Search

The material turn with its emphasis on the role objects play in shaping human experiences has not been fully embraced in criminology. Criminology still tends to be preoccupied with binary oppositions, yet sometimes humans and objects intertwine to carry out a crime. Perpetrators and tools used to commit crimes cannot be separated. This paper explores what reframing of some criminal activities as carried out by a human-object hybrid can add to our understanding of crime. While this paper is theoretical in nature, exploration of criminal hybridity is a first step in creating more effective policies that better reflect lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug abuse has been and is a major social and health problem in the Republic of North Macedonia, the region and around the world, because the consequences arising from the direct and indirect effects of this phenomenon are many times harmful to the person himself, the family and society as a whole and affects state security. The purpose of the paper is to examine the factors that influence drug crime, the implementation of the criminal legislation of the Republic of North Macedonia in relation to the prevention and detection of crime involving narcotic substances - drugs and the sanctioning of the perpetrators of crimes related to illegal traffic and unauthorized production of drugs. In the preparation of this paper, the statistical method was used, based on the results of the official statistical data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the period 2019-2023, we note that for the criminal offense “Unauthorized production and circulation of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors - Article 215” is increasing, while for the criminal offense “Enable the use of narcotic drugs - Article 216” is decreasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a qualitative study built upon the findings from this team’s previous studies over the past two decades that identifies risk factors and guiding principles to develop a culturally sensitive practice model for Chinese youth in conflict with the law. Crime intervention for Chinese Canadian youth is under-researched. This paper reveals that Chinese youth and their parents internalize problems of systemic inequity. Their needs are not properly addressed due to model minority stereotyping. Over the last two decades, there is a shift in demographics of the Chinese community in Canada that mirrors the socio-economical changes in China over twenty years that requires cultural nuance in providing services to the Chinese community. In general, Chinese youth and their families experienced cultural and language barriers and challenges in addressing mental health issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delays at court are an everlasting and potentially consequential reality of criminal justice systems, although most would agree that the timely adjudication of cases is needed from both administrative, judicial, and individual perspectives. This paper uses administrative data and a policy reform in Denmark in 2007 to measure the unconfounded association between court delays – or, more specifically, time to adjudication – and criminal recidivism within 5 years. Results show that although court delays do not push more people into recidivism, the delays matter for how many crimes recidivists end up being convicted of. Also, criminality tends to be muted during the period from charge to adjudication (even in a context with low use of pretrial detention and no bail system), whereby court delays also matter for the timing of new crimes – a finding with important theoretical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most prevalent themes in Emeric Pressburger's work as a screenwriter is the 'good German', a character who often represents an enemy country, who is nevertheless depicted sympathetically, or, at the very least, as a morally ambiguous character. Figures of this kind appear throughout his works, including his unpublished novels and unfilmed screenplays. This paper will examine some of these unproduced works and contest that Pressburger's writing was a response to the trauma of Nazism and the Holocaust, which stood in conflict to his largely egalitarian outlook in which he believed that all people had some good attributes. In a radical turn for the Jewish screenwriter, Pressburger uses these late works to attempt to come to terms with the moral implications of the Holocaust, considering if revenge can be justified, to what extent one should forgive, and whether acts of kindness could ever outweigh the crimes a person has committed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution analyzes the role of norms contained in individual administrative acts to determining the content of criminal wrongdoing. The reference to administrative acts raises a series of questions regarding the role of these norms in the configuration of the criminal offense and the extent to which the criminal norm can be determined by the content of said administrative act. This problem cannot be adequately addressed without a reflection on the way in which criminal law interacts with norms and evaluations from other areas of the legal system. Based on a critical analysis of these arguments, this paper provides an alternative explanation regarding the basis and scope of this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes an analysis of the role played by trust relationships and the agent's position in the definition of unjust conduct regarding the crime of disloyal administration in art. 470 N°. 11 Chilean Penal Code. To that effect, the paper critically analyzes dogmatic discourses of national criminal literature and proposes an autonomous reading of the elements of the crime at national level. It is therefore concluded that the incorporation of the general clause “to be in charge” provides a specific and novel content that, interpreted in the form of “responsibility as a role”, introduces the requirement of a normative status. In other words, the crime is not based on the violation of norms of conduct with open or common recipients that refer to the generic role of citizen but rather on specific and institutional norms that refer to the special status of the person in relation to the legal good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties occupy a contradictory position in the criminological literature: at once active participants in the political contestation of crime but virtually absent from contemporary debates concerning the relationship between crime and democratic theory. In this paper, I present a 'rational reconstruction' of party and partisanship as distinctive modes of political association that are vital to liberal democratic systems that take seriously (1) the value of political pluralism and (2) the limits of public reason to yield definitive answers to the crime question. Currently, political parties are failing to perform these mediating roles satisfactorily and I conclude that a stronger normative commitment to an 'ethic of partisanship' can help to revitalize our representative democracies and foster a better politics of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Payment cards represent a modern way of payment. In recent years, various ways of abusing payment cards have appeared and are constantly developing. With the aim of a more detailed analysis of this problem, the paper provides answers to questions regarding the method of protection of payment cards, the appearance and ways of misuse of payment cards, the criminal-legal treatment of the crime of making and using a fake payment card - Article 274- and from the Criminal Code of the Republic of North Macedonia and by applying the statistical method, the number and reported perpetrators of the same crime for the period 2019-2023 will be analyzed, where we note that crimes from this domain are increasingly present. The fight against this form of crime must certainly continue in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade a series of events including the outbreak of the Syrian war, drought and tireless insurgencies in sub-Saharan Africa triggered the largest wave of displacement ever seen through and around the Mediterranean. The majority of those bound to Europe through the Mediterranean are smuggled by criminal networks. The proliferation of Trafficking and Smuggling of Human Beings (TSHB) between the Sahel and the Libyan shores feeds into the evolving threats of terrorism, crime and insecurity in the Sahel, West Africa and Europe. This paper explores the involvement of armed groups in TSHB in the Central Sahel and Libya. The author argues that the involvement of armed actors in the TSHB in the Central Sahel and Libya is not uniform and not systematically used for terrorism financing. Criminal networks and armed groups leverage opportunities created by conflict to generate profit and project power. They operate in convergent spaces benefitting from state fragility, and shared social networks. The link between terrorism and migrant smuggling and trafficking, if found, remains localized benefitting individuals rather than organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Afrobarometer surveys, this paper finds that people living in regions in which police corruption is more prevalent are more likely to report that they or someone in their family have been victims of physical assault. People living in more corrupted regions are also more likely to report that they or someone in their family has had something stolen from their home. We find no statistically significant gender differences in the average marginal effects. Controlling for the incidence of corruption in other domains reduces the size of the estimated association but does not render it insignificant in terms of statistical significance or magnitude. Non‐police corruption is also strongly associated with an increased risk of crime. For both types of crime, the evidence points to "transactional" police corruption (having to pay bribes to get help) rather than "predatory" police corruption (having to pay bribes to avoid problems) as driving the relationship. Finally, we show that, controlling for whether the respondent reports being a victim of either type of crime, police corruption predicts an increase in the probability that the respondent reports feeling unsafe while walking in their own neighborhood thus imposing a cost even on those who have not been victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Research in criminology and criminal justice is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary, international network of intersecting research topics. Quantifying the substantive content of criminology allows us to empirically disentangle this network and analyze how the interplay of research topic and international context influences knowledge production in the study of crime. Methods: In this paper we apply the topic embedding model, top2vec, mapping two decades of research in criminology and criminal justice (2001–2020). Using data generated by top2vec we enrich coauthorship network data—introducing themes and subdisciplines, and topical similarity measures—and analyze the relationship between topical and subdisciplinary overlap, geospatial distance, and publication coauthorship in a sample of mid-career researchers (N = 4068). Results: We find that these researchers disproportionately favor collaboration within their immediate network of collaborators and subdiscipline of criminology, but tend to establish new, synergistic collaborations with topically adjacent researchers. New collaborations appear to be independent of geographic distance, but US criminologists are less likely to collaborate internationally than Eurasian and Oceanic criminologists. Conclusions: Facilitating communication between researchers and organizations from adjacent subdisciplines could benefit researchers and produce new, innovative research. Encouraging comparative research would help international scholars, many of whom may rely on US collaborators, benefit more from US scholarship. Further applications for top2vec in the scientometric study of criminology, criminal justice, and legal studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School psychology has heavily relied on quantitative methodology to create and sustain our knowledge of best practices regarding academic, behavioral, and mental health outcomes for students. Nevertheless, underlying assumptions of the neutrality of quantitative data have obfuscated how school psychology research has perpetuated oppressive ideologies and practices, which directly harm students from marginalized identities. This paper demonstrates the need for employing a critical lens when engaging in and consuming school psychology research that utilizes quantitative methods. One such framework is QuantCrit, developed in the United Kingdom, which intentionally integrates Critical Race Theory tenets into the development, analysis, and interpretation of quantitative data. We explore specific examples of the insidious ways that 'presumed neutral' quantitative approaches have led to the perpetuation of oppressive practices in the following key areas of school psychology research: (a) discipline disproportionality, (b) special education disproportionality, and (c) school accountability metrics. Furthermore, we provide recommendations for both utilizing and publishing quantitative research that moves school psychologists towards more equitable practices for children and families across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large literature documents that there are significant academic and non-academic differences between the youngest and oldest students in a school cohort. This paper investigates if being the youngest in a cohort has any impact on an individual's propensity to commit crime by utilizing a data set that contains over 4 million arrest records spanning a 20-year period in California. While I find no persistent effect on the probability of arrest, the youngest students in a cohort have a higher risk of arrest for certain offenses at age 14, corresponding to the age when they would transition to high school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a famous short story of crime fiction first published in 1843. The tale starts with an unnamed and unreliable narrator addressing an unknown person, often regarded as the reader, about the details of a crime that the narrator had committed in the past. The narrator repeatedly emphasizes that she is nervous yet she desperately attempts to rid herself of the accusation that she is insane. Thus, the narrator narrates many details of the crime in the hope of demonstrating her sane, intelligently crafted actions, and she also attempts to detail each step of thought before, during, and after the relevant crime. The narrator says that her motive was neither from hate nor a need for money but rather a suspenseful fear of the victim's pale blue eye. In the narration we are told about many things that took place during the crime, and how the narrator was ultimately caught by the police, and how she consequently confessed the crime. Many details such as the relationship between the narrator and the victim (who happened to be an old man), the clear motivation behind the crime, the gender of the narrator, and many other related issues are not sufficiently explained in the story. Nevertheless, critics have provided various ideas and interpretations as to what remained ambiguously unstated in the story. This paper aims to analyse the story with quite a different standpoint, that is to say, this paper signalizes the possibility that the narrator could be a young female servant who is secretly involved in some witchcraft practices. This hypothesis is established by highlighting relevant ritual elements in the tale which suggest that the narrative includes more than a mere portrayal of a perfect crime. Additionally, before launching into the examination of the story, this paper reviews some critics' significant suppositions as well as interpretations of some inexplicit notions of the story. In doing so, this prospective study will not only produce a coherent result that corresponds with Poe's general paradigm of story-telling, but it will also be somewhat strengthened by some findings drawn from the most significant, relevant studies. Hence, this paper will create a new spiritual reading that will fill in the resultant gaps in the studies that engaged this short story. And this will be achieved by linking-for the first time-his story with witchcraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a history of critique, concentrated discussion and improved assessment processes, neglect continues to be a major challenge for child protection services. This paper draws on findings from a government‐commissioned analysis of 'serious case reviews' (SCRs) in England, arising from incidents of serious child abuse in 2017–2019. There were 235 cases, for which 166 final reports were available. Alongside a quantitative analysis of the whole cohort, we undertook an in‐depth qualitative analysis of 12 cases involving neglect. A key challenge in responding to neglect in its different forms is that it can be so widespread amongst families that practitioners no longer notice its severity or chronicity – it becomes normalised. In this paper we explore two dimensions of the 'paradox of neglect' where it seems to be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. The first is that neglect is so closely bound up with the prevalence of poverty that little action is taken to address it. The second is that the overwhelming nature of neglect can blind practitioners to other forms of maltreatment that may also be present within a family. Practitioners, now more than ever, need to recognise the dimensions of this paradox to protect children from neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques leverage the justice system in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. AI-empowered multi-label crime classification can facilitate the precise and expedient categorization of various legal documents. Multi-label classification within the justice system has an indispensable role in achieving accurate legal categorization that invigorates case analysis, optimizes resource distribution and refines the contours of legal processes. To support this critical function, this paper proposes a temporal convolutional network (TCN)-bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT)-coupled model for multi-label crime classification. The proposed method fuses the temporal formation and semantic information in the model to obtain a high-quality result. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieved the best accuracy in comparison to existing methods on a public dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between public houses or pubs, and crime rates in England and Wales. The impact of pubs on local communities is generally studied and investigated within the context of third places, thus physical places that facilitate the accumulation of social capital within communities. We estimate Poisson Fixed-Effects (PFE) and a frontier Spatial Autoregressive (SAR) model on a unique panel dataset for 375 local authorities in England and Wales between 2003 and 2018. Results from the analysis indicate that the presence of pubs progressively relates to a higher incidence of major crimes when transitioning from rural to urban areas, mainly due to weaker level of community cohesion and a lack of resources to support formal policing in more urbanized centres. These findings highlight the importance of place-based strategies in tackling rising incidences of crimes, indicating that recent pub closures may have contributed to severing community ties that act as a deterrent to crime in certain areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the introduction of police-imposed barring notices in Western Australia (WA) is associated with changes to the number, type and location of recorded assaults. Police-imposed barring notices were introduced in WA in January 2011, and are issued in response to alcohol-related disorderly behaviours in/around licensed venues. A barring notice can exclude the recipient from one or more licensed venues for up to one year. WA Police provided unit level records of 67,750 assault incidents occurring during high-alcohol hours – 8pm to 6am on Friday and Saturday nights – between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2020. This enabled data from before and after the introduction of barring notices to be compared. The findings identified a number of potentially positive effects of barring notices, including significant reductions (p < 0.001) in non-family assault offences marked with an alcohol flag, assault offences recorded occurring on pathways (which includes areas around licensed premises), and common assault offences marked with an alcohol flag. These categories clearly align with the intended use and effect/s of barring notices, and the findings are encouraging. The effects of other factors on offending numbers cannot be excluded, but the association between the introduction of barring notices and, in particular, a reduction in alcohol-flagged violent offending appears to support the use of barring notices in WA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Youth violence and knife crime is increasing dramatically, so much so it has been described as a global epidemic. The social, economic and political forces fuelling this rise mean that minority groups are particularly affected. Aim: This paper reviews the literature primarily from a UK perspective, and illustrates the disparate factors that are influencing the rise in youth violence and knife crime and illustrates the complexities of integrating the perspectives of different disciplines into coherent intervention strategies. Method: We conducted a systematic review of the literature that explores both the causes of increasing youth violence and knife crime as well as some of the interventions that have attempted to deal with the problem. Results: A complex interplay of social, economic, mental health and political factors underpin the increase in youth violence and knife crime. An uneasy tension exists between a traditional criminal justice system-based approach based upon deterrence and punishment, and a more liberal preventative model focusing on adolescent mental health. None of the interventions thus far have been particularly effective. Conclusion: Youth violence and knife crime is a global social issue that causes untold suffering to individuals, families and communities as well as fear that reverberates through society. Interventions have often been devised through the lens of particular disciplines or ideologies. Integrating these perspectives into a coherent approach that is actually effective demands greater co-operation, dialogue and mutual understanding between disciplines and agencies, as well as a robust framework for the evidence-based assessment of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage—that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. Using a nationally representative longitudinal data set and tackling the potential endogeneity of local crime rates, we find that perceived crime against women in the locality significantly increases the likelihood of early marriage of girls, while there is no such effect on boys of comparable age group. We also find no such effect of gender-neutral crimes (such as theft and robbery) on the likelihood of early marriage of girls. Moreover, we find that the relationship holds only in conservative households where the purdah system is practised, and also in the northern region of India, where patriarchal culture and gender norms are stronger than in the southern region. A sensitivity analysis assessing the potential impact of unobservable confounders suggests that our estimates are unlikely to be affected by omitted variable bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates the structure of the collective efficacy regulation in two urban environments of the metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico. Recent research highlights the necessity of considering the influence of space and time on trust, social cohesion, and informal social control, showing a more complex composition than some previous analyses assume. With methodologies used in other experiences, this paper was carried out in the historic center of Mexico City and Nezahualcóyotl, state of Mexico, using data from a survey conducted between November 2021 and January 2022. Results show that each urban environment has different collective efficacy regulations, and in both cases, a third underlying dimension is identified, which we call identification with the colony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of crime and disorder is increasingly based not only on criminal law, but also on administrative law. This paper deals with the question of how this double strategy can be understood from the perspective of institutional logics. This analysis is based upon a study in the Netherlands about the use of administrative powers in relation to criminal law. Special attention is paid to the relations between local government and the police. The study concentrates on three different administrative powers: the area ban, the closure of premises, and the power to refuse or revoke subsidies and permits if there is a risk that these may facilitate criminal activities. The study shows that the two logics may conflict, but also that new combinations of logics are created. These may create new tensions that result, in particular, from the dominance of criminal law over the administrative logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trafficking in human beings is a phenomenon of global proportions, which on the one hand violates basic human rights and on the other hand represents a modern form of slavery. This phenomenon is influenced by various factors that are directly related to the level of development of the state, such as the economic situation, poverty, difficult housing conditions, low level of education, sociocultural factors, etc. Trafficking in human beings in Kosovo concerning the number of inhabitants is considered to be high, despite the measures taken by the justice institutions. In this paper, the main focus is based on the analysis of the contribution of justice institutions concerning the criminal offense of trafficking in human beings in Kosovo and the comparability of cases of trafficking during the years 2017-2022. Furthermore, the conclusions of this research emphasize the necessary measures and policies that should be undertaken by the institutions of justice for the prevention and combating of this negative phenomenon at the country level. It also includes the importance of international legal cooperation, public awareness, and protection of victims through institutional channels. Only through inter-institutional cooperation and the raising of social awareness success can be achieved in the combat against this phenomenon, namely to protect basic human rights and freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has failed to find consistent relationships between criminal victimization and fear of crime. Except for neighborhood disorder and crime rate, few studies have examined whether other neighborhood conditions matter the victimization—fear relationship. Using survey data in Guangzhou neighborhoods, the present analysis employs multinomial logistic regression models to examine whether neighborhood characteristics moderate the relationship between violent victimization and fear of violence, and between burglary victimization and fear of burglary, separately. Some aspects of the neighborhood environment do differentially influence victims' and non-victims' fear levels. Besides verifying the interaction effect of neighborhood disorder and victimization, the present study finds that neighborhood policing alleviates the harmful effect of violent victimization on fear, while collective efficacy fosters the harmful effect of burglary victimization on fear. This paper underscores the significance of the social context of urban China in explaining the interplay of neighborhood characteristics and victimization on fear of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two groups produce a network good perceived by a third party, such as a police or military institution, as a 'public bad', referred to as 'crime' for simplicity. These two groups, considered mafias, are assumed to be antagonists, whether they are enemies or competitors in the same market, causing harm to each other's activities. This paper provides guidelines for the policymaker, typically the police, seeking to minimize overall crime levels by internalizing these negative externalities. One specific question is investigated: the allocation of resources for the police. In general, we recommend a balanced crackdown on both antagonists, but an imbalance in group sizes may lead the police to focus on the more criminal group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lp$$ {L}^p $$‐quantile regression generalizes both quantile regression and expectile regression, and has become popular for its robustness and effectiveness especially when 1

Objectives: The objective of this paper is to improve understanding of the spatial relationship of the built environment (BE) with urban gun crime and how the influence of environmental features varies across geographic location and socioeconomic context. Specifically, we analyze associations between incidents of reported firearms violence and distance to built environment features, accounting for neighborhood socio-economic status. Methods: This study compares reported crime data with the outputs from a Monte Carlo Simulation using the Network Cross-K Function for Stochastic Spatial Events on street networks. Where data is available, we examine ten features—transit stations, universities/colleges, convenience stores, gas stations, liquor licenses, alcohol outlets, tobacco retailers, lodging, restaurants, and schools—across diverse metropolitan areas to uncover features that exert "attractive" or "repellent" influence on firearms violence. We present results from four U.S. cities and examine how results vary by socio-economic status of census tracts. Results: Attractive features include tobacco retailers in Pittsburgh, hotels/motels, alcohol outlets, and restaurants in New Orleans, and rail transit stations in Los Angeles. We uncover localized attractive and repellent relationships within the lowest and highest socio-economic areas. We also identify several firearms crime repellents, including universities/colleges and public/private schools. Conclusions: We find that attractors vary by city and socio-economic status, indicating that the unique underlying environmental context of each city facilitates firearms crime differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces and evaluates forensic traceable liquid technology as a potential deterrent for trafficking in cultural property, earlier employed in the UK to reduce heritage crime and recently implemented in Iraq to protect over 573,000 archaeological objects in five museums. The study suggests a theoretical framework and unveils novel qualitative and quantitative empirical datasets acquired through surveying and interviewing 42 law enforcement practitioners from 21 countries. The acquired data confirms the theoretical underpinnings and reveals that forensic traceable liquid, physically applied at the source, is viewed as an efficient deterrent on the market side, providing hard evidence of provenance, enhancing traceability, increasing the certainty of being convicted of dealing in illicit material, introducing risk, and invisibly guarding objects along the trafficking chain. Notably, source-country respondents appear more enthusiastic about this innovation than market-country ones, while the support for its wider implementation is unanimous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain crimes, due to their seriousness and the legal right attacked, are likely to generate what is known as non-pecuniary damage. Unlike other damages, such as material or bodily damage, there are no scales or a substantive legal body that objectively allow its quantification, for which reason the jurisprudence has been outlining a series of criteria in order to determine the existence, proof and quantification of that moral damage. Currently, the Supreme Court has been using a series of theories that seek to compensate the victim in the most complete way possible. These theories mainly are the theory of irreversible damage; the before and after theory; and the victim impact statement. This paper also analyzes the difficult differentiation between mental damage and psychological damage, the evidence criteria, as well as the main arguments accepted for the subsequent presentation of an appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the implications for the social sciences of online crimes, specifically fraud and pedophilia in Ecuador. The methodology used is justified in the conception of systematized reviews, using the analytical framework of systematized reviews in Human and Social Sciences. Databases such as Google Scholar, SCOPUS, Web of Science (WOS), Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo), among others, were used. The conclusions point to the need to increase research on these crimes from the social sciences, the application of the phenomenological approach, the investigation of myths and beliefs about these phenomena, the promotion of public policies and the promotion of interdisciplinarity with other behavioral sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the use of 'nudges' to influence decision-making and behaviour continues to be widely adopted by social policymakers, such as encouraging increases in organ donations, it is yet to get a similar foothold in the thinking and practice of reducing crime and policing. This paper seeks to assess the utility of the Nudge approach for achieving a reduction in residential burglary in Durham, England, by testing its efficacy using a Randomised Control Trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many crime victims do not report their victimization and rates of reporting are disparate across crime types. While research has established victims are least likely to report sexual assault, less known is whether the crime discounting process affects reporting rates and whether this process differs by crime type. This paper thus examines reporting for robbery, sexual assault, and physical assault incidents, particularly exploring victims who indicated their incident was "not a crime." Using the National Crime Victimization Survey (n = 15,012) and a series of logistic regressions, this study found that, holding a number of incident-level correlates constant, crime type was the most salient predictor of reporting to police and nonreporting because the incident was "not a crime." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is criminal law enforcement increasingly punitive, despite that the situation has improved for decades? This paper investigates this question from the perspective of political misinformation. To this end, we develop a law enforcement model with political competition and examine how political parties' campaigns affect voters' perceptions of crime and equilibrium law enforcement policy. In a political campaign stage, we show that one political party has an incentive to overstate the severity of crime, while the other party has an incentive to correct voters' beliefs. However, although the two parties attempt to change voters' beliefs in opposite directions, we find that the total effect of a political campaign is more likely to drive both parties' policies in a harsh direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding crime trends provides policymakers with needed information to effectively use scarce resources to keep communities safe. Native nations in the US, who retain criminal and civil jurisdiction on their lands, rely on national data collected by the federal government with little tribal input. These data may not accurately reflect the community's situation or the values they hold. Developing a tribal crime seriousness index may provide an elegant way to bridge this gap. This paper catalogs and identifies the methods for developing crime seriousness indices and provides a critical discussion of the role culture plays in the conceptualization of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from the premise that crimes against sexual morality were one of the main generators of scandal in Ancien Régime society, in this paper our aim is to analyse the lawsuits over the cohabitation of priests heard by the Episcopal Court of Palencia during the 1750s. A sample of 144 files will allow us to unravel the context in which these offences took place, observing how they affected not only those involved, but also the rest of the members of the community. Using the testimonies provided by witnesses about «the serious note and scandal» that was taking place in the locality, we will be able to determine the identity and marital status of the women involved, how familiar they were with the ecclesiastics, why they were suspected, whether they had been involved in such proceedings before or whether they had experienced symptoms of pregnancy. With regard to the other party involved, the religious, we are mainly interested in the extent to which they did not respect the vow of chastity and what penalties were imposed on them as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of sexual crimes committed against women in the United States is high, and the prevalence of these crimes is on the rise. Although these crimes are heinous and have severe consequences on survivors, they are highly excused in U.S. society, and the responsibility for the assault is often shifted from the perpetrators to the survivors. In this paper, we will review the influence of willing substance use and race and ethnicity on the attribution of blame and responsibility in rape crimes. More specific cally, we will present the results of an analysis of variance (N = 316) of (a) the willing use of alcohol, marijuana, and heroin and (b) race and ethnicity (Black, Hispanic, and White) on blame attribution in rape crimes. Additionally, we will review the findings on the influence of participants' demographics. Our results provide support for previous findings regarding the impact of alcohol and introduce new insight about the influence of race and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In all countries, cities and their suburbs are the most densely populated areas. They are also the places visited by the largest number of tourists and one-day visitors, who inevitably run the risk of becoming victims of crime. It is, therefore, important, not only at national but also at the international level, to know the structure of urban crime and identify urban areas that differ in terms of their criminogenic situation. This requires a geographical approach and regionalisation based on the quantitative data that can offer it. This paper presents the results of a study using big data regarding violent crime, property crime and infringements against public order registered by the police in 2020 in the territories of three major Lithuanian cities and their suburbs (n = 149,239). Events in open spaces were separately addressed. A series of experiments were carried out using several spatial clustering methods. The automatic zoning procedure method that gave the best statistical results was then tested with different combinations of parameters. In each city, seven types of areas of urban crime were identified. Maps of crime areas (regions) were created for each city. The results of the regionalisation have been interpreted from a socio-geographical point of view and conform with previous sociological urban studies. Seven types of areas of crime have been identified, which are present in all the cities studied and, according to a preliminary assessment, roughly correspond to the socio-demographic and urban zones of each city. The maps of crime areas can be applied for crime prevention planning and communication, real estate valuation, strategic urban development planning and other purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of change over time in crime rates is as old as criminology itself. A fundamental question about crime rates is whether they are moving up or down. This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice brings together recent research on trends in crime and related issues, such as arrests, imprisonment, terrorism, and reporting crimes to the police. These papers show that the study of crime trends is alive and well in criminology and point to innovative data sources, methods, and topics that deepen our understanding of how and why crime rates move up and down over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the underexplored impact of the procedures in public contracts on market allocation efficiency that are at risk of corruption. We integrated the GMM-SYS estimator with analyses of a balanced panel database of all the provinces in Italy between the period 2013–2021. The use of a high level of spatial granularity in an under-researched context revealed two distinct scenarios. In competitive markets, a more entrepreneurial and less widespread form of corruption emerged which may enhance market efficiency (bottom-up pattern). Conversely, in a context with limited market competition and low institutional quality, corruption indicators may be less useful due to potential pre-bribery behavior (top-down pattern). Our study underscores the capacity of corrupt suppliers to exploit market opportunities and secure selection. We found that corruption risk practices within public contracts have the potential to improve market efficiency, thus rendering them appealing to corrupt suppliers due to their capacity to deliver economic advantages. This also applies to provinces with high-quality governance. Additionally, the paper highlights the limitations of indicators in alternative contexts. The paper has significant implications for policymakers in defining assignation criteria in high-quality contexts, but also offers insights into the effectiveness of grand corruption indicators for academics. • Examines the impact of public contract procedures on market efficiency. • GMM-SYS estimator and innovative matching DID for panel analysis. • Bottom-up corruption in competitive markets, top-down in less competitive ones. • Corrupt suppliers exploit market opportunities, enhancing efficiency. • Offers insights in assignation criteria, and limitation of indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Mourning Goes Well with Zite" by Gian Carlo Fusco provides a glimpse into life in Rome and Milan during Italy's economic boom years in the late 1950s and 1960s. The excerpt mentioned is set in Milan in 1940 and discusses the impact of war and the accidental death of Italo Balbo, the Governor of Libya. The text focuses on the daily routine and interests of an individual referred to as "the Maestro," who initially supports Fascism but later becomes enamored with Balbo. The Maestro receives news of Balbo's death and reacts with despair, but eventually resumes his lunch without further comment. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, we explore how the social harm approach can be adapted within drug policy scholarship. Since the mid-2000s, a group of critical criminologists have moved beyond the concept of crime and criminology, towards the study of social harm. This turn proceeds decades of research that highlights the inequities within the criminal legal system, the formation of laws that protect the privileged and punish the disadvantaged, and the systemic challenge of the effectiveness of retribution and punishment at addressing harm in the community. The purpose of this paper is to first identify parallels between the social harm approach and critical drug scholarship, and second to advocate for the adoption of a social harm lens in drug policy scholarship. In the paper, we draw out the similarities between social harm and drug policy literatures, as well as outline what the study of social harm can bring to an analysis of drug policy. This includes a discussion on the ontology of drug crime, the myth of drug crime and the ineffective use of the crime control system in response to drug use. The paper then discusses how these conversations in critical criminology and critical drugs scholarship can be brought together to inform future drug policy research. This reflection details the link between social harm and the impingement of human flourishing, explores the role of decolonizing drug policy, advocates for the centralization of lived experience within the research process and outlines how this might align with harm reduction approaches. We conclude by arguing that the social harm approach challenges the idea that neutrality is the goal in drug policy and explicitly seeks to expand new avenues in activist research and social justice approaches to policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most people accused of a crime are released into the community pending the resolution of their charges. To manage perceived risk, conditions of release on bail modify and control behaviour while providing a mechanism and justification for state monitoring. Drawing on 120 interviews with accused people in Canada this paper develops a typology to theorize how bail is experienced by accused, providing a framework for understanding what motivates accused to comply or violate their bail conditions and what impact conditioning has on their lives. Our analysis reveals insights into how accused present themselves to the court, navigate conditions of release and evaluate being conditioned in the community under the threat of further criminalization. Consistent with Yule et al. (2023), accused report a complex, variegated experience of social control in the community prior to conviction. Insights from participants suggest that bail is part of a broader criminal court process, that differentiates and marks accused (Kohler-Hausmann, 2018) who lack the requisite docility and discipline as risky and requiring more intensive conditioning and monitoring. • Drawing on 120 interviews with accused people in Canada this paper develops a typology to theorize how bail is experienced by accused, providing a framework for understanding what motivates accused to comply or violate their bail conditions and what impact conditioning has on their lives. • Accused report a complex, variegated experience of social control in the community prior to conviction. • How accused respond to being conditioned and demonstrate their amenability determines if and how much more (if any) conditioning and sanctioning is needed. • Reflecting on their presentation of self, experiences in the pre-trial process and impressions of the system, participants speak to themes of docility and discipline, bail as punishment and release as being better than detention. • The bail process is punishment's testing ground. Bail is part of a broader criminal court process, that differentiates, and marks accused (Kohler-Hausmann, 2018) who lack the requisite docility and discipline as risky and requiring more intensive conditioning and monitoring. • The lived experiences of accused reveals that bail conditions are ineffective tools of behaviour management, control, or change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As digitalization has made it easier to produce, copy, and distribute child sexual exploitation material (CSEM), the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse images has become more widespread. Thus, the need to assess the risk of subsequent sex offenses – above all, sexual abuse of children by individuals who have been convicted of CSEM offenses – becomes more and more important. The main objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the respective size of two groups of offenders: first, offenders who commit CSEM offenses without ever crossing the line to sexual abuse of children, and second, so-called crossover offenders, that is, individuals who commit CSEM offenses and engage in child sexual abuse. Identification of differences between these two groups facilitates analyzing the risk that someone convicted of a CSEM offense might in the future sexually assault children. We used data from the German Federal Central Criminal Register (Bundeszentralregister), a data set that includes information about all persons convicted of any criminal offense, including "child pornography" offenses, by a court in Germany. For persons convicted of CSEM offenses only, with no additional concurring sex offenses, the rate of subsequent convictions for child sexual abuse is very low (1.1 % after a six-year follow-up period, adult offenders). This risk is even lower if offenders are older than 30 years of age, and it is slightly higher for offenders with previous offense-specific convictions (i.e., previous sex offenses). The mere existence of a conviction for a CSEM offense is not an indication that the convicted person poses a significant risk of committing child sexual abuse. To pinpoint such a risk more accurately, the following factors should be examined: the existence of offense-specific prior records, the presence of crossover-offending in the form of concurring offenses, and the age of the offender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, the interest is in three things, arising from a project on 'dark' F-KIBS clusters. This has already resulted in critical papers on management consultancy and accounting 'assemblages' in which such clusters are embedded (Cooke, 2023a; 2003b). Questions posed are: first, why is there so much financial crime being punished with huge fines? Second has there been a significant rise in such prosecutions in recent years? Third, which jurisdictions or clusters display the most prosecuted firms and sectors? These questions are stimulated by an interest in 'assemblage geography' and evolutionary spatial analysis; accordingly, financial 'dark' clusters are proposed for study in this contribution. Assemblage connections may be hypothesised to be found in financial districts that replicate Marshallian proximity, notably Delaware in the US (Weitzman, 2022). That state specifically and its main city, Wilmington, is proposed as an exemplary rising agglomeration of relational interactions specialising in US tax avoidance and bankruptcy. In Switzerland, Bellinzona Federal Criminal Court recently hosted a Swiss Bank's first-ever domestic trial for criminality in the shape of Credit Suisse. This bank had a fine of SFr2mn imposed on the bank, which was also ordered to pay €18.6mn in compensation to the Swiss government. An extra penalty was imposed by confiscation of SFr12 mn in criminal assets from the convicted perpetrators. The case had involved a group of Bulgarian clients laundering cocaine profits between 2004 and 2008 involving huge sums of cash being brought to the bank in suitcases, further associated with two assassinations. These red flags were missed by a bank which had received multiple fines elsewhere (Carrel, 2022). In reference to gang crime, in 2004, a Credit Suisse banker in Tokyo was arrested for allegedly helping launder at least ¥5bn linked to Japan's largest Yakuza gang connected in a Japan, Switzerland and Hong Kong network (Makortoff and Pegg, 2022). Regarding the demise of Switzerland's second global bank, after being badly hit by the huge Greensill and Archegos bankruptcies Credit Suisse was bailed out for £45 billion by the Swiss Central Bank in March 2023. Earlier, in 2015–2017, Disney, the creative economy exemplar in this narrative, is profiled in our third vignette as an imperious tax-dodging 'fiefdom' yet surviving as the global mass-entertainment leader. Finally, in sections 4 and 5, we profile two London-centred banking 'scandals' with 'sustainability' rather than 'creative' overtones. Thus of dubious banking practices London's many categories of financial regulator are served by two 'assemblage' cases that will be analysed subsequent to being advanced as candidates. One recent exemplar is Balli Steel, an Anglo-Iranian sanctions-breaker, while another is Britishvolt, a financially failed EV gigafactory project in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Judith Rich Harris' Nurture Assumption has had a profound impact on the understanding of human development. • I detail how JRH's scholarship has altered my approach to the study of crime and criminals. • I discuss how the field of criminology has remained steadfast in their resistance to JRH's work. The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris was a revolutionary book that called into question the family socialization literature and the conventional ways in which parenting is typically studied by social scientists. In the 25 years since it was first published, the key arguments set forth in The Nurture Assumption still remain on the margins of most fields of study and not fully integrated into individual research agendas. In this paper, I focus on how Judith Rich Harris has impacted my scholarly thinking and my academic career as a criminologist. In doing so, I discuss the ways in which Judith Rich Harris' views can guide criminological thinking and the reasons why the field of criminology has been and continues to be resistant to her and The Nurture Assumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart city literature mostly focusses on digital initiatives from above. However, digitalisation also reshapes the city from below. Residents use digital means and platforms to empower their agency in the city. This paper aims to explore how residents utilise digital tools to activate their agency and influence local politics. The paper focusses on one neighbourhood in the city of Tel Aviv where different groups of residents struggle to promote their desired political-spatial vision. The main question is whether digitalisation produces new forms of agency on the neighbourhood scale. The paper argues that: (1) digitalisation provides residents with new forms of connective action, creating digital networks at different scales, using representational practices and forming new spaces for political negotiation; (2) through these practices, they manage to influence the symbolic and political status of the neighbourhood and reframe the struggle over its character and future; (3) groups with higher digital agency gain wider visibility of their claims and needs with politicians, the media and public officials. Importantly, this does not only serve middle-class groups. (4) Ultimately, residents become predominant political actors through digital agency. Methodologically, this paper includes two methods: (i) interviews with residents and municipal workers and (ii) social media analysis and online ethnography. The conclusion elaborates the concept of place-oriented digital agency as a particular type of agency aimed at determining change in a specific locale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite significant efforts to improve access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), uptake remains low relative to the scope of the problem in the United States. A growing body of quantitative and qualitative research has documented consistent barriers to MOUD treatment access and retention, at the level of individuals, institutions, and society at large. Stigma - surrounding both people who use opioids (PWUO) and treatment using MOUD – is among the most-cited barriers by patients and providers alike, yet few studies have examined provider-based stigma specifically, or considered its interaction with other impediments to OUD care. This paper employs a qualitative approach to the analysis of provider-based stigma among professionals involved in the treatment or supervision of individuals with OUD. We conducted and analyzed interviews with 19 professionals as part of a larger mixed methods study on stigma among substance use treatment providers and court personnel in Pennsylvania. Beyond capturing providers' perceptions of PWUO and MOUD, the authors asked participants to describe barriers to recovery, and the effective delivery of care within this population. Interviewees enumerated multiple entrenched barriers that sometimes operated at different levels, such as criminal-legal involvement, which weakened PWUO's social networks and employment prospects, while undermining providers' attempts at continuity of care; moreover, participants cited the "War on Drugs" as an overarching impediment to effective substance use treatment, not least for its role in perpetuating stigma against PWUO. Interestingly, while an overwhelming majority of participants named stigma as a barrier to treatment at every level, most also articulated stigmatizing beliefs around PWUO. Namely, providers evoked one element of stigma – blameworthiness – in their contention that many PWUO are inadequately motivated to recover. In addition to adding further complexity to MOUD barriers research, this study troubles the notion that professional training and education on the disease model of addiction serve to eradicate stigma. • Uptake of medications for opioid use disorder remains low despite efforts to expand access. • Individual, institutional, and systemic barriers to MOUD interact to reduce usage. • Treatment providers identify stigma as a primary barrier to MOUD effectiveness at all levels. • Many treatment providers also express conceptions of people who use opioids as "blameworthy." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]