Journal•ISSN: 0007-0955
British Journal of Criminology
Oxford University Press
About: British Journal of Criminology is an academic journal published by Oxford University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Poison control & Suicide prevention. It has an ISSN identifier of 0007-0955. Over the lifetime, 2882 publications have been published receiving 99706 citations.
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TL;DR: A descriptive analysis of strategies of crime control in contemporary Britain and elsewhere can be found in this paper, where the authors argue that the normality of high crime rates and the limitations of criminal justice agencies have created a new predicament for governments.
Abstract: The article offers a descriptive analysis of strategies of crime control in contemporary Britain and elsewhere. It argues that the normality of high crime rates and the limitations of criminal justice agencies have created a new predicament for governments. The response to this predicament has been recurring ambivalence that helps explain the volatile and contradictory character of recent crime control policy. The article identifies adaptive strategies (responsibilization, defining deviance down, and redefining organizational success) and strategies of denial (the punitive sovereign response), as well as the different criminologies that accompany them.
1,575 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a court procedure that restores the participants' rights to their own conflicts is outlined, where the participants have lost their rights to participate in conflict resolution in the past.
Abstract: CONFLICTS are seen as important elements in society. Highly industrialised societies do not have too much internal conflict, they have too little. We have to organise social systems so that conflicts are both nurtured and made visible and also see to it that professionals do not monopolise the handling of them. Victims of crime have in particular lost their rights to participate. A court procedure that restores the participants' rights to their own conflicts is outlined.
1,046 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the complexity of crime control and suggest that, despite the apparent diversity of these conceptions, some at least can be understood as infractions of freedom, that is to say, as problematic because they throw into question the very presuppositions of moralconsciousness, self-control and self-advancement through legitimate consumption upon whichgovernmental regimes of freedom depend.
Abstract: Advanced liberal democracies are currently witnessing a bewildering variety of developments inregimes of control. These range from demands for execution or preventive detention of implacablydangerous or risky individuals—sexual predators, paedophiles, persistent violent offenders—to thedevelopment of dispersed, designed in-control regimes for the continual, silent and largely invisiblework of the assessment, management, communication and control of risk. Political programmes ofcrime control appear to have little stability, cycling rapidly through all the alternatives from ‘prisonworks’, ‘short, sharp shocks’ and ‘boot camps’, through ‘community corrections’ and ‘reintegrativeshaming’ via ‘therapeutic rehabilitation’ to ‘nothing works’ and ‘three strikes and you’re out’.Of course, programmes of crime control have always had less to do with control of crime than theyhave to do with more general concerns with the government of the moral order. And concerns aboutillegality and crime have been articulated as much, if not more, by institutions and practices whicharenotpartofthecriminaljusticesystemthanbythosethatareconventionallyconsideredtobepartofsuch a ‘system’. Nonetheless, even at this more general level, things seem confusing. Despite claimsthatweliveinapost-disciplinarysociety(Simon),thatdangerousnesshasgivenwaytorisk(Castel),that control in now continuous, immanent and cybernetic rather than discontinuous, localized andindividualizing (Deleuze), there appears to be little strategic coherence about these developments attheleveloftheirrationalities,andmuchdiversityandcontingencyattheleveloftheirtechnologies.This paper will attempt to explore this complexity along a number of dimensions. It will considerthewaysinwhichparticular‘regimesofillegalities’havebeenindividuatedandproblematized,andsuggest that, although these are diverse, some at least can be understood as infractions of freedom,that is to say, as problematic because they throw into question the very presuppositions of moralconsciousness, self-control and self-advancement through legitimate consumption upon whichgovernmental regimes of freedom depend. It will consider the ‘conceptions of the criminal’ thatcirculate within practices for the government of illegality, and suggest that, despite the apparentdiversity of these conceptions—where biological arguments about inherited tendencies cohabit withcommunitarian arguments about the virtues—the pervasive image of the perpetrator of crime is notone of the juridical subject of the rule of law, nor that of the bio-psychological subject of positivistcriminology, but of the responsible subject of moral community guided—or misguided—by ethicalself-steering mechanisms. And it will consider the forms of knowledge and modes of expertise that areimplicated in these new techniques and rationalities of control.Governing Conduct
1,039 citations
TL;DR: Clar as mentioned in this paper argues that an alternative theoretical emphasis on choices and decisions made by the offender leads to a broader and perhaps more realistic approach to crime prevention, which is also consistent with a preoccupation of criminological ��theory with criminal "dispositions".
Abstract: From Clarke, R.V.G. (1980). Situational crime prevention: Theory and practice. British Journal of Criminology, 20, 136-147.Conventional wisdom holds that crime prevention needs to be based on a
thorough understanding of the causes of crime. Though it may be conceded
that preventive measures (such as humps in the road to stop speeding) can
sometimes be found without invoking sophisticated causal theory, “physical” measures that reduce opportunities for crime are often thought to be of
limited value. They are said merely to suppress the impulse to offend which
will then manifest itself on some other occasion and perhaps in even more
harmful form. Much more effective are seen to be “social” measures (such
as the revitalisation of communities, the creation of job opportunities for
unemployed youth, and the provision of sports and leisure facilities), since
these attempt to remove the root motivational causes of offending. These
ideas about prevention are not necessarily shared by the man-in-the-street or
even by policemen and magistrates, but they have prevailed among academics, administrators and others who contribute to the formulation of criminal policy. They are also consistent with a preoccupation of criminological
theory with criminal “dispositions” (cf. Ohlin 1970; Gibbons 1971; Jeffery
1971) and the purpose of this paper is to argue that an alternative theoretical
emphasis on choices and decisions made by the offender leads to a broader
and perhaps more realistic approach to crime prevention.
649 citations
TL;DR: The authors reviewed the literature on police sub-culture and concluded that what occurs in the canteen is expressive talk designed to give purpose and meaning to inherently problematic occupational experience, where in contrast to the latter officers act before an audience of their peers.
Abstract: Police sub-culture is often portrayed as a pervasive, malign and potent influence on the behaviour of officers. The grounds for this portrayal are, however, insubstantial and appear to rely more upon the condemnatory potential of the concept than its explanatory power. This article reviews the literature on police sub-culture and concludes that what occurs in the canteen is expressive talk designed to give purpose and meaning to inherently problematic occupational experience. The canteen is an arena of action separate from the street, where in contrast to the latter officers act before an audience of their peers.
642 citations