In
this issue
New
Look for The Dialogue
Members
reject resolutions
2001
Annual Conference
About
Baton Rouge
Updates
Authors
donate your books
Book
Review: From People’s War to People’s Rule: Insurgency, Intervention,
and the Lessons of Vietnam
If you are reading this, you must notice
the new look of this publication (paper version is available at: http://www.scja.net/dialogue.html.)
Editor Matt Robinson proudly introduces the new look with this issue. Future issues will also follow this format.
So now you can read this publication on-line by accessing it from the association's web page or you can simply print it up and read it anywhere!
Many of you may prefer having a document you can put your hands on, a newsletter that you can read on your deck (or in the bathtub perhaps?).
Well, here it is! The Dialogue still welcomes articles for refereed publication consideration. If accepted, your articles will still appear on-line.
This paper version of The Dialogue will
feature a table of contents with the titles of the articles and book reviews
featured on-line. ENJOY!
Members of the SCJA have spoken. When given the opportunity to vote on whether the organization should consider passing resolutions of a political nature, SCJA members voted by a slim margin NOT to vote on any resolutions.
At issue was a resolution on capital punishment proposed by two members and sponsored by several others. The proposed resolution sought to speak out as an organization against the administration of the death penalty in the United States.
At a meeting last year, the SCJA Board decided to pass along two separate votes to the membership, one pertaining to the death penalty resolution and the other to whether the organization should pass resolutions of any sort.
Since the members rejected voting on resolutions of any sort, the death penalty resolution was not considered.
The call for papers for the 2001 SCJA Annual Conference was again placed on-line this year.
This year's annual meeting will be held from SEPTEMBER 26-29, 2001 at the EMBASSY SUITES in BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA.
The theme for this year's conference is: "INTEGRITY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE: WHO OR BOOHOO?" (you can blame some UCF guy for this).
For more information about the
conference, please contact the Program Chair, Dr. Joseph Sanborn at:
DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND
LEGAL STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
ORLANDO, FL 32816
(407) 823-6486
FAX: (407) 823-5360
Sanborn@mail.ucf.edu
Be sure to REGISTER by Sept. 15th !!!
Historical Background
In early 1699, a French expedition headed by Pierre le Moyne, whose title was Sieur d'Iberville, first saw the site on which the City of Baton Rouge is now located. On February 27, d 'Iberville chose a party to explore the site. It included André Pénicaut, a ship's carpenter; and d'Iberville's brother, Jean Baptiste le Moyne, whose title was Sieur d'Bienville.
Both of these men, who were to become very important in the history of Louisiana, were under the age of twenty.
The party first saw the bluffs of Baton Rouge on March 17, 1699. D'Iberville and his men reached a small stream at the right of the river. This river separated the hunting grounds of the Bayagoulas and the Oumas Indians, living on the Istrouma Bluffs (istrouma apparently a derivation of an Indian word for crawfish, the symbol topping Indian totem poles). Its banks were separated by a reddened, 30-foot-high maypole with several heads of fish and bear attached in sacrifice and dripping with blood that the natives had sunk there to mark the land line between the two nations. The red stick the French saw was probably used both as a boundary marker and for ceremonial purposes. D'Iberville called this area Baton Rouge (French for red stick), and hence the region's name was born.
One can readily believe that the site was used as a point of reference by priests, traders, and settlers as they traveled up and down the Mississippi River. Significantly, no one was ever able to change the name though it was attempted several times.
Le Baton Rouge had become a permanent
part of the landscape. One-third of Louisiana’s population today
is of French descent, and one becomes accustomed to hearing the French
accent throughout the area.
Economy and Growth
From its origin as the site of an Indian village, through many years as a sleepy river town, to its emergence as a major educational, governmental, and industrial center of the south, Baton Rouge has been a city of change and diversity. Baton Rouge was incorporated in 1817 and became the capital of the state in 1882. Today, with the City of Baton Rouge the dominant center of business, culture, education, and finance, the Parish of East Baton Rouge looks forward to even greater prosperity. Baton Rouge is the parish seat of government, the key industrial city in the area, and the center of an immense chemical and petroleum complex on the Mississippi River.
The metropolitan area is the second
largest in the state. The Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (Ryan Field)
is served by three major airlines. Rail service is provided by five
railroads. The expanding Port of Greater Baton Rouge ranks fourth
among the major ports of the nation and second in Louisiana. Projected
population figures show that this progressive city will have a phenomenal
growth in future decades. We can only guess what Baton Rouge will
be like tomorrow, but from all accounts, it seems certain that the future
will be filled with bright promise and a continued dedication to growth
and progress.
Climate and Location
Baton Rouge has a subtropical climate
free of extreme temperatures. Winters are mild with only occasional
cold spells. East Baton Rouge Parish comprises 471.81 square miles
along the Mississippi River, in the southeast part of the state.
The parish includes three major cities: Baton Rouge, with a population
of 231,219 and an area of 75 square miles; Baker, with a population of
13,315 and an area of 4 square miles; and Zachary, with a population of
10,348 and an area of 20 square miles.
There is a lot to do in Baton Rouge!
The following images are of the old Capitol and new Capitol buildings:
Of course, Baton Rouge is especially
known for its food!
"…it seems certain that the future will
be filled with bright promise and a continued dedication to growth and
progress"
-- from the Official Baton Rouge web
site, at: www.ci.baton-rouge.la.us/
Membership:
Membership in the SCJA has held steady
since 1995 after slight declines from the peak in 1991 and 1992.
To see membership trends, go to: www.scja.net/membership.htm We have
lost significant numbers of student members since 1991 and 1992.
Let us all play a role in recruiting new members, including our students,
so that more can benefit from the very meaningful annual conference and
the journal.
Journal:
Speaking of the journal, Editor Bill Doerner (Florida State University ) has published another edition of the American Journal of Criminal Justice, continuing with the excellent job done by his predecessor Richard Tewksbury. The table of contents are posted on our web page at: www.scja.net/journaltoc.htm
As always, the journal is seeking submissions on every topic of criminal justice. The most recent edition contains articles on the death penalty, police reality television shows, community policing, citizen police academies, domestic violence, and other important contemporary issues.
As a member of the SCJA, help continue
the journal's strong reputation by submitting your research papers.
Send other papers to The Dialogue.
Member Updates:
** Frank Schmalleger was appointed to Professor Emeritus by the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in January 2001. He has also completed new editions of Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction (4th ed.), Criminal Law Today (2nd ed.), and Criminology Today (3rd ed.), all with Prentice Hall.
** Frank Schmalleger (Director of the Justice Research Association and Professor Emeritus at University of North Carolina at Pembroke) and John Smykla (University of Alabama) published Corrections in the 21st Century (Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2001). The text is the first full color, multimedia and web enhanced textbook in the corrections market. View online text resources at: http://www.corrections.glencoe.com.
** Matthew Robinson (Appalachian State
University) has published his first book, Justice Blind? Ideals and
Realities of American Criminal Justice. As you might guess from the
title, Justice Blind? examines the ideals AND realities of the American
criminal justice system.
I'm sure you will see signed copies
of all these books donated to the SCJA at this year's conference.
** SCJA member Robert Bohm (University of Central Florida) won the ACJS Founder's Award at the last ACJS meeting! Congrats Bob! (you da' man!)
** Michael Smith (Virginia Commonwealth University) received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor.
** SCJA member Chad Shook is now associated
with the law firm Bishop, Scott, & Bishop, P.C. in Henderson, Tennessee
PLEASE SEND MORE MEMBER UPDATES TO MATT
ROBINSON at: robinsnmb@appstate.edu
Have you recently published a book (or two)?
SCJA authors are being asked to donate an autographed copy of one or more of their books for give away at the SCJA luncheon. If you have published a recent book, please consider doing this for the organization.
For more information, contact Beth Grossi at grossi@louisville.edu
Do it for the good of the organization …
Author Dr. Timothy J. Lomperis, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1996. Reviewed by Chad Raymond.
The theoretical approach of From People’s War is reminiscent of the work of modernization and political development theorists of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Talcott Parsons, Samuel Huntington, Lucian Pye, Fred Riggs, and Walt Rostow. Dr. Lomperis obviously is well-versed in the arguments posed by these theorists, and his book is an attempt to apply their arguments to the question of why some Third World communist insurgencies succeeded and others failed in gaining power. Eight cases of insurgencies in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos, Greece, Malaya, and the Philippines are analyzed, and Dr. Lomperis tests the predictive value of his model against the case of Sendero Luminoso in Peru.
The premise of the book is that the success or failure of a Marxist revolutionary movement or an incumbent government during an insurgency hinges on the creation of national political legitimacy. For either side to acquire the level of legitimacy necessary to defeat its opponent, it must implement key reforms that “justify political rule for a more inclusive and equitably based polity.” Dr. Lomperis claims that land reform and “free, fair, and competitive elections” are the most pivotal reforms that can be implemented in terms of their effectiveness in building legitimacy, he also includes the economic and military intervention of other nation-states as an additional variable in his analysis. Intervention, whether on the side of the government or the Marxist revolutionaries, can have both positive and negative effects on legitimacy, according to Dr. Lomperis.
Though the theoretical assumptions of the book are difficult to argue with and Dr. Lomperis asserts that lessons come “not from the outcomes of events themselves but from their components (factors or variables) that made them,” his variables are poorly operationalized. Intervention, for example, is measured in terms that include “material support,” “massive political/economic support,” and “ground combat troops.” Land reform, which Dr. Lomperis says required “delicate handling” by Marxist revolutionary movements, is never defined even though its actual content most likely differed from case to case.
From People's War also suffers from a lack of depth in the source material for several of the insurgencies described in the book. The discussion of Cambodia rests on three books, two of which are secondary accounts based on other literature. The body of primary documentary and interview research on the Cambodian communist revolution is ignored, notably, Ben Kiernan’s How Pol Pot Came to Power (Verso, London, 1985) .
For details of the communist victory in Laos, Dr. Lomperis relies almost entirely on works by a single author, Joseph J. Zasloff. The accounts of Vietnamese insurgencies against the French colonial regime and the American-backed government in South Vietnam lack references to works that touch directly upon cultural barriers to attitudinal change, such as Revolution in the Village by Hy V. Luong (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992) and Cultural Change in Rural Vietnam: A Study of the Effects of Long-Term Communist Control on the Social Structure, Attitudes, and Values of Peasants of the Mekong Delta (The Asia Society, New York, 1973). The lack of specificity in his variables and weaknesses in source material draw the validity of his comparisons into question .
The unspoken theme of the book is a post-Cold War critique of how the U.S. implemented containment strategy. Though defeating communist insurgencies was an issue of great importance to U.S. foreign policy during the Vietnam War, the current relevance of his conclusions are debatable; for example, when Dr. Lomperis applies the "lessons learned" from his eight case studies to Peru's Sendero Luminoso insurgency, he achieves only mixed results. While the government has had a lack of strategy “beyond simple repression” and much of the countryside is insecure, it has survived. As for the insurgency, its leader Abimael Guzman was captured and imprisoned by the government in 1992, and it has been forced to shift its strategy from mobilizing rural peasants to targeting cities because of urban migration, but it has neither gained strength nor disappeared.
Neither side has been able to successfully implement land reform over large areas of the country. Dr. Lomperis’ predicts that Sendero Luminoso will most likely wither away as Peru’s economy improves -- not the most earth-shattering conclusion. The issues raised by the book make for an interesting exercise for those who enjoy revisiting the question of U.S. intervention in Third World struggles during the Cold War, but it does not offer much guidance to current policymakers.
Chad Raymond recieved his PhD at the
University of Hawaii and can be reached via email at: raymondce@appstate.edu