Narratives of mitigation : sentencing Indigenous criminal defendants in South Australia’s Higher Courts

In their statistical analyses of higher court sentencing in South Australia, Jeffries and Bond (2009) found evidence that Indigenous offenders were treated more leniently than non-Indigenous offenders, when they appeared before the court under similar numerical circumstances. Using a sample of narratives for criminal defendants convicted in South Australia’s higher courts, the current article extends Jeffries and Bond’s (2009) prior statistical work by drawing on the ‘focal concerns’ approach to establish whether, and in what ways, Indigeneity comes to exert a mitigating influence over sentencing. Results show that the sentencing stories of Indigenous and non-Indigenous offenders differed in ways that may have reduced assessments of blameworthiness and risk for Indigenous defendants. In addition, judges highlighted a number of Indigenous-specific constraints that potentially could result in imprisonment being construed as an overly harsh and costly sentence for Indigenous offenders.

Introduction : creative industries and innovation policy

This special issue of Innovation : Management, Policy & Practice (also released as a book: ISBN 978-1-921348-31-0) will explore some empirical and analytic connections between creative industries and innovation policy. Seven papers are presented. The first four are empirical, providing analysis of large and/or detailed data sets on creative industries businesses and occupations to discern their contribution to innovation. The next three papers focus on comparative and historical policy analysis, connecting creative industries policy (broadly considered, including media, arts and cultural policy) and innovation policy. To introduce this special issue I want to review the arguments connecting the statistical, conceptual and policy neologism of ‘creative industries’ to: (1) the elements of a national innovation system; and (2) to innovation policy. In approaching this connection, two overarching issues arise.

Lifting the lifegiving dollar : case samples of creative practice in health and medical research philanthropy

This study aims to stimulate thought, debate and action for change on this question of more vigorous philanthropic funding of Australian health and medical research (HMR). It sharpens the argument with some facts and ideas about HMR funding from overseas sources. It also reports informed opinions from those working, giving and innovating in this area. It pinpoints the range of attitudes to HMR giving, both positive and negative. The study includes some aspects of Government funding as part of the equation, viewing Government as major HMR givers, with particular ability to partner, leverage and create incentives. Stimulating new philanthropy takes active outreach. The opportunity to build more dialogue between the HMR industry and the wider community is timely given the ‘licence to practice’ issues and questioned trust that applies currently somewhat both to science and to the charitable sector. This interest in improving HMR philanthropy also coincides with the launch last year by the Federal Government of Nonprofit Australia Limited (NAL), a group currently assessing infrastructure improvements to the charitable sector. History suggests no one will create this change if Research Australia does not. However, interest in change exists in various quarters. For Research Australia to successfully change the culture of Australian HMR giving, the process will drive the outcomes. Obviously stakeholder buy-in and partners will be needed and the ultimate blueprint for greater philanthropic HMR funding here will not be this document. Instead it will be the one that wears the handprint and ‘mindprint’ of the many architects and implementers interested in promoting HMR philanthropy, from philanthropists to nonprofit peaks to government policy arms. As the African proverb says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go with others’.

The role of social capital in reducing negative health outcomes among police officers

This paper investigates the role of social capital on the reduction of short and long run negative health effects associated with stress, as well as indicators of burnout among police officers. Despite the large volume of research on either social capital or the health effects of stress, the interaction of these factors remains an underexplored topic. In this empirical analysis we aim to reduce such a shortcoming focusing on a highly stressful and emotionally draining work environment, namely law enforcement agents who perform as an essential part of maintaining modern society. Using a multivariate regression analysis focusing on three different proxies of health and three proxies for social capital conducting also several robustness checks, we find strong evidence that increased levels of social capital is highly correlated with better health outcomes. Additionally we observe that while social capital at work is very important, social capital in the home environment and work-life balance are even more important. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that work and stress programs should actively encourage employees to build stronger social networks as well as incorporate better working/home life arrangements.

Evidence-based practice

Introduction This chapter traces the history of evidence-based practice from its roots in evidence-based medicine to contemporary thinking about the usefulness of such an approach to practice. It defines evidence-based practice and differentiates it from terms such as evidence-based medicine, evidence-based policy and evidence-based healthcare. As evidence-based practice is concerned with identifying ‘good evidence’, this chapter will first describe the nature and production of knowledge, as it is important to understand the subjective nature of knowledge and the research process. The chapter considers the necessary skills for evidence-based practice, and discusses the processes of attaining the necessary evidence and its limitations. We examine the barriers and facilitators to identifying and implementing ‘best practice’ and when evidence-based practice is appropriate to use. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the limitations of evidence-based practice and the potential use of other sources of information to guide practice.

Epidemiology

The aim of this chapter is to provide you with a basic understanding of epidemiology, and to introduce you to some of the epidemiological concepts and methods used by researchers and practitioners working in public health. It is hoped that you will recognise how the principles and practice of epidemiology help to provide information and insights that can be used to achieve better health outcomes for all. Epidemiology is fundamental to preventive medicine and public health policy. Rather than examine health and illness on an individual level, as clinicians do, epidemiologists focus on communities and population health issues. The word epidemiology is derived from the Greek epi (on, upon), demos (the people) and logos (the study of). Epidemiology, then, is the study of that which falls upon the people. Its aims are to describe health-related states or events, and through systematic examination of the available information, attempt to determine their causes. The ultimate goal is to contribute to prevention of disease and disability and to delay mortality. The primary question of epidemiology is: why do certain diseases affect particular population groups? Drawing upon statistics, the social and behavioural sciences, the biological sciences and medicine, epidemiologists collect and interpret information to assist in the prevention of new cases of disease, eradicate existing disease and prolong the lives of people who have disease.

Making a match: Combining theory and evidence in policy-oriented macroeconomic modeling

A persistent question in the development of models for macroeconomic policy analysis has been the relative role of economic theory and evidence in their construction. This paper looks at some popular strategies that involve setting up a theoretical or conceptual model (CM) which is transformed to match the data and then made operational for policy analysis. A dynamic general equilibrium model is constructed that is similar to standard CMs. After calibration to UK data it is used to examine the utility of formal econometric methods in assessing the match of the CM to the data and also to evaluate some standard model-building strategies. Keywords: Policy oriented economic modeling; Model evaluation; VAR models

Teachers reporting child sexual abuse : towards evidence-based reform of law, policy and practice

This report presents the results of the largest study ever conducted into the law, policy and practice of primary school teachers’ reporting of child sexual abuse in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. The study included the largest Australian survey of teachers about reporting sexual abuse, in both government and non-government schools (n=470). Our research has produced evidence-based findings to enhance law, policy and practice about teachers’ reporting of child sexual abuse. The major benefits of our findings and recommendations are to: • Show how the legislation in each State can be improved; • Show how the policies in government and non-government school sectors can be improved; and • Show how teacher training can be improved. These improvements can enhance the already valuable contribution that teachers are making to identify cases of child sexual abuse. Based on the findings of our research, this report proposes solutions to issues in seven key areas of law, policy and practice. These solutions are relevant for State Parliaments, government and non-government educational authorities, and child protection departments. The solutions in each State are practicable, low-cost, and align with current government policy approaches. Implementing these solutions will: • protect more children from sexual abuse; • save cost to governments and society; • develop a professional teacher workforce better equipped for their child protection role; and • protect government and school authorities from legal liability.

Generation next : post-cinema Australian moviemaking, innovation and implications for cultural policy

The Australian screen industries are a leading domestic creative industry sector at a crossroad. New production, distribution and exhibition technologies are challenging traditional models of ‘filmmaking’. For the screen industries to remain competitive they must renovate business models for an emerging marketplace. This paper is a preliminary examination of three key aspects of next generation filmmaking: post-cinema approaches to screen production, emerging production and business models, and issues for policy.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Health Strategy

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Health Strategy was launched at the Australian Women’s Health Network (AWHN) National Conference in Hobart on the 19 May 2010. It is important to note that this Strategy does not replace other national or State and Territory documents which identify priorities and needs. The aim is to supplement existing work and contribute to the new National Women's Health Policy (NWHP) being developed. This article will outline the process of the Strategy’s development and its uses for the future.

The politics of literacy in David Almond and Dave McKean’s "The Savage" (2008)

Competency in language and literacy are central to contemporary debates about education in Anglophone nations around the world. This paper suggests that such debates are informing not just educational policy but children’s literature itself as can be seen in Almond and McKean’s The Savage. This hybrid text combines prose and graphic narrative and narration in order to tell the story of Blue, a young British boy negotiating his identity in the aftermath of his father's death. While foregrounding a narrative of ideal masculinity, The Savage enacts and privileges a formal and thematic ideal of literacy as index of individual agency and development. Almond and McKean produce a politicised understanding of language and literacy that simultaneously positions The Savage in a textual tradition of socio-culturally disenfranchised youth, and intervenes in that tradition to (perhaps ironically) affirm the very conditions previously critiqued by that very tradition. Where earlier authors such as Barry Hines sought to challenge normative accounts of language and literacy in order to indict educational policy and praxes, Almond and McKean work to naturalise the very logics of education and agency by which their protagonist has been disenfranchised. In doing so, The Savage exemplifies current approaches to education which claim to value social and cultural diversity while imposing national standardised testing predicated on assumptions about the legitimacy of uniform standards and definitions of literacy.

Performance analysis of unified enterprise application security framework

Unified Enterprise application security is a new emerging approach for providing protection against application level attacks. Conventional application security approach that consists of embedding security into each critical application leads towards scattered security mechanism that is not only difficult to manage but also creates security loopholes. According to the CSIIFBI computer crime survey report, almost 80% of the security breaches come from authorized users. In this paper, we have worked on the concept of unified security model, which manages all security aspect from a single security window. The basic idea is to keep business functionality separate from security components of the application. Our main focus was on the designing of frame work for unified layer which supports single point of policy control, centralize logging mechanism, granular, context aware access control, and independent from any underlying authentication technology and authorization policy.

Transition pedagogy : a third generation approach to FYE : a case study of policy and practice for the higher education sector

Current research and practice related to the first year experience (FYE) of commencing higher education students are still mainly piecemeal rather than institution-wide with institutions struggling to achieve cross-institutional integration, coordination and coherence of FYE policy and practice. Drawing on a decade of FYE-related research including an ALTC Senior Fellowship and evidence at a large Australian metropolitan university, this paper explores how one institution has addressed that issue by tracing the evolution and maturation of strategies that ultimately conceptualize FYE as “everybody's business.” It is argued that, when first generation co-curricular and second generation curricular approaches are integrated and implemented through an intentionally designed curriculum by seamless partnerships of academic and professional staff in a whole-of-institution transformation, we have a third generation approach labelled here as transition pedagogy. It is suggested that transition pedagogy provides the optimal vehicle for dealing with the increasingly diverse commencing student cohorts by facilitating a sense of engagement, support and belonging. What is presented here is an example of transition pedagogy in action.

Information interoperability, government and open standards

The activities of governments, by their very nature, involve interactions with a broad array of public and private sector entities, from other governments, to business, academia and individual citizens. In the current era, there is a growing expectation that government programs and services will be delivered in a ‘simple, seamless and connected’ manner,1 leading to increased efficiency in government operations and improved service delivery.2 Achieving ‘collaborative, effective and efficient government and the delivery of seamless government services’ requires the implementation of interoperable technologies and procedures.3 Standards, which aim to enable organisations, platforms and systems to work with each other, are fundamental to interoperability.

Specifying and enforcing a fine-grained information flow policy : model and experiments

In this paper we present a model for defining and enforcing a fine-grained information flow policy. We describe how the policy can be enforced on a typical computer and present experiments using the proposed model. A key feature of the model is that it allows the expression of rules which detail precisely which information elements are allowed to mix together. For example, the model allows the expression of a policy which forbids a doctor from mixing the personal medical details of the patients. The enforcement mechanisms tracks and records information flows within the system so that dynamic changes to the policy can be made with respect to information elements which may have propagated to different locations in the system.