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Article
Publication date: 20 December 2022

Jiaoying Ren, Karina Santoso, David Hyde, Andrea L. Bertozzi and P. Jeffrey Brantingham

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime has been highly variable. One possible source of variation runs indirectly through the impact that the pandemic had on groups tasked…

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Abstract

Purpose

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime has been highly variable. One possible source of variation runs indirectly through the impact that the pandemic had on groups tasked with preventing and responding to crime. Here, this paper aims to examine the impact of the pandemic on the activities undertaken by front-line workers in the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use both autoregressive integrated moving average modeling and a regression-based event study design to identify changes in GRYD Community Intervention Worker proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities induced by the onset of the City of Los Angeles “safter-at-home” lockdown.

Findings

Analyses show that the proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities either remained stable or increased with the onset of the lockdown.

Originality/value

While the City of Los Angeles exempted GRYD’s Community Intervention Workers from lockdown restrictions, there was no guarantee that proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities would continue unchanged. The authors conclude that these vital functions were indeed resilient in the face of major disruptions to daily life presented by the pandemic. However, the causal connection between stability in Community Intervention Worker activities and gang-related crime remains to be evaluated.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 February 2019

Alison Baker

Racialised misrepresentation circulated en masse can be understood as a form of symbolic and cultural violence. Such misrepresentations create a dominant cultural narrative that…

Abstract

Purpose

Racialised misrepresentation circulated en masse can be understood as a form of symbolic and cultural violence. Such misrepresentations create a dominant cultural narrative that positions people of African background as violent and troubled and therefore incompatible with Australian society. Young people from various groups have been using arts-for-social-change to challenge and dismantle these imposed misrepresentation and reconstruct narratives that reflect their lived experiences. The purpose of this paper is to explore sound portraits, both the process and product, by tracing the journey of New Change, arts collective comprised of young women of African heritage, who have been pushing for social change.

Design/methodology/approach

This collaborative research mobilises arts methodologies, bringing together sound arts, audio documentary and narrative research methods. Data gathering included arts artefacts and interviews with the young women and sound recordings from news media to craft a sound portrait entitled “Battle for truth”.

Findings

Battle for Truth is a sound portrait that serve as the findings for this paper. Sound portraits privilege participants’ voices and convey the complexity of their stories through the layering of voices and other soundscapes. This sound portrait also includes a media montage of racialised misrepresentation.

Social implications

Through their restorying, sound portraits are a way to counter passive and active forgetting and wilful mishearing, creating a space in the public memory for polyphonic voices and stories that have been shutout. Sound portraits necessitate reflexivity and dialogue through deep listening, becoming important sites for reimagining possibilities for social change and developing new activist avenues.

Originality/value

This paper brings together sonic methods, liberation arts and social justice perspectives to attend to power, race, gender and voice.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1996

Margaret S. Kelley, Marsha Rosenbaum, Kelly Knight, Jeanette Irwin and Allyson Washburn

We investigate the relationships between violence, drug use and methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) for women injection drug users (IDUs). The data presented here come from a…

Abstract

We investigate the relationships between violence, drug use and methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) for women injection drug users (IDUs). The data presented here come from a longitudinal study of 233 IDUs both in and out of MMT in the San Francisco Bay Area. Each was interviewed five times over a period of three years, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Using grounded theory principals, we analyze 55 women's accounts of violence. We find that violence acts both as a barrier to entry to treatment and to successful treatment outcomes. Violence is related to drug use and treatment in several ways, primarily in that violence is a traumatic experience to which some women respond by using drugs. Violence may include forced drug use or methadone diversion. Violence may cause women to interrupt or postpone treatment. Finally, two women experienced violence from their treatment providers, which forced them to leave their programs. We suggest that in order to maximize successful treatment outcomes and reduce drug‐related harm for women, violence must be addressed in the treatment process.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 16 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 24 June 2021

Elke Van Hellemont and James Densley

In their 1999 classic, Crime is Not the Problem, Zimring and Hawkins changed the way criminologists thought about crime and violence simply by forcing us to distinguish between…

Abstract

Purpose

In their 1999 classic, Crime is Not the Problem, Zimring and Hawkins changed the way criminologists thought about crime and violence simply by forcing us to distinguish between them. In so doing, they advanced an agenda for a more effective response to the real “crime” problem in America – violence. In this short commentary, the authors apply this logic to gang research and responses. The authors argue police fall short in responding to “gangs” because researchers and policymakers have defined them in terms of criminal behaviour writ large, not the problem that really needs policing – the precise social and spatial dynamics of gang violence. The purpose of this paper is to stand on the shoulders of others who have stated violence trumps gangs when it comes to policy and practice and provide a conceptual review of the literature that captures mainstream and critical perspectives on gangs and offers both sides some common ground to start from as they contemplate “policing” gangs with or without police.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the extant literature.

Findings

The authors stand on the shoulders of others who have stated violence trumps gangs when it comes to policy and practice, to provide a conceptual review of the literature that captures mainstream and critical perspectives on gangs, in North American and European contexts, and offers both sides some common ground to start from as they contemplate “policing” gangs with or without police.

Originality/value

The paper is a conceptual piece looking at policing gang violence versus gang crime. The paper aims to restart the debate around the role of crime in gangs and gangs in crime. This debate centres around whether gangs should be understood as primarily criminal groups, whether “the gang” is to blame for the crime and violence of its members and what feature of collective crime and violence designate “gangness”. We use that debate to reflect past and current police practices towards gangs.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 13 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 9 September 2020

Tom Pettinger

Purpose – The author investigates how those who have engaged in political violence in the UK understand Prevent’s preemptive rationality, and how Prevent conceptualizes the…

Abstract

Purpose – The author investigates how those who have engaged in political violence in the UK understand Prevent’s preemptive rationality, and how Prevent conceptualizes the trajectory toward “terrorism” in relation to the testimony of those who have engaged in “terrorist” violence and were convicted of terrorism offences.

Methodology/Approach – The author takes the assumptions that Prevent makes about risk (from the Prevent Strategy and other documents), and tests these against the testimony of former combatants from “the Troubles.”

Findings – Despite the trajectory toward violence not being considered to differ fundamentally nor demonstrated through evidence to operate differently from one era to the next, the premise of Prevent’s assumptions of the movement into violence and former combatant testimony are entirely foreign to each other.

Originality/Value – Although militants from “the Troubles” (a conflict ending in 1998) and Prevent (established in 2003) are speaking about the same country and narrating their “truth” within five years of each other, the differences in how former combatants and Prevent understand the trajectory toward violence have not been considered. This has remained a significant omission of terrorism scholarship.

Details

Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-988-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 September 2023

Richard Noel Canevez, Jenifer Sunrise Winter and Joseph G. Bock

This paper aims to explore the technologization of peace work through “remote support monitors” that use social and digital media technologies like social media to alert local…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the technologization of peace work through “remote support monitors” that use social and digital media technologies like social media to alert local violence prevention actors to potentially violent situations during demonstrations.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a distributed cognition lens, the authors explore the information processing of monitors within peace organizations. The authors adopt a qualitative thematic analysis methodology composed of interviews with monitors and documents from their shared communication and discussion channels. The authors’ analysis seeks to highlight how information is transformed between social and technical actors through the process of monitoring.

Findings

The authors’ analysis identifies that the technologization of monitoring for violence prevention to assist nonviolent activists produces two principal and related forms of transformation: appropriation and hidden attributes. Monitors “appropriate” information from sources to fit new ends and modes of representation throughout the process of detection, verification and dissemination. The verification and dissemination processes likewise render latent supporting informational elements, hiding the aggregative nature of information flow in monitoring. The authors connect the ideas of appropriation and hidden attributes to broader discourses in surveillance and trust that challenge monitoring and its place in peace work going forward.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus on the communicative and information processes of remote support monitors. The authors demonstrate that adoption of social and digital media information of incipient violence and response processes for its mitigation suggests both a social and technical precarity for the role of monitoring.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2021

Caterina G. Roman

This paper is designed to critically review and analyze the body of research on a popular gang reduction strategy, implemented widely in the United States and a number of other…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper is designed to critically review and analyze the body of research on a popular gang reduction strategy, implemented widely in the United States and a number of other countries, to: (1) assess whether researchers designed their evaluations to align with the theorized causal mechanisms that bring about reductions in violence; and (2) discuss how evidence on gang programs is generated and consumed. That review and assessment is then used to frame a research agenda for studying gang interventions.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study design is used to generate a multi-faceted understanding of the possible avenues for evaluation research on the law enforcement-based strategy known as the Group Violence Intervention. The paper discusses questions that remain to be answered about the strategy, such as “what type of deterrence is operating?” and if the model actually works by the threat of deterrence, and not by removing high-risk offenders and shootings from the street, what activities are needed to maintain the effect?

Findings

Across roughly two dozen impact evaluations of GVI, none have examined the likely cause and effect components of this multi-partner strategy in reducing the violence. Furthermore, there are many issues related to the production and generation of criminal justice evaluation research that have adversely pushed the balance of evidence on what works in gang reduction toward law enforcement programming. However, there are many strategies that researchers can use to think broadly about appropriate and holistic research and evaluation on gangs and gang programming.

Practical implications

The recommendations for research, if implemented, can help build a body of knowledge to move toward community-based and restorative models of gang violence reduction.

Originality/value

This original piece is one of the first essays to contextualize and discuss how aspects of the production of social science research on gangs may directly impact what programs and strategies are implemented on the ground.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 13 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 July 2023

Digby Warren and Zainab Khan

Key challenges currently facing Higher Education (HE) in the UK are the continuing dominance of curricula by West-centric knowledge traditions which reinforce normative Whiteness…

Abstract

Key challenges currently facing Higher Education (HE) in the UK are the continuing dominance of curricula by West-centric knowledge traditions which reinforce normative Whiteness and undergird racism, and glaring disparities in student outcomes. Seeking to address these challenges and promote fair access and educational opportunities aimed at enabling a more equitable, just and life-enhancing society, London Metropolitan University has launched its Education for Social Justice Framework (ESJF) (2020) as an integrative framework for inclusive curriculum redesign.

This chapter explores the context and moral imperative of the ESJF, its integrative elements, its pedagogical challenges and its transformative potential, through critically reviewing its application during a pilot phase of implementation in 2020–2021, based on the perspectives of six academics involved as course leaders of the participating programs from various disciplines, as well as the authors. Data from individual interviews with the course leaders are used to throw light on key themes concerning the importance and character of the ESJF, challenges and enabling factors in implementing the ESJF, resulting course changes, and the role of students in curriculum development. This chapter concludes with some general implications of adopting an ambitious, integrative approach to curriculum and pedagogical transformation.

Content available
Article
Publication date: 15 March 2019

Alison Baker and Todd Anderson-Kunert

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Article
Publication date: 30 January 2007

Ayşe Y. Evrensel and Ali M. Kutan

The fact that previous studies regarding the effects of social violence on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows come to contradictory conclusions motivates this paper. Therefore…

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Abstract

Purpose

The fact that previous studies regarding the effects of social violence on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows come to contradictory conclusions motivates this paper. Therefore, it seeks to investigate the social violence‐FDI relationship in an ethnically heterogeneous and resource‐rich country, Indonesia.

Design/methodology/approach

The theoretical framework of the paper examines the social violence‐FDI relationship and identifies the circumstances under which social violence in the host country adversely affects FDI inflows. The empirical analysis uses a unique dataset that consists of FDI flows and different types of social violence in 26 provinces of Indonesia during the period 1992‐2001. A fixed‐effects regression is applied to estimate the effects of social violence on FDI flows in Indonesian provinces.

Findings

The results indicate that only certain types of social violence such as ethnic and industrial relations violence are detrimental to FDI. Multinational firms seem to differentiate among the several types of social violence and respond only to those that may affect their expected future profits.

Practical implications

The immediate policy implication of this result implies that developing countries having the desire to attract FDI flows should be aware of the fact that multinational firms seem to differentiate among the several types of social violence and respond only to those that may affect their expected future profits.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, the dataset employed in the empirical analysis is unique in that it contains different types of social violence and associated damage in a country. Second and because of the first point, the empirical findings provide an explanation of the conflicting results reported in the literature regarding the social violence‐FDI relationship.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 34 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

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