporary criminology and what is their deviant imagination

Criminal Degradations of Consumer Culture

In this chapter I take a ‘social harm’ approach to explore some of the degrading impacts of modern consumerism. My aim is to explore the harmful, often criminal, sometimes fatal consequences that attend the supply of consumer goods in contemporary capitalist societies. At the same time, I note that a focus on social harm begs some very fundamental questions about criminology as an academic discipline – or ‘field’ of study. When a cradle-to-grave assessment of consumer goods is undertaken it reveals that many personal and environmental degradations are nothing more than the ordinary means by which objects are produced, distributed and discarded in contemporary societies. In order to unpack the mundane character of the degradations of a consumer culture I use the example of prawn production but my more general argument is that what is true for prawns is true for (almost) any consumer object

The Woodlouse Hunter Occurs in Michigan (Araneae: Dysderidae: \u3ci\u3eDysdera Crocata\u3c/i\u3e C.l. Koch 1838)

We document the occurrence of the spider, Dysdera crocata C.L. Koch, in Michigan. Specimens have been collected from Bay, Branch, Ingham, Kent, Livingston, Macomb, Montcalm, Muskegon, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne Counties between 1975-2013

Development of e-SIWES Portal: A Web based Platform for Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) Management

We developed the e-SIWES portal in order to enhance the manual task of carrying out SIWES activities such as registration, dissemination of information, filling of log book for students’ day-to-day activities and supervision/assessment by lecturers and industry based supervisors. The portal is web-based and allows all tasks to be carried out using the personal computer and the Internet. We digitized the SIWES logbook and assessment forms for filling by students and grading by the supervisors electronically. This will allow supervisors to be assigned immediately the students commence their industrial training and facilitate their monitoring in real-time. With the e-SIWES portal, important messages can be broadcast to all students at once and on a prompt and regular basis

Responsible corporate governance in Europe

The latest European Union’s (EU) guiding policies are encouraging big businesses and state-owned organisations to provide a fair and truthful view of their respective entities’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. At present, European member states are transposing directive 2014/95/EU on non-financial reporting. The EU’s “comply or explain” approach has presented a significant step forward toward the corporations’ active engagement on corporate governance disclosure and transparency. Hence, this chapter makes specific reference to some of the corporations’ best practices as it identifies areas for improvement in corporate governance issues. It explains how three major European banks have reviewed the roles and responsibilities of corporate boards and management. In many cases, they have anticipated any regulatory, legal, contractual, social and market-driven obligations as they helped stakeholders to exercise their rights. This contribution contends that there are significant implications for financial services corporations who intend following the right path toward responsible corporate governance and ethical behaviours.peer-reviewe

Stability of Noisy Metropolis-Hastings

Pseudo-marginal Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for sampling from intractable distributions have gained recent interest and have been theoretically studied in considerable depth. Their main appeal is that they are exact, in the sense that they target marginally the correct invariant distribution. However, the pseudo-marginal Markov chain can exhibit poor mixing and slow convergence towards its target. As an alternative, a subtly different Markov chain can be simulated, where better mixing is possible but the exactness property is sacrificed. This is the noisy algorithm, initially conceptualised as Monte Carlo within Metropolis (MCWM), which has also been studied but to a lesser extent. The present article provides a further characterisation of the noisy algorithm, with a focus on fundamental stability properties like positive recurrence and geometric ergodicity. Sufficient conditions for inheriting geometric ergodicity from a standard Metropolis-Hastings chain are given, as well as convergence of the invariant distribution towards the true target distribution