Michael Gaffney

Although much of the social science literature supports the importance of community assets for success in many policy areas, these assets are often overlooked when selecting communities for new infrastructure facilities. Extensive collaboration is crucial for the success of environmental and economic projects, yet it often is not adequately addressed when making siting decisions for new projects. This article develops a social asset framework that includes social, creative, and human capital to inform site-selection decisions. This framework is applied to the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance project to assess community suitability for biofuel-related developments. This framework is the first to take all necessary community assets into account, providing insight into successful site selection beyond current models. The framework not only serves as a model for future biorefinery projects but also guides tasks that depend on informed location selection for success.

This article provides background, insight and an assessment of the challenges and benefits of using college student interns to monitor public safety cameras. Based on one element of a strong partnership between the Pullman (WA) Police Department and Washington State University, this descriptive study focuses on the formation of a student internship program to monitor public safety cameras in a high-disorder area to enhance crime prevention, police response capacity, and public safety. This effort has been underway for over2 years, and illustrates the positive outcomes for public safety that can result from effective practitioner/academic collaborations.

A number of studies have examined the correlates of citizen volunteerism in crime prevention programs, but few studies have systematically compared volunteers in Block Watch and community-oriented policing (COP) programs. This study has two goals. First, this study evaluates the impact that a number of theoretically hypothesized factors have on citizen volunteerism in crime prevention programs, and second, assesses whether the determinants of citizen volunteerism in Block Watch programs differ from COP programs. Results from an urban Western city (n = 850) show that race, victimization, and positive attitudes toward the police are significant predictors of citizen participation in COP programs. Whereas income and perceptions of inadequate police services are significant predictors of citizen participation in Block Watch programs. Contrary to other findings in the literature fear of crime and social cohesion were not significantly associated with participation in either program.

Collaborative capacity is central to long-term problem-solving success and poses a challenge for public management scholars—How does one measure collaborative capacity? The authors treat collaborative capacity as an outcome and develop a multidimensional collaborative capacity assessment framework that measures whether capacity is enhanced, stays the same, or is diminished. The framework is applied to two collaborations involving endangered species in the United States. Although traditional measures of compliance show little difference, the full framework finds a stark contrast in long-term problem-solving capacity. One case evinces high overall capacity, whereas the second case registers low, even diminished, capacity.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the principal determinants associated with becoming a volunteer in crime prevention programs.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from citizen surveys in a medium sized city located in the West region of USA. The data contained 574 city residents and 264 volunteers. Binomial logistic regression analytical technique was employed to examine the relative contribution of three categories of explanatory variables – demographic background, neighborhood contextual factors, and political viewpoints – on becoming a police volunteer in community crime prevention.Findings: The primary finding suggests that gender was a significant predictor of participation in police volunteer work. With respect to cognitive factors, the character of citizen perceptions of crime problems in their neighborhoods mattered considerably. Similarly, citizens' political orientation was another important variable among cognitive factors.Research limitations/implications: Study findings are based on surveys of citizen perceptions of police programs from a single mid‐sized city. Results cannot be generalized to all US cities.Originality/value: This study provides police administrators and academic scholars with research‐based information on several unanswered questions associated with participation in police volunteer work.

The increasing application of forensic DNA analysis in the criminal justice system has led to considerable public debate. Such discussions typically center on either its use for identifying criminal offenders (and for exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted) or legal questions concerning the proper scope of DNA evidence collection. Currently missing from these debates is an accurate estimate of the national backlog of cases that might benefit from the application of forensic DNA analysis. The authors estimate this backlog using data gathered from a nationally representative sample of local law enforcement agencies and from the total population of both state and local crime laboratories. The authors document the primary barriers identified by these agencies to the expanded use of forensic DNA analysis in the processing of criminal cases. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications for the continued support of and increased access to forensic DNA testing by law enforcement agencies.

The centrality of collaborative capacity to long-term problem-solving success in natural resource policy poses a critical challenge for social scientists. While the literature on antecedent capacity is relatively rich, there is virtually nothing in the literature related to collaborative capacity as an outcome—the idea of a collaborative capacity assessment framework. What criteria help us understand whether long-term, collaborative problem-solving capacity is enhanced, stays the same, or is diminished? Our framework develops capacity outcomes along multiple dimensions—the vertical, the horizontal, and the partnership linkages between the two—and is applied to collaborations involving endangered species. When the cases are measured along traditional vertical measures there is little difference; both register high rates of compliance. However, when assessed along all three dimensions of the framework, a stark contrast in long-term problem-solving capacity is evident. The Walla Walla case evinces high capacity overall, while the Methow Valley registers low, even diminished capacity.