Organising neoliberalism: markets, privatisation and justice

The correctional populations of the USA and England and Wales have undergone substantial and relentless expansion over the last forty years. Throughout this period, these countries have also experienced neoliberal governments. This chapter aims to analyse the impact of those governments upon the criminal and community justice systems of the USA and of England and Wales with a particular focus on prisons, probation, and privatization, and to consider whether neoliberalism has undermined liberal and rehabilitative approaches.IIn particular, this chapter explore the way in which neoliberalism has prioritised punitiveness, de-prioritised rehabilitation, fostered a growing incarcerated population, and engaged in the pursuit of private profit at the expense of social justice within the carceral and probation systems

Mass incarceration: the juggernaut of American penal expansionism

A plethora of evidence confirms that America continues to lead the world in imprisonment. No serious commentator doubts mass incarceration is a major issue for the nation. The America penal industrial complex incarcerates close to a quarter of all the prisoners on the planet. The American rate of incarceration remains stubbornly locked at a substantially higher level than those of comparable parliamentary democracies. There is no doubt that America’s penal institutions contain some individuals who pose a substantial public risk. However, there is significant scope to limit incarceration for a range of offenders, including those convicted of drug offences. There is a recognition the decades-long ‘War on Drugs’ has ultimately been counterproductive. At the end of 2014, some six years into Obama’s presidency, the USA’s total incarcerated population included some 2,306,100 prisoners It is only now that the United States may be witnessing the end of an ill-starred forty year experiment with mass incarceration and that American penal expansionism has finally begun to ease. The overall picture is of a pause, and even a slight reverse, in the race to incarcerate.non

Rehabilitation, punishment and profit: The dismantling of public-sector probation

Probation has been nurtured and developed for over a century as the key cornerstone of our community justice system in England and Wales. However, a fundamental transformation in the way in which offenders are managed in the community is underway. After 106 years of rehabilitative intervention, the Probation Service is about to be dismantled - at least, in its traditional public sector incarnation. On 9 May 2013, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling formally confirmed the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government's plans to privatise the majority of probation work by 2015. While few would argue with the principle of supporting rehabilitation, there was controversy over both how this could be achieved and which agencies might deliver it. The privatisation of probation was viewed as a key component of the government’s “rehabilitation revolution”

Mud Creek Urban Nonpoint Source Demonstration

Northwest Arkansas is the seventh fastest developing area in the nation. The conversion of rolling pastureland into paved city streets, parking lots, and buildings within this rapidly urbanizing region is reducing infiltration and intensifying stormwater runoff. In the city of Fayetteville alone, the population increased from 42,099 to 58,163 between 1990 and 1999, moving the city across the population threshold which will require the Phase II Stormwater Permit process. Approximately half of Fayetteville is included in the Illinois River Watershed, which has been identified as the third highest priority watershed in need of restoration in the state of Arkansas. Mud Creek, an urban tributary to the Illinois River, receives half of the treated effluent from the Fayetteville municipal wastewater treatment plant in addition to capturing residential and commercial runoff in Northeast Fayetteville. Pollutants including sediment, nutrients, bacteria and chemicals can be channeled off residential lawns, parking lots, and construction sites, through stormdrains, and into area water resources. For these reasons, the Mud Creek sub-basin of the Illinois River was the focus of an EPA 319(h) grant-funded project focusing on urban NPS prevention education. The Mud Creek Project was the first of it’s kind in Arkansas to target urban audiences, promoting their role and responsibility in improving and protecting the water quality in an urbanizing watershed

Reading levels of rural and urban third graders lag behind their suburban peers

This brief examines the complex interplay of family, school, and place factors in the reading achievement levels of third grade students. Third grade reading achievement is critical to later academic and occupational success. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the authors report that suburban children realize greater gains in reading achievement from kindergarten to Grade 3 than their rural or urban counterparts. Rural students who were struggling readers at the beginning of kindergarten have lower average reading achievement in third grade than both urban and suburban students when children of the same socioeconomic status are compared. The differences in third grade reading achievement between rural and nonrural children who were low achievers in kindergarten most likely reflect different educational opportunities and school resources available to these children. The authors suggest that improved professional development opportunities for rural teachers may help narrow the differences in the third grade reading achievement of rural, urban, and suburban students who were struggling readers in kindergarten

Resolvent Positive Linear Operators Exhibit the Reduction Phenomenon

The spectral bound, s(a A + b V), of a combination of a resolvent positive linear operator A and an operator of multiplication V, was shown by Kato to be convex in b \in R. This is shown here, through an elementary lemma, to imply that s(a A + b V) is also convex in a > 0, and notably, \partial s(a A + b V) / \partial a <= s(A) when it exists. Diffusions typically have s(A) <= 0, so that for diffusions with spatially heterogeneous growth or decay rates, greater mixing reduces growth. Models of the evolution of dispersal in particular have found this result when A is a Laplacian or second-order elliptic operator, or a nonlocal diffusion operator, implying selection for reduced dispersal. These cases are shown here to be part of a single, broadly general, `reduction' phenomenon.Comment: 7 pages, 53 citations. v.3: added citations, corrections in introductory definitions. v.2: Revised abstract, more text, and details in new proof of Lindqvist's inequalit