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This article critically examines and highlights the positive role that sport plays in conjunction with crime prevention. Provided evidence leads us to acknowledge the potential in crime reduction when sport is positively connected within the social fabric of groups and communities. Furthermore, emphasises the hardships felt throughout aboriginal communities, which raises the idea that lack of funding, design and social isolation can have a reverse effect in the context of crime prevention.

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Ultimately sport and physical activity has the ability to improve the overall quality of life and act as an agent for reducing crime due to principles of character building and alienation. In connection with the criminal justice system is conveyed as an essential building block for crime prevention. It empowers the athlete to take on a more dynamic way of thinking allowing them to negotiate around decisions that may lead to alienation within society.

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united nations office on drugs and crime

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UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

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Youth Crime Prevention through Sports: Thabang Ntloko, Football and Life Skills Coach

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UNODC is working on youth crime prevention through sports. The initiative focuses on sports in order to build resilience of youth by enhancing their life skills and increase their knowledge of the consequences of crime and drug use.

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Evidence suggests that to take full advantage of the potential contribution of sport and physical activity programs in preventing or reducing crime and other anti-social behaviours, program administrators must seek to integrate with aspects such as: Family, Individual,

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Australian Institute of Criminology - The role of sport and physical activity programs in crime prevention

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Evidence suggests that to take full advantage of the potential contribution of sport and physical activity programs in preventing or reducing crime and other anti-social behaviours, program administrators must seek to integrate with all these services. This CRM looks at how these sports programs can operate through these mechanisms to prevent young people's involvement in crime.

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Sports related targeted interventions can make a contribution in reducing crime within targeted groups and communities.

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Clearinghouse : Crime Reduction and the Role of Sport

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The Clearinghouse for Sport is a sector-wide knowledge sharing initiative, and as such your contributions are encouraged and appreciated. If you would like to suggest a resource, submit a publication, or provide feedback on this topic, please contact us.

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Recreation or rehabilitation? Managing sport for development programs with prison populations

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The provision of sport and recreation programs to inmates within the prison system provides a unique context to investigate the role of sport in enact...

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Over the course of the readings and my own overall assessment of the correlation between crime prevention and sport, it is clearly visible that sport within rehabilitation can not be the sole facet behind a reduction in recidivism rates. Sport in conjunction with crime prevention programs can be utilised to enhance individuals through leaderships roles, self worth, pride and respect. Presenting a vast array of positive benefits enabling feelings of self empowerment encouraging user responsibility.

Prison can present a critical opportunity to engage with offenders through interventions and programming, reoffending rates among those released from prison remain stubbornly high. Sport can be a means through which to engage with even the most challenging and complex individuals caught up in a cycle of offending and imprisonment, by offering an alternative means of excitement and risk taking to that gained through engaging in offending behaviour, or by providing an alternative social network and access to positive role models.

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Cited above, a recent study from England found that juveniles under the age of 18, maintained significantly higher reoffending rates even with tailored sport orientated crime prevention initiatives.

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Updated August 31, 2016 14:10:27

Rehabilitation programs are set to become compulsory for News South Wales offenders serving six months jail or less, as the State Government tries to arrest the growth in prisoner numbers.

There are 12,700 prisoners in the state's jails and 46 per cent of prisoners return to jail within two years.

Today's announcement to pour $237 million into reducing reoffending is part of a record $3.8 billion dollar boost in the NSW budget.

It aims to address overcrowding and a prison population which is set to rise to 18,000 by 2020.

Corrections Minister David Elliott said the reoffending rate was too high.

"This is part of the Government's commitment to reduce the rate of adult reoffending by five per cent and also reduce domestic violence," he said.

"This funding seeks to punish offenders for their crime, while simultaneously intervene to rehabilitate them and put them back on the right path."

But Professor of Criminology at the University of New South Wales, Eileen Baldry, said the money would be far better spent in the community and described aspects of the package as "a huge waste of money".

"In the light of the $3.8 billion to be spent on increasing prison beds and increasing the number of prisoners by many thousands over the next five to 10 years, what possible assistance can this amount of money be in reducing reoffending?" she said.

Alternatives needed for low level offenders

Professor Baldry called for a greater focus on alternatives to prison.

"Why not use this money in diversion at the point of court to give people with lower level offending, who would get the six months or less prison sentence, a community order with a guaranteed rehabilitation package that could see them never go to prison in the first place," she said.

"We know that the strongest predictor of going to prison is having been in prison before."

The State Government will target persistent, repeat and domestic violence offenders, and will fund an additional 345 psychologists, community corrections officers and other skilled staff.

Inmates leaving prison will also get more help with reintegration into the community, and finding housing and employment.

"There isn't enough housing currently for people exiting prison. Homelessness is very high. How will this guarantee people will get housing?" Professor Baldry asked.

Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin said the scheme focused on offenders who were responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime.

"Targeting this group earlier and at all points in their contact with the justice system will have the greatest impact on reoffending and increasing community safety," he said.

Prisoner advocacy groups such as the Community Justice Coalition and Justice Action continue to question Corrective Services' Better Prisons initiative.

Justice Action spokesman Brett Collins told the ABC the Government had reduced the number of teachers working in jails from 152 to about 20.

"I think it's absolute nonsense in terms of talking about increasing service for rehabilitations when the Minister David Elliott has just stripped 130 teachers out of the system. It's quite clear that he hasn't any interest in rehabilitation at all. He's building an empire," he said.

Commissioner Severin defended the move "from an insource model to an outsource model" and said it would "significantly increase the hours that are available for education across all our educational centres".

Topics: state-parliament, prisons-and-punishment, sydney-2000, nsw

First posted August 31, 2016 13:50:12

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NSW introduces compulsory rehabilitation for prisoners

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Updated August 31, 2016 14:10:27 Rehabilitation programs are set to become compulsory for News South Wales offenders serving six months jail or less, as the State Government tries to arrest the growth in prisoner numbers. There are 12,700 prisoners in the state's jails and 46 per cent of prisoners return to jail within two years.

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There is a paradox to the idea of sport in prisons-namely, that institutions whose primary purpose is the restriction of human movement are home to vibrant physical cultures and diverse forms of physical activity. Despite the numerous sociological questions that arise from this peculiar phenomenon, to say nothing of widely-circulated pop culture tropes of tattooed and muscular (and usually male) convicts, there is relatively little research on the topic within the sociology of sport. Here, I reflect on a project I conducted on prison sport and physical culture in Canadian federal prisons, and discuss the significance of prison sport to the broader sociological study of sport.
Putting Canadian Prison Sport in Context
Over 10 million people are incarcerated around the globe, approximately one quarter of whom are in North America. The United States is, overwhelmingly, the world's largest jailer, with over 2.2 million Americans living behind bars; Canada features much lower rates of incarceration, yet has recently moved toward harsher prison sentences that may swell the number of prisoners. In both countries, the criminal justice system is not neutral, and disproportionately incarcerates men (although the number of female inmates is rising) from economically disadvantaged and racialized backgrounds. In the US, this is reflected in the overwhelmingly high numbers of African American men in prisons, while in Canada, Indigenous Peoples make up between 20-25% of prisoners despite representing just 4% of the country's total population.

I embarked on my project in the midst of a significant shift in Canadian corrections spearheaded by the Conservative Party, which held power from 2006-2015. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Canadian government made a "tough-on-crime" agenda a central pillar of its domestic policies. This agenda included a shift in policy toward longer prison sentences, less opportunity to serve sentences in the community, harsher conditions of confinement, and reduced budgets for the operation of prisons. These policy changes were accompanied by shifts in public language that changed the focus of prisons from rehabilitation to punishment and framed non-essential prison programming-including sport and physical activity-as luxuries (despite the fact that the United Nations' Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners specifically identifies exercise and recreation as a right of prisoners).

These policy and language shifts had the effect of restricting the opportunities for some prisoners to engage in pleasurable physical recreation, and limiting discussions about the merits of prison sport to concerns about its contribution to individual self-transformation, without regard for structural causes of crime and incarceration. However, they were merely the latest manifestation of a trend of declining sport offerings and participation in Canadian prisons since the 1970s, due to a combination of factors, including:

declining inmate interest in sport as a recreational activity

budget and manpower cuts to recreation programs

lower levels of inmate solidarity in organizing activities

regular conservative critiques of prison sport and recreation "coddling" offenders.

Prior to this decline, beginning in the post-WW2 era, Canadian federal prisons featured a wide variety of recreational sport offerings; organized intermural softball leagues; representative inmate teams that competed in local baseball leagues and played outside teams within the prison walls; occasional sport festivals put on by inmates and attended by members of the community; and professional physical educators on staff at institutions. While the availability and organization of particular activities varied by prisons' security levels and geographic location, there was nonetheless consistent engagement in sport and physical activity at institutions across the country. Today, many of these features of prison life have substantially declined or disappeared.
Researching Prison Sport: Social Control, Agency, and Resistance
Although I attempted to gain access to research sport and physical culture inside two Canadian prisons, my request was denied by the federal department for corrections. As such, I adapted my project to utilize a wide range of tactics for gathering information on this subject, including: interviews with former prisoners and individuals involved in delivering prison programming; examination of government policy documents; and analysis of newsletters and memoirs written by prisoners.

In my research, I discovered that sport and physical culture play contradictory roles in Canadian prisons: on the one hand, they are mandated by policymakers and deployed by prison administrators in order to achieve particular outcomes in the inmate population, such as reduced aggression or vague rehabilitative goals; on the other, they provide sites at which prisoners can exercise a limited degree of agency over their day-to-day lives, often in ways that conflict with, or even resist, the reasons for their provision. In other words, there is a tension between sport as a means of social control over prisoners and as a vehicle for prisoners to express agency and resist some of the impositions placed upon them in confinement.

To analyze my findings, I used the work of sociologist Erving Goffman, particularly his concept of the " total institution." A total institution is an organization that is characterized by social and physical isolation from society, allowing the development of its own unique social world and subcultural roles and values. Using this framework, I examined how inmates used sport to contribute to a prison's "underlife"-that is, a series of subcultural social practices through which inmates, according to Goffman, "decline in some way to accept the official view of what they should be putting into and getting out of the organization." Through my research, I uncovered a variety of ways in which sport contributed to the underlife in Canadian prisons, including: repurposing exercise equipment to suit alternative needs, whether recreational or violent; using sport spaces, especially the "yard," for illicit activities; using sport matches to engage in levels of violence that would otherwise not be tolerated by staff; and making creative use of spaces and furniture in cells to engage in yoga or fitness training when, as can occur frequently in many prisons, inmates are placed on lockdown and unable to leave their cells.

Many of these social practices are not desirable, at least from the perspective of prison staff or policymakers, and do little to contribute to prisoners' likelihood of engaging in rehabilitation. Yet they arise from the interplay of institutional and structural restrictions, the "inmate code" that dominates the subculture of Canadian prisons, and the limited opportunities available in a total institution to engage in identity construction or collective social engagement. As such, the characteristics of Canadian prison physical culture are neither inevitable nor unchangeable, and examples exist in other prison systems of physical cultures that are more humane, less violent, and more empowering to prisoners. In other words, the structure and subculture into which prisoners are placed will largely dictate the form that sport and physical culture take in this environment.
Future Research
Prisons are major social institutions, and their physical cultures should be of great interest to researchers. Given the limited scholarship in this area, I conclude by suggesting a number of ways to deepen and broaden our knowledge of prison sport.

Comparative research on sport in prisons and in other total institutions will add nuance to our understanding of sport in these extreme social environments. Such sites could include refugee camps and juvenile detention centres, or even private boarding schools and high performance sport academies.

Understanding the significance of sport as a cultural practice that can temporarily permeate such total institutions, which by nature are closed off from the outside world. For example, I interviewed a number of individuals who deliver yoga programs in Canadian prisons, which facilitated contact between inmates and outsiders in an emotionally supportive environment. Similarly, a number of former prisoners spoke fondly of sport matches against community teams that would visit prisons and compete against inmate teams.

A deeper analysis of changes and continuities to prisoners' involvement in sport when they are released. Former prisoners face a great deal of stigma and numerous other challenges when they are released, and these social barriers may disrupt their ability to continue their participation in meaningful physical activity.

Finally, I would argue that prisons should be of interest to scholars of Sport for Development and Peace, particularly given the tensions surrounding the social control of participants and the focus on sport's potential social impact in marginalized or disadvantaged populations.

, PhD., is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, Canada. His doctoral research examined historical and contemporary meanings and experiences of Canadian prison physical culture. His postdoctoral project is focused on alternative forms of rehabilitation, most notably yoga and animal-assisted therapy. Email: normam2@mcmaster.ca

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Sport Behind Bars: Social Control, Resistance, and the Physical Culture of Prisons

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There is a paradox to the idea of sport in prisons-namely, that institutions whose primary purpose is the restriction of human movement are home to vibrant physical cultures and diverse forms of physical activity. Despite the numerous sociological questions that arise from this peculiar phenomenon, to say nothing of widely-circulated pop culture tropes of tattooed...

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Throughout areas of rural Australia which are socially stratified that lack enhanced funding and Government services could a multi-agency approach to crime prevention be advantageous.

It is believed that active engagement in sport and recreational activities, or development programs is a way to promote positive life choices.

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Sport and Architecture (Hardback) - Routledge

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Sport and architecture are two elements of contemporary life that have a broad and profound impact on the world around us. The role architecture plays in shaping buildings and societies has occupied historians for centuries. Likewise, the cultural,...

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The Kids in the Park all Day Holiday Recreational Program at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, is a fantastic school holiday activity; with qualified instructors, supervision and loads of fun activities. Keep your children active and busy during the school holidays and provide them with an opportunity to learn a new skill.

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Sport and architecture are two elements of contemporary life which maintain a broad impact upon the world around us. The role architecture plays in shaping buildings and societies has occupied historians for centuries. Likewise, the cultural, economic, and political importance of sport is the subject of sustained academic inquiry. When sport and architecture converge, as in the 2012 London Olympics or the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, then the impact of these two forms of social activity is redoubled.

When a city is chosen to host the Olympics, the country’s government usually shells out hundreds of millions to build extravagant venues for the athletes and fans.

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Want to read a more in-depth view on the trends influencing Australian business and the global economy? BI / Research is designed to help executives and industry leaders understand the major challenges and opportunities for industry, technology, strategy and the economy in the future. Sign up for free at research.businessinsider.com.au.

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South Korea spent over $1 billion on these mega-venues for the 2018 Winter Olympics -- take a look

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Want to read a more in-depth view on the trends influencing Australian business and the global economy? BI / Research is designed to help executives and industry leaders understand the major challenges and opportunities for industry, technology, strategy and the economy in the future. Sign up for free at research.businessinsider.com.au.

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Highlighted within lecture week 12. The Brazilian Government has spent almost 25 million dollars on preparation surrounding the Olympics. Countries that via to host the Olympics do so with the overall intention to improve international ties, stimulate economic growth, lower crime rates, enhance self image and regenerate urban areas. Although contains traces of mixed emotions due to the extreme amount of drug allegations, security and infrastructure issues that may result.

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The Olympics is undoubtedly the biggest sporting event in the world. After an arduous struggle, Brazil emerged victorious when the IOC (International Olympic Committee) nominated Rio de Janeiro to host the 'Games of the XXXI Olympiad'. Following three previous attempts to become a host country, Brazil finally won. Rio proudly stood above the other 5 nominees as she became the first country in South America to host the Olympics. After elimination of Chicago, Rio de Janeiro received 46 votes, against 29 in Madrid and 20 in Tokyo.

The theme for the 2016 Olympics is "Live your Passion", that will run from 5th August 2016 until 21st August 2016. Rio has completed most of the Olympic venues:
Joao Havelange Stadium
Maria Lenk Aquatic Center
Rio Olympic Arena
Rio Olympic Velodrome
National Equestrian Center
National Shooting Center
The games will be help in four zone:Barra, Copacabana, Maracana and Deodoro.

The Brazilian government has put their hands into their pocket to churn out an estimated $25.9 billion, an unprecedented figure in the history of sport. Brazil is the 10th largest economy in the world and the World Bank predicts that it will be the fifth by 2016. The economic strength of the country has paved way for the Olympics. The country is look upon as the 5th largest advertising market of the world and they also have plenty of oil reserves.

This nomination will bring numerous benefits, both for the population of Rio de Janeiro, and for the rest of Brazil. There are other events that are scheduled to take place before the Olympics; the Military World Games (2011), the FIFA Confederations Cup (2013) and, perhaps even more desirable than the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup 2014.

Accommodation and transport are being upgraded to cope with the demands of mass tourism that will arise from this event. Many old buildings laden with graffiti and sport shattered windows have been renovated. Numerous restaurants, stores and cultural sites have popped up as well. It's all about dressing up the city for the celebrations. Preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics has generated thousands of construction jobs and a large investment in advanced technologies towards the safety and security of the event. Brazil seems to be going out of their way to give the biggest festival of sports the "oomph" it deserves.

Regardless of the tensions of the Olympic Games, it's historically proven that sports have acted as a liaison between nations and have immensely contributed to their evolution. By choosing Rio, it could help the country develop faster and could bring an entire continent of people closer to the Olympic movement. It's only a matter of a few years until 2016 arrives, and the entire nation is busy working on a recipe to make it a success. This is certainly going to be a massive challenge for South America and it appears Brazil is leaving no stone unturned. Rio will undergoes this transformation without ever losing the Carioca spirit and the Brazilian energy that uplifts everyone.

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Rio 2016: Brazil is preparing to host the biggest sporting event in the world

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The Olympics is undoubtedly the biggest sporting event in the world. After an arduous struggle, Brazil emerged victorious when the IOC (International Olympic Committee) nominated Rio de Janeiro to host the 'Games of the XXXI Olympiad'. Following three previous attempts to become a host country, Brazil finally won.

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The World Cup has also proved a distraction and provoked anger from those who believe resources have been diverted from public services to prepare for the unprecedented back-to-back hosting of the world's two biggest sporting events.

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Rio 2016 Olympic preparations damned as 'worst ever' by IOC

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International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates warns on readiness, saying it is worse even than Athens 2004

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It has been well documented in the past with special mention to the games that took place in Atlanta 1996, Athens 2004, Turin 2006, London 2012 and Sochi 2014 that countries emphasis self image on the international sporting stage and deduct funding from areas and services that immensely require it but also equates for criminal activity to fluctuate.

All have portrayed pre game concerns over lacklustre venues, terrorists threats and opportunities, incomplete infrastructure, excessive doping and substance abuse scandals, security declines, major corruption accusations.

Raising serious questions about countries employing all there financial assets to exhibit themselves. For example in Athens's, Greece's subsequent economic woes led some to question whether the $11billion Olympic investment was a factor.

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Corruption plagues sporting events on the global stage from Russia to Brazil, as miniscule drug tests were carried out.

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's athletes were not subject to doping tests for almost a month before the Rio Olympics, the country's sports ministry said while refuting allegations it was a political decision to ensure the Games were not plunged further into crisis.

Brazil's sports ministry confirmed no tests were carried out between July 1 and July 24 due to a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) suspension on a drug-testing laboratory in Rio de Janeiro, The Times reported on Friday.

WADA said it was "concerned" and had sent a letter to Brazil's sports minister asking why the tests had been stopped.

"We sent a letter to the minister of sport and the executive director of the Brazilian national anti-doping agency, pressing our concerns and demanding to know why testing had been stopped in Brazil," WADA deputy director Rob Koehler told the newspaper.

"The response was not satisfactory... the explanation that it had come about due to the changing of the guard in the ministry and the agency was not acceptable to us.

"We informed the pre-Games task force and we told them to ramp up increased tests. It was unacceptable that it stopped. That was not a good move... the fact no testing was happening was a concern."

South America's first Olympics have been mired in a drugs scandal with Russia's track-and-field athletes and weightlifters barred from the Rio Games over doping offences.

The European country narrowly avoided a complete ban over allegations its government and FSB security service systematically covered up widespread cheating.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose not to impose a blanket ban on all Russian athletes but directed sports federations to allow them to compete if they met a set of criteria, including a clean doping past and sufficient testing at international events.

Luis Horta, the former head of Portugal's anti-doping agency who was given a role as an adviser to Brazil, alleged he faced pressure from the country's sports ministry and Olympic committee to reduce testing.

A statement from Brazil's sports ministry refuted the allegations, while adding that three overseas laboratories were approached but were unable to help with the testing of samples.

"The Ministry of Sport and the Brazilian Doping Control Authority strongly refute the accusations made by Mr Horta," it said.

"With the suspension imposed by WADA to the laboratory on June 22, the tests planned for the period between 1 and 24 July were compromised (the suspension was only lifted on July 20), as analyses could not be submitted.

"Therefore, the planned tests ended up not being done in that period."

Marcus Vinicius Freire, executive director of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), said on Friday that his organisation asked for a reduction of tests because Brazilians were being subject to up 12 a month when top-ranked athletes elsewhere had to take only three.

The high number of tests was in part because of a need to train technicians at the Brazilian lab that will be used for the Olympics doping tests, he said.

"My conversation with the ABCD was in the sense that they do the training tests with athletes that are not preparing for the Olympics, to protect anybody, but because our athletes were being tested way more than normally," Freire said.

Writing by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai and Jeb Blount in Rio de Janeiro, additional reporting by Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro; editing by Ed Osmond

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Brazil athletes not dope-tested ahead of Rio : report

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's athletes were not subject to doping tests for almost a month before the Rio Olympics, the country's sports ministry said while refuting allegations it was a political decision to ensure the Games were not plunged further into crisis.

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The 2018 Commonwealth Games which is set to be held on the Gold Coast preparation can be alluded to as revolutionary as gender equality had been prioritised. Highlighted by the notion of sport this vivid shift in gender powered relations have contributed to a somewhat more reformist and evolutionary aspect of directed change. Gender equality is a very sensitive subject that challenges not only institutional but hierarchical practise and ideologies. This more modern preparation is a way of reducing imbalances of women and transgender individuals never before seen in the sporting world.

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The GC2018 Commonwealth Games announce major gender equality initiatives

GOLD COAST - In preparation for the XXI edition of the Commonwealth Games in 2018, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has announced multiple initiatives under its Gender Equality Strategy.

FIBA is joined by Hockey and Swimming in confirming that, for the first time ever, at least 50% of each sport's technical officials will be women. The CGF has already approved seven additional women's event categories to the Gold Coast 2018 sports programme to ensure, that men and women compete for an equal number of medals (133 women's events; 133 men's events; 9 mixed/open events).

The CGF has also implemented its Women Coaching Internship Programme for Gold Coast 2018. A central part of the CGF's Gender Equality Strategy, the Women's Coaching Internship Programme will help build women's coaching capacity across the Commonwealth, and in turn stand to benefit athletes from all Commonwealth countries and territories.

"Across the Commonwealth Sports Movement, there is a fundamental responsibility and exciting opportunity to redress the imbalances for women and girls in sport, leadership, and society as a whole," said CGF President Louise Martin. "I thank and congratulate our committed partners at FIBA, FIH and FINA who are leading the way to ensure a level playing field for women technical officials at Gold Coast 2018. The CGF is also thrilled that so many other sports have made such positive strides to ensure that more women than ever before preside over sports officiating and judging at the Commonwealth Games".

FIBA in Oceania/Singapore Executive Director Mr. David Crocker commended the CGF for their commitment to gender equality at the games.

"Athletes competing in the Commonwealth Games have trained for years to earn the opportunity to represent their country. The CGF has taken great strides in creating equal opportunities for all athletes and officials to represent their country regardless of gender. FIBA is grateful to play a small part in these efforts."

The Commonwealth Games will take place in Gold Coast, Australia from 4 - 5 April 2018.
FIBA

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The GC2018 Commonwealth Games announce major gender equality initiatives

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GOLD COAST - In preparation for the XXI edition of the Commonwealth Games in 2018, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has announced multiple initiatives under its Gender Equality Strategy. FIBA is joined by Hockey and Swimming in confirming that, for the first time ever, at least 50% of each sport's technical officials will be women.

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Olympic infrastructure put to good use post games

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Olympic infrastructure put to good use post games

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From elite athletes of the world to members of the general public. Cities Such as Japan and Rio are utilizing the games for legacy purposes and are planning strategies which will all for a successful transition from the Olympic to the post Olympic games period. Legacies will remain unique and individualised where society can benefit from the unplanned excessive infrastructural avalanche every day instead of it becoming dilapidated and run down.

An Olympic legacy is the process of social construction that aims to forge changes in attitudes and behaviours among people and organisations.

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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Cities around the world are starting to question if hosting the Olympics is worth it.

Most cities simply do not have the infrastructure required to withstand the two-week influx of athletes, coaches, fans, and media members. The money required to build state-of-the-art athletic facilities is skyrocketing, and academic research suggests spending billions on a two-week event is not a wise investment.

In the worst-case scenario for host cities, Olympic venues go unused after the games and become white elephants - total wastes of space and money. We've seen this at a number of different Olympic sites around the world. Of course, the reasons this happens are specific to each country: Sarajevo, for example, suffered from a gruesome war that caused the 1984 Winter Olympic venues to crumble. Nevertheless, these photos from Reuters, Getty Images, and others have become symbolic of the downside of hosting the Olympics.

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What abandoned Olympic venues from around the world look like today

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Cities around the world are starting to question if hosting the Olympics is worth it. Most cities simply do not have the infrastructure required to withstand the two-week influx of athletes, coaches, fans, and media members. The money required to build state-of-the-art athletic facilities is skyrocketing, and academic research suggests spending billions on a two-week event is not a wise investment.

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After the closing ceremony's razzmatazz, what will be Rio's legacy that lingers? Jose Mendez/EPA

The notion of what "legacy" is left after hosting an Olympic Games has become an obsession, to the extent that the need to leave a legacy is institutionalised: the Olympic Charter was amended in 2003 to make delivering a positive legacy for the host city and country a compulsory part of the contract. All cities vying to host the games are expected to clearly articulate their legacy plans if their bids are to be considered.

An Olympic legacy is the process of social construction that aims to forge changes in attitudes and behaviours among people and organisations. This is tricky, and generally contingent on all sorts of political, social and economic factors falling into place. Even then, establishing any real causal link between an Olympic Games and changes to people and places afterwards is notoriously difficult.

There has been a great deal of research into this process, and many "legacy frameworks" have been designed to capture the power of the Olympic Games to bring benefits to people, places, organisations and society in general. The most comprehensive of these is that of sports economist Holger Preuss, who identifies the tangible and intangible, planned and unplanned aspects of Olympic legacies. But Preuss' work does not make clear the connection between the core mission of the Olympics and how the host city carries it out. The games themselves can change very little in how people see themselves and the world around them, so the focus should be on what can be realistically achieved through the three main instruments of Olympism: sport, education and culture.

However, for several reasons the legacy of the 2016 Rio Olympics will be difficult to describe and explain using these tools. First, Brazil is a huge, diverse and very unequal country - with a population of 200m people it is equal in size to Germany, Italy and the UK combined. Politically speaking, trying to use a sporting event to deliver social and economic changes within a federal country with a municipal, state and federal governments is always going to be complex and hotly contested.

Tolivero, CC BY-SA

The 2016 Rio Olympics also came at the point of transition between perceptions on what a legacy should be. The old model was concerned chiefly with delivering an Olympics by building major structures such as stadiums, with little attention to environmental costs and their use afterwards. For example, the Olympic Stadium from the 1976 Montreal Games cost an astonishing C$1.5 billion and wasn't paid off until 30 years later. Similar cost overruns and poorly thought out planning for the future of facilities after the games can be seen at Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008, among many others where structures have fallen into disuse and disrepair.

The new approach is governed by the principles of sustainability, with four "pillars" of social, economic, environment and governance at its core. Sustainability was the central theme of Rio's opening ceremony, expressed by the organisers through the idea of a "lean, fit and fun" Olympics. According to the 2016 Rio Olympics sustainability report, the city built fewer than a third of the necessary venues from scratch, with most Olympic competitions held in existing venues. This has never been achieved before.

As those watching the opening ceremony will have learned, the cost of the spectacle was a fraction - ten times less - than the extravagant £35m of public money spent by London for the opening of the 2012 Olympics. Brazil has pioneered the concept of "nomadic" architecture, in order to avoid leaving behind costly white elephants that are unused. For example, the Future Arena handball venue will be dismantled and used to construct four schools.

And despite 27 well-conceived and structured infrastructure projects that cover mobility, the environment, urban renewal and social development, the general view of the organisers is that the most important and lasting legacies will be intangible. These include hard-to-measure aspects such as boosting national pride and unity, raising people's multicultural and environmental awareness.

Creating tangible benefits for all

Organisers and independent analysts disagree over what's possible: the Brazilian government's figures suggest direct economic benefits of US$11.5 billion between 2009-2016, while an independent analysis of Rio suggests that gains were concentrated in only a few sectors of the local economy, and did not justify the expenses incurred.

What's tangible and more important is that hosting the Olympic Games has helped Brazil overhaul its elite sport system that was once rooted in the military - it is no accident that many Brazilian medal winners give a military salute from the podium - and transform it into civic organisations with proper elements of talent identification and specialisation. Brazil may not have achieved its plan to win between 27 and 30 medals (it won 19), but it invested a record US$600m in public and private funds to train athletes leading up to Rio, compared to US$350m in the previous four-year cycle.

Even if that alone is Rio's legacy, perhaps it's right that it is one that lays the foundations for building Brazil's sporting legacies for the future. But Rio will also leave another contentious legacy for the Olympic movement: the attempts to ban an entire nation from participation in the games for the doping violations of a few athletes, a situation IOC president Thomas Bach has compared with returning to the days of the Cold War, during which sport was considerably politicised. This will also be an issue that is foremost for the Olympic and Paralympic movements to solve before Tokyo 2020.

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Rio marks the start of a new approach to making Olympic legacies count

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The notion of what "legacy" is left after hosting an Olympic Games has become an obsession, to the extent that the need to leave a legacy is institutionalised: the Olympic Charter was amended in 2003 to make delivering a positive legacy for the host city and country a compulsory part of the contract.

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A fundamental way to protect the thousands of spectators at a major sporting event is the process of risk auditing. Under the notion of "duty of care" this is ideal in shielding a vast number of patrons who attend large sporting spectacles. Large concerts such as Eminem, Katy Perry or Taylor Swift large accumulations of risk auditing initiated in an attempt to diverge potential danger from occurring whether that be accidental events or criminal ideals.

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Huge online community of Project Managers offering over 12,000 how-to articles, templates, project plans, and checklists to help you do your job.

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Top 10 Times Pro Gamers Got Caught Cheating

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Top 10 Times Pro Gamers Got Caught Cheating Subscribe: http://goo.gl/Q2kKrD // Have a Top 10 idea? Submit it to us here! http://watchmojo.com/my/suggest.php Even the pros get caught doing shady stuff every now and then...these are the times esports professionals and pro gamers alike got caught doing some not-so-sportsmanlike conduct, you know, cheating!

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Relevant crime stats illustrated below reveal a staggering trend in inclining crime rates that transpire when a home game occurs rather then away game.

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What better time to steal something than when an entire city is fawning over a sporting event?

F0otball games are associated with upticks in city crime, according to a recent study (pdf), which observed crime rates in eight separate cities-Detroit, Miami, New Orleans, Newark, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Washington-over the course of a two-year period. Specifically, the study found that days on which cities hosted home games for their respective professional football teams coincided with a nearly 3 percent increase in total crime, including a more than 4 percent increase in larceny and almost 7 percent increase in the number of car thefts.

"NFL home games are correlated with a higher incidence of crime compared to non-game days or days when the team is playing an away game in another city," the researchers wrote.

Early afternoon games, which begin at 1pm eastern time, are the most closely connected to higher crime rates-they were found to be associated with a 4 percent increase in both total crime and economic crime, considerably more than those beginning in the late afternoon or night. The association is likely a reflection of a more general trend, which shows criminals tend to act during the daytime (roughly 40 percent of property crime occurs before 6pm, while only about 13 percent takes place between then and midnight, according to the 2008 National Criminal Victimization Survey).

There are a few reasons why football games present so many opportunities for criminals.

For one, criminals likely find themselves with more options in crowded places where people gather to watch games. Consider car thefts, the form of criminal activity most significantly correlated with NFL games, for instance.

"If stadium, restaurant, bar, and other parking lots are full of cars, it will be easier for thieves to find suitable cars to steal," the researchers wrote.

The same can be said for the sheer concentration of people, and, therefore, personal belongings. A sea of targets might mean an increased likelihood of finding one that is particularly susceptible for theft.

But large gatherings-of both cars and people-don't merely present options; they also tempt criminals with the potential for increased stealth. Large crowds mean criminals more easily lurk, and even loot, unnoticed.

"A large gathering of people on game day increases the number of potential targets and may also reduce the likelihood of criminal apprehension, as criminals can blend more easily into larger crowds," the authors note.

Similar trends have been noted for large gatherings for other sports or public events. Previous research has, for instance, found a correlation between crime near not only the North Carolina's professional football team stadium during home football games, but also its professional basketball team's stadium during home basketball games. But football games tend to make for particularly large gatherings, likely exacerbating the problem.

The study is unique in that it links NFL games to property theft, specifically, but it's hardly the first to find a connection between football games and increases in crime, more generally. A 2008 study concluded that college football games are associated with increases in both assaults and vandalism. A separate study from 2011 found that domestic violence increases during NFL home games, especially following upset losses by the home team.

It's worth noting that while some crimes-specifically larceny and motor vehicle robberies-were found to increase considerably during home football games, others, including burglary and robbery, appeared unchanged.

Still, the cost of the upticks in criminal activity during football games is fairly significant. Using Baltimore as a benchmark, the researcher's estimated the nearly 3 percent increase in total crime amounts to more than $85,000 per game day, or nearly $700,000 per year, per city.

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Why city crime spikes during home football games

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What better time to steal something than when an entire city is fawning over a sporting event? F0otball games are associated with upticks in city crime, according to a recent study (pdf), which observed crime rates in eight separate cities-Detroit, Miami, New Orleans, Newark, Philadelphia, St.

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E-Sports or online gaming is quickly becoming a new multi facet of sports crime. Although still to be recognised as a official sport online gaming attracts attention on a global scale, ultimately meaning it is largely unregulated and a prime arena for corruption, doping and cheating to unfold.

It has been well documented that an astounding number of "professional" gamers have been caught attempting to gain an edge of the competition, promoting integrity through player development is vital.

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Does eSports have a doping problem? If the recent comments of a professional Counter Strike: Global Offensive player are an indication, yes -- and it's one that organisers are well aware of.

Kory Friesen, who played in tournaments with the Cloud9 team under the tag SEMPHIS, admitted that his entire team used the psychostimulant Adderall during a major Electronic Sports League competition. Friesen had been competing at the ESL One Katowice event in Poland in March, which had a prize pool of $250,000 (£160,000).

Friesen, who signed with the Nihilum gaming team in April, made his comments during a video interview with Mohan "Launders" Govindasamy. The admission came when he was quizzed on the nature of the communications between the Cloud9 team members during the games. "The ESL comms were kind of funny in my opinion," he told Govindasamy. "I don't even care. We were all on Adderall. I don't even give a f**k. It was pretty obvious if you listened to the comms. People can hate it or whatever."

When quizzed on the prevalence of the drug in eSports and whether "everyone does Adderall", Friesen adds, "yeah," before saying, "and you can hear it in the comms right? That's what was so funny to me. Like 'shit comms, so hectic.' So yeah that might clear up some of the questions of why it was like that".

As an amphetamine, Adderall -- sometimes colloquially referred to as "addy" -- is regarded as a Class B drug under UK law, and is a prescription medication in the US, often used to treat narcolepsy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Its legality and availability differs from country to country, though it is considered a Schedule II drug under the United Nation's Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the second most restricted category.

The drug's appeal to pro-gamers (and, increasingly, students) comes from its tendency to focus the user's mind and stave off general fatigue. It can improve reaction and cognition, and even boost muscle strength, making it a substance abused by more active athletes.

The ESL's official rules do not specifically ban Adderall, though the general anti-drugs stance is that: "To play a match, be it online or offline, under the influence of any drugs, alcohol, or other performance enhancers is strictly prohibited, and may be punished with exclusion."

Michal Blicharz, managing director of the ESL, has previously told Eurogamer that "drug-taking did not seem commonplace at the highest levels of eSports" when investigated during a 2014 Dota 2 tournament, and that "the stakes in eSports are, bar a couple of exceptions, not high enough to inspire people to experiment with drugs."

Friesen's comments, and even Govindasamy's casual acceptance of the practice, may indicate otherwise.

WIRED.co.uk has contacted eSports organising bodies, including the ESL, IeSF, and Gfinity for comment on doping in the field. This story will be updated accordingly.

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Does eSports have a doping problem? If the recent comments of a professional Counter Strike: Global Offensive player are an indication, yes -- and it's one that organisers are well aware of. Kory Friesen, who played in tournaments with the Cloud9 team under the tag SEMPHIS, admitted that his entire team used the psychostimulant Adderall during a major Electronic Sports League competition.

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After the recent Adderall doping scandal, it was revealed players within a recognised Halo tournament for various amounts of prize money were found guilty of "feeding kills" to fellow players to allow them to win, governing officials since then have taken a hardliner stance in expelling cheating and doping from the virtual sporting world.

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It's not just traditional sports that have to worry about performance-enhancing drugs. In the wake of an ongoing controversy surrounding the abuse of Adderall by e-sports players, the Electronic Sports League has said that it will introduce policies to keep drugs out of virtual sports.
"We were all on Adderall."
There are no details yet on how that might work, but the group tells Motherboard that it has "taken steps to move forward with drugs policing, education, and prevention among participants of [its] competitions." The ESL describes itself as the "world's largest e-sports organization," though it's far from the only name in the business, and it doesn't cover some of the largest events, including the championships for Dota 2 and League of Legends.

The news comes not long after Kory Friesen, a high-ranked Counter-Strike: GO player, not only admitted to using Aderrall, but also said that use of the drug was widespread. "We were all on Adderall," Friesen said in an interview, referring to his team in the organization Cloud9. Adderall is used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, but also has the side effect of making people more alert and improving reaction times, making it ideal for e-sports like Counter-Strike, where split-second reactions can mean the difference between winning and losing.

While use of performance-enhancing drugs in e-sports has long been speculated - a lengthy Eurogamer report in August suggested that it was widespread - few players openly admitted to it before Friesen. While it's not clear what kind of punishments the ESL might enforce for those caught using such drugs, the group says that the enforcement won't be retroactive - so Friesen and his teammates won't be punished for the admission. "We can't punish someone if we are not 100 percent sure he is guilty," the group says.

The world's most famous e-sports tournament, The International, will be kicking off on August 3rd with a record-breaking $17.2 million prize pool.

Update, 12:50PM: The ESL has since issued a press release, saying that it is still in the "beginning stages" of forming a plan for dealing with doping in e-sports, which will include issuing the first performance enhancing drug skin tests at an event in Germany next month. The organization has also partnered with some big names to help formulate its official policy, which is still in the works:

In order to maintain the spirit of fair play within e-sports, ESL has partnered with NADA (the Nationale Anti Doping Agentur, which is headquartered in Bonn, Germany) to help create an anti-PED policy that is fair, feasible, and conclusive while also respecting the privacy of players. ESL will also be meeting with WADA (the World Anti Doping Agency, based in Montreal, Canada) so they can be actively involved in the making, enforcing, and dissemination of this policy to additional regions such as the US, Asia, and Australia.

There's no timeline for when the official policy will be instated, but the ESL says that "we will remain proactive in ensuring all professional players and organizations involved in ESL competitions will be kept informed of the initiative's progress."

Verge Vault: E-sports is big business (2014)

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World's largest e-sports group to start drug testing in wake of Adderall scandal

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It's not just traditional sports that have to worry about performance-enhancing drugs. In the wake of an ongoing controversy surrounding the abuse of Adderall by e-sports players, the Electronic Sports League has said that it will introduce policies to keep drugs out of virtual sports. "We were all on Adderall."

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This well written article gives a detailed insight into the virtual world of E-sports and online gaming. Listing the challenges in relation to such a broad unregulated arena in relation to max fixing, doping and channels of corruption to flow

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Intel in Esports: Powering the Leaders in Pro Gaming

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Intel gaming systems and products deliver uncompromising performance for the top Esports teams in the world.

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COMPETITIVE video-gaming, collectively known as eSports, is surging in popularity, packing out stadiums from Germany to South Korea, and attracting a global audience of almost 400m. The industry is worth $700m annually, according to Newzoo, a market-intelligence firm, a figure expected to rise to $1.5bn by 2020. And where there is money in sport, so there is corruption and betting-already an estimated $40bn annually, 90% of it illegal.

The first eSports-fixing scandal was in 2010, when South Korean players threw professional matches for financial gain. Last year Lee "Life" Seung-hyun, one of the biggest names in eSports, was convicted for his part in a series of fixes in Starcraft 2, a science-fiction strategy game. He was banned for life fromeSports in South Korea. The case was uncovered by a police investigation into illegal gambling that stumbled across eSports-fixing, rather than eSports organisers attempting to ensure clean play.

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Fixing in eSports is a mix of old and new. Players can be paid to underperform in time-honoured fashion. Or they can be paid in "skins"-decorative frills that have no bearing on gameplay. These can be cashed out, like casino chips. Gambling with skins happens on unregulated sites, making it easier for fixers to avoid detection. In 2014 several players on Counterstrike, a shooter game, used skins to bet against themselves and deliberately lost, making more than the prize money. There are new ways to tilt the outcome, too, says David Forrest of the University of Liverpool, such as strategically timed internet glitches.

ESports has no governing body. But in 2015 the biggest games formed the eSports Integrity Coalition to crack down on fixing. Gambling firms have started to certify hardware and software before competitions, in the hope of rooting out technological malfeasance. Raising awareness among players is also essential-though hard, says Ian Smith, the coalition's head. They can "go from playing in their parents' basement to playing in a $5m tournament in six months".

Traditional sports still offer higher returns to fixers. But perhaps not for long. By 2020 the total bet on eSports is expected to exceed $150bn a year. "ESports betting is increasingly attractive to the kind of people that eSports does not want attracted to it," says Mr Smith. Regulators in football, cricket, tennis and the like know how that feels.

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COMPETITIVE video-gaming, collectively known as eSports, is surging in popularity, packing out stadiums from Germany to South Korea, and attracting a global audience of almost 400m. The industry is worth $700m annually, according to Newzoo, a market-intelligence firm, a figure expected to rise to $1.5bn by 2020.

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Recent surges in Esports popularity raises multiple questions regarding participant moral and ethical conduct.

Esports events pack out huge stadiums and is watched globally by thousands of people generating millions of dollars which is expected to surpass $1.4 billion by the end of 2020.

The first recorded case was uncovered in South Korea when a professional StarCraft player was caught throwing games for financial gain.

Due to serious lack of regulation players can be paid to "under preform"

In 2014 several players on Counterstrike, a shooter game, used skins to bet against themselves and deliberately lost, making more than the prize money.