This volume examines domestic and international environmental issues from an environmental justice perspective. The book is a compilation of original research articles and is divided into six parts. Articles in Part I focus on urban environmental issues and sustainability including Central Park's influence on historical and contemporary models of funding public parks, London's community-based efforts to deliver affordable fresh food to the poor and the relationship between sustainable living, green consumption and social justice concerns in an ecovillage in New York. Part II concentrates on water resources and the hazards of toxic fish consumption. Part III features food security, agriculture and land loss. Energy and the theme of land and resource loss in host communities is the focus in Part IV. It discusses the poverty that is pervasive in communities hosting extractive oil and gas installations and the industry and attitudes towards it in rural Trinidad and Nigeria. Part V employs spatial analyses techniques to examine siting and toxic releases and Part VI examines diversity and environmental attitudes and presents findings of national studies and environmental conflicts.

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; courts and diversion programs; therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution; law and society; substance use/abuse and treatment; health and society; and institutional interaction. The articles have a clear connection to the series' main focus, lying at the confluence of social problems and public policy. The series emphasises the need to consider the organisationally - and institutionally - specific features, competencies and decision-making practices of social problems, whilst also providing a useful mix of theoretical, methodological, substantive and public policy issues. Additionally, it aids the establishment of working networks of academics and practitioners from across the globe.

Even today, many people think of 'social problems' as involving poor and powerless individuals in society. "Research in Social Problems and Public Policy" seeks to improve the balance by adding a focus on important and powerful institutions. Such organizations often play key roles in managing, and mismanaging, the ways in which some of today's most important social problems are handled by the public policy system. The papers discuss policy sciences, public policy analysis and public management, addressing operations and design issues for government organizations.

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 the first section focus primarily on inter-organizational relations among health care and community development organizations. Chapters in the second section focus primarily on relations between organizations and their clients, both in medical organizations and in the criminal justice system.

Government secrecy (GS) is a significant social, political, and policy issue and often presents as a barrier to civic participation, public right-to-know, historical understanding, and institutional accountability. This volume examines GS in a variety of contexts, including comparative examination of government control of information, new definitions, categories, censorship, ethics, and secrecy's relationship with freedom of information and transparency. It investigates GS in terms of its current theoretical descriptions as power over and concealment of information (Bok 1983), a 'tampering of communications' (Friedrich 1972), the 'compulsory withholding of knowledge, reinforced by the prospects of sanctions for disclosure' (Shils), or Georg Simmel's (1906) idea of secrecy creating the 'possibility of a second world'. Following the introduction this book is divided into the following six sections: Government Secrecy: Theoretical Musings; Government Secrecy and the Media; Government Secrecy and Technology; Freedom of Information; Government Secrecy: Current Policy; and Ethics. Articles are sourced from around the world and include some from USA, Mexico, Africa, Israel and Britain.

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; courts and diversion programs; therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution; law and society; substance use/abuse and treatment; health and society; and institutional interaction. The articles have a clear connection to the series' main focus, lying at the confluence of social problems and public policy. This volume focuses on the democratization of higher education.