Benefits broods:the cultural and political crafting of anti-welfare commonsense

In the aftermath of the global banking crises, a political economy of permanent state austerity has emerged, driven by and legitimated through a hardening anti-welfare commonsense. We argue that, while there is an excellent evidence base emerging around solidifying negative public attitudes towards welfare, critical policy studies needs to attend to the cultural as well as the political economies through which an anti-welfare commonsense is formed and legitimated. To this end, in this article we adopt a ‘cultural political economy’ (Jessop, 2010; Sum & Jessop, 2013) approach to examine the co-production of the Welfare Reform Act (2012), (and in particular the Household Benefits Cap element of this legislation), and the cultural and political crafting of “benefit brood” families within the wider public sphere, to examine the mechanisms through which anti-welfare sentiments are produced and mediated. Our analysis begins with the case of Mick Philpott, who was found guilty in 2013 of the manslaughter of six of his children. We will show how this case activated ‘mechanisms of consent’ (Hall et al. 1978) around ideas of acceptable family forms, welfare reform and parental responsibility. Through this case-study, we seek to demonstrate how anti-welfare commonsense is fundamentally dependent upon wider cultural representational practices, through which those who claim welfare come to be constituted as undeserving and morally repugnant, to the extent that the very concept of ‘claiming welfare’ is reconceived within the social imaginary as debauched. Figures such as ‘benefits broods’, we argue, operate both as technologies of control (through which to manage precariat populations), but also as technologies of consent through which a wider and deeper anti-welfare commonsense is effected

Street Stops and Police Legitimacy in New York

Police-initiated citizen encounters in American cities often are non-neutral events. Encounters range from routine traffic stops to police interdiction of pedestrians during their everyday movements through both residential and commercial areas to aggressive enforcement of social disorder offenses. As a crime detection and control strategy central to the “new policing,” these encounters often are unproductive and inefficient. They rarely result in arrest or seizure of contraband, and often provoke ill will between citizens and legal authorities that discourages citizen cooperation with police and compliance with law. In this chapter, we describe the range of potentially adverse reactions or harms that SQF or ‘street’ policing may produce. We next link those harms to a broader set of normative concerns that connect dignity, harm and police legitimacy. In the third section we review the evidence that connects citizen views of police – as well as their experience with police – to their perceptions of the legitimacy of the police and criminal legal institutions generally. We also review the evidence that links those perceptions to how citizens behave with respect to law, and identify the consequences of adverse reactions of citizens to harsh forms of street policing. We discuss alternative frameworks for regulation and democratic control of the new policing to link police legitimacy with guardianship of communities

Lawful or Fair? How Cops and Laypeople Perceive Good Policing

Legal authorities and the public live in two separate worlds. One world is suffused with law, and the other world is suffused with people’s lived experiences that support their evaluations of fairness. When legal authorities consider whether police policies and practices are desirable, a framework regarding the lawfulness of the relevant policies and practices dominates the conversation. Police departments, their policies, and police officers’ actions are viewed as right or wrong with reference to constitutional standards, as interpreted by prosecutors, judges, and other legal actors. In contrast, we argue that the public is generally insensitive to the question of whether police officers act consistently with constitutional standards. Instead, the public evaluates the propriety of police actions primarily by assessing whether police officers exercise their authority with “procedural fairness.” We rely on the results of an innovative nationwide experimental survey involving respondents from representative American cities. Each survey respondent completed a questionnaire and then watched and reacted to three videos of police–citizen interactions. We argue that the actual lawfulness of police action has at best a minor influence on public evaluations of appropriate police behavior. Public judgments about whether police officers should be disciplined for misconduct are largely shaped by people’s procedural justice evaluations. We believe that these findings strongly support the need for police to broaden the framework within which they evaluate a variety of types of policing policy—racial profiling, zero tolerance policing, street stops, mosque surveillance, etc.—to include an understanding of how these policies and practices impact public views about the appropriateness of police conduct. Whether policies comport with constitutional standards alone is an impoverished way to judge the rightfulness of police action. Further, our findings point the way toward creating relationships between the police and the public that both enhance cooperative efforts to maintain social order and build people’s identification with and commitment to both the communities in which they live and to law and government. That broader framework requires evaluating police policies and practices with reference to public conceptions of procedural justice

The Salience of Social Contextual Factors in Appraisals of Police Interactions with Citizens: A Randomized Factorial Experiment

Objectives: Prior research indicates that public assessments of the manner in which the police exercise their authority are a key antecedent of judgments about the legitimacy of the police. In this study, the importance of context in influencing people’s assessment of police wrongdoing is examined. Methods: A randomized factorial experiment was used to test how respondents perceive and evaluate police–citizens interactions along a range of types of situations and encounters. 1,361 subjects were surveyed on factors hypothesized to be salient influences on how citizens perceive and evaluate citizen interactions with police. Subjects viewed videos of actual police – citizen encounters and were asked for their evaluations of these observed encounters. Contextual primes were used to focus subjects on particular aspects of the context within which the encounter occurs. Results: Structural equation models revealed that social contextual framing factors, such as the climate of police – community relations and the legality of the stop that led to the encounter, influence citizen appraisals of police behavior with effects comparable in size to and even larger than demographic variables such as education, race, and income. Conclusions: These results suggest that the understandings and perceptions that people bring to a situation are important determinants of their assessment of police fairness. The police can positively influence citizen interpretations of police actions by striving to create a climate of positive police–community relationships in cities

Re-imagining Public Safety: Prevent Harm and Lead with the Truth

This report is a joint effort between the Center for Policing Equity and the Yale Justice Collaboratory. The goal is to highlight the policies that science and experience say have the best chance to make the most progress towards producing public safety systems that are both effective and align with our values. This is not an exhaustive list. But it does represent the policies we believe should lead the charge towards re-imagining public safety

Quantitative Research Methods for Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration for Undergraduates: 1st Edition With Applications in Excel

Quantitative Research Methods for Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration for Undergraduates: 1st Edition With Applications in Excel is an adaption of Quantitative Research Methods for Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration (With Applications in R). The focus of this book is on using quantitative research methods to test hypotheses and build theory in political science, public policy and public administration. This new version is designed specifically for undergraduate courses. It omits large portions of the original text that focused on calculus and linear algebra, expands and reorganizes the content on the software system by shifting to Excel and includes guided study questions at the end of each chapter.https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-oer/1003/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, November 2, 2006

Escape Velocity Dancers Light Up the Stage in the Black Box Theater • Letter to the Editor • Drive to Support the Troops a Success • Ursinus Homecoming 2006: There\u27s No Place Like Home • Blood Drive a Success on Campus • Batteries Included • A Look at Muslim Women in History: Professor Barbara R. von Schlegell Speaks • UC\u27s Opportunity to Support American Troops • Haunting Tales from Main Street • 2008 Preview: Part I • Opinions: Iraq: Should We Stay or Should We Go? • Football Pounds Hopkins on Homecoming • One Win and In for Women\u27s Soccer • Homecoming Victory for Field Hockeyhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1723/thumbnail.jp

Feasibility randomised controlled trial of Recovery-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Older Adults with bipolar disorder (RfCBT-OA): study protocol

Introduction: Bipolar disorder is a severe and chronic mental health problem that persists into older adulthood. The number of people living with this condition is set to rise as the UK experiences a rapid ageing of its population. To date, there has been very little research or service development with respect to psychological therapies for this group of people. Methods and analysis: A parallel two-arm randomised controlled trial comparing a 14-session, 6-month Recovery-focused Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Older Adults with bipolar disorder (RfCBT-OA) plus treatment as usual (TAU) versus TAU alone. Participants will be recruited in the North-West of England via primary and secondary mental health services and through self-referral. The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of RfCBT-OA; therefore, a formal power calculation is not appropriate. It has been estimated that randomising 25 participants per group will be sufficient to be able to reliably determine the primary feasibility outcomes (eg, recruitment and retention rates), in line with recommendations for sample sizes for feasibility/pilot trials. Participants in both arms will complete assessments at baseline and then every 3 months, over the 12-month follow-up period. We will gain an estimate of the likely effect size of RfCBTOA on a range of clinical outcomes and estimate parameters needed to determine the appropriate sample size for a definitive, larger trial to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of RfCBT-OA. Data analysis is discussed further in the Analysis section in the main paper. Ethics and dissemination: This protocol was approved by the UK National Health Service (NHS) Ethics Committee process (REC ref: 15/NW/0330). The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peerreviewed journals, national and international conference presentations and local, participating NHS trusts. Trial registration number: ISRCTN13875321; Preresults

Principles of Procedurally Just Policing

The guiding principle of this document is that police departments' policies should be conducive to building and maintaining law enforcement legitimacy and public trust. By legitimacy, we mean the public's belief that the authority enforcing the law has the right to do so. We emphasize this concept because empirical evidence persuasively demonstrates that perceptions of legitimacy have a greater impact on compliance with the law than do instrumental factors, such as sanctions imposed by authorities on individuals who commit crimes. The more legitimate members of the public perceive actors in the criminal justice system to be, the more likely they will be to obey the law.The theory of procedural justice is grounded in the idea that people's perceptions of police legitimacy will be influenced more by their experience of interacting with officers than by the end result of those interactions. For instance, a driver's perception of his experience of being stopped by a police officer will depend less on whether he receives a ticket, and more on whether he feels the officer has treated him in a "procedurally just" way. Individuals evaluate whether they have received procedurally just treatment by considering four central features of their interactions: whether they were treated with dignity and respect, whether they were given voice, whether the decision-maker was neutral and transparent, and whether the decision-maker conveyed trustworthy motives. Research demonstrates that when members of the public perceive police officers to behave in a procedurally just manner, they have a more positive view not only of their individual encounters with those officers, but of the legitimacy of law enforcement more generally.Notably, the recommendations made herein are in concert with those of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing