What works to boost social relations and community wellbeing? A scoping review of the evidence

Background: Social relations are recognized as an important determinant of individual & community wellbeing. The UK What Works Wellbeing Centre chose “boosting social relations” as a priority topic for systematic review. First, a scoping review was undertaken to identify evidence gaps. Methods: We searched: Cochrane database of systematic reviews, DARE, Campbell Library, DoPHER (EPPI-Centre), Joanne Briggs Institute, MEDLINE, IDOX, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Policy & Practice, Social Care Online; relevant websites. Inclusion criteria: Population – communities in OECD countries; Intervention - Any community-based intervention, change in policy, organisation or environment that were designed to boost social relations within the community; Outcomes – social relations, community wellbeing or related synonyms; Study design – systematic & non-systematic reviews published between 2005 and 2016. Studies were selected & data extracted by 3 reviewers, and summarised narratively. Results: 11,257 titles and abstracts were screened, 182 obtained in full & 29 included. Existing evidence tells us: Targeted group interventions that foster social networks & provide meaningful roles can reduce social isolation and/ or loneliness in older people; Volunteering can improve physical & mental health & wellbeing in older people; Effective community engagement produces sustainable improvements in community health & individual wellbeing. Evidence gaps: Interventions for social isolation &/ or loneliness in adults aged up to 65 years; Volunteering in people aged up to 65 years; Social network analyses; Community infrastructure (places & spaces). Stakeholder consultations identified community infrastructure (places & spaces) as the most useful topic for systematic review. Conclusions: A systematic scoping review of reviews, with stakeholder consultation, identified community infrastructure (places & spaces) as an evidence gap. Early findings from the resulting systematic review will be presented

Green criminology: shining a critical lens on environmental harm

Green criminology provides for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary engagement with environmental crimes and wider environmental harms. Green criminology applies a broad ‘‘green’’ perspective to environmental harms, ecological justice, and the study of environmental laws and criminality, which includes crimes affecting the environment and non-human nature. Within the ecological justice and species justice perspectives of green criminology there is a contention that justice systems need to do more than just consider anthropocentric notions of criminal justice, they should also consider how justice systems can provide protection and redress for the environment and other species. Green criminological scholarship has, thus, paid direct attention to theoretical questions of whether and how justice systems deal with crimes against animals and the environment; it has begun to conceptualize policy perspectives that can provide contemporary ecological justice alongside mainstream criminal justice. Moving beyond mainstream criminology’s focus on individual offenders, green criminology also explores state failure in environmental protection and corporate offending and environmentally harmful business practices. A central discussion within green criminology is that of whether environmental harm rather than environmental crime should be its focus, and whether green ‘‘crimes’’ should be seen as the focus of mainstream criminal justice and dealt with by core criminal justice agencies such as the police, or whether they should be considered as being beyond the mainstream. This article provides an introductory overview that complements a multi- and inter-disciplinary article collection dedicated to green criminological thinking and research

A systematic review of interventions to boost social relations through improvements in community infrastructure (places and spaces)

The aim of this systematic review is to synthesise the available evidence, and describe the quality of that evidence, in relation to interventions that improve or create the community infrastructure that impacts on social relations and/ or community wellbeing. For this review, we are defining community infrastructure as the physical places and spaces where people can come together, formally or informally, to interact and participate in the social life of the community. We intend to produce a synthesis which is accessible and will inform practice and future research in the area

Harmonic errors associated with the use of choppers in optical experiments.

Rotating chopper wheels are used to modulate optical radiation in many experimental systems, typically for measuring the frequency response of an optical system. The assumption is often made that the chopped radiation varies sinusoidally. In practice, the radiation may have a square wave profile. This introduces high frequency harmonics that can distort the results of frequency measurements, particularly at low frequencies. Furthermore, the use of chopper wheels with different numbers of slots in order to cover different frequency ranges can introduce further effects. A simple change to the experimental set-up can produce a signal that has an approximately trapezoidal profile. Although not an ideal sine wave, we show that the trapezoidal modulation produces a much smaller error than for square wave modulation. In our case, the measurements are applied to the frequency response of pyroelectric infrared detectors, though the results are applicable to more general measurements on optical systems

Green Criminology Before ‘Green Criminology’: Amnesia and Absences

Although the first published use of the term ‘green criminology’ seems to have been made by Lynch (Green criminology. Aldershot, Hampshire, 1990/2006), elements of the analysis and critique represented by the term were established well before this date. There is much criminological engagement with, and analysis of, environmental crime and harm that occurred prior to 1990 that deserves acknowledgement. In this article, we try to illuminate some of the antecedents of green criminology. Proceeding in this way allows us to learn from ‘absences’, i.e. knowledge that existed but has been forgotten. We conclude by referring to green criminology not as an exclusionary label or barrier but as a symbol that guides and inspires the direction of research