Research in Social Problems and Public Policy (RSPPP) is a peer-reviewed series devoted to the sharpening and reshaping of scientific discourse involving the intersection of social problems and public policy. In particular, it is interested in the analysis of the potential failure of public institutions to fulfil their obligations to the broader society. Multidisciplinary in nature, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy presents important themes of: social/crime problems and their treatment; criminal justice; law and public policy; crime, deviance and social control;...

From the de-institutionalization of psychiatric hospitals to the privatization of prisons, the dramatic public policy changes of the last three decades have been, to a large extent, changes in organization. The chapters in this volume examine these organizational changes. We learn how organizations shift strategies, create alliances, cross boundaries and react to incentives as they respond to changing environmental pressures. We learn about the complex relationships between organizations and their clients and how these relations can be altered in response to environmental change. Chapters in...

For a long time in industrialized countries the state occupied a comfortable and unquestioned position in dealing with environmental problems. Since the 1960s we have witnessed the rather smooth institutionalization of environmental tasks in state policies and politics, leading to the emergence of the "environmental state." In the 1980s, the ideologies of deregulation and privatization formed the start of the debate on the environmental state and the 1990s left the debate facing new challenges. First, the debate became broader and more sophisticated, moving away from simple deregulation and...

Around the time of the first 'Earth Day', on April 22, 1970, the academic world joined in a virtual explosion of societal interest in a topic that inherently lies in the confluence between 'social problems' and 'public policy' - the ways in which humans use and abuse the natural environment. In the worlds of social movement organizations and policy, that newfound interest showed up in dramatic growth of environmental organizations and a stream of powerful new environmental laws. In the academic world, echoes of the explosion showed up in equally dramatic growth of interdisciplinary...