scholarly journals The Fine Line: Rural Justice, Public Health and Safety, and the Coronavirus Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110031
Author(s):  
Jennifer Sherman ◽  
Jennifer Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Law ◽  
Sheriff's Department ◽  
Public Health And Safety

In this article, we provide an early glimpse into how the issues of public health and safety played out in the rural United States during the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on Washington State. We utilize a combination of news articles and press releases, sheriff’s department Facebook posts, publicly available jail data, courtroom observations, in-depth interviews with those who have been held in rural jails, and interviews with rural law enforcement staff to explore this theme. As elected officials, rural sheriffs are beholden to populations that include many who are suspicious of science, liberal agendas, and anything that might threaten what they see as individual freedom. At the same time, they expect local law enforcement to employ punitive measures to control perceived criminal activity in their communities. These communities are often tightly knit, cohesive, and isolated, with high levels of social support both for community members and local leaders, including sheriffs and law enforcement. This complex social context often puts rural sheriffs and law enforcement officers in difficult positions. Given the multiple cross-pressures that rural justice systems faced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore the circumstances in which they attempted to protect and advocate for the health and safety of both their incarcerated and their nonincarcerated populations. We find that certain characteristics of rural communities both help and hinder local law enforcement in efforts to combat the virus, but these characteristics typically favor informal norms of social control to govern community health. Thus, rural sheriff’s departments repeatedly chose strategies that limited their abilities to protect populations from the disease, in favor of appearing tough on crime and supportive of personal liberty.

Firearms Theft in New Zealand — Lessons for Crime and Injury Prevention

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Alpers ◽  
Reece Walters
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Injury Prevention ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Significant Public Health ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Public Health And Safety

In New Zealand, 200,000licensed shooters (5.5% of the population) own an estimated 1 million firearms, 9 times more guns per capita than in England and Wales and 20% more than in Australia. Based on a 3 year study of firearm theft in New Zealand, this paper concludes that insecure storage of lawfully held weapons by licensed owners poses a significant public health and safety risk. Furthermore, this paper concludes that the failure of the police to enforce New Zealand gun security laws, and the government's hesitancy to develop firearm education and regulation policies, exacerbates insecure firearm storage, a key factor in firearm-related theft, injury, suicide, violence and criminal activity.

Racializing Crimmigration

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amada Armenta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Jail ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Local Law

Deporting “criminal aliens” has become the highest priority in American immigration enforcement. Today, most deportations are achieved through the “crimmigration” system, a term that describes the convergence of the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems. Emerging research argues that U.S. immigration enforcement is a “racial project” that subordinates and racializes Latino residents in the United States. This article examines the role of local law enforcement agencies in the racialization process by focusing on the techniques and logics that drive law enforcement practices across two agencies, I argue that local law enforcement agents racialize Latinos by punishing illegality through their daily, and sometimes mundane, practices. Investigatory traffic stops put Latinos at disproportionate risk of arrest and citation, and processing at the local jail subjects unauthorized immigrants to deportation. Although a variety of local actors sustain the deportation system, most do not see themselves as active participants in immigrant removal and they explain their behavior through a colorblind ideology. This colorblind ideology obscures and naturalizes how organizational practices and laws converge to systematically criminalize and punish Latinos in the United States.

Leveraging blockchain based decentralized apps for the Tokyo Olympics amid the COVID-19 pandemic

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rishi Sabarigirisan ◽  
Aditi Biswas ◽  
Ridhi Rohatgi ◽  
Shyam KC ◽  
Shekhar Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Strategic Objectives ◽  
Crowd Management ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Smooth Contact ◽  
Public Health And Safety

The COVID-19 pandemic has induced a cloud of uncertainty over the mega sports event, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Cancelling or re-scheduling the event could have serious repercussions on the economic, social and environmental well-being for the involved stakeholders. Thus, it becomes critical to conduct events of this magnitude by adopting appropriate public health measures. In this research, we primarily focus on two main premises relative to public health and safety, contact tracing and crowd management. We explore and evaluate the usability of blockchain based decentralized apps in crowd management and contact tracing for the Tokyo Olympics using value-focused thinking (VFT). A VFT framework aids in narrowing fundamental and strategic objectives that need to be addressed for smooth contact tracing and crowd management by understanding stakeholder viewpoints. We established an equivalence of the objectives identified through VFT with blockchain technology properties. Further, we also present a conceptual ideation of contact tracing and crowd management through blockchain based decentralized apps for the Tokyo Olympics. This work could potentially assist decision-makers, researchers and stakeholders involved in organizing the Tokyo Olympics in understanding and analysing the utility of blockchain based decentralized apps for crowd management and contact tracing.

Assessing law enforcement websites: a comparative analysis exploring types, quantity and quality of information available

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Hansen ◽  
John C. Navarro ◽  
Sierra A. Malvitz
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Quality Of Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Law

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the availability of information on law enforcement websites in the state of Wisconsin.Design/methodology/approachThe study conducted a content analysis of all 179 county and municipal local law enforcement agency websites within Wisconsin. The authors then implemented a comparative analysis that explored whether the quantity and quality of information available on law enforcement websites are similar to those of local governments and school districts. The authors then estimated models to test whether there is a relationship between the population size served and gender distribution of law enforcement departments to the availability of information on law enforcement websites.FindingsLaw enforcement websites contain a noticeable lack of information. The finding is even more apparent when comparing law enforcement websites to the websites of local governments and school districts. Finally, the authors show a positive link between information sharing on law enforcement websites and the proportion of the civilian staff at an agency that are women.Originality/valuePast studies that reviewed the make-up of law enforcement websites analyzed large law enforcement departments rather than local law enforcement departments, which notably represent the majority of most law enforcement departments. The authors also explicitly demonstrate that the commitment to information sharing is lagging within law enforcement websites compared to local-level governments. Future scholarship and law enforcement departments may benefit from exploring the employment of female civilians.

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