Policing Mechanism Research Articles

Punishing people through property: Strategic task force inspections at the nexus of criminal and civil legal systems

In this article, we investigate a largely unexplored policing mechanism: Strategic Task Force (STF) inspections in Chicago. This process exists at the intersection of civil and criminal legal systems: properties affiliated with criminal drug or gang activity are swept by building inspectors and police officers, with the explicit purpose of finding code violations and prompting civil legal action against the owner. Using two datasets of inspected buildings, we demonstrate that those who own properties targeted by the STF more often face financial and legal hurdles such as foreclosures, ownership transfers, and property restrictions. This finding coheres with qualitative court data, which demonstrates a pervasive punitive attitude in STF cases. We argue that STF inspections amount to a denial of criminal due process for residents in communities of color, punishing alleged offenders via a civil process with much more flexible procedural standards. Our analysis of punishing people through property highlights the need for expanding standards of criminal due process to civil contexts to guarantee defendants’ substantive rights.

VILLAGE POLICE SYSTEM: ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY POLICING IN MIZORAM

Indian policing had been revolved around rural policing. In ancient India, each village had its own headman who protected the village with the help of village watchmen or patel. These watchmen were the real executive police of the villages. During medieval period, the Mughal dynasty also adopted this indigenous village police system. The significance of village police system was also recognized by the British rulers. The Court of Directors of the East India Company and The Police Act, 1861 wanted retention of village police system. After independence, Government of India made attempts to revive rural policing system. The Model Police Act was passed in 2006 which directed the states and Union Territories to make new police laws incorporating, among other things, improved village policing system. The present paper was an attempt to study how the village police system had been revived in India by passing the Model Police Act, 2006 with special emphasis on its implementation in Mizoram. Mizoram, a small state in North East India, adopted the Mizoram Police Act, 2011 under which Village Defense Parties were established to provide better policing services to village residents. This Act revived the principles of village policing concept which had been lying dormant. It also provided for formal institutional mechanism of community policing in the state.

DegQ is an important policing link between quorum sensing and regulated adaptative traits in Bacillus subtilis.

Quorum sensing (QS) is a widespread bacterial communication system that controls important adaptive traits in a cell density-dependent manner. However, mechanisms by which QS-regulated traits are linked within the cell and mechanisms by which these links affect adaptation are not well understood. In this study, Bacillus subtilis was used as a model bacterium to investigate the link between the ComQXPA QS system, DegQ, surfactin and protease production in planktonic and biofilm cultures. The work tests two alternative hypotheses predicting that hypersensitivity of the QS signal-deficient mutant (comQ::kan) to exogenously added ComX, resulting in increased surfactin production, is linked to an additional genetic locus, or alternatively, to overexpression of the ComX receptor ComP. Results are in agreement with the first hypothesis and show that the P srfAA hypersensitivity of the comQ::kan mutant is linked to a 168 strain-specific mutation in the P degQ region. Hence, the markerless ΔcomQ mutant lacking this mutation is not overresponsive to ComX. Such hyper-responsiveness is specific for the P srfAA and not detected in another ComX-regulated promoter, the P aprE , which is under the positive control by DegQ. Our results suggest that DegQ by exerting differential effect on P srfAA and P aprE acts as a policing mechanism and the intracellular link, which guards the cell from an overinvestment into surfactin production. IMPORTANCE DegQ levels are known to regulate surfactin synthesis and extracellular protease production, and DegQ is under the control of the ComX-dependent QS. DegQ also serves as an important policing link between these QS-regulated processes, preventing overinvestment in these costly processes. This work highlights the importance of DegQ, which acts as the intracellular link between ComX production and the response by regulating extracellular degradative enzyme synthesis and surfactin production.

Does mob justice fit the conceptual theory of justice?

With the recent surge of mob justice in South Africa, this paper investigates whether recourse to mob justice serves a legitimate purpose and especially whether it serves justice or falls within the conceptual meaning of justice. In so doing, the paper undertook a literature review in view first to identify the possible causes of mob justice and whether or not mob justice serves a legitimate purpose in society. The literature reveals that mob justice aims to ensure security and maintain social order due to state inefficiency to provide security to its citizens. Mob justice becomes a mechanism of social control, policing, and society’s expression that the criminal justice system has failed. However, the paper could not find any related literature on the question whether mob justice falls within the philosophical concept of justice. It finds that the current discourse on mob justice literature focuses on the social and economic aspects of mob justice, delving into the possible reasons behind the attacks, or the legal aspects of mob justice. The paper is therefore relevant as its objective is to determine whether mob justice meets the conceptual meaning of justice and if there is a place for such conduct within a constitutional society. The paper found that mob justice falls short of the philosophical understanding of justice and is no more than injustice. It recommends a policy shift in the form of community involvement in policing.

Why can’t Siri sing? Cultural narratives that constrain female singing voices in AI

Despite the remarkable technological accomplishments in the areas of speaking and singing in AI research, this paper builds upon James W. Carey’s premise that technology is a totem for culture (1990), arguing that YouTube listeners sometimes experience highly charged emotional responses, such as anxiety, pleasure, and musical chills, when listening to the singing voices of Siri, Alexa, and Sophia the robot—responses that reveal an underlying cultural narrative that female singing voices (even robotic ones) are simultaneously fascinating and frightening. This narrative supports Kate Manne’s definition of misogyny as an enforcement strategy (2018), which is operative in several ways female computer voices are controlled and contained. Examples of policing mechanisms inherent in creating and responding to female-gendered computer voices include (1) maintaining age-old stereotypes about singing women, (2) programming virtual assistants to be servile, and (3) encouraging ridicule in YouTube videos to downplay the fear that has been associated with female singing voices since the dawn of Western antiquity. Thus, while research in AI continues to develop technologically, examining underlying cultural narratives about women’s singing voices may be at least as important as developing sophisticated algorithms in shaping future directions for creating female-sounding vocality in AI.

Transnational policing between national political regimes and human rights norms: The case of the Interpol Red Notice system

Current transnational policing mechanisms such as Interpol appear to reproduce authoritarianism-like actions in democratic contexts by helping to undermine the rights and freedoms of individuals targeted by non-democratic regimes. Through an in depth examination of the cases of Turkish and Russian police, this article seeks to explain the possible motives of the law enforcement institutions of democratic states in executing the questionable Interpol Red Notice requests by authoritarian regimes based on the existing theoretical debates in the literature on international policing. It explores three factors that foster policing cooperation between democratic and authoritarian states: 1) an aspired depoliticization of international policing that facilitates cooperation among states with different national and ideological outlooks; 2) an occupational culture that encourages professional support and solidarity among policing agents that transcends national rivalries; and 3) state cooperation against threats posed by the planning and conduct of international crime.

Understanding Vietnam’s drug policy for amphetamine-type stimulants misuse

IntroductionThe emergence of widespread amphetamine-type stimulants (ATSs) usage has created significant challenges for drug control and treatment policies in Southeast Asian countries. This study analyses the development of drug policies and examines current treatment program constraints in Vietnam to deal with ATS misuse. The aim was to gain insights that may be useful for national and international drug-related policy development and revision.MethodsA desk review of national policy documents and 22 in-depth key informant interviews were conducted from 2019 to 2021. Thematic content analysis was employed to identify key themes and their connections.ResultsAnalysis identified Vietnam’s 30-year history of developing policies and formulating strategies to reduce supply, demand, and harm from illicit drugs. With the increasing number of people who use ATS (PWUA), Vietnam has recently promoted harsh policy and law enforcement to deter drug use and supply. This policy trend prevails in many Asian countries. The three main constraints in dealing with ATS misuse emerged from punitive and restrictive drug policies. First, the general public believed that Centre-based compulsory treatment (CCT) is the only appropriate treatment for all types of illicit drug addiction despite its low-quality service provision. The rigid drug policy has led to social persuasion with impractical expectations for CCT effectiveness. Second, the emphasis on punishment and detention has hampered new drug treatment service development in Vietnam. CCT has become monopolistic in the context of impoverished services. Third, people who use drugs tend to hide their needs and avoid formal treatment and support services, resulting in declined social coherence.ConclusionWhile new drugs are constantly evolving, the current law enforcement approach potentially constrains expertise to adopt effective treatment services. This study suggests that the top-down policing mechanism presently hinders the development of an appropriate intervention strategy for ATS misuse and diminishes social support to service providers.

Not all who are bots are evil: A cross-platform analysis of automated agent governance

The growth of online platforms is accompanied by the increasing use of automated agents. Despite being discussed primarily in the context of opinion manipulation, agents play diverse roles within platform ecosystems that raises the need for governance approaches that go beyond policing agents’ unwanted behaviour. To provide a more nuanced assessment of agent governance, we introduce an analytical framework that distinguishes between different aspects and forms of governance. We then apply it to explore how agents are governed across nine platforms. Our observations show that despite acknowledging diverse roles of agents, platforms tend to focus on governing selected forms of their misuse. We also observe differences in governance approaches used by platforms, in particular when it comes to the agent rights/obligations and transparency of policing mechanisms. These observations highlight the necessity of advancing the algorithmic governance research agenda and developing a generalizable normative framework for agent governance.

Border Reopening and its Impact on Nigeria Economy a Marketing Perspectives

One of the most vital border regions in West Africa is the frontier between Nigeria and Benin. The global outbreak of Covid-19 leads to nation and wide lockdown in many countries. The countries and areas that have passed the worst phase of the outbreak or were able to prevent an internal outbreak are eager to reopen as prolonged lockdown could cause damages to the economy and social structure. The Nigeria government has approved the opening of its land borders on December 2020, since its closure on August 2019. This study aimed at determining the impact of border reopening on the Nigeria economy. The study area was Badagry and Apapa Metropolis Lagos State, Nigeria. A random sampling technique was employed, through the use of structured questionnaire on a sample of one hundred and ten (110); artisans (15), traders (50) and farmers (45) were used for data analysis. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was used to confirm formulated hypotheses. The study found that the recent border reopening is improving the Nigeria economy and gradually have good significant effect on market prices and in turn increasing the marketing turnover. The study also recommended that there is need to strengthen the border policing and management mechanisms to avoid a relapse into the conditions that led to the closure in the first place.

Adaptive tuning of network traffic policing mechanisms for DDoS attack mitigation systems

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are responsible for shutting down servers, denying access to critical sectors of the economy, and generating substantial downtime costs and reputation harm. Only in 2020, over ten million DDoS attacks were observed worldwide. Commonly, open-loop network traffic rate policing is used to mitigate them. That is how network devices are currently designed. This paper shows how to extend the state-of-the-art design by introducing the adaptive closed-loop tuning of policing mechanisms. As demonstrated experimentally, open-loop policing based on the celebrated token-bucket mechanism generates a steady-state control error. In contrast, the robust self-tuning controller eliminates that control error while adjusting the bitrate limiting operations to the severe and hardware-specific network operating conditions during a DDoS attack. The study shows the controller’s implementation details and discusses the critical difficulties encountered in its technical development. Furthermore, it illustrates how the control error variance depends on the commanded traffic rate limit and explains why the self-tuning controller’s anti-windup filter may fail to bring the control signal back to the set of admissible control values. All experiments presented in this paper were conducted using real data from the Polish nation-wide cybersecurity system FLDX managed by the NASK National Research Institute.

Do Somatic Cells Really Sacrifice Themselves? Why an Appeal to Coercion May be a Helpful Strategy in Explaining the Evolution of Multicellularity

An understanding of the factors behind the evolution of multicellularity is one of today’s frontiers in evolutionary biology. This is because multicellular organisms are made of one subset of cells with the capacity to transmit genes to the next generation (germline cells) and another subset responsible for maintaining the functionality of the organism, but incapable of transmitting genes to the next generation (somatic cells). The question arises: why do somatic cells sacrifice their lives for the sake of germline cells? How is germ/soma separation maintained? One conventional answer refers to inclusive fitness theory, according to which somatic cells sacrifice themselves altruistically, because in so doing they enhance the transmission of their genes by virtue of their genetic relatedness to germline cells. In the present article we will argue that this explanation ignores the key role of policing mechanisms in maintaining the germ/soma divide. Based on the pervasiveness of the latter, we argue that the role of altruistic mechanisms in the evolution of multicellularity is limited and that our understanding of this evolution must be enriched through the consideration of coercion mechanisms.

HIV-1: To Splice or Not to Splice, That Is the Question.

The transcription of the HIV-1 provirus results in only one type of transcript—full length genomic RNA. To make the mRNA transcripts for the accessory proteins Tat and Rev, the genomic RNA must completely splice. The mRNA transcripts for Vif, Vpr, and Env must undergo splicing but not completely. Genomic RNA (which also functions as mRNA for the Gag and Gag/Pro/Pol precursor polyproteins) must not splice at all. HIV-1 can tolerate a surprising range in the relative abundance of individual transcript types, and a surprising amount of aberrant and even odd splicing; however, it must not over-splice, which results in the loss of full-length genomic RNA and has a dramatic fitness cost. Cells typically do not tolerate unspliced/incompletely spliced transcripts, so HIV-1 must circumvent this cell policing mechanism to allow some splicing while suppressing most. Splicing is controlled by RNA secondary structure, cis-acting regulatory sequences which bind splicing factors, and the viral protein Rev. There is still much work to be done to clarify the combinatorial effects of these splicing regulators. These control mechanisms represent attractive targets to induce over-splicing as an antiviral strategy. Finally, splicing has been implicated in latency, but to date there is little supporting evidence for such a mechanism. In this review we apply what is known of cellular splicing to understand splicing in HIV-1, and present data from our newer and more sensitive deep sequencing assays quantifying the different HIV-1 transcript types.

Menelaah Koeksistensi Damai antara Komunitas Sunni dan Syiah di dusun Sendangasari Kabupaten Jepara

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan penyebab koeksistensi damai antara komunitas Sunni dan Syiah di dusun Sendangsari Kabupaten Jepara. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kualitatif dengan teknik snowball of chain sampling sebagai upaya dalam pengumpulan data. Terdapat tiga hipotesis yang digunakan dalam penelitian hubungan damai ini yaitu 1) penelaahan struktur kehidupan kewargaan; 2) self policing; dan 3) integrasi elit. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada struktur kehidupan kewargaan terdapat hubungan yang melampaui batas-batas etnis keagamaan (interethnic engagement) yang ditandai dengan 5 (lima) bentuk jaringan kewargaan (K) antar warga Sunni dan Syiah di dusun. Jaringan kewargaan tersebut menimbulkan ekstensi (reaksi; implikasi; mekanisme pencegahan konflik) dari warga Sunni dan Syiah untuk meredam situasi yang berpotensi menimbulkan kekerasan; yang salah satu bentuk ekstensi tersebut adalah self policing. Jaringan kewargaan (civic engagement) ini didukung oleh konsensus kultural dan struktural (consociationalism) sebagai bagian dari integrasi elit – antar tokoh Sunni dan Syiah – yang memberikan legitimasi pada perilaku damai; serta legitimasi terhadap jaringan kewargaan yang telah lama terjalin antara warga Sunni dan Syiah dalam dusun. Selain itu koeksistensi damai antar dua komunitas keagamaan tersebut tidak lepas dari sikap kognitif dari masing-masing warga Sunni dan Syiah yaitu : urusan keagamaan menjadi hak pribadi masing-masing individu, namun ketika masuk pada urusan sosial hal itu menjadi kewajiban bersama antar warga dusun.

Homosocial trust in urban policing

The exercise of social control in cities has been linked in a fundamental way to a wide variety of policing mechanisms in urban contexts. This article builds on the literature on urban policing by foregrounding ‘masculinities’ as a unit of analysis for understanding everyday practices of law enforcement on city streets. It describes quotidian interactions between male public transport vehicle operators and traffic police in contemporary Kolkata, India, to make a set of analytical observations about three interrelated concerns (a) the gendered character of urban policing, (b) the emotional and moral ethos of urban law enforcement, and (c) the production of the city as a male space. Through these analyses the article develops the concept of ‘homosocial trust’ as an explanatory framework for understanding gendered dimensions of the everyday state, place-making, and mobility in the ordinary city. Such a heuristic draws thought to the vocabulary of masculinity used by men, who are otherwise framed in a conflictual relationship, to transact situational trust and make city streets inhabitable for themselves. The article shifts the emphasis in studies of urban policing away from conflict to mundane collaboration between law enforcement officers and urban publics to highlight the masculinities of everyday state practice through which the city is reproduced as a space of patriarchal power. The article draws on ethnographic interviews with autorickshaw drivers, taxi drivers, traffic police personnel, and participant observation at workshops conducted by the police with transport workers to sensitize them to safe road practices in Kolkata.

Better Government, Happier Residents? Quality of Government and Life Satisfaction in China

How quality of government affects residents’ life satisfaction is a seldom discussed subject, especially in a non-democratic context. This research aims to address that gap by focusing on the case of China. It investigates the relation between different aspects of quality of government and Chinese residents’ happiness. Our data was provided by telephone interviews of 5015 residents in Shandong Province. The findings indicate that the majority of China’s citizens consider their lives offer them a high level of satisfaction. Positively and significantly contributing to their life satisfaction are the government’s trustworthiness and responsiveness, and its performance in public service delivery. This result implies that the quality of government has a positive and important impact on Chinese citizens’ happiness, both technically in terms of its ability to deliver public services efficiently, and politically in terms of the extent of democracy involved. But of these, it seems that the former is the more significant. The reasons for this lie in the country’s level of economic development, in China’s political culture, and in the policing mechanisms of the regime.

Comparative Analysis of the Legal Regime for Green Bonds in Nigeria, Philippines and China

Nigeria issued its first sovereign green bond in December 2017, being the first African country to issue sovereign green bonds and the fourth sovereign to issue green bonds in the world. Due to the successful issuance and recorded oversubscription of the sovereign green bond, and also her ambitions to meet her Nationally Determined Contribution set out in the recently signed Paris Agreement, she has decided to open the green bond market to private sector participant, by promulgating the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Green Bond Rules 2018, consequently permitting corporate green bond issuances. Therefore the central aim of this work is to examine the provisions of the SEC Green Bond Rules against international best practices in order to ascertain its parity with global best standards. In this work, expository, analytical and comparative jurisprudence have been carried out with the help of relevant international standard guidelines and regulations on green bonds. The work examined the Green Bond Principles and the Climate Bonds Standard, the two most popular international green bond guidelines. The study also focused on a comparative analysis of green bond regulatory regimes of Nigeria, Philippines and China. Part of the findings of this work is that that the Green Bond Principles and the Climate Bonds Standard form the foundation of most jurisdictions’ green bond regulations, and that the climate bonds standard is more strict in ensuring compliance with post issuance green standards, a factor which is very vital to the success or otherwise of green bonds. The work also discovered that jurisdictions whose green bond regulations are modelled after the Climate Bonds Standard tend to do better in terms of transparency and green project impact monitoring due to their strict regulations and policing mechanisms when compared to Nigeria’s green bond regulation. The work concludes that if green bonds are to be utilised as a veritable tool for sustainable investments, the SEC green bond rules should be amended to require compulsory assessment and verification of post-issuance impact assessment reports by independent verifiers or certification agencies, as this will afford the public to have second party expert opinion on the progress of green bonds and achieved green project impacts, while ensuring transparency and curbing fraudulent practices.

The trial’s the thing: Performance and legitimacy in international criminal trials

This article explores the relationship between performance and legitimacy in international criminal trials through the lens of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I begin by analysing the deployment of theatrical tropes by different legal scholars, such as Hannah Arendt, and David Luban, arguing that such analogies serve as a policing mechanism for the author to distinguish what they perceive to be the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ theatre of the trial. I then move beyond analogy, drawing on legal sociology and performance theory to read the criminal trial as ritual-like, normative performance. Using the ICC as a case study, I will examine how performance is deployed to create, reinforce and naturalize the role of the ICC in international criminal law. Through focusing on issues of performance and community I offer a different way of looking at what may constitute legitimacy in international criminal law from that which is offered by other legal scholars.

Queering Justice: States as Machines of Oppression

In light of the recent attention to the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of non-normative people in the Middle East and North Africa, this article does not seek to offer alternatives to systems of justice. Instead, our argument revolves around the need to turn the concept of justice on its head, by demonstrating that justice within the context of the nation-state is in its essence a de facto and de jure mechanism of policing and surveillance. To do so, this article draws on Michael Foucault’s notion of state-phobia from a de-colonial perspective, intersectional feminist theory, and Hisham Sharabi’s conceptualisation of the Arab-state as neo-patriarchal. This article highlights the need to move away from the post-colonial benevolent imaginary of the state, as a result of people’s desire for self-determination, to a more realistic de-colonial conceptualisation of nation-states that emerged post-colonisation, as sites of oppression. This article will also shed light on the role of civil society in reinforcing the unjust justice sought within nation-state frameworks by drawing on the examples of the recent crackdown on non-normative people in Egypt, and the example of non-normative Palestinians living under occupation. The Egyptian and Palestinian cases are, respectively, one of an allegedly sovereign state that overtly restricts gender and sexual freedom, and another of an occupying state that nominally guarantees gender and sexual rights. These examples are used to demonstrate the theoretical underpinnings of this article, through which we seek to problematise and break binaries of justice versus injustice, and the state versus civil society, in an attempt to queer the concept of justice.

The evolution of individuality revisited.

Evolutionary theory is formulated in terms of individuals that carry heritable information and are subject to selective pressures. However, individuality itself is a trait that had to evolve-an individual is not an indivisible entity, but a result of evolutionary processes that necessarily begin at the lower level of hierarchical organisation. Traditional approaches to biological individuality focus on cooperation and relatedness within a group, division of labour, policing mechanisms and strong selection at the higher level. Nevertheless, despite considerable theoretical progress in these areas, a full dynamical first-principles account of how new types of individuals arise is missing. To the extent that individuality is an emergent trait, the problem can be approached by recognising the importance of individuating mechanisms that are present from the very beginning of the transition, when only lower-level selection is acting. Here we review some of the most influential theoretical work on the role of individuating mechanisms in these transitions, and demonstrate how a lower-level, bottom-up evolutionary framework can be used to understand biological complexity involved in the origin of cellular life, early eukaryotic evolution, sexual life cycles and multicellular development. Some of these mechanisms inevitably stem from environmental constraints, population structure and ancestral life cycles. Others are unique to specific transitions-features of the natural history and biochemistry that are co-opted into conflict mediation. Identifying mechanisms of individuation that provide a coarse-grained description of the system's evolutionary dynamics is an important step towards understanding how biological complexity and hierarchical organisation evolves. In this way, individuality can be reconceptualised as an approximate model that with varying degrees of precision applies to a wide range of biological systems.

Efficient policing for screen mirroring traffic

The greediness of multimedia applications in terms of their bandwidth demands calls for new and efficient network traffic control mechanisms, especially in wireless networks where the bandwidth is limited. In an enterprise-like environment, an additional burden is expected to be added to the network by screen mirroring traffic. Smart mobile devices are displacing personal computers in many daily applications but at the same time users still need to use a large display, keyboard and mouse. Hence, the transmission of low-latency, high fidelity video over a Wi-Fi link can lead to significant unfairness among users in terms of the bandwidth that is available to them, if this wireless video traffic is not accurately policed. In this work, we focus on the problem of policing screen mirroring traffic. We evaluate various classic and new traffic policing mechanisms, and we propose a new mechanism which is shown to clearly outperform all other mechanisms, including the widely used token bucket policer.