In nowadays' globalised society an international exchange of ideas and views is indispensable within the field of social sciences, including criminology and criminal justice studies.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term "proactive policing" to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred. Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing. Proactive Policing reviews the evidence and discusses the data and methodological gaps on: (1) the effects of different forms of proactive policing on crime; (2) whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner; (3) whether they are being used in a legal fashion; and (4) community reaction. This report offers a comprehensive evaluation of proactive policing that includes not only its crime prevention impacts but also its broader implications for justice and U.S. communities.

This volume provides new empirical data, theories, and analyses on social conflicts, citizens, and policing. The book contains articles that focus on specific manifestations of socially and/or legally criminalized conflicts which may appear as radicalized. Some articles discuss the new actors that are involved in governance of security in order to support the conventional actors, referring specifically to citizens and private companies. Also, the book presents the results of perception studies on trust, punitiveness, and electronic monitoring at home. The scientific research includes students and convicts enhancing a critical reflection on governance of security. (Series: Governance of Security (GofS) Research Paper - Vol. 6)

Alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs and psychoactive medication (mis)use are associated with a higher likelihood of developing several diseases, (traffic) injuries and crimes. These substances reduce quality of life and increase the health care and law enforcement costs, productivity losses, etc. Consequently, the social and economic impact of substances on society is substantial. The SOCOST study estimates for the first time social costs for alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs and psychoactive medication in Belgium for the year 2012. This cost-of-illness study presents the direct costs, the indirect cost as well as the intangible costs related to substance (mis)use. This research was commissioned by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) in the framework of the Federal Research Programme Drugs. Two universities cooperated: Ghent University, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Interuniversity Centre for Health Economics Research (I-CHER). The research was conducted under supervision of prof. dr. Freya Vander Laenen, prof. dr. Koen Putman, prof. dr. Lieven Pauwels, prof. dr. Wim Hardyns and prof. dr. Lieven Annemans.

The increasing trend and prevalence of incivilities-targeting punitive regulatory measures across Europe raises important issues regarding the legitimacy, effectiveness and impact of such formal social control. Regulation and Social Control of Incivilities addresses the pertinent issues of current punitive regulation and the social control of incivilities, their trends, criminological explanations, political, spatial, cultural, representational and policing dimensions as well as the underlying behaviour it targets. Part I explores issues surrounding the regulation of incivilities, drawing examples from several European countries including Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Slovenia and Hungary. It inspects the legal form and content of the prohibition of incivilities and the social factors that can help explain it, as well as the effectiveness and societal impact of various anti-nuisance measures. Part II focuses on social control and the representation of incivilities, including the construction and control of public nuisance in Belgium, the spatial and cultural aspects of incivilities and of law enforcement against them, the media representations of incivilities in the British and Flemish press, and the intersections between migration and control of incivilities when policing in the Netherlands. This book brings together international scholars to examine the ways in which understudied European countries approach the issue of anti-social behaviour. This multidisciplinary text will be of interest to students, scholars and policymakers concerned with issues of social control, incivilities and criminalisation.

"This book contains a selection of papers, which were presented and discussed at the first GERN Summer School for PhD students held in September 2012 at Ghent University, Belgium"--Backcover.