Old-school police culture strikes back
After the controversy surrounding the two past Victorian police commissioners, it seems that traditionalists are going to like Ken Lay just fine. One of his first acts as commissioner was a new dress code that bans officers from having ponytails, [...]
Margaret Simons on the OPI investigation
Margaret Simons at Crikey summarizes the Victorian Office of Police Integrity’s report of an investigation of the dealings between the Victorian Police Association, former Deputy Commissioner Sir Ken Jones, ministerial adviser (and former police officer) Tristan Weston, and various Victorian [...]
Science and responsibility
Nature‘s news section reports on the trial of six Italian seismologists and one government official for manslaughter. They face charges based on statements made by the committee the accused were members of in the days leading up to an earthquake [...]
Stop gloating, lefties? #notw
(We all know only lefties gloat. Brendan O’Neill told us.) So, Margaret Simons, writing in today’s Crikey, probably rightly, suggests that the latest revelations in the #notw phone hacking saga imply that to Rupert’s crown, no woman or man of [...]
London burning IV: Tory authoritarianism triumphant
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech to the House of Commons in the aftermath of the English riots set the tone for a bizarre crackdown: Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal. But crime has a context. And we [...]
London Burning III: more sociology of civil disorder
The last thread has grown long and slow to load. Here’s two kick-starters for further discussion – Zygmunt Bauman on the UK Riots and this photo of Londoners coordinating to clean up their neighbourhoods after calm was restored.
London burning II: The sociology of civil disorder
It’s time for another thread on the English riots, since the last one is now rather long.
To update on some of the analysis, the prediction that a number of the usual suspects would turn the events into a partisan football has unsurprisingly been borne out. So let’s ignore that, and have a look at what we know about what’s happened and what it means.
London burning: Why here, why now? The sociology of civil disorder
Underlying all this is deep inequality, which creates the subcultures where setting the town alight can be perceived as a rational action. Addressing those causes would require a different form of society altogether, and a politics which would take us there.
Criminal justice by push-poll
The Baillieu government’s clumsy survey of criminal sentencing has received a chorus of criticism around the blogosphere.
Skilled graffitist makes the front page
Oh Noes! The NBN ha5 been hax0red! The police have saved us from “…what could have been Australia’s biggest hacking attack.”
Breivik not a ‘crazed loner’, but a terrorist
We mourn the victims of these massacres by working to ensure that such abominations never occur again. To do that effectively, it is necessary to understand, without illusions and avoiding polemics, why this tragedy occurred.
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