Insidious procedures: diversity awards legitimize unfair organizational practices

This is the author's version of an article subsequently published in Social Justice Research in final format. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11211-015-0240-zDoes the presence (versus absence) of an organizational diversity award increase the perceived fairness of biased personnel procedures? Participants examined fair or unfair personnel procedures at a company that had received a diversity award or an award unrelated to diversity. When the company had received a diversity award (versus a control award), participants perceived the unfair personnel procedure as fairer for minorities, and White participants were more supportive of enacting the biased procedure. These findings suggest that organizations perceived as successfully supporting diversity might be afforded particular legitimacy to enact policies and procedures that disadvantage the very groups they are perceived as valuing.National Science Foundatio

The Precursors and Products of Justice Climates: Group Leader Antecedents and Employee Attitudinal Consequences

Drawing on the organizational justice, organizational climate, leadership and personality, and social comparison theory literatures, we develop hypotheses about the effects of leader personality on the development of three types of justice climates (e.g., procedural, interpersonal, and informational), and the moderating effects of these climates on individual level justice- attitude relationships. Largely consistent with the theoretically-derived hypotheses, the results showed that leader (a) agreeableness was positively related to procedural, interpersonal and informational justice climates, (b) conscientiousness was positively related to a procedural justice climate, and (c) neuroticism was negatively related to all three types of justice climates. Further, consistent with social comparison theory, multilevel data analyses revealed that the relationship between individual justice perceptions and job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, commitment) was moderated by justice climate such that the relationships were stronger when justice climate was high

“It ain’t (just) what you do, it’s (also) the way that you do it”: The role of Procedural Justice in the Implementation of Anti-social Behaviour Interventions with Young People

This paper provides an analysis of the introduction and implementation of hybrid powers to regulate anti-social behaviour, during a period of regulatory ‘hyperactivity’ in the UK. It explores the role of procedural justice by drawing on findings from a study conducted in England which investigated the implementation practices and experiences of young people and parents. These are considered against seven characteristics of procedural justice: voice; voluntariness; respectful treatment; parsimony; accuracy of information; fairness; and neutrality. The paper analyses the manner in which principles of voluntary cooperation can be corrupted by threats of punitive sanctions. It questions the extent to which the use of such hybrid orders fosters perceptions of legitimacy and supports the capacity of young people to avoid criminalisation

Focused Deterrence and the Prevention of Violent Gun Injuries: Practice, Theoretical Principles, and Scientific Evidence

Focused deterrence strategies are a relatively new addition to a growing portfolio of evidence-based violent gun injury prevention practices available to policy makers and practitioners. These strategies seek to change offender behavior by understanding the underlying violence-producing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring violent gun injury problems and by implementing a blended strategy of law enforcement, community mobilization, and social service actions. Consistent with documented public health practice, the focused deterrence approach identifies underlying risk factors and causes of recurring violent gun injury problems, develops tailored responses to these underlying conditions, and measures the impact of implemented interventions. This article reviews the practice, theoretical principles, and evaluation evidence on focused deterrence strategies. Although more rigorous randomized studies are needed, the available empirical evidence suggests that these strategies generate noteworthy gun violence reduction impacts and should be part of a broader portfolio of violence prevention strategies available to policy makers and practitioners

Police legitimacy among immigrants in Europe: institutional frames and group position

Research on the antecedents of police legitimacy has begun to stress the relevance of a wide range of factors – beyond performance – in shaping public judgements of police (e.g. Jackson et al 2012; Antrobus et al 2015; Mehozay and Factor 2016; Weitzer and Tuch 2006). The ways in which people experience not just policing and but also their wider social, cultural and economic environment – and the location of both police and policed within structures of power, authority and affect – have important effects on lay judgements of police which, in turn, constitute the empirical legitimacy of this foundational state institution

Mind the gap: sentencing, rehabilitation and civic purgatory

This article discusses the relationships and tensions between the sentencing, statutory supervision and legal rehabilitation of lawbreakers under UK legislation. It does so with reference to both the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which allows some criminal records to become ‘spent’ after a set period of time, and the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, which was designed to significantly expand statutory supervision arrangements. The article also demonstrates how, post-supervision, many former lawbreakers are cast into a state of ‘civic purgatory’, before suggesting that a more fully integrated approach to rehabilitation is required

Independence and impartiality of sports disputes resolution in the UK

Private sports governing bodies in the United Kingdom have the contractual freedom to organise their own sports tribunals and disputes procedures. There is no legislation in the UK that governs the form of a sports governing body’s dispute resolution procedure. The common law and, to a certain extent, other industry measures influence the structure of a disputes procedure within a private sports governing body. When establishing dispute resolution systems in self-regulating industries, there is potential for structural conflicts of interest to arise. Reporting mechanisms and adjudicatory processes may be structurally bias through, for example, the way appointments are made to a dispute resolution panel. There may be the suggestion of implicit bias of panel members because of the interests that control the appointment process. Even if no actual bias arises, the perception of bias can damage the engagement of stakeholders in a dispute process and damage the reputation of the sport with sponsors or the general public. The key is to minimise structural conflicts of interest and ensure that the process is independent and impartial. This article examines the challenges faced with organising sports dispute resolution procedures, the requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and highlights the important factors that a sports governing body should consider when designing an independent and impartial dispute resolution system. It concludes with a discussion of whether the legal basis for sports dispute resolution in the UK requires reconsideration to provide certainty, independence, impartiality and, above all, to guarantee a fair hearing

Is the Public willing to help the Nigerian Police during the Boko Haram crisis? A look at moderating factors.

This paper sought the opinion of 200 Nigerians on their willingness to cooperate with the Police during the Boko Haram crisis. Public perceptions of Police effectiveness during the crisis, residence location, gender and religious affiliation were used as moderators. Data was analysed using an explanatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Results indicated a strong association between perceived effectiveness and willingness to report to the Police with respondents who question the effectiveness of the Police being less likely to be willing to report criminal activity about Boko Haram. Further to this, the impact of religion on willingness to report was at least partially mediated by perceived effectiveness of the Police with the results showing that Christian respondents perceived the Police as less effective. Females and those living in the North were significantly less willing to report criminal activity to the Police The findings are then discussed in relation to the BH crises and directions for future research are given

"‘We just want to be treated with respect!’: Using restorative approaches and the dramatic arts to build positive relationships between the police and young people"

This article explores the application of an ambitious arts-based restorative intervention that has been applied in a direct response to perceived issues with procedural justice, legitimacy and community relations between police and young people. The research focuses on a series of Youth Forums that took place in the West of England, employed as an attempt to improve strained relationships between both parties. It reports on detailed ethnographic research of the Forum processes and procedures presenting this primary evidence in light of the existing literature on police legitimacy and procedural justice in police-youth encounters. The findings suggest that community-based arts programmes can be a powerful and effective tool for challenging entrenched views with the potential to improve future encounters between police and young people; and that the relevance and effectiveness of arts-based interventions can be increased by combining with restorative justice principles

Active PSF shaping and adaptive optics enable volumetric localization microscopy through brain sections

Application of single-molecule switching nanoscopy (SMSN) beyond the coverslip surface poses substantial challenges due to sample-induced aberrations that distort and blur single-molecule emission patterns. We combined active shaping of point spread functions and efficient adaptive optics to enable robust 3D-SMSN imaging within tissues. This development allowed us to image through 30-μm-thick brain sections to visualize and reconstruct the morphology and the nanoscale details of amyloid-β filaments in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease