Once upon a time in the remote northern panhandle of Idaho, in the early 1990s, occurred a series of events that would lead to the deaths of three individuals, a beloved pet, and the overt acts of lawlessness and terrorism of three federal law enfocement agencies against United States' citizens. Thus, I introduce the story of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the Weaver family, and the federal law enforcement agencies that have collectivity become known as the infamous "dress rehearsal for Waco..." (Kopel and Blackman, 1997:32). Since this is a constructivist analysis of events surrounding Ruby Ridge, I specifically focus on how reality is constructed through the process of reification. In this research endeavor, I utilize an elaboration of Aho's (1994) steps of reality construction (naming, legitimation, mythmaking, sedimentation, and ritualism) in the understanding of how the situation of Ruby Ridge was constructed. I have integrated these five stages into the chronological events of Ruby Ridge and illustrate how the situation was constructed to be real and how the consequences of crisis management employed by federal law enforcement agencies evolved into reactive state terrorism. In other words, I answer the question-"How could this happen?" / Ph. D.

This thesis examines the impact of colonial legal institutions planted by the British administration upon the working of local indigenous practices in Bengal from 1860 to 1914. The aim of the thesis is two-fold. Firstly, the aim is to highlight the constraints and limitations faced by institutions that were reorganised following the assumption of Crown control in 1858. Secondly, the purpose is to illustrate the ways in which these limitations allowed the native population to mould, and manipulate, state institutions according to local needs and expectations. By examining these issues the aim is to highlight the tenuous relationship between western methods and indigenous practices, at times complementing each other and at other times proving to be incompatible. Through an examination of the system of criminal administration, the thesis seeks to highlight the complexities of the interaction between the local populace and colonial law. Rather than representing rigid categories which highlighted the difference between coloniser and colonised, the system of criminal administration was often the site where boundaries would often become blurred. As the thesis will aim to demonstrate through specific scenarios and cases described both in private memoirs and official records, it was a site which would be shaped by a number of influences- from clashing interests and changing alliances amongst local groups to the conflicting objectives of the colonial rulers themselves. In the process individual agencies were asserted that confound simplistic characterisations of the impact of colonialism in this important region within the British Indian empire.

Thesis (MPAM.) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / The study explored the challenges faced by the law enforcement agencies on illicit tobacco smuggling across South Africa and Zimbabwe at the Beitbridge port of entry. Literature states that globally law enforcement agencies are faced with a huge challenge at the borders in controlling the trade of tobacco product: South Africa has no exemption on this matter. This mini-dissertation analyses the effectiveness and efficiency of law enforcement and the control of illicit trade of tobacco product at Beitbridge port of entry. The lack of operation coordination strategies and workload within law enforcement agencies were fully examined with a view to come up with appropriate measures to improve control at research area. The South African Government tobacco control policy has been in place since the early 1990’s with legislative instruments requiring mandatory health warning labels on tobacco products, banning public and underage smoking. Porous borders and corruption of officials working at the boarders are the exacerbating illicit tobacco. An explanatory qualitative method design was used in this study which helped to gather data to explain the phenomenon in more depth. The chosen study area of this research is the Beitbridge port of entry which is situated in the far North of the Limpopo Province of South Africa. A purposive sample was used in the study to select participants in the following law enforcement agencies, namely SAPS, SARS and SANDF. Improved working collaboration between SAPS, SARS and SANDF and other stakeholders will immensely benefit the society and government. The qualitative study method was done in this research. The research sample was the law enforcement officers responsible for curbing the illicit trade of tobacco product in a multidisciplinary approach at the Beitbridge border post from the three departments, which are SAPS, SARS and SANDF. The data was only collected from the South African side of Beitbridge not from Zimbabwean side. Thematic analysis was then used to analyse the findings. Permission to conduct the study was sought from relevant authorities, ethics of informed consent, confidentiality and voluntarily participation were utilised. The following themes emerged during the data analysis: access to the border and also to the policies as well as to the members of selected departments working at the Beitbridge border post. The responses from the findings were analyses based on the interview guide used to collect data. The respondents confirmed that though there are coordinated efforts to prevent, combat and detect illicit cigarettes there is a need for adequate resources like storage facilities, sniffer dogs and scanners at the border. Based on the responses received, it was concluded that there is an existence of some form of coordination of activities relating to operations at the border within the law enforcement agencies responsible for curb illicit trade.

This report is a fact-based, data-driven journalistic presentation of how the 1033 military surplus program operates in Texas. The program transfers excess U.S. Department of Defense supplies to federal, state and local law enforcement at little to no cost to the agencies. Congress created the surplus program in the 1990s to repurpose taxpayer-bought equipment. Supplies available to agencies range from clothes to electronics to weapons and armored vehicles. Initially, only agencies with an anti-drug and counterterrorism mission participated. After 9/11 and the War on Terror, the equipment surplus grew, and the program expanded. Today, the 1033 is a multi-billion dollar surplus program that has transferred an estimated $4.2 billion worth of equipment to more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country. In Texas, more than 700 agencies are currently participating in the program. They have received $181.99 million in equipment between 2006 and 2013. An in-depth look into the 1033 program--specifically in Texas--found that it lacks adequate oversight at both the federal and state levels and has suffered from abuse. Some of the program's critics say its mass distribution of weapons and armored vehicles contributes to police militarization. The content in this report was produced using information gathered from federal and state documents, various publications, news reports and numerous interviews. The tables, figures, illustrations and story show the types of military supplies available through the program, how many items Texas agencies have received, how much it costs and how some local police departments are using the program. / text

The first historical account of federal crime control policy, "From Social Welfare to Social Control" contextualizes the mass incarceration of marginalized Americans by illuminating the process that gave rise to the modern carceral state in the decades after the Civil Rights Movement. The dissertation examines the development of the national law enforcement program during its initial two decades, from the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which established the block grant system and a massive federal investment into penal and juridical agencies, to the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which set sentencing guidelines that ensured historic incarceration rates. During this critical period, Presidential Administrations, State Departments, and Congress refocused the domestic agenda from social programs to crime and punishment. To challenge our understanding of the liberal welfare state and the rise of modern conservatism, "From Social Welfare to Social Control" emphasizes the bipartisan dimensions of punitive policy and situates crime control as the dominant federal response to the social and demographic transformations brought about by mass protest and the decline of domestic manufacturing. The federal government's decision to manage the material consequences of rising unemployment, subpar school systems, and poverty in American cities as they manifested through crime reinforced violence within the communities national law enforcement legislation targeted with billions of dollars in grant funds from 1968 onwards. By highlighting the role of race-neutral language in federal policy following civil rights legislation, the study also exposes the way structural racism endured after racism in the public sphere was no longer acceptable. Tracking the discretionary portion of the law enforcement budget that Congress permitted the White House to spend autonomously illustrates the way racism grounded color-blind crime control programs over time. With novel use of discretionary aid, White House Officials enlarged the federal government's influence over local authorities while still operating through the new states' rights paradigm the Safe Streets Act created via block grants. On the ground, federal law enforcement assistance heightened patrol forces in black urban neighborhoods and social institutions, causing disproportionate arrest rates and the unprecedented entrance of young Americans from areas of segregated poverty into state and federal penitentiaries. At the close of the first twenty years of the national law enforcement program, the number of inmates in American prisons had more than tripled. Ultimately, the dissertation questions the way the federal government helped to facilitate the process through which the state apparatus of punishment--including law enforcement, criminal justice, border management, and prison systems--quickly developed into its own viable industry in the context of urban deindustrialization and disinvestment. In contributing to debates about the persistence of poverty in the United States and drawing our attention to the federal government's role in sustaining punitive policy that first emerged in the 1960s, "From Social Welfare to Social Control" provides critical insight to one of the most important questions facing our society: why, in the land of the free, are more than one in a hundred American citizens in prison or jail?

Yes / The analysis of potentially large volumes of crowd-sourced and social media data is central to meeting the requirements of the ATHENA project. Here, we discuss the various stages of the pipeline process we have developed, including acquisition of the data, analysis, aggregation, filtering, and structuring. We highlight the challenges involved when working with unstructured, noisy data from sources such as Twitter, and describe the crisis taxonomies that have been developed to support the tasks and enable concept extraction. State-of-the-art techniques such as formal concept analysis and machine learning are used to create a range of capabilities including concept drill down, sentiment analysis, credibility assessment, and assignment of priority. We ground many of these techniques using results obtained from a set of tweets which emerged from the Colorado wildfires of 2012 in order to demonstrate the applicability of our work to real crisis scenarios.

Do we know whether the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in law enforcement agencies increases police performance? This study examines the impact of GIS use to police performance outcomes in cities and counties of the U.S. between 2000 and 2007. Current research uses computerized mapping conceptualization to operationalize its measurement. Second, the police performance methodological context is used to measure the organizational impact of GIS. Finally, a new theoretical framework, information technology capacity that combines organizational, environmental and managerial factors to explain IT applications, is used to encompass most relevant dimensions of the subject matter. Findings indicate that the use of GIS in police agencies increased sharply between 2003 and 2007. Additionally, the contribution of GIS use on police performance was found to be statistically significant, but in the opposite direction. Overall, results of the present study indicate significant links between crime rate (DV) and independent variables (IV) in law enforcement agencies. IVs are having a professional form of government andfull time specialized crime analysis personnel, police strength, the use of GIS, population, being located in the Northeast and West regions, poverty, having encouraged SARA type projects and a community policing unit.