Exoneree Engagement in Policy Reform Work

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zieva Dauber Konvisser ◽  
Ashley Werry

Through a lens of resilience and growth alongside continuing distress, this exploratory research study examines a convenience sample of exonerees and innocence movement personnel who are engaged in the policy reform process to understand how exoneree involvement may change exonerees themselves, the innocence movement, and possibly the criminal justice system. Data were collected through pre-questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, supplemented with archival material, and analyzed using a narrative approach. Findings emphasize both the personal and broader societal value of exoneree engagement in educating, generating awareness, and advocating about wrongful conviction and the power of having the human voice and face in front of legislators, the public, and the media—vividly portraying that “if they can do it to me, they can do it to anybody.” Findings also caution to be sensitive to where individuals may be in their lives and to honor their choices to engage or not.

Author(s):  
Stefan Machura

Criminal justice and its institutions are key objects of popular culture and attract extensive media attention. The portrayal of the justice system, its rules, professions, and institutions has been invigorated with the invention of new media technology. The authorities’ reaction to wrong doing has proven not less exciting to the audience than the criminal acts themselves. French sociologist Emile Durkheim emphasized that every member of society has an interest in social cohesion and wishes to see perpetrators appropriately punished. The media plays to this basic inclination. From the reactions of the justice system to crime people take clues not only for its effectiveness but the public also wants to see its basic values represented in the work of officials and their decisions. Therefore, aspects of procedural and distributive justice are picked up by popular imagination and exploited to the full by media producers. Beyond recognition that media depictions of criminal justice will follow media conventions and will therefore be distorted in systematic ways, it has to be acknowledged that those representations and the expectations they formed have become a major force in society. Political repercussions and influences on how crime is dealt with are a consequence.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Bujane Topalli

The mobile phone, as a medium has influenced the ways in which we can interact with other media. It is considered like a channel between traditional and new media. Its specific characteristics, social functions and also its uses may vary in different contexts and cultures. The mobile phone, has contributed in increasing the idea of personal media, and the emergence of new kinds of media behavior. According to Morley (2002), communication technologies transform and rearrange relations between the domestic and the public space. In particular, mobile communication functions to broaden the sphere of the home outside the physical household; to blur the boundaries between the public and private spheres. In this study we aim to discuss through the literature review the role of the phone in the everyday life, and to know more about the different ways and reasons why 12-15 year old teenagers, part of Municipality of Shkoder, use mobile phone. This qualitative research is based on semi structured interviews with children. The identified problems consist in: First: The children use more mobile phones in order to use the internet and social networks and this makes it really difficult for their parents to control them. This exposes more the children towards negative effect of internet usage. The second problem is that parents do not have enough knowledge on the usage of new technology. Third: Children have taken information about the risk of internet from the media or by friends and they haven't discussed about this subject at school with teachers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-503
Author(s):  
Dikgang Moseneke

AbstractIn 2014, something happened that changed how the media report on court proceedings in South Africa. The Oscar Pistorius trial proceedings attracted much media attention. International journalists flocked into South Africa in droves. Our newspapers, our televisions, our radios, even our Facebook feeds were flooded with information. An entire twenty-four-hour television channel was created with the sole purpose of televising, and then discussing, the proceedings. Everything about the trial – the judge's rulings, the witnesses who gave evidence and especially the verdict – clogged social-media newsfeeds on laptops and other devices for months on end. This has changed irreversibly the manner in which the media and the justice system in South Africa converge. Through a focus on the debates in and out of the courtroom that the Pistorius trial generated, this paper explores the intersection between the judicial function, the media and the public. It was an important moment in post-apartheid South Africa, ushering in a new way of making and distributing judicial images to the public and thereby bringing into being new ways for the media and the public to access and assess the adjudicative role of judges.


Youth Justice ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-187
Author(s):  
Suzanne Ellis ◽  
Natalie Gately ◽  
Shane Rogers ◽  
Andrée Horrigan

Public opinion is often reported as punitive towards sentencing young people. Attitudes remain important to investigate given their potential to influence policy within the criminal justice system. Therefore, it is important to understand the formation of these attitudes and their consistency with sentencing principles. Semi-structured interviews ( n = 72) and surveys ( n = 502) were used to gauge opinions of sentencing young people under different scenario manipulations (age, weapon, drug treatment, prior record). The findings revealed the public expected punishment, but favoured rehabilitation with an opportunity to repent, suggesting the public are open to alternatives to ‘tough on crime’ approaches.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnaldo L. Ryngelblum ◽  
Nadia Vianna

Purpose Despite the special attention given to consumers by the business and academic literature, the dissatisfaction of Brazilian consumers has increased significantly. This manifest mainly through the initiation of complaints’ procedures against companies at Procon and other civil society consumer protection organizations (CPOs) that began to take over these issues complementarily to governmental action. This paper aims to examine the accomplishments and relevance of these organizations in protecting consumers and in preparation of related public policies. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative case study was conducted involving an in-depth collection of information about a restricted system, which included multiple sources. The information was obtained through semi-structured interviews conducted with CPOs’ executives and documents from the other participating organizations in the consumer protection field. Findings The CPOs have been positively evaluated by participants from the consumer protection field, for their effective action in the intermediation of complaints and in proposing laws and regulations on consumer protection. However, this picture is contrasted with the difficulties imposed by the practices of other field logics, such as legal procedures, media priorities and business interests that, however, collaborate in various occasions. Research limitations/implications CPOs’ relevance is more easily evaluated through social legitimation such as endorsements and declarations by the media, the public, by the CPOs’ own publicity and so on. As consumers can choose from alternative channels for redress, firms should be updated with the different procedural norms of each. Originality/value This paper draws a picture of the work developed by CPOs and indicates a possible assessment of their relevance in a scenario of logics complexity, which can be useful for policy makers.


Author(s):  
Yetti Herawati ◽  
Linda Astuti ◽  
Maryaningsih

Government Public Relations could serve as a means or channel of government agencies in running relationship with the press, including the Local Government of Bengkulu province. This study aimed to see at how public relations play this role. The method used in this research was descriptive qualitative method in which the data collection was conducted by semi- structured interviews to research subjects. It’s possible for researchers to develop questions appropriate to the situation and condition so it was possible to get complete data. From the research, the role of PR in the Bengkulu Provincial Government ran good relationship with the press. The good role of the public relations could be demonstrated by the implementation of most of the series of activities such as: building and maintaining a good relationship with the press, served and understood the media, press interviews, broadcast rebuttal, filling out the important public section in the press, and documentation.Keywords : Public Relation Role, Mass Media Relation 


More than eight years after the global financial crisis began, the economy of Greece shows little sign of recovery, and its position in the eurozone seems tenuous. Between 2008 and 2014, incomes in Greece shrank by more than 25 percent, homes lost more than a third of their value, and the unemployment rate reached 27 percent. Most articles on Greece in the media focus on the effects of austerity, repayment of its debt, and its future in the eurozone. In this book, leading Greek economists from institutions both within and outside Greece take a broader and deeper view of the Greek crisis, examining the pathologies that made Greece vulnerable to the crisis and the implications for the entire eurozone. Each chapter takes on a specific policy area, examining it in terms of Greece's economic reality and offering possible directions for policy. The topics range from macroeconomic issues to markets and their regulation to finance to the public sector. Individual chapters address the costs and benefits of participation in the eurozone, Greece's international competitiveness, taxation, pensions, the labor market, privatization, product markets, finance, education, healthcare, corruption, the justice system, and public administration. The contributors argue that Greek institutions require a deep overhaul rather than quick fixes to enable long-term growth and prosperity.


2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie A. Rentschler

Abstract: This paper seeks to explain how crime victims have become increasingly visible in the criminal justice system and in media portrayals of crime by looking to the U.S. victims’ rights movement and its strategic mobilization of a particular construction of “crime victim” into the public sphere. Through analysis of the movement’s documentation of its media strategies and new forms of victim-oriented journalistic practice, the paper demonstrates how the movement portrays crime through its construction of crime victims as a class of citizens without rights, through which the families of murder victims become proxy-victims. Résumé : Cet article cherche à expliquer la visibilité croissante des victimes de délits dans le système criminel de justice et dans les représentations de crime dans les médias en observant le mouvement des droits des victimes et sa mobilisation stratégique d’une construction spécifique de la “victime de délits” dans la sphère publique. Par l’analyse de la documentation que possède le mouvement de ses stratégies médiatiques et de nouvelles formes de pratiques journalistiques orientées vers les victimes, l’article démontre comment le mouvement dépeint le crime via une construction des victimes de délits en tant que classe de citoyens sans droits, où les familles des victimes de meurtre peuvent tenir lieu de victimes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77
Author(s):  
Imran Ullah Khan ◽  
Shahzad Hussain

The paper examines administrative performance and public management reforms in Pakistan. The study is based on the expert opinion of the civil servants gathered via 27 semi-structured interviews. Pakistan has inherited the administrative structure from the British colonial raj. Although there have been numerous reforms aimed at improving administrative performance, none of them have been implemented adequately. The changes pursued in the first two decades were related to enhancing the administrative performance by creating an adequate structure of administrative posts and ensuring a fair remuneration system. The first full reform package was presented in the 1970s with steps to improve the civil service performance and nationalization of significant banks and industries. The New Public Management (NPM) inspired the Pakistani government to adopt the policies of managerialism and privatization during the 1990s. The government intended to remove the status quo and privatize the public sector industries. This reform was successful only with regard to the privatization of some sectors and banks. The remaining reform programme failed mostly because of political instability, weak political will, political interference with the reform process, etc. The semi-structured interviews conducted with Pakistani civil servants tackled the public administration problems and their possible solutions. The respondents suggested that an indigenous public management model should be created. They indicated that the government should firmly support the implementation of reform measures. Civil servants should get salaries according to their expertise. There must be a well-defined and up to date performance and evaluation system able to ensure performance-based promotions, rewards, and punishments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Cătălina Nastasiu

Significant developments that occurred in the past two decades in the media and information system, such as the rise of the internet and social media or even the commentary based journalism that adopted a 24-hour coverage, led to a continuously rising process of creating, disseminating and consuming information. Nevertheless, the enormous amount of information that crosses the public space is not always supported by factual information, data, analysis or statistical representations. In fact, this large volume of information circulating in the public sphere is rather based on personal interpretation, misleading content, false assumptions or intentionally manipulated stories. Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich, authors of the complex exploratory research called Truth Decay. An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life argue in favor of the term ”Truth Decay” to define the current changes of political and civil discourse in the U.S.


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