Introduction to special issue - Security and the Centrality of Jurisdiction

No abstract Received: 2021-05-21Revised: 2021-05-2

Jurisdiction and Security

On June 16, 2022, the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS)-Vancouver hosted a Digital Roundtable titled Jurisdiction and Security, conducted by Dr. Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, a Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies (CMSS) at the University of Calgary. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS-Vancouver executives. The discussion topics centred around the jurisdictional challenges that limit security responses to Canadian national security threats and how security networks must be established to tackle these evolving threats

The global and the local: precautionary behaviors in the realms of crime, health, and home safety

Open accessExpressions of anxieties are examined in the realms of crime, health and home safety. We consider protective behaviours that individuals undertake in each of these realms as potential outlets for the expression of anxiety; the way in which elements of social context such as age, education and income, and biographical factors including past experiences, perceived control, and anxieties about future events contribute to protective behaviours within each realm is examined. Findings indicate different factors drive precautionary behaviours for men and women, suggesting gender as a lens through which precautionary behaviours are taken up. Global anxiety inconsistently predicts precautionary behaviours — a finding that questions both the utility of and the theoretical significance of global anxiety. Local (individual) negative experiences within these realms play an important role in predicting preventative behaviour, although the impact of negative experiences among the realms and between the sexes is inconsistent. Light is shed on the relationship between global anxieties and local expressions suggesting that behaviour may have a far more local element than might be expected.Ye

Gambling and Risk Behaviour: A Literature Review

Determining the connections between gambling and other forms of risk activity is a complicated task. The research literature is not clear on the nature of the relationship between gambling and risk activity and, specifically, whether behaviours that appear somewhat similar derive from the same or different sources. On the one hand, researchers tend to use risk activities to predict certain other risk activities – a strategy that relies on the assumption that these activities stem from different sources. Still other studies suggest that risk activity, including gambling, are symptomatic of an underlying issue or issues and are therefore related and unsuited to use in causal models. In this review, we take a high level approach and establish the factors that are commonly associated with and used to explain both gambling and various risk activities. Demographic features come to the fore, including age, sex, socioeconomic status (SES) and family background. We then consider particular types of risk activities which are frequently discussed in the research literature. While the range of risk activity is far‐reaching, we limit our discussion to particular types of risk activity – those that tend to be most frequently discussed in tandem with gambling activity, including: alcohol use, drug use, smoking, and suicidal behaviour; also briefly referring to other less prominent types of risk activity, such as ‘risky’ sexual activity. The relationship between drinking and gambling, for example, is a mainstay of the gambling literature. Finally, we consider the explanations used to link these behaviours together, drawing specifically upon sociological, psychological and economic accounts of these behaviours. To establish these connections and identify themes, an extensive review of the literature was conducted using a number of databases, as detailed in Appendices One and Two. The initial search of the literature involved the identification of over 80,000 items, which were subsequently reduced through the use of Endnote (a bibliographic software) to include only the material deemed best suited to exploring the question of gambling’s link to other risk activity.NoAlberta Gaming Research Institut

Working girls: a study of youthful involvement in Calgary street prostitution

Bibliography: p. 169-177.This exploratory study considers the phenomenon of youthful participation in prostitution in Calgary from a number of angles - all of which reiterate the pathology/rational choice dilemma that typically characterizes involvement in prostitution. Viewing juvenile prostitution as a form of pathology - the young person as a victim - or as rational choice - the young person as making a rational choice in light of the circumstances he or she faces - is explored through the use of various methods, designed to highlight both macro and micro perspectives. The history of prostitution law in Canada epitomizes the pathology/rational choice quandary. Never has prostitution itself been illegal, only activities associated with it. The involvement of juveniles in prostitution emphasizes this dilemma through the simultaneous application of both the Young Offenders Act and the Child Welfare Act - one stressing responsibility, the other protection. This duality is reflected to some degree in the sentencing patterns of youths compared with adults. Examination of extra-legal factors, however, emphasizes gender - although it is confounded with role, i.e. prostitute or customer - as a more important determinant than age of offender in sentencing outcome. Thirty-six male and female prostitutes were interviewed, including eleven juveniles. Interviews with these respondents comprised the micro-examination of prostitution. Their opinions were probed in order to get the 'street level' interpretation of their involvement in prostitution, and the motivations that keep these young people on the street. Finally, our focus broadens once again to a macro perspective. The phenomenon of juvenile prostitution is considered through a comparison of other criminal activity that young people are involved in; the economic situation of young people more generally; family structure; and education levels. It was determined that from a macro-perspective the phenomenon of juvenile prostitution as increasing or decreasing ultimately depends on one's perspective - absolute numbers of arrests indicate an increase in the phenomenon, whereas proportions of juveniles arrested indicate that juvenile prostitution is declining

Gambling in context : the socio-cultural domain

This literature review is organized upon the basis of the gambling event model, with a discussion first of the precursors to gambling, gambling activity itself, followed by a discussion of the aftermath or outcome of gambling activities. Each of these sections is accompanied by a similarly-labeled section in the annotated bibliography which follows this summary. It must be noted that in the interests of brevity, not all the literature included in the bibliography is addressed here. Rather, only selected highlights appear here. We urge readers to consider the annotated bibliography itself to gain the greatest appreciation of the range of included references. At the end of our discussion, we briefly introduce the websites included in the bibliography, as well as highlight the contributions of our list of experts to the study of gambling in North America

Contrasting Approaches to Terrorism: A Multi-National Comparison

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom began the task of framing these events through their many public addresses and speeches. Given their different geographic locations and political cultures, and their experiences with terrorism, the ways in which these attacks were framed differed. Each prime minister was concerned with managing local circumstances in the face of global challenges to security. As the most public representatives of their respective countries, their effort to frame events in particular ways is critically important in terms of how the local and global public interprets events.  We examine the period immediately following 9/11 and consider how communication about these events was impacted by general and specific terrorist security threats against these countries; their respective political histories with the United States; and the resources available to each prime minister (and his country) to address these concerns. Finally, we consider the legislation that has been put in place by these three countries to deal with terrorism