In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rsocp/n20/n20a15.pdf

The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary, society

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Interaction ritual chains

ROSE-ACKERMAN Susan, PALIFKA Bonnie J. Corruption and government : causes, consequences, and reform Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2016, XXIII-618 p. ISBN 978-1-107-44109-5 MOND 723 Resume editeur : The second edition of Corruption and Government updates Susan Rose-Ackerman's 1999 book to address emerging issues and to rethink old questions in light of new data. The book analyzes the research explosion that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall, the founding of Transparency Intern...

Corruption and government : causes, consequences, and reform

During the last decade, a process of ‘emotionalization of law’ has spread around the globe, changing the criminal justice system in many ways. Anger, disgust and shame are perceived as ‘valuable barometers of social morality’ and brought back to criminal procedures. The ‘return of emotions’ to penal law and criminal justice is linked to and illuminates the moral imagination of late modern societies. This article seeks to address two facets of the ‘return of emotions’ to criminal justice. The first part explores the changes in the public sphere and in the pattern of emotional culture in late modern societies that are responsible for the reemotionalization of the penal realm. In the second part, problems that emerge in the criminal justice system are addressed. Bringing emotions back involves profound problems that go beyond the mere instrumental use of emotions in criminal justice, or a restricted perspective of ‘what works’. Three ‘core’ problems—and associated—questions are discussed: first, are emotiona...

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Emotions and criminal justice

Between the crimes in the suites and the crimes in the streets lies the mostly unexplored terrain within which we find crimes of ‘everyday life’. Not all of these are formally illegal, but all are generally seen as morally dubious. Most of the crimes of everyday life are committed in the contemporary marketplace, and by those who think of themselves (and are mostly considered by others) as respectable citizens. We contextualize normative orientations that are conducive to such types of behaviour using a framework that links E. P. Thompson’s (1963) concept of the ‘moral economy’ with Institutional Anomie Theory (Messner and Rosenfeld 1994, 2007). Findings from a comparative survey study in three economic change regions (England and Wales, Western and Eastern Germany) show that a syndrome of market anomie comprising distrust, fear and cynical attitudes toward law increases the willingness of respectable citizens to engage in illegal and unfair practices in the marketplace.

/pdf/the-moral-economy-of-everyday-crime-markets-consumers-and-vd4k8k48kj.pdf

The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime Markets, Consumers and Citizens

The widespread adoption of new forms of digital communication platforms such as micro-blogging sites presents both an opportunity and a challenge for researchers interested in understanding people's attitudes and behaviours, especially in the context of unfolding crises and the need for government agencies such as the police to inform the public and act swiftly to ensure public order and safety. In this paper, we use a study of a recent public order crisis in England to explore how the police, other organisations and individuals used Twitter as they responded to this event.

Reading the riots: what were the police doing on Twitter?

Globalization will intensify contacts – and perhaps conflicts – betweencultures more than ever in the history of humankind. The flow of migrantsaround the world, global business and global consumption provide us withnew experiences of difference and diversity as well as of common ground.As in other social sciences, the concept of culture has recently emerged oncentre stage in criminology. Western criminologists look in awe to Asia, andtry to solve the enigma of modern, affluent societies with low ratesespecially of violent crimes. Asian criminologists warn of an impact ofWestern culture that might cause rising crime rates. Asian models of socialcontrol are studied and adopted in Australia, Europe and the US, and viceversa.Crime and social control are social and cultural phenomena. Therefore,comparing cultures and comparing crime will offer new insights, freshtheories and chances of innovative perspectives. What is to learn fromcultural differences, what from universals in crime and social control? Whatwill be the fate of ``general theories of crime'' in different cultures? Willpractices of criminal justice be efficient when transported to another socialand cultural environment?Criminologists should develop a clear notion of the problems that arerelated to comparing cultures and crime. Cultures are not monolithic.Cultural comparisons often suffer from exaggerations of differences, andproduce exaggerated predictions and expectations. On its way into theglobalized 21st century, criminology will have to develop strategies to meetthe challenge of comparing cultures, to avoid former errors, and to solvethe problems that lie ahead.

Comparing cultures, comparing crime: Challenges, prospects and problems for a global criminology

Democracies represent an institutional framework and a way of life that is, almost by definition, nonviolent. Contrasting with this ideal are two simultaneous global trends: an extension of democratic regimes and rising levels of violent crime. This article explores this seeming gap between democracy’s ideal and reality. The author identifies comparative advantages and disadvantages for both democracy and autocracy in restraining violent crime. Comparative advantages of two core democratic values—individualism and egalitarianism—are examined with data from a sample of twenty-six countries. Results show that compared to collectivistic and authoritarian patterns, individualistic and egalitarian values reduce levels of violence. Societies with high levels of violent crime are concentrated among autocracies, which mostly have collectivistic and authoritarian values. In contrast, democratic societies are mostly characterized by individualistic and egalitarian values and have lower levels of violent crime. Demo...

Susanne Karstedt

Papers

Emotions and criminal justice

The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime Markets, Consumers and Citizens

Reading the riots: what were the police doing on Twitter?

Comparing cultures, comparing crime: Challenges, prospects and problems for a global criminology

Democracy, Values, and Violence: Paradoxes, Tensions, and Comparative Advantages of Liberal Inclusion