MODELING COURT DELAY
Quantitative modeling using operations research and related techniques has much less promise for mitigating court delay than proponents anticipate. Results to date have been discouraging, largely because trial court process is exceptionally difficult to model. There is no consistent sequence or path, and critical discretionary decisions are made by professionals based on individualized criteria that are hard to code. Also, participants (litigants and lawyers) are not part of the organization in any normal sense: Their very purpose is conflict, and they are as likely to try to subvert the court operation as support it. Manipulating court incentive structures is a more promising management approach.
Service Engineering: Data-Based Course Development and Teaching
In this exposition, we discuss empirically based teaching in the newly emerging field of “service engineering.” Specifically, we survey a service engineering course, taught at the Technion--Israel Institute of Technology. The course was “born” about 15 years ago as a graduate seminar and ultimately took its present form as a core course for the undergraduate program in industrial engineering and management. The role of measurements and data as teaching-enhancers and research-drivers is underscored. In addition, we emphasize that data granularity must reach the individual-transaction level. We describe customized databases and software tools that facilitate operational and statistical analysis of services; this includes the use of SEEStat, a data-user interface that was developed at the Technion's SEE Laboratory, for research and educational purposes. Some unique aspects of the course are the incorporation of state-of-the-art research and real-world data in lectures, recitations, and home assignments, as amply presented throughout this work. The application focus of the surveyed course has been telephone call centers, which constitute an explosively growing branch of the service industry. The course is now expanding to also cover healthcare, especially hospitals; some examples from other service areas (e.g., the justice system) are described as well.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.