Muslim religious identity amongst offenders has acquired significance as Islam is the fastest growing religion in prisons in the UK. This increase in the number of Muslim offenders in prison is accompanied by fears and concern about the potential for Islamist terrorist recruitment and radicalisation in the prison setting. Despite these concerns, there are significant gaps in our understanding of how religion influences the identity of offenders throughout their life. My research uses life story interviews with Muslim offenders (N=17) to provide a holistic overview of the significance of religion at different stages over the life course. The sample includes both converts and born-Muslims to provide insight into the influence of religion on the identity of both groups. The thesis starts by bringing together insights from sociological and anthropological literature on religion, along with theoretical criminological perspectives on identity in prison as well as post-release. It then discusses the methodological underpinnings of this research. In the first empirical chapter I discuss the importance of religion in childhood; the next chapter examines shifts in religious identity during adolescence and early adulthood. After discussing the significance of religion in the prison environment, I conclude by looking at whether changes to identity that occur in prison are sustained upon release. This research provides an original contribution to knowledge by looking at the processual development of religious identity over the life course. It identifies three main ways in which religion is important in the lives of the participants over the life course. (i) Religion is regarded as important in developing and maintaining a connection to a fictive local kinship group based on shared attendance at a place of worship (ii) Spiritual sense-making is useful for dealing with times of emotional distress and material deprivation. This sense-making allows participants to feel a sense of wellbeing and personal meaning even when they are experiencing difficulties and setbacks (iii) Religion provides a moral understanding through which participants develop ideational social roles in their family, work place and in their community. Through these social roles participants can develop holistic ideals of selffulfilment and non-material personal goals. Although religion can play an important role in identity development, its influence rises and falls over the life course. Factors such as gender, class, age, local neighbourhood, personal biography and ethnicity remain more consistent influences on identity.

The rapid fertility declines and increases in contraceptive prevalence rates in the last decades in Latin America occurred concurrently with increases in teenage and unintended childbearing. The factors behind, as well as possible future demographic consequences of this unique pattern of fertility change are still poorly understood. This thesis advances knowledge of three aspects of reproductive behaviour in Latin America: dynamics of contraceptive use in relation to an unintended birth experience, educational disparities in motherhood-timing and possible future of cohort fertility. I explore an untapped potential of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Population Censuses for Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, and employ demographic and statistical modelling techniques that have not been previously fully exploited in the Latin American context. First, I show how the longitudinal DHS reproductive "calendars" can be analysed using event-history models to advance the understanding of contraceptive choices of women who experience unintended pregnancies in Colombia and Peru. The study uncovers the importance of considering patterns of both pre- and after-birth contraceptive behaviour to inform the organization of postpartum family planning programmes in both countries. Second, using census data, I provide the first estimates of cohort first-birth age-specific schedules disaggregated by education level for Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. I document vastly increasing educational disparities in motherhood-timing during the fertility transition and discuss the potential factors behind this process. The analyses uncover a drastic increase in teenage fertility among women who drop-out of secondary school, indicating a need for an intervention. Lastly, using indirectly reconstructed fertility rates from censuses, cohort fertility is forecasted for total population and by education in Brazil. The study shows how a Bayesian model for fertility forecasting can be applied in the Latin American context where the childbearing pattern has been distinct from other world regions and where there is a scarcity of time-series of fertility rates. The study reveals the evolution of educational differences in completed fertility and shows that emerging low period fertility levels in Brazil might not necessarily correspond to women's equally low lifetime fertility in the future. Overall, the substantive findings improve the understanding of the reproductive behaviour disparities in Latin America and serve as inputs for the design of policies to alleviate them. The novel use of data and application of methods are important for the development of future research agendas on fertility change and for the collection of fertility data in the region.

This thesis contains three essays on the impact evaluation of social programs and public sector reforms. Chapter 2 investigates whether the effects of a cash transfer program persist or wear off in the long-run. I study the first two phases of Bono de Desarrollo Humano (BDH) in Ecuador, each of which lasted about five years. My identification strategy uses a regression discontinuity design and relies on the fact that at the threshold of eligibility, the second assignment to treatment (in 2008/9) was independent of the first assignment (in 2003). This allows me to disentangle the impact of a short exposure to the program (treatment during one phase) from a long exposure (treatment during two phases). Most of the gains in enrollment and schooling were achieved in the short-run among children that started treatment when they were about to start elementary school, eleventh grade or Baccalaureate. However, an extended exposure to BDH was not enough to keep raising children's education. Regarding labor market outcomes, BDH had a negative (not statistically significant) impact on the probability of working among young children but did not increase job opportunities among young adults in the long-run. Chapter 3 evaluates the impact on in-hospital mortality of a reform that made all health professionals working part-time switch to full-time contracts at public hospitals in Ecuador. I take advantage of the staggered adoption of the reform and hospital panel data to implement an event study to evaluate the impact of the reform. The results for the sample of admissions to the emergency department show that mortality in public hospitals decreased by 0.1% on the adoption year and by 0.2% one year later. Results were robust to several alternative specifications and to the inclusion of pre-reform characteristics that could have been used by policymakers to decide the order of implementation. More importantly, I show that the effects reported in this paper cannot be attributed to changes in other quality indicators at the hospital level like the length of stay or by changes in the patient mix. Chapter 4 studies the impact of increased liability risk facing physicians on the use of c-sections and on indicators of maternal and infant health. I take advantage of a legal reform that led to the hardening of sentences for cases of professional malpractice in Ecuador. I use a difference-in-difference strategy that compares the outcomes of two neighboring countries, Ecuador and Colombia, before and after the introduction of the reform and perform several parallel trend tests on the outcomes of interest and test for the stability of the demographic composition of both countries to support my identification strategy. During the five quarters following the reform, Ecuadorian doctors reduced the c-section rate by 1.1% among women aged 15 to 24 years, and by 0.9% among women aged 25 to 34 years. The c-section rate remained unaffected for women aged 35 to 44 years, possibly because doctors have less discretion over riskier births. Interestingly, the observed reduction in the c-section rate did not affect the health outcomes of mothers or newborns.

This study examines the role and development of contemporary policing within the context of the social, political and economic conditions of late capitalism. The thesis is divided into three parts. Part 1 (FORMS OF POLICING THE WORKING CLASS) seeks to provide historical illustration and analysis of the development of the class role of the police under capitalism, its inherent para-militarism and some of the key events and processes which have determined its formal development. The analysis examines the development of preventive policing under early capitalism, and its transformation into reactive forms of policing under late capitalism. Part 2 (POLICING KNOWSLEY) centres on a study of the contemporary events and processes underlying the development and impact of reactive forms of policing on Merseyside working class communities. It examines the factors which have played key roles in shaping police organisation and law enforcement policies at Force, Divisional and Sub-Divisional levels. These factors, such as the development of corporate organisation, the centralisation and expansion of forces, the development of mobile patrols, deteriorating social conditions, greater use of coercion, specialisation in operations and administration, the introduction of new communication and computer systems, and the reactionary ideologies underlying the law enforcement policies of senior police command, are given particular consideration in relation to their development and impact on the Knowsley Borough area of Merseyside. Part 3 (THE POLITICS OF LATE ENFORCEMENT IN THE 1980's) examines the extent of the political autonomy of the police from central and local government. The analysis develops firstly a study on police power and privilege, centred on the inquest in Knowsley into the death of James Kelly at Huyton Police Station. This is then followed by analysis of the confrontations and conciliations between Merseyside Police Committee and the Chief Constable, arising out of 'K' Division incidents of 1979 and the anti-police riots of 1981. Central to the politics of law enforcement in the 1980's has been the development of new reactive forms of policing the daily lives of working class communities, and the formation of a nationally centralised and politically autonomous para-military third ford. Part 3 concludes by situating these developments within the wider social, political and economic conditions of late capitalism in Britain.

In the last 20 years the UK’s elderly residential care system has become progressively more privatised with an increase in the number of for-profit organisations delivering these services. This study is a participant observation of care work in one privatised elderly residential care home (‘Meadowvale’), owned and operated by a large provider of such services (‘Moonlight Care’). It provides a rich ethnographic depiction of life at Meadowvale both from the point of view of the workers and the residents. The thesis frames these ethnographic findings against pro-privatisation discourses which argue that serious raises in standards of service delivery are to be made from instilling profit motives within social care systems. I argue that there were a series of contradictions which prevented Moonlight Care from both achieving convincing levels of profitability whilst simultaneously improving the nature of elderly residential care. The fact that the revenue received was largely determined by the local government and the distinctive nature of care work inhibited the company from transforming the service for the better. Regulation, although crucial to ensuring that a base level of service quality was ensured, also represented a constraint on any possible restructuring. Greater gains could therefore only be increased through slashing the costs of production and enlarging the economies of scale. Both processes defined the business plan of Moonlight Care. This thesis, therefore, argues that privatisation was incongruent with quality of elderly residential care at Meadowvale. Privatisation led to a form of ‘parasitic’ production where efficiency gains and innovation were absent but business objectives were met by lowering the standards of living for the people who use the service and the wages and working conditions of the people who deliver the service. Cost rationalisation took an extreme form at Meadowvale with repercussions for both care workers and residents. Primarily the ethnographic data looks at the everyday effects of delivering care in this under-resourced labour process. The tasks of care were highly routinised within a system of bureaucratic control which emphasised the physical, “dirty” tasks of care and necessitated that all tasks were recorded. However, the numbers of workers always fell short of the workload leading to widespread falsification in the records. The high intensity of work at Meadowvale embedded various forms of mistreatment, abuse and neglect within the working routine. The system of bureaucratic control also emphasised the physical, ‘dirty’ tasks of care work, leaving little time for relational work. This instituted a particular form of emotional work which emphasised suppressing emotions in order to move from one task to the next as quickly as possible. This was considered problematic for many of the workers who felt that care work should be underpinned by emotional warmth and intimacy. The organisation of care labour at Meadowvale also ran contrary to the regulatory policy discourse which constructed quality care as personalised to each recipient, supporting lifestyle choice and personal preferences. This ‘personalisation agenda’ was a major component of the regulatory framework, but was impossible to implement under the strict routine which permeated care home existence. The responsibility of implementing the personalisation agenda was also constructed in training courses and official documentation as located with the workers, rather than with organisational structures, regimes or motives. This suggests an individualising process in which regulatory authorities and care companies attempt pass the responsibility and risk associated with providing these poorly resourced care services on to each individual worker. The thesis also explores the implications of the system of production in structuring the inequality experienced both by care workers and residents. The process of accumulation at Meadowvale could be described as ‘parasitic’ because profit arises from reducing the cost of production. Two major strategies for reducing expenditure that Moonlight Care utilised was securing a cheap, highly exploitable workforce and reducing the costs associated with care. The search for a cheap workforce has led to the employment of large numbers of migrant workers. Many of the migrant workers at Meadowvale were unable to find alternative employment because their visa’s either tied them to working in the social care sector, or in some cases, specifically to Moonlight Care. I also argue that immigration status supported higher levels of exploitation by denying welfare rights to migrant workers and their families. At the same time the residents at Meadowvale were subject to a system of care which often failed to cater for their needs. Not only were there were few luxuries associated with life at Meadowvale even basic care rights were frequently denied to the residents. During my time at Meadowvale the conditions for both staff and workers seemed to be deteriorating reflecting the endemic problems in the industry. The demand for cheap highly exploitable forms of labour and the denial of basic care rights for the residents can be theorised as interrelated processes connecting to the current system of residential care provision. At Meadowvale, the search for profit did not, as the proponents of privatisation suggest, lead to a system defined by choice, efficiency or quality.

The adoption and ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989 came as a promise to the improvement of children’s well-being and status throughout the globe. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child (ACRWC) sparked more hope for the African Child. A number of initiatives by governments and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been undertaken to enforce the rights of the child; yet children continue to suffer from various injustices. In Tanzania orphaned children heading households (OCHH) suffer even more as they struggle between adult and children roles. This thesis reveals a disconnection between the perspectives of the OCHH and those of the different governance institutions supposed to protect the children at the local, national and global levels. In a socio-legal study this thesis uses ethnographic techniques to focus on the OCHH themselves and their perspectives. It explores their understandings and the role played by the multitude of governance institutions around them, which do not seem to address the injustices facing them. The thesis uses governance, law and ethic of care approaches to analyse the children’s position. It argues that although OCHH suffer, they are not ‘suffering bodies’ instead they are ‘political persons’ claiming their agency.

This thesis addresses the question of what helps the homeless to escape from homelessness. It comprises an empirical paper, a systematic literature review and a paper reflecting on the experience of conducting research with once-homeless men. The empirical paper details a qualitative exploration of the experience of escaping from homelessness for five once-homeless men. Semi-structured interviews were carried out and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Emergent themes were: life breaking in, decision to change, bad past and good present, better future. Life breaking in considered how life events and relationships 'broke into' cycles of homelessness and drug abuse participants were caught in. Their combined effect seemed to be to bring participants to a ‘turning point’, where they made a clear decision to change. Participants' relationship with their past, present and future seemed key in maintaining their escape. Escape from homelessness was discussed in terms of identity change, especially the need to repair a broken identity. The systematic literature review evaluates the evidence for the effectiveness of therapeutic communities (TCs) for dually-diagnosed homeless. PsycINFO, Web of Science, ASSIA and PubMed were searched using terms relating to therapeutic community, homelessness and effectiveness. A total of 113 unique articles were retrieved and of these ten met inclusion criteria and were reviewed. The review found that TCs with adaptations for patients with mental illness, in addition to substance dependency, led to small improvements in substance abuse, mental health and housing outcomes. However, these effects were short-lived and few were still present after a year. In the reflective paper, the experience of conducting research, as a therapist, with once-homeless men was reflected on and the question of what therapists bring to research was considered. While therapists may struggle with some aspects of clinical research, they bring a range of skills and experience to this endeavour.

This research examines the relationship between poverty and social capital, based on the experiences of current and former welfare recipients in the Chilesolidario Programme. Poverty is conceptualized as the lack of social relations that, acting persistently and permanently over time, restricts the transfer of economic and non-material resources to disadvantaged people. Qualitative research was carried out in Villa San Luis 3, Maipú, Chile, which included 42 interviews conducted with welfare recipients, social workers, local public administrators of the Programme, and experts and academics on poverty. Three aims are addressed in this research. Firstly, the study looks at the types of social relations enjoyed by participants within Villa San Luis 3 and outside it. This thesis contends that familial relations are the basis for social interactions. It finds that beneficiaries of the Programme maintain only a few social relations beyond the family, whilst friends, acquaintances and contacts do not have the capacity to help in creating better social networks for recipients. Secondly, this thesis investigates whether or not the Programme successfully enables people to reduce poverty. It shows that there are no significant differences between current and former beneficiaries in terms of social relations enjoyed, income received, or capacity to generate social capital, and therefore the programme does not produce an effect in the long-term. Thirdly, this thesis suggests that self-employment is of limited use in reducing poverty, because Chilesolidario participants do not demonstrate the use of this means to deal permanently with their every day needs, and such independent work is not useful in the long-term. Overall, this research tends to support Bourdieu's theory of social capital and social inequality, suggesting that poor people in Villa San Luis 3 engage in few social relations, and these do not produce or reproduce social capital so as to reduce poverty. In this respect, the Chilesolidario Programme is not an aid to reducing poverty, and seed capital is not an appropriate instrument to be used by a group of people without the skills or social relations required to maintain self-employment in the long-term.

This thesis investigates the meaning of care in our societies. Everyone will be concerned with care in some way at some point in his/her life. In the UK and Austria economic and social developments challenge traditional family arrangements while the need for care for the elderly is increasing. But how do we understand care and which meaning does care have for us, for our relationships, for our identities and for our understanding of society? How do we want to live together, and how do we want to experience the process of ageing? Understanding the construction of care helps to understand aspects of people’s ideals, motives, attitudes, imaginations, aspirations and desires in life. This study bridges the theoretical level of broad moral questions and their application in particular situations. Utilising Critical Discourse Analysis in combination with a sample of newspapers and the organisation of focus groups in each country enable an identification of the ‘moral grammar’ of care, i.e. the discourses in which care is constructed. The result is an everyday morality, referring to the way people understand and make sense of their experiences, histories and emotions about care for elderly people. This moral construction situates care in opposition to an economisation and/or individualisation of society. Care reflects an ambivalent desire of people which can be described as being there for each other. By exploring themes such as relationships, home, community, independence and the commodification of care this thesis demonstrates that, on the one hand, moral assumptions and ideals are underlying the organisation of care and, on the other hand, care itself represents an ideal of being moral. This construction has important consequences for all those involved in caring relationships (as carers and as those being cared for) and any policy making needs to be conscious of it.

The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of continuity and change in the organisation of terrorist groups during the age of globalisation. Primarily, it seeks to address the problem of whether there is a ‘new’ type of terrorist group that is qualitatively different from ‘traditional’ terrorist groups. It will focus on determining to what extent terrorist groups function as ‘hierarchies’, ‘networks’ or ‘leaderless resistance movements’. In order to examine these issues, the research will conduct a comparative case study analysis of three different terrorist organisations: the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Al Qaeda (AQ). It will draw on a wide range of data sources, including academic material, government reports, media information and internet material. The research will show that as opposed to operating as pure hierarchies, networks or leaderless resistance movements, terrorist organisations have actually functioned as ‘hybrids’ of these different organisational models. Furthermore, the research will demonstrate that many of the supposedly unique organisational characteristics of ‘new’ terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda, can in fact be observed in much older groups, such as the Provisional IRA and the Animal Liberation Front. Indeed, there appears to be substantial continuity in the organisation of terrorist groups, especially in the way that networks are combined with other forms of organisational architecture.