Securing the premises

How effective are different home security devices, on their own and in combination with others? Andromachi Tseloni and Rebecca Thompson analyse crime survey data in search of answers

All-Wales licensed premises intervention (AWLPI): a randomised controlled trial to reduce alcohol-related violence

Background: Alcohol-related violence in and in the vicinity of licensed premises continues to place a considerable burden on the United Kingdom’s (UK) health services. Robust interventions targeted at licensed premises are therefore required to reduce the costs of alcohol-related harm. Previous evaluations of interventions in licensed premises have a number of methodological limitations and none have been conducted in the UK. The aim of the trial was to determine the effectiveness of the Safety Management in Licensed Environments intervention designed to reduce alcohol-related violence in licensed premises, delivered by Environmental Health Officers, under their statutory authority to intervene in cases of violence in the workplace.<p></p> Methods/Design: A national randomised controlled trial, with licensed premises as the unit of allocation. Premises were identified from all 22 Local Authorities in Wales. Eligible premises were those with identifiable violent incidents on premises, using police recorded violence data. Premises were allocated to intervention or control by optimally balancing by Environmental Health Officer capacity in each Local Authority, number of violent incidents in the 12 months leading up to the start of the project and opening hours. The primary outcome measure is the difference in frequency of violence between intervention and control premises over a 12 month follow-up period, based on a recurrent event model. The trial incorporates an embedded process evaluation to assess intervention implementation, fidelity, reach and reception, and to interpret outcome effects, as well as investigate its economic impact.<p></p> Discussion: The results of the trial will be applicable to all statutory authorities directly involved with managing violence in the night time economy and will provide the first formal test of Health and Safety policy in this environment. If successful, opportunities for replication and generalisation will be considered.<p></p&gt

The Inconceivable Popularity of Conceivability Arguments

Famous examples of conceivability arguments include (i) Descartes’ argument for mind-body dualism, (ii) Kripke's ‘modal argument’ against psychophysical identity theory, (iii) Chalmers’ ‘zombie argument’ against materialism, and (iv) modal versions of the ontological argument for theism. In this paper, we show that for any such conceivability argument, C, there is a corresponding ‘mirror argument’, M. M is deductively valid and has a conclusion that contradicts C's conclusion. Hence, a proponent of C—henceforth, a ‘conceivabilist’—can be warranted in holding that C's premises are conjointly true only if she can find fault with one of M's premises. But M's premises are modelled on a pair of C's premises. The same reasoning that supports the latter supports the former. For this reason, a conceivabilist can repudiate M's premises only on pain of severely undermining C's premises. We conclude on this basis that all conceivability arguments, including each of (i)–(iv), are fallacious

The Self-Undermining Arguments from Disagreement

Arguments from disagreement against moral realism begin by calling attention to widespread, fundamental moral disagreement among a certain group of people. Then, some skeptical or anti-realist-friendly conclusion is drawn. Chapter 2 proposes that arguments from disagreement share a structure that makes them vulnerable to a single, powerful objection: they self-undermine. For each formulation of the argument from disagreement, at least one of its premises casts doubt either on itself or on one of the other premises. On reflection, this shouldn’t be surprising. These arguments are intended to support very strong metaphysical or epistemological conclusions about morality. They must therefore employ very strong metaphysical or epistemological premises. But, given the pervasiveness of disagreement in philosophy, especially about metaphysics and epistemology, very strong premises are virtually certain to be the subject of widespread, intractable disagreement—precisely the sort of disagreement that proponents of these arguments think undermine moral claims. Thus, these arguments undermine their own premises. If Chapter 2’s argument is sound, it provides realists with a single, unified strategy for responding to any existing or forthcoming arguments from disagreement

Reporting rates of assaults on licensed premises by licensed premises staff: 2012-2013

There is no evidence licensed premises are systematically concealing assaults in a bid to avoid losing their liquor license or to avoid having restrictions imposed on their trading hours, according to this report. Aim To determine whether there has been any change in the rate of reporting of assaults on licensed premises by staff in 2012-2013 in both the top 100 and unranked licensed premises for assaults. This paper also briefly examines the characteristics of both offenders and victims of assaults on licensed premises. Method A random sample of 800 assaults (400 from top 100 premises and 400 from unranked premises) from January 2012 to December 2013 were tabulated and coded for relevant information. SPSS was then used to determine proportions of victims and offenders in various categories and any trends in reporting. Trend tests were carried out using χ2. Results There was no statistically significant trend in the proportion of reports of assaults emanating from staff on licensed premises

Is the decrease in assaults at licensed premises being driven by changes in staff reporting rates?

Aim: To determine whether changes to legislation and regulation of licensed premises have affected the willingness of staff in both Top 100 and unranked premises to report assaults on licensed premises.Method: A random sample of 1600 assaults over the period from January 2008 and December 2011, half from Top 100 premises and half from unranked premises. Kendall’s test for trend was used to determine whether there had been a change in behaviour over the period.Results: No change was detected in either series.Conclusion: The changes to legislation and regulation do not appear to have affected staff reporting rates in either Top 100 or unranked licensed premises overall. However changes in the behaviour of individual licensed premises cannot be ruled out