Public Scandals Research Articles

Upgrading electronic monitoring, downgrading probation: Reconfiguring ‘offender management’ in England and Wales

England and Wales is currently privatizing most of its Probation Service and simultaneously planning to create the largest and most advanced electronic monitoring (EM) scheme in the world, using combined GPS tracking and radio frequency technology. Downgrading one, upgrading the other. Using a mix of published and unpublished sources, discussions with some key players in these developments, (and a ‘critical policy analysis’ perspective), this article begins by documenting the post-2010 development of GPS tracking, and the emergence of strong police support for its large-scale use. It notes the role of a right-wing think tank, Policy Exchange, in promoting the view that the GPS-based tracking of offenders’ movements is an intrinsically superior form of ‘electronic monitoring’ that should fully replace the discredited but still prevailing radio frequency EM, which can only restrict people to a single location. In the course of devising a third contract with commercial organizations to deliver EM, it transpired that the incumbent providers had been systematically overcharging the government for their services. Although a public scandal, and a series of official enquires – summarized here – resulted from this, the general momentum behind the outsourcing of penal interventions has not been slowed: the Conservative-led Coalition government is pursuing a relentlessly neoliberal agenda, driven far more by financial imperatives and technological preferences than anything that makes proper penal sense. The creation of a large, advanced GPS-based EM programme may not in fact work out in practice, but the government’s readiness to envision it shows where untrammelled neoliberalism points in respect of ‘offender management’ techniques. Although England and Wales have always been anomalous in their fully privatized delivery of EM, its preparedness to invest massively in GPS tracking and to simultaneously sacrifice the state-based Probation Service should serve to warn other European services of the penal challenges that neoliberalism may present them with.

The Wal-Mart affair – where implausible deniability is the coin of the realm

Purpose – In the past more than three years, Wal-Mart has been embroiled in incidents of public scandals. In part, they pertain to Wal-Mart’s global strategy of growth and expansion, where the company’s senior managers have been implicated in using illegal bribery and corruption to secure business and to conceal this information from regulatory authorities. Another issue, albeit longer running, has been the incidents of fire and resulting deaths and injuries of hundreds of people, most notably in Bangladesh, but also in other countries where low-skill, low-wage manufacturing predominates, and where foreign multinationals have been accused of condoning and profiting from sweatshop-like exploitation of workers. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use Wal-Mart as a microcosm of corporate conduct which provides a prism through which to examine the exploitation of negative externalities, i.e. engaging in illegal and unethical behavior by using their bargaining power and market control these companies, pressure host countries to condone environmental degradation, violation of country laws in terms of wages, working conditions and operating in sweatshop-like conditions to maximize their profits at the expense of other factors of production, i.e. labor and resources. Findings – The authors contend that Wal-Mart’s unique business model, which focuses on everyday low price, absolute growth and market share expansion by any means possible and everyday low cost, has led to the company’s enormous success since its founding and has made it one of the world’s largest corporations by revenue. At the same time, this model seriously impedes the company’s ability to improve unit-based profit margins and thus forces it to take short cuts in achieving lateral growth and low-cost production. Social implications – The authors also examine in some detail the large gap that exists between Wal-Mart’s pronouncements of the company’s commitment to ethical and socially responsible conduct and its actual business practices. They demonstrate that the company’s communications and claims for ethical conduct are mostly aspirational and fail the test of accuracy, specificity, materiality and verifiability through independent, externally provided integrity assurance. Originality/value – Finally, the authors outline a number of measures that would need to be taken by Wal-Mart, industry groups that depend heavily on outsourcing from low-skill, low-wage countries for their products and host country governments and the governments of Western industrialized nations whose corporations and consumers are the primary beneficiaries of the exploitative sweatshops that fatten their companies’ bottom lines and enrich their denizens with ample amounts of inexpensive goods.

Profiles in Exhaustion and Pomposity: the Everyday Life of Komsomol cadres in the 1920s

The article examines the daily lives of Young Communist League (Komsomol) cadres in the 1920s argue that their ability to establish local authority through consent was often undermined by their everyday conditions. The article treats the emergence of the Komsomol’s nomenklatura and cadre appointment system after the Russian civil war, cadre workload, working conditions, health, attitudes, and the Komsomol leadership’s efforts to subordinate cadre malfeasance and corruption through public scandal. The article demonstrates that without a sturdy material base upon which to generate consent, local Komsomol cadres often relied on domination to exert their authority over their rank and file members and to some extent the local population. This reliance ultimately perpetuated itself. The more cadres employed coercion, the more the means of consent atrophied, which led them to turn time and again to domination. The use of domination over consent had grave implications on the nature of Bolshevik rule. Often Komsomol cadres were the only representative of the Soviet state in rural localities, and their methods of garnering authority were representative of prevailing trends of Bolshevik governance throughout the 1920s.

The Public Perception of Police Corruption in Venezuela and its Effect on National Government

It is not surprising that many citizens of Latin American countries believe public officials are corrupt. Decades of authoritarian rule, crime, and highly publicized corruption scandals have reduced confidence in many, if not all, government institutions. The public perception of corruption in Venezuela however, presents an intriguing case. Traditional explanations—economic factors, regime stability, and quality of life—are unable to account for the high levels of perceived corruption in government. This author argues, the public perception of police corruption strongly influences the perception of corruption in national government in Venezuela. Using OLS regression, the author statistical analyzes national-level Latinobarómetro data from 2002-2010. The results indicate a strong, significant relationship between perception of police and government corruption.

Grey areas: irresponsible corporations and reputational dynamics

At the 2013 Annual Symposium of the Oxford University Centre of Corporate Reputation, a roundtable was convened to discuss the reputational dynamics surrounding corporations engaged in ethical ‘grey areas’, where actions are likely to be deemed as being socially irresponsible and often later result in public scandal. The presenters wrote up their comments in the form of short essays which are collected together in this forum. The introductory piece by Jackson and Brammer challenges the conventional wisdom that irresponsible behaviour by corporations is associated with strong reputational penalties. In various ways, the Discussion Forum contributors explore why this link may be weak or highly contingent, focusing on dynamics at different levels of analysis. Karpoff identifies grey areas of firm behaviour characterized by market failures around both negative and positive externalities, and reviews evidence showing prospects and limits of reputation in this context. The next two contributions by Lange and Zavyalova address problems with the social attribution of irresponsible behaviour at a micro level of analysis. Harrington shows further how micro-level attributions are shaped by wider historical and institutional contexts by presenting evidence on how individual investors responded to the widespread fraud in wake of financial crises in the USA. Partnoy and King stress the role of public and private forms of regulation, stressing the role of macro-level institutions in defining legitimate behaviour and framing expectations about what is responsible or irresponsible. Applying these various concepts, Deephouse reconstructs the history of Apple's encounters with grey areas and the reputational consequences thereof.

Enthüllungsrituale der Wahrheit

The essay argues for a concept of absolute truth as a cognitive claim to validity and for the relativity of normative conventions in practical dealings with truth. In opposition to the idea of an absolute imperative to truthfulness, it advocates a relative moral legitimacy of lying. Ritualized public scandals about people lying are often not an expression of honest outrage, but rather serve as an untruthful affirmation of norms about dealing with truth, the social validity of which has already become questionable.

Scientific integrity and the market for lemons

Scientific integrity cannot be adequately ensured by appeals to the ethical principles of individual researchers. Research fraud has become a public scandal, exacerbated by our inability accurately to judge its extent. Current reliance on peer review of articles ready for publication as the sole means to control the quality and integrity of the majority of research has been shown to be inadequate, partly because faults in the research process may be concealed and partly because anonymous peer review is itself imperfect. Consequently, the scientific literature is mixed, with the reader unable always to distinguish the good articles from the bad. Scientific research is subject to market forces that will always provide a motivation for a range of misdemeanours. This has led to a ‘market for lemons’. Regulations, and sanctions against miscreants, need to be modelled on those historically found necessary to limit financial fraud. Practical and effective systems of process control and audit have already been devised to ensure the integrity of clinical and pre-clinical research. These should be adapted for use in a much wider range of research activities.

Presbyteral Identity Today

In the forty years following Vatican II, new questions regarding the presbyterate have arisen: the ordination of women, priestly spirituality and issues of life style, the necessity of continuing education, the explosion of lay ministry, the incorporation of former married presbyters from the Lutheran church and the Anglican communion into various dioceses, etc. Moreover, the matter of obligatory clerical celibacy continues to be an important issue for priest-presbyters and for the people of God, who are frequently left without sufficient numbers of pastors. Overwork, burnout, and deferred retirement are becoming the standard of the day for many presbyters. The highly publicized sexual scandals among priest-presbyters in recent years have also contributed to low morale and the dwindling number of recruits in North America and Europe. Since my days as a student during the council, much has changed regarding the presbyterate, some for the better and some for the worse. One thing has remained constant—continued reflection on the nature of the ordained presbyteral ministry. I propose to examine some of the principal theological resources available for rethinking the identity and the ministry of the priest-presbyter.

Social Media Use—and Misuse—by Teachers: Looking to the Courts for Human Resource Policy Guidance

School districts are facing a sensationalized and alarming trend of unprofessional conduct and social media misuse by public school teachers. Likewise, recent court cases as well as highly publicized scandals raise concern that inappropriate relationships between teachers and students can be initiated through online social media. These emergent trends are posing significant challenges for human resource leaders responsible for initiating disciplinary and dismissal proceedings against teachers who engage in unprofessional or inappropriate behaviors. In an effort to increase awareness and understanding of the emerging social media use phenomenon, we identified recent court cases, along with a sampling of school district technology and social media use policies. We then analyzed the cases and district policies from a legal as well as human resource perspective. Finally, we identified possible policy initiatives that human resource personnel should consider adopting in response to the challenging online and social media use by educators, including specific suggestions for inclusion in newly adopted social media policies in many districts.

Locating Gender and Resistance Through a Feminist Application of Gramsci's “Organic Intellectual”: An Analysis of Time Magazine's 2002 “Person(s) of the Year”

In December of 2002, Time Magazine chose Sherron Watkins, Coleen Rowley, and Cynthia Cooper as the “Person(s) of the Year.” These women became famous for their roles as “whistle-blowers” in the country's highly publicized corporate scandals. Time's coverage of these women revealed the complex nature of corporate scandal and whistle-blowing. However, also apparent was the struggle each woman faced as a “gendered other” within the organizations they worked for. The role of the gendered other is examined using “feminist communicology” and Gramsci's theory of the “Organic Intellectual.” These women's experiences allow Time to portray them as individuals capable of navigating the hegemonic bloc's power structure while simultaneously undermining its power by using discourse and language as tools of resistance.

Noblesse Oblige: how systems for accountability affect trust among professionals

Whereas professionals were once regarded as trustworthy agents whose actions stemmed from their ‘calling’ and social responsibility for the community, nowadays, numerous public scandals seem to have eroded the public’s trust. Institutions are continuously being challenged to account for their actions and trust in professionals seems to be replaced by various accountability systems – both calculative and narrative. Calculative accountability as the dominant means for building trust with outsiders seems to have reached its limits, and the question arises how accountability affects trust among professionals. Based on a qualitative case study using a structurational discourse analysis, we revealed how accountability affects several layers of trust among professionals. Calculative accountability served to showcase good practices for restoring trust outside the profession and retain autonomy. Narrative accountability, however, was perceived as essential for interprofessional trust and to genuinely discuss the real ethical matters. As distrust among professionals erupted about the issue of a quality control system, this threatened the trust necessary to benefit from narrative accountability. The proposed solution in the literature to implement both calculative and narrative accountability simultaneously, thus seems to run into a Catch-22 situation in practice.

Descriptive vs. inferential cheating

Descriptive vs. inferential cheating

Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy

Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy

The Audit Committee: A Gatekeeper for Effective Corporate Governance

In recent years, much attention has focused on the role of the corporate audit committee within corporate governance in the wake of several high profiles corporate financial debacles, such as Maxwell, Polly Peck and BCCI Bank in the UK, Enron and WorldCom in the US, and Parmalat in Italy. The value of strong corporate governance has assumed a critical role in organisations since these highly publicised corporate scandals. Regulations have been introduced in most countries around the world to enhance the functioning of audit committees as a device for strengthening good corporate governance to avoid future accounting fiascos. This paper posits that arguably only an audit committee that is independent (e.g., comprised solely of outside directors), active (e.g., meeting frequently) and with members possessing financial expertise can contribute to effective corporate governance.

Therapeutic communities in mental hospitals

Purpose – During the latter part of the twentieth century, mental hospitals, originally built to provide asylum from the excesses of “community care” in the 1800s, began to be perceived as themselves damaging. Therapeutic communities within traditional hospitals offered a hopeful alternative. This paper aims to provide a succinct historical critique of the developments.Design/methodology/approach – Narrative and historical review.Findings – Attempts at reform met with varying degrees of success. Some communities closed down in the wake of public scandals while others were eminently successful. Organisational change presented social and psychological threats which were difficult to overcome. Leadership was an important factor in determining the outcome.Originality/value – This paper gives an insight into the social‐psychiatric approaches and organisational theories of the time. It is published in the belief that many of the themes remain relevant today.

The Open Closet in Dubliners : James Duffy’s Painful Case

Taking its cue from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet , this essay interrogates the heterosexual norm in three contexts to uncover the homosexual panic found in the text of “A Painful Case.” Beginning with the story’s intertext, Henry James’s “The Beast in the Closet,” I move on to look at late-Edwardian homosocial tensions resulting from in the Labouchère Amendment and a series of public sex scandals following the conviction of Oscar Wilde. Finally, I consider the unusual and near-universal heterosexual unanimity in the story’s critical reception. As Sedgwick predicted, this analysis reveals the presence of male homosexual panic in each of these contexts.

The posthumous legacy of Khlebnikov versus Mayakovsky sub specie Avant-Garde performance of scandal

The paper addresses the issue of the posthumous legacies of the two main Russian Avant-Garde revolutionary poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velemir Khlebnikov and draws largely on the memoir accounts available in this regard. The essay examines the pragmatics of operation of the post-Futurist public scandal which contributed to establishing/undermining the “symbolic value” of each poet’s debated legacy. The paper brings into discussion various methods of cultural analysis that include Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital, theory of speech-acts and different apprehensions of public memory. Some inconsistencies in the strategic maneuvering of each author are brought into attention, dwelling upon the possible reasoning for their respective successes and failures. The complex issues that may be seen responsible for this process are analyzed in the essay along with additional Russian avant-garde figures who exploited the same pragmatics of performing practices.

Madness and the Making of a Colonial Order in Burma

AbstractIn general, during the nineteenth century the British were indifferent to the condition of the insane in colonial Burma. This was most apparent in the Rangoon lunatic asylum, which was a neglected institution reformed reluctantly and episodically following internal crises of discipline and the occasional public scandal. However, whilst psychiatry was generally neglected, British officials did intervene when and where insanity threatened the colonial order. This occurred in the criminal courts where the presence of suspected lunatics was disruptive to the administration of justice. Insanity was also a problem for the colonial regime within the European community, where erratic behaviour was viewed as a threat to racial prestige. This paper shows how, despite its neglected status in Burma, psychiatric knowledge contributed to British understandings of Burman masculinity and to the maintenance of colonial norms of European behaviour.

“Free That Brown Eyed Man”: The United States v. Chuck Berry

As 1959 turned into 1960, amidst escalating national tension over both the growing Civil Rights movement and the controversial popularity of rock ‘n’ roll music, Chuck Berry was charged with transporting a teenage girl across state lines with the intent to engage in “immoral practices.” The public scandal that ensued fed into conservative fears that rock ‘n’ roll encouraged the racial integration of America’s youth, both through the airwaves and at live venues. The federal officials involved in Berry’s prosecution saw him in particular and rock ‘n’ roll more generally as posing the same main threats to the racial status quo as those posed by state-enforced integration: the breakdown of racialized spaces and the erosion of taboos against interracial sex. This piece situates Berry’s music and his 1960 trial and conviction within legal and musical histories shaped by the sexual as well as spatial mandates of white supremacy. Courtroom debate from the trial demonstrates how the perceived unity of gendered racial identity and individual intent dictates the attorneys’ interpretations of both Berry and the Apache teenage runaway on whose behalf the state is intervening; this racialization of sexual intent caters to the state’s investment in jointly regulating the sexuality and mobility of racialized subjects. Portrayed at various points in the proceedings as the lawless foil of a racially segregated Missouri, the Southwest, where Berry and his band were touring when the alleged crimes took place, becomes a racialized space in which delinquency and sexual deviance result from unregulated contact between nonwhite populations.

Silent Homosexuality in Oscar Wilde’s Teleny and The Picture of Dorian Gray and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

During the late-Victorian age the aggressive enactment of heteronormative laws forced the systematic silencing of many homosexuals. In the cultural and historical context of the late nineteenth century, the discourses about homosexuality were formulated by both the medico-scientific establishment of the period and the homosexual apologists opposing it. Fin-de-siècle Gothic narratives such as Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray could be read as offering the alternative and silent speech of homosexuality. Through the representation of silence, these literary texts in fact almost reveal a queer rhetorical strategy apparently countering the contemporary medical discourses legitimated by (and legitimating) a male- and hetero-dominated legislation. The characters fear being exposed both for the secret vices they indulge and for their decision to avoid any public scandal by conducting a double life hidden from the inquisitiveness of the contemporary public and the condemnation of the law. Thus Dr. Jekyll and Dorian Gray indirectly represent the lives that many late-Victorian homosexuals were forced to conduct, and particularly their anguish and indecision between liberally experiencing their natural urges and suffocating them because of the dictates and legal restrictions imposed by the surrounding society. Most recent psychoanalytical perspectives on trauma and silence (taking form through the withdrawal of information from public knowledge), demonstrate the mechanisms of unconscious suppression and deliberate denial enacted in these texts.