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Purpose: To critically explore the implications of the August 2020, decision by Carleton University’s Institute for Criminology and Criminal Justice (ICCJ) to end to its intern program with the Ottawa police, the RCMP, Correctional Services Canada and Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre starting in Fall 2021.

Findings: In contrast to the negative reaction of Kevin Haggerty to this decision, the authors offer a strong but qualified endorsement of the ICCJ’s move to put an end to its internship with coercive institutions. The ICCJ strategically mobilized discourses of anti-Blackness and inclusion in response to the murder of George Floyd and the individual and communitarian traumas of Black, First Nations and Metis and students colour in its program. The ICCJ did not, however, substantively engage with the ways that criminology, sociology and the university are complicit through the legitimation practices and processes of ideology, professionalization and research in the ‘violence work’ of the state. The critique, ethics and logical conclusion of abolitionism are obfuscated.

Methodology/Approach: The authors explicitly draw on the Black Radical Tradition, Neo-Marxism and radical neo-Weberianism to sketch research possibilities that resist the university as a space of violence work, both in criminology and in the professionalization of policing.

Originality/Value: The debate between the ICCJ and Kevin Haggerty is an important opportunity to critically analyze the limits of critical criminology and lacunae of a debate about abolitionism, anti-criminology and university-state nexus as a site for the production of ideological and hardware violence work. Grounded in the Black Radical Tradition, neo-Marxism and radical neo-Weberianism, the authors sketch a framework for a research agenda toward the abolition of criminology.

This chapter will highlight the process of engaging Black college men in leadership learning by centering their intersecting identities. We employed liberatory pedagogy through an anti-deficit achievement framework for course design and delivery. The chapter addresses the importance and implications of understanding how engaging with same-race and same-gendered peers in formal leadership curricula can support Black men in continuing to develop their leadership identity, capacity, and efficacy. This chapter will end with key course outcomes, pedagogical methods to center identity and build leadership capacity, and key takeaways for leadership educators developing courses that engage Black college men. This chapter concludes with recommendations for research, policy, and practice and offers reflection questions for educators, advisors, and mentors to consider when designing curricula that center on Black men and their leadership learning.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.

Purpose – This chapter uses preventive and responsive policing strategies in tandem to develop a multi-level theory that explains the relationship between the police and violence.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter brings together classical scholarship and more recent sociological research to demonstrate that an effective response to violence is critical in upholding the state’s monopoly on violence and that police officers can reduce violence by preventing it and responding to it.

Findings – Theoretical and practical evidence support the balanced use of responsive and preventive policing strategies to reduce violence. Findings from the literature are used to argue that (1) when law enforcement officers do not effectively respond to violence and/or crime prevention strategies are nonexistent in a community, neighborhood crime is increased and (2) when citizens do not perceive law enforcement officers as legitimate and effective agents of authority, they become more likely to engage in violent offending (Tonry, 1995; Tyler, 2006).

Originality/value – Research has supported the effectiveness of “proactive” (Braga, Papachristos, & Hureau, 2014; Weisburd & Telep, 2014) and “reactive” (Nagin, 2013; Paternoster, 2010) policing strategies in reducing violence, but no research has combined strategies of prevention and response to explain the relationship between the police and violence. The theory proposed in this chapter demonstrates the utility of explaining the instrumental and legitimacy functions of the police across various levels and brings under-protection to the forefront of research on policing and violence.

Purpose – The goal of this chapter is to assess the state of evidence examining and explaining trends and patterns in homicide clearances.

Design/methodology/approach – After reviewing the varying bodies of literature on homicide investigations and clearances, the author assesses the degree of support for the prevailing explanations of why some homicides are more likely to be solved than others. The author also use national data to evaluate several reasons for declining clearances.

Findings – Changes in the nature of homicide and deteriorating police–community relations are likely major contributors to declining clearance rates. The most consistent findings regarding patterns are the greater likelihood of clearance in homicides involving young children, contact weapons, residential locations, and killings not occurring in the course of another crime. Explanations relying on notions of victim devaluing generate the least support. There is considerable support for the legal factors approach and community-level explanations show promise. The findings regarding the role of forensic evidence are mixed. Smaller scale studies are beginning to help identify best practices for homicide investigations.

Originality/value – This chapter assesses several explanations for declining clearance rates and brings together divergent streams of research to summarize the current state of knowledge on homicide clearances, best practices in homicide investigations, and gaps to be filled by further studies.

In 1967 Aslib Research and Development Department published a note describing experimental work on computer‐aided typesetting, and announcing that further research was planned. The proposed programme of work was carried out by the authors of the present paper, during their sojourns as members of the Department. The results are here reported.