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The purpose of the paper is to examine the Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (the Act), in particular, the sections of the Act that establish the serious organised crime agency (SOCA) and to anticipate the effectiveness of the Act against organised and serious crime in the UK.

The methodology employed is to examine Parts 1 and 2 of the Act, in light of the response of concerned professionals to the Act's passage through Parliament, concerns expressed both in the press and in legal journals, and to critically examine the novel features of the Act from the perspective of a professional who has worked in this same field (organised and serious crime) in Hong Kong for more than 20 years.

The Act is to be welcomed, in particular, gathering the investigative and intelligence functions of the police, customs and immigration service in one body SOCA, an elite limit to assist other UK police forces and law enforcement agencies. The introduction of statutory mechanisms to promote the co‐operation of defendants as potential witnesses is also to be welcomed. However, it is feared that the investigative powers created will be ineffective as the judiciary are not directly involved and the powers that are given to SOCA will be easily evaded by ruthless or experienced criminals.

It is hoped, the paper will promote interest in SOCA when it is “rolled out” operationally in April 2006. It is also hoped that SOCA will be appreciated from the outset as only a half‐hearted adoption of the US organised crime “model”. The UK has decided not to use telephone taps as a source of evidence, nor has it granted effective investigative powers to SOCA. Furthermore, there has been no comprehensive clean‐up of the present confusion of objectives that is so obvious in the sentencing policy as it concerns offenders who commit serious crime or are involved in organised criminal behaviour in the UK.

Discusses the legal information requirements of members of the general public with particular emphasis on the needs of the Third World. Defines the members of the public and highlights the reasons prompting the public to seek legal information. Describes the needs of the public and isolates institutions where the public can satisfy their information needs. Finds that while the public in the developed states have access to ample sources of legal information, the situation is different in the Third World.

This paper aims to investigate Thai stakeholders’ perceptions of developing a destination for international retirement migration (IRM). Increasingly, residents of developed nations such as Japan who retire from work are choosing to live in Thailand or other less-developed countries.

Qualitative approach was used, and data were collected through focus groups and in-depth interviews in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Content analysis technique was used to analyze data after completing the interviews of 35 industry participants.

It was found from the participants that considerable new real estate development and services specifically for these retirees has been created in recent years, but that there is a lack of stakeholder collaboration in catering to this market. Moreover, local resident knowledge of the retirees’ culture and language is lacking, along with a need for policy and planning support from government.

A limitation of this study is that it explored only the perception of business stakeholders involved with Japanese IRM, a group of importance to the Thai Government due to their increasing numbers. Further study could look at local community attitudes toward IRM and how a community adapts to this new phenomenon.

This study provides guidelines for stakeholders, government and local communities. Especially, the role of government is to provide support with clear information about the visa process and legal documents.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge of destination development strategy for a specific international retirement tourist group.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) in the UK. The development of the role is charted from its inception under the Police Reform Act 2002. The present lived experiences of PCSOs, their colleagues and middle to senior managers have been used to assess the likely future direction of the role and responsibilities of these “public auxiliaries”.

Structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with 39 serving officers from three police forces. The corpus of data was analysed for ideal types identified in previous academic work, varying models or complete alternatives.

It was found that the PCSO role can be viewed as a continuum from what is termed in this piece, a “Junior Enforcer” role with a remit to assist constables to a “Bridge Builder” or uniformed community development worker at the other extreme. The study found that there is a marked drift towards the role of “Junior Enforcer” but that paradoxically this can assist, rather than be an alternative to “Bridge Builder” activities.

A strengthened enforcement role can assist with resolving community issues. The challenge going forward will be to maintain a balance between the extremes of the role. Too few or too less enforcement powers will undermine effectiveness, whereas a concentration on enforcement will ultimately damage the ability of the PCSO to engage with hard‐to‐reach communities.

Very little if any independent fieldwork is being done with UK “quasi‐police”, the most recent major studies having taken place soon after their inception in 2002. Exploration of the experiences of serving officers best illustrates the practical issues legislation, policy and procedure generate.

A reflexive ethnographic account of the practical and emotional challenges encountered by the researcher during fieldwork is too often separated from the analytical research results, which, as argued by this paper, downplays or even ignores the analytical value of the encountered challenges. Drawing on personal examples from ethnographic research in immigration detention, the purpose of this paper is to show that these challenges have an intrinsic analytical value.

Ethnographic research was carried out in two immigration detention centres in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. Observations, informal conversations with detainees and staff, and semi-structured interviews with detainees were triangulated. Extracts from fieldnotes are presented and discussed to demonstrate the analytical value of the challenges experienced during fieldwork.

Three important challenges are presented: distrust from organisational gatekeepers and research participants, disruptions of the organisational routines, and witnessing and experiencing feelings of powerlessness. The analytical value of these challenges is strongly connected to theoretical and analytical themes that emerged during the research.

Ethnographic researchers are encouraged to explicitly treat the reflexive accounts of practical and emotional challenges as “data in itself” and as such nested within their analytical results.

Liberal democratic states have involved the use of private companies for purposes of detention and the debate is whether such involvement is only for immigration control or whether they are primarily for macro-economic benefits. This paper aims to present the argument that a State wishing to detain migrants must do so within the purview of immigration control and in conformity to international human rights standards rather than other latent reasons such as macro-economic benefits. The exponential growths of immigration detention over the years, this paper argues, smack of latent reasons with unarguably macro-economic benefits accruing to these States.

The methodology is doctrinal research focusing on immigration detention and privatization. Doctrinal research is library-based and reliance will be placed on primary and secondary materials such as legislations, case laws, soft laws on the one hand and textbooks, journals, articles, legal encyclopedia, databases and many valuable websites on the other hand.

Findings have been made of similarities in State practice between the UK, the USA and Australia and conclude that the trend is worrying given that privatization of the detention estate lends credence to the fact that growing international prison industry influences prison and detention policies.

These have portent implications for the violations of the rights of detainees and weaken the protection of rights under international human rights law.

The originality of this paper lies in its ability to unravel the legitimacy of immigration detention in the face of privatization and macro-economic benefits accruing to States, thereby querying the availability of the rights of migrants within the remit of State practice.

Recent years have witnessed a national policy shift towards involving state and local police in enforcing US federal immigration laws. Critics argue that involving local police in enforcing immigration law will decrease Latino(a) and immigrant residents' willingness to report crime and their cooperation with the police, and will also increase racial profiling and negatively impact documented and undocumented residents. This paper aims to examine Latino(a) residents' perceptions of the police before and after an extended local controversy about involving police in enforcing immigration laws in Costa Mesa, California.

The paper reports findings of a before‐and‐after study in the Westside area of the City of Costa Mesa, California. Methods include Spanish and English language telephone surveys of Latino(a) and non‐Latino(a) residents in the Westside (n=169 respondents before and n=91 respondents after), conducted in 2002 and in 2007.

In survey responses, Latino(a) residents report that they are more likely to be stopped by the police in 2007 compared to 2002. Latino(a) respondents also have more negative perceptions of the police, find the police less helpful, feel less accepted in the community, and say that they are less likely to report crimes after the controversy, compared to before.

The findings show the importance of policies that encourage cooperation with and trust of the police. These results can help inform cities about the potential impacts of involving local police in immigration enforcement.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the association between Mexicans’ support for the criminalization of immigration and level of police contact, fear of deportation and the perceived personal impact of immigration enforcement.

This analysis uses data from the 2008 National Survey of Latinos, a representative random sample of 1,153 self-identified Latino/as residing in the USA. The authors sought to identify the prevalence of Latino support for local police actively identifying undocumented immigrants and to examine the relationship between acculturation, confidence in the police and/or fear that immigrants increase neighborhood crime and support for the criminalization of immigration. The authors use logistic regression analysis and post-estimation techniques to explore the relationship between support for the criminalization of immigration and acculturation, discrimination, perceptions of crime and confidence in the police.

The authors found that Latino policy attitudes are not monolithic but differ by nativity and citizenship status and vary according to their level of confidence in fair and proper police enforcement of the law. Within levels of confidence, the authors found that the perception that immigrants increase local crime rates was a significant predictor of policy attitudes. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, neither previous contact with the criminal justice system nor being stopped and asked about immigration status predicted support for criminalizing immigration. Nor did level of support vary according to proficiency in English and perceptions of discriminatory treatment.

This study has implications for understanding how citizenship statuses influence public opinion on issues that are presumed to be reflective of a unified political voice.

This study has implications for understanding the role of social stigma and political socialization and their relationship to Mexican citizens and non-citizens policy preferences.

No study to date has explored associations between Latinos’ policy attitudes on the criminalization of immigration and acculturation, fear of crime and confidence in the police.

The purpose for writing this article is derived from the misery and chaos prevalent in the world due to the coronavirus pandemic – since late 2019 and still continuing as of December 2020.

A blockchain-based solution to verify the country visit trail and disease and treatment history of the passengers who arrive at the immigration counters located at various national borders and entry points is proposed. A fuzzy inference based suspect identifier system is also presented in this article that could be utilized to make further decisions based on the degree of suspicion observed on a particular passenger.

This paper attempted to put forth a blockchain-based system which consumes the healthcare and visit trail summary of a passenger (appearing for an interview before an immigration officer) and forwards it to a fuzzy inference system to reach to a conclusion that the passenger should be advised to self-quarantine, detained, or should be allowed to enter. Such a system would help to make correct decisions at the immigration counters to check pandemic diseases, like COVID-19, right at the entry points.

The implications of this work are manifold. First, the proposed framework works independent of the type of pandemic and is a readymade tool to check the spread of disease through infected human carriers. Second, the proposed framework will keep the mortality rates under check, which would give ample time for the authorities to save the lives of the people with co-morbidities and age vulnerabilities (Vichitvanichphong et al., 2018). Third, it is a general phenomenon to restrict the flights from the country where the first few cases of infection are discovered; however, the infected person, at the same time, might travel through alternative routes. The blockchain-enabled proposed framework ensures the detection of such cases at no other cost. Finally, the solution may appear costly in the first place, but it has the potential to hold back the revenue of the countries that would otherwise be spent on reactive measures.

As of now no other study or research article provides the solution to the biggest problem persists in the world in this way. The contribution is original and worth applying.

This paper advocates for critical accounting’s contribution to immigration deliberations as part of its agenda for advancing social justice. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate accounting as implicated in immigration policies of three advanced economies.

The authors suggest that neoliberal immigration policies are operationalized through the responsibilization of individuals, corporations and universities. By examining three immigration policies from the USA, Canada and the UK, the paper clarifies how accounting technologies facilitate responsibilization techniques, making immigration governable. Additionally, by employing immigrant narratives as counter accounts, the impacts of immigrant lived experiences can be witnessed.

Accounting upholds neoliberal principles of life by expanding market mentalities and governance, through technologies of measurement, reports, audits and surveillance. A neoliberal strategy of responsibilization contributes to divesting authority for immigration policy in an attempt to erase the social and moral agency of immigrants, with accounting integral to this process. However the social cannot be eradicated as the work illustrates in the narratives and counter accounts that immigrants create.

The work reveals the illusion of accounting as neutral. As no single story captures the nuances and complexities of immigration practices, further exploration is encouraged.

The work is a unique contribution to the underdeveloped study of immigration in critical accounting. By unmasking accounting’s role and revealing techniques underpinning immigration discourses, enhanced ways of researching immigration are possible.