Suchergebnisse

Laws surrounding the possession, use, and distribution of marijuana have undergone many changes for over a century. Political pressures and social prejudices have most often been the cause of these changes, rather than scientific research or rational thinking. As a result, the law has sometimes lagged behind social practice as in the current case in much of the U.S., including Colorado. In such an environment, it often falls on a police officer's definition, interpretation, and reaction to the laws to determine the extent to which certain laws and sanctions are enforced. Drawing on the work of Weick (1976), this dissertation utilizes the theoretical framework of sensemaking to examine two research questions. First, what sense are police officers in Colorado making of new legalization of marijuana laws? Second, how are officers defining, interpreting, and reacting to marijuana laws in Colorado? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 Denver police officers. Findings suggest that the lack of bright line policies regarding marijuana enforcement play a role in officers making sense of the law in different ways. Officers' definition and interpretation of marijuana law seems to be founded upon their experiences, as well as the experiences of their peers. Several unintentional consequences of marijuana legalization were identified by officers, and appear to play a substantial role in the sensemaking process. Theoretically, this research contends that the four key components of sensemaking (Weick 1976) (i.e., social process, ongoing process, reliant on extracted cues, and based off of plausibility rather than accuracy) are interwoven with the aspects of defining, interpreting, and reacting to laws. As such, a call exists for the elaboration or construction of a theory combining the intertwined elements of defining, interpreting, and reacting to organizational change with the interwoven elements of sensemaking. Findings suggest several policy implications. The call for Colorado and all states that are considering legalization for recreational purposes is to create bright line policies in an effort to reduce confusion among officers. The construction of such policies will reduce the grey area in which officers operate thereby ensuring that users are treated fairly across all jurisdictions and states.

The behavior of bouncers at on site establishments that served alcohol was observed. Our aim was to better understand how bouncers went about their job when the bar had a mandatory policy to check identification of all customers. Utilizing an ethnographic decision model, we found that bouncers were significantly more likely to card customers that were more casually dressed than others, those who were in their 30s, and those in mixed racial groups. We posit that bouncers who failed to ask for identification did so because they appeared to know customers, they appeared to be of age, or they took a break and no one was checking for identification at the door. We found that bouncers presented a commanding presence by their dress and demeanor. Bouncers, we posit, function in three primary roles: customer relations, state law management, and establishment rule enforcer.

Current media and political discourse on crime has long ignored crimes committed by States themselves, despite their greater financial and human toll. For the past two decades, scholars have examined how and why States violate their own laws and international law and explored what can be done to reduce or prevent these injustices. Through a collection of essays by leading scholars in the field, State Crime offers a set of cases exemplifying state criminality along with various methods for controlling governmental transgressions. With topics ranging from crimes of aggression to nuclear weapons to the construction and implementation of social controls, this volume is an indispensable resource for those who examine the behavior of States and those who study crime in its varied forms