More NCJRS Abstracts, December 30, 2007

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 220734
Michael Fischer; Brenda Geiger; Mary Ellen Hughes
Female Recidivists Speak About Their Experience in Drug Court While Engaging in Appreciative Inquiry
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume:51 Issue:6 Dated:December 2007 Pages:703 to 722

Female drug-court participants examined current and past experiences to assess their program and envision future program innovations. From these 11 women’s perspectives, the strongest component of the drug court they were enrolled in was being surrounded by many caring people who listened to them and who were genuinely concerned about their progress. These women did not mind the intensive supervision and graduated and immediate sanctions as long as they were imposed fairly by people who sought to educate rather than punish or humiliate them. Essential components of a successful program were seen as wraparound services, resources, and referrals, treatment facilities that accepted children, and individualized treatment plans. Despite the small and selected sample of women who engaged in this appreciative inquiry in one drug court in Northern California, this research expands one’s knowledge in the field by showing the benefits of a drug-court program from female participants’ perspective. The study shows the invaluable data obtained by conducting qualitative evaluations of drug-court programs. References

NCJ 220663
David Lyon
Surveillance, Security and Social Sorting: Emerging Research Priorities
International Criminal Justice Review Volume:17 Issue:3 Dated:September 2007 Pages:161 to 170

This article focuses on investigating the surveillance practices and processes that are involved in national security initiatives while describing them in a broader context of human security in which liberty and privacy are significant. The problems surrounding the desire to control immigration, to eliminate terrorism, and to combat international organized crime have consequences that appear to cross-cut older social and regional divisions and raise questions about citizenship, human rights, and civil liberties. This article addresses two aspects of post-9/11 security and surveillance: proliferation of new airport security measures and the emergence of the globalized identification (ID). Analysis of biometric passports, national ID systems, airport screening, border checkpoints, and international policing protocols revealed certain social practices that occurred beyond as well as within nation-states, and prompted questions about social movements and citizenship that transcend conventional administrative and academic boundaries. The focus of the article investigates the surveillance practices and processes that are involved in national security initiatives, and places them in a broader context of human security in which freedom of movement and responsible uses of personal data are particularly significant. New remote networking for police cooperation across national borders in relation to national security is a fast-growing trend in several global regions. Sharing information is seen as key to the possibility of concerted action. Security requirements have been raised to a high level of priority in nations around the world following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Among other outcomes, the resulting increase in the routine surveillance of citizens, and especially of travelers, raises questions of sociological interest regarding the intensified means of technology-dependent governance common to many countries. The study includes matters of governance, human rights, and civil liberties in a world where certain cultural aspects are rapidly transcending specific territorial boundaries in a world that consists of things fundamentally in motion using computer networks while creating new social spaces and practices that go beyond conventional sociological analysis. Notes, references