Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction -- 2. Research into alcohol's social harms -- 3. Alcohol and policymaking -- 4. History, culture, context, and transformation -- 5. Key lessons from Prohibition policies : beyond the 1920s -- 6. General efforts to reduce alcohol's social harms -- 7. Targeted policies: minimum drinking age laws -- 8. Concluding thoughts.

1. Introduction -- 2. Evidence-based policymaking -- 3. Correctional boot camps in the United States -- 4. Research evidence and the diffusion of public policies -- 5. Quantitative models of the diffusion and contraction of boot camps -- 6. Case studies of two states -- 7. Further analysis and future implications.

With the World Health Organization estimating that nearly four percent of global deaths are due to alcohol, alcohol misuse can be an extremely damaging social problem, and one that governments around the world have endeavored to address through a range of policy strategies. Regulating Alcohol around the World explores historical and contemporary case studies in multiple countries to gain a richer understanding of the political, economic, and other forces that influence alcohol-related policymaking. The case studies presented in the book investigate a range of different kinds of alcohol policies, including prohibition strategies, general efforts to reduce alcohol's social harms, and more targeted policies. The explanatory value of leading theories from political science, policy studies, anthropology, and other fields is assessed, with particular reference to the influence of cultural and historical factors on approaches to alcohol regulation. The book adopts a global perspective and offers guidance for students, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders about the lessons that can be learned from previous efforts to change alcohol policies. As such, it will be of interest to practitioners in the fields of health and alcohol abuse prevention, as well as scholars and students of social policy, criminology, and the sociology of health, addiction, and social problems.

In recent years, cost-benefit analysis (CBA)-the systematic weighing-up of the economic and social costs and benefits of a particular program, project, or policy, and assigning to them a monetary value-has gained increasing prominence in criminal justice policymaking in the United States and the United Kingdom. This article critically assesses CBA's emergence, exploring both the advantages and challenges it could bring to crime and justice decisions. The article traces CBA's history, and examines whether critiques that have been applied to the use of CBA in other policy domains might also apply in criminal justice. Two major theoretical frameworks-Feeley and Simon's (1992) concept of "actuarial" perspectives in criminal justice and Giddens' (1999) and Beck's (1992) ideas about the "risk society"-are drawn upon to critically evaluate CBA and situate its rise within historical, economic, and political contexts. Given the increasing reliance on CBA calculations in the US, UK, and many other countries, the need for critical assessment of this technique and its potential implications in the criminal justice sphere has never been greater.

Environmental harms exert a significant toll and pose substantial economic costs on societies around the world. Although such harms have been studied from both legal and social science perspectives, these disciplinary-specific approaches are not, on their own, fully able to address the complexity of these environmental challenges. Many legal approaches, for example, are limited by their inattention to the motivations behind environmental offences, whereas many social science approaches are hindered by an insufficient grounding in current legislative frameworks. This edited collection constitutes a pioneering attempt to overcome these limitations by uniting legal and social science perspectives. Together, the books contributors forge an innovative socio-legal approach to more effectively respond to, and to prevent, environmental harms around the world. Integrating theoretical and empirical work, the book presents carefully selected illustrations of how legal and social science scholarship can be brought together to improve policies. The various chapters examine how a socio-legal approach can ultimately lead to a more comprehensive understanding of environmental harms, as well as to innovative and effective responses to such environmental offences. --

State prison populations in the United States have been regularly declining since 2009, and, at the end of 2014, the combined federal and state prison population was at its lowest level since 2005. Criminologists were caught by surprise by this development in the country that epitomized contemporary 'mass incarceration'. Their theoretical accounts were steeped in a 'punitive worldview' that left no space for the stabilization and eventual decline in mass incarceration in the United States. This article focuses on policy processes, rather than structural conditions, as drivers of penal change. The article begins with an overview of theories of punishment and their shortcomings. The framework that guides our study is based on the concept of 'critical junctures', which are seedbeds of long-term transformative change that present opportunities and constraints for actors in the penal field. The empirical research presented here analyses the adoption of legal reforms aimed at reducing mass incarceration by the 50 US states. We find that a trifecta of conflicting actors – legal, political and public – accounts for the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which states move towards penal reform.