Showing papers in "British Journal of Criminology in 2006"

Young Black Men and Urban Policing in the United States

Abstract: People of colour living in disadvantaged urban communities have been shown to be the disproportionate recipients of both proactive policing strategies and various forms of police misconduct. As a consequence, a growing body of research has begun to examine the relationship between blacks' experiences with the police and their perceptions of police legitimacy. While urban minority young men are primary recipients of proactive policing efforts, few studies have examined in depth their particular experiences with the police. Drawing from a broader qualitative study of violence in the lives of African-American youths from a distressed urban community, this paper examines 40 young men's experiences with and perceptions of police harassment and misconduct. Our findings highlight young men's sense of themselves as symbolic assailants in the eyes of the police, suggest the importance of measuring the impact of accumulated negative experiences to better understand minority/police relations, and add additional currency to recent findings on the significance of procedural justice.

The Internal Narrative of Desistance

Abstract: Recent desistance research has emphasized the importance of shifts in offenders' identities to explain cessation from crime. Explanatory weight is given to how the agent reflects and acts upon relevant social circumstances rather than seeing desistance as the product of greater control exerted by the obligations of new roles. This kind of self-reflexivity is achieved through an internal moral conversation that is often couched in terms of agents' ultimate concerns and their relationship with others. In so doing, desisters fashion a narrative identity, which acknowledges yet disclaims past actions and commits them to an ideal future self.

Neighbourhood Characteristics and Reporting Crime Effects of Social Cohesion, Confidence in Police Effectiveness and Socio-Economic Disadvantage

Abstract: Various scholars have suggested that neighbourhood social cohesion and confidence in police effectiveness influence the probability that victims report crime to the police, but this has never been properly tested. Neighbourhood socio-economic disadvantage is also often assumed to influence reporting, but empirical support is limited. This study examines the effects of these three characteristics on Dutch victims' reporting decision. Data from a large-scale victimization survey are merged with data on characteristics of neighbourhoods to test the hypotheses. Hierarchical logistic modelling is used to analyse the nested data. The results show that, in addition to crime and victim features, neighbourhood social cohesion and socio-economic disadvantage affect reporting. Neighbourhood confidence in police effectiveness does not have an effect.

Crime Measures and the Spatial Analysis of Criminal Activity

Abstract: This paper investigates the spatial aspect of criminal activity in Vancouver, Canada, employing social disorganization theory, routine activity theory and multiple measures of crime. Crime counts and crime rates with residential and ambient populations as denominators are calculated using the calls for service made to the Vancouver Police Department. The ambient population--a 24-hour average estimate of a population in a spatial unit to capture the population at risk--is obtained from the LandScan Global Population Database and calculated at a spatial resolution relevant to criminological research. Utilizing a spatial regression technique, strong support is found for routine activity theory across space and the use of ambient populations when calculating crime rates and measuring the population at risk.

Expert Decision Making in Burglars

Abstract: This paper begins by reviewing research on the cognitive processing used by residential burglars when choosing targets. We then attempt to make links between this processing and the notion of expertise in the broader cognitive literature, to the extent that, in comparison with novices, processing appears removed from explicit deliberation, tasks are carried out speedily and methodically, and recognition of relevant stimuli or cues is extremely fast, if not instantaneous. We then present new data from interviews with 50 experienced burglars. We cover the initial decision to burgle and selection of the target followed by, for the first time in the UK, a detailed discussion of search strategies within the property. Forty-five out of 50 burglars had a predictable search pattern and 37 spontaneously described their searches using terms signifying automaticity—an underlying feature of expertise. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of primary and secondary crime prevention.

Assembling Risk and the Restructuring of Penal Control

Abstract: In this paper, we draw attention to new assemblages with risk in order to highlight the multiple forms of knowledge and logics at work in new risk assessment practices. We seek to complicate the theoretical explanations of risk by highlighting how risk logics merge and shift in tandem with various rationalities. For example, when risk is merged with need, needs are reconfigured as criminogenic needs but, in this process, risk becomes a fluid concept that can be treated, altered and transformed. When risk is merged with more welfare and disciplinary-based logics, such as rehabilitation and clinical assessments, new forms of risk management are produced, such as targeted treatment. Through these processes, risk's association with actuarial calculations is weakened by other judgments and appraisals. As well, risk takes on more productive ameliorative possibilities, associated with risk minimization. These new assemblages enable new forms of risk-based governance as evident in contemporary correctional case management planning and the accreditation of programmes. This analysis is developed through an examination of the Level of Service Inventory (LSI)-an internationally used risk assessment instrument.

Criminology and terrorism : Toward a critical approach

Abstract: Terrorism is a social problem which has endured over several centuries, involved multiple aggressors and led to a troubling number of human casualties. La terreur was the collective term used at that historical juncture to describe the gruesome methods of violence exacted during the violent conflict between rival Girondin and Jacobin factions. In contemporary society, security analysts are agreed that the global terrorist threat is largely constituted by a collection of Islamist extremist groups, including ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab and Lashkar-e-Taiba. One of the clear requisites for determining an effective response to terrorism is a detailed and cultured understanding of the root causes of terrorism. In a climate of political manipulation and anxiety around national security, it is incumbent on criminologists to specify what it is that is 'new' or otherwise about 'new terrorism' and to question the extent to which attempts to regulate political violence by Western nation-states have been either socially just or materially effective.

Drugs, crime and social exclusion: social context and social theory in British drugs-crime research

Abstract: The association between drugs and crime is one of the central concerns of contemporary British drugs research and policy. Another major concern in recent years has been the clustering together of the most serious problems of drugs and crime in neighbourhoods already experiencing multiple social and economic difficulties. This paper seeks, first of all, to re-situate the drug-crime nexus in its full social context in order to provide a new perspective on these two key aspects of the British drug problem today. In doing so, the analysis raises in applied form some important issues in criminological theory and the paper attempts, secondly, to make a contribution to these theoretical debates.

Criminology and Terrorism Which Thesis? Risk Society or Governmentality?

Abstract: Since the events of 11 September 2001, terrorism has been the subject of intense media interest,political dialogue and public scrutiny. Through well publicized discussions about its constitutionand consequences, the ‘new terrorism’ has been open to heavy institutional construction. Yet, crim-inological incursion into the debate about ‘new terrorism’ has so far been relatively limited. Thisarticle seeks to directly address this lacuna by employing two dis tinct theoretical perspectives on riskand demonstrating how each can ai d our understanding of the manufa cture of the terrorist threat.The risk-society thesis pr oposed by Beck is employed to examine the novel fe atures of ‘new terrorism’,including the deployment of hi-tech weaponry, the reproduction of catastrophic effects and thechanging geography of danger. Through the Foucauldian looking glass of governmentality, weinspect the means through which risk is rendered thinkable, the dis cursive construction of terrorismand the intensification of a wider culture of surveillance and control. Our application is governedby two key objectives. First, we wish to critique the ways in which the terrorist threat is being discur-sively and materially shaped by law and order institutions. Secondly, we wish to explore the possib-ility of setting a criminological agenda that is both inclusive of and responsive to current concernsabout the management of ‘new terrorism’. Introduction

Fall of the ‘Platonic Guardians’Liberalism, Criminology and Political Responses to Crime in England and Wales

Abstract: This paper offers a critical reconstruction and reinterpretation of the disposition towards the governance of crime that was ascendant in England and Wales during the middle decades of the twentieth century - namely, liberal elitism, or what I term Platonic guardianship. Drawing upon documentary sources, and extended oral history/biographical interviews with retired Home Office officials, penal reformers and criminologists, I examine the express and implied values and beliefs that constitute this take on political responsibility towards crime and the public passions it arouses, and consider the senses in which it may be plausibly described, ideologically, as liberal. I then explore three moments of contention during which the legitimacy of liberal elitism was called into question over the last several decades - the nothing works assault on rehabilitation in the 1970s, the rise of law and order politics in the 1980s, and the populist and punitive turn taken by penal politics since 1993. In each case, I outline briefly the nature of the charges leveled at the commitments and practices of Platonic guardianship and assess - drawing upon the interview material - the perceived scale and effects of each challenge. I conclude by reflecting on the sociological preconditions and normative limitations of Platonic guardianship as a mode of rule, and on what we may draw from it today in our efforts to make sense of, and transcend, the febrile contemporary politics of crime.

Policing before and after the police - The historical antecedents of contemporary crime control

Abstract: The extent and import of changes in contemporary crime control are hotly contested. By setting these changes in historical perspective, this article challenges claims that we are entering a new era in policing. Examining the eighteenth-century antecedents of present developments reveals the explanatory value of historical perspective and the relevance of Enlightenment political theory for the present governance of policing. Teasing out enduring motifs in crime control suggests that the symbolic monopoly on policing asserted by the modern criminal justice state may just be a historical blip in a longer-term pattern of multiple policing providers and markets in security. Loss of this monopoly only intensifies state responsibility to uphold policing as a public good.

The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime Markets, Consumers and Citizens

Abstract: 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.

State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption

Abstract: alongside deregulation of business activities. These poisonous results follow from policies that were developed in economic and business-led think-tanks, and which have been adopted around the world over the last thirty years or so. If the description that the authors offer of this process were taken a little further, then we could see something like class action behind globalisation, as the ruling class captures government, dispossesses public services, and silences labour unions. Once again, the question could be raised as to whether this is a result of the system being run by bad people, or whether such excesses of inequality and power always follow as accumulation proceeds and crises develop. The final chapter offers a brief sketch of movements against globalisation in its current form. The authors include a short paragraph on everything from politically aware pop music to labour unions and anarchist groups. The strength of this approach is to demonstrate the wide variety that opposition can take, and to show that it is potentially as global as capital itself. None of the material contained in this book is entirely new. What the authors do is to bring it together in a new and accessible format. As such, it forms an excellent basic introduction, and I am already using it with some of my Japanese English-language students.

Restorative Justice and Sexual Assault An Archival Study of Court and Conference Cases

Abstract: As restorative justice has grown in popularity worldwide, mainly in response to youth crime, controversy surrounds its use for sexual, partner and family violence cases. With some exceptions, all jurisdictions have put these offences beyond the reach of restorative justice for both youth and adult offenders and, thus, empirical evidence is lacking. This paper presents findings from an archival study of nearly 400 cases of youth sexual assault, which were finalized in court and by conference or formal caution over a six-and-a-half-year period in South Australia, to address these questions: (1) What differentiates a court from a conference case? (2) What happens once a case goes to court, e.g. what share of cases is dismissed and how do penalties vary for court and conference cases? (3) From a victim's point of view, what appears to be the better option--having one's case go to court or conference? Contrary to the concerns raised by critics of conferencing, from a victim's advocacy perspective, the conference process may be less victimizing than the court process and its penalty regime may produce more effective outcomes.

PUBLIC OPINION VERSUS PUBLIC JUDGMENT ABOUT CRIME Correcting the 'Comedy of Errors'

Abstract: This paper builds a case for more defensible assessments of informed public opinion on crime control and penal policy. Mass-mediated portrayals of what the public want and ubiquitous self-selected opinion polls serve as common surrogates for informed public opinion. These highly suspect assessments have gained a level of credence in policy debates that is difficult to justify. Innovations like the Deliberative Poll show promise in facilitating what has been called ‘public judgment’—a more reliable and refined state of informed public opinion. Less ambitious remedial proposals, including the public education programmes advocated by some experts and recently embraced by the Home Office, are insufficiently bold to make a significant and lasting impact on public knowledge and attitudes.

The media construction of financial white-collar crimes

Abstract: Crimes of deception are treated by the mass media as extensions of ‘infotainment’, such as individual and corporate celebrities in trouble; ‘normal’ people turning to fraud because of drugs, gambling or sex; readily visualizable and often short fraud events (like ‘identity fraud’ or ‘card skimming’) connected to ‘organized crime’ or ‘terrorism’; or long-term concealment of fraud that shows the ‘Establishment’ to be incompetent or business people/politicians to be hypocrites. These populist themes, prosecutions and regulatory actions, active non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and lobbyists, media technology and libel risks influence what business activities get labelled as ‘fraud’ or ‘corruption’. However, the growing specialist business and technology press and electronic media report worldwide less sensational cases involving reputational damage, business prospects and technological vulnerability, and these affect business people (if not the general public) in ways that may be neglected by traditional media and crime studies.

CCTV: Beyond Penal Modernism?

Abstract: In recent years, a number of writers have suggested that contemporary strategies of crime control have called into question some of the central features of ‘penal modernism’. The return of punitively orientated ‘ostentatious’ forms of punishment whereby state representatives try to bring penal policy more in line with public sentiment is implicated (Pratt 2000; 2002). For other writers, the apparent erosion of state power accompanied by ‘new modes of governance’ based upon ‘risk management’ rather than the normalization of individual offenders is at the centre of a shift towards a ‘late modern’ or ‘postmodern’ penality (Feeley and Simon 1994; Smandych 1999; Garland 1996). This article draws upon research conducted for the European Union-funded URBANEYE project to ask how the rapid growth in the use of CCTV in the UK fits in with contemporary debates on the emergence of a ‘post modern’ penality (Garland 1996 2001; Hallsworth 2002; Lucken 1999; O’Malley, 1999; Simon 1994). We begin with a review of the theoretical literature on visual surveillance. Next we draw upon our empirical research to provide an account of the extent and sophistication of CCTV usage in publicly accessible spaces in London. Finally, we examine the ‘practice of video surveillance’ in four different settings – an open-street CCTV system, a transport system (mainline railway station), West London Mall and South London Mall.

Three strikes and you're out

Abstract: Criminologists have become increasingly interested in the extent to which, and ways in which, criminal justice and penal policy ideas and innovations travel across national boundaries. A particular focus has been the apparent convergence of some aspects of crime control policy in the United States and the United Kingdom associated with policies such as 'zero tolerance' policing, youth curfews, the 'war on drugs', increased use of incarceration and the privatization of criminal justice agencies. This paper focuses upon the area of sentencing policy and, in particular, the emergence of so-called 'two' and 'three strikes' sentencing policies in the United States and the United Kingdom. The paper outlines the contrasting forms and variable impacts of these sentencing policies in different jurisdictions. In particular, it examines the relationship between symbolic and substantial dimensions of policy in contrasting jurisdictions, the degree to which differences are related to the strategic intentions of politicians and policy makers, and the mediating factors of varying legal and political institutions and cultures. The central argument of the paper is that in the context of the political institutions and cultures of some US states, the relationship between symbol and substance is much closer than is the case in other jurisdictions, not least that of the United Kingdom.

‘Drive it like you Stole it’ Auto Theft and the Illusion of Normalcy

Abstract: In line with recent interest in the criminal decision-making process, researchers have begun exploringthe risks and rewards that offenders attach to specific forms of crime and how these perceptionsguide their behaviour. In this paper, we examine the strategies that auto thieves use to avoid policedetection while driving a stolen vehicle. To do this, we rely on semi-structured interviews with 54auto thieves. Results indicate that auto thieves manage encounters with police by creating an illu-sion of normalcy. Auto thieves make decisions throughout the crime-commission process that allowsthem to present an image of a normal driver in a normal vehicle to deflect attention away fromthemselves and the stolen vehicle. These strategies allow them to hide in the open and still maintainthe crime’s rewards. Discussion focuses on restrictive deterrence and wider implications for arrestavoidance in decision-making research.

After Enron will ‘Whiter than White Collar Crime’ Still Wash?

Abstract: In thinking about white collar crime it is not just crime that becomes problematic but compliance, particularly the practice of 'creative compliance'. This article asks: in the post-Enron era, can creative compliance by business still claim to be 'whiter than white collar crime'? It analyses the Enron prosecutions and the implications of the state's choice of enforcement strategy, before going on to look at the wider impact of Enron, at the emergence of a concern with corporate culture, business and professional ethics, and at new approaches to regulation and enforcement. It suggests that while the state's enforcement strategy and the showcase Enron trials may represent a missed opportunity by failing to pose a direct legal challenge to creative compliance, Enron has also sparked off some wider reactions which do challenge the legitimacy of the creative compliance mindset.

Hearing lost voices - Issues in researching 'hidden' minority ethnic communities

Abstract: This article addresses key methodological and ethical dilemmas faced by criminologists when investigating the experiences of minority ethnic households. The paper argues that by employing broad ethnic categories, such as 'Black' or 'Asian', when examining or discussing minority ethnic groups, statutory agencies can mask the specific concerns of those diverse 'hidden' communities that are subsumed under such umbrella classifications. The propensity to assume that the 'white' condition is the 'normal' version of events is linked to the othering of the experiences of 'hard-to-reach' minority ethnic groups. The complexities of researcher subjectivities are examined and specifically the processes that lead to misleading assumptions about 'hidden' populations. Only by developing an understanding of the political complexities of researching such groups, and of the nature of their communities, can researchers accurately assess their specific problems.

The foreground dynamics of street robbery in britain

Abstract: Research into the situational dynamics of street robbery in the United States has identified a commitment to street culture, and participation in the self-indulgent activities promoted by that culture, as primary etiological mechanisms operating in the phenomenological foreground of such offences. Little research, however, has been undertaken on the extent to which British street robberies evolve out of similar cultural dynamics. This paper, based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 27 offenders serving sentences for robbery in England or Wales, explores the cultural values and pursuits that mediate their crimes. Our aim is to understand the socio-cultural context in which British street robbers contemplate and carry out their offences.

Twisting Arms Or a Helping Hand?Assessing the Impact of ‘Coerced’ and Comparable ‘Voluntary’ Drug Treatment Options

Abstract: Despite the rapid expansion of options to coerce drug-dependent offenders into treatment—culminating recently in the provisions of the 2005 Drugs Act and the government’s ‘Tough Choices’ agenda— research findings to date are equivocal about their impact in reducing crime. This paper presents UK findings from a pan-European study on this issue. The results—at both national and international levels—reveal that court-mandated clients reported significant and sustained reductions in illicit drug use and offending behaviours, and improvements in other areas of social functioning. Those entering the same treatment services through non-criminal justice routes also reported similar reductions and improvements. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of recent policy developments.

The Regulation of Corporate Violations Punishment, Compliance, and the Blurring of Responsibility

Abstract: In this article, I term the dichotomy that exists over how to regulate corporate violations the ‘punishment model versus compliance school debate’. I then demonstrate that in the area of workplace health and safety, this classic debate on corporate offending has evolved with the shift to ‘regulation through individual responsibility’. This regulatory shift has resulted in a diffusion of responsibility for safety risks as workers have increasingly become individually responsible for enforcing regulation as well as a target of regulation. In essence, workers are being transformed from a victim to a health and safety offender. In this study, I re-conceptualize the role of worker agency in regulatory enforcement by introducing several grounded ethnographic themes, such as the policing of minor violations and the creation of Potemkin Villages, which represent the ‘hidden side’ of the local culture of reactions to health and safety enforcement.

Addressing Crime in CompaniesFirst Findings from a Global Survey of Economic Crime

Abstract: Economic crime was examined in a global survey of more than 5,500 companies. This survey combines information on companies, company victimization and on the detection and processing of 2,900 incidents of economic crime. Results show that economic crime is widespread and risks are underestimated by companies. Approximately half of the perpetrators were company insiders, with senior/top management being particularly over-represented. Companies are developing a number of control and prevention strategies to cope with the risks of economic crime. Nonetheless, the most frequent response worldwide is not to bring criminal charges, particularly against perpetrators from within the company. Companies' reactions are often motivated by minimizing the loss of reputation, which results in privileged treatment for both internal and high-status economic crime offenders.

Crime, bio-agriculture and the exploitation of hunger

Abstract: The rapid expansion of biotechnology during the past decade has created widespread debate and concern within the agricultural sector and consumer groups. This article examines the monopolisation of bio-technology and the political economy of genetically modified (GM) food. It further explores the ways that powerful governments and corporations seek to dominate global food markets whilst exploiting, pressuring and threatening vulnerable countries. In doing so, it provides a detailed examination of Zambia which has experienced significant political and economic pressure from western governments and corporations to accept genetically modified maize. Finally, it explores ‘eco-crime’ within frameworks of state and corporate crime, international environmental law and emerging discourses in green criminology.