Showing papers in "British Journal of Criminology in 2016"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the first criminological analysis of an online social reaction to a crime event of national significance, in particular the detection and propagation of cyberhate on social media following a terrorist attack.
Abstract: This paper presents the first criminological analysis of an online social reaction to a crime event of national significance, in particular the detection and propagation of cyberhate on social media following a terrorist attack. We take the Woolwich, London terrorist attack in 2013 as our event of interest and draw on Cohen’s process of warning, impact, inventory and reaction to delineate a sequence of incidents that come to constitute a series of deviant responses following the attack. This paper adds to contemporary debates in criminology and the study of hate crime in three ways: (1) it provides the first analysis of the escalation, duration, diffusion and de-escalation of cyberhate in social media following a terrorist event; (2) it applies Cohen’s work on action, reaction and amplification and the role of the traditional media to the online context and (3) it introduces and provides a case study in ‘computational criminology’.
161 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the Crime Survey for England and Wales, 1994-2014, and an improved methodology to include the experiences of high-frequency victims to prevent overall volatility from rising by using three-year moving averages and regression techniques.
Abstract: The fall in the rate of violent crime has stopped. This is a finding of an investigation using the Crime Survey for England and Wales, 1994–2014, and an improved methodology to include the experiences of high-frequency victims. The cap on the number of crimes included has been removed. We prevent overall volatility from rising by using three-year moving averages and regression techniques that take account of all the data points rather than point to point analysis. The difference between our findings and official statistics is driven by violent crime committed against women and by domestic perpetrators. The timing of the turning point in the trajectory of violent crime corresponds with the economic crisis in 2008/09.
124 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the affordances and limitations of big data for the study of crime and disorder and provided evidence that naturally occurring social media data may provide an alternative information source on the crime problem.
Abstract: This paper critically examines the affordances and limitations of big data for the study of
crime and disorder. We hypothesise that disorder-related posts on Twitter are associated
with actual police crime rates. Our results provide evidence that naturally occurring social
media data may provide an alternative information source on the crime problem. This paper
adds to the emerging field of computational criminology and big data in four ways: i) it
estimates the utility of social media data to explain variance in offline crime patterns; ii) it
provides the first evidence of the estimation offline crime patterns using a measure of broken
windows found in the textual content of social media communications; iii) it tests if the bias
present in offline perceptions of disorder is present in online communications; and iv) it takes
the results of experiments to critically engage with debates on big data and crime prediction.
118 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that visits from parents are influential in improving prisoners' relations with their families and that those prisoners that experience improved family relations were significantly less likely to reoffend whilst also being more likely to find work and desist from class A drug use.
Abstract: Strong family support networks are regularly identified in the search for effective inhibitors of criminal behaviour but have rarely been empirically examined in the context of the prison population. Furthermore, we know little about the factors that may weaken or indeed enhance these bonds during a prison sentence. Using data from a longitudinal survey of male prisoners in England and Wales, we address this deficit. We show that visits from parents are influential in improving prisoners’ relations with their family. Furthermore, those prisoners that experience improved family relations are significantly less likely to reoffend whilst also being more likely to find work and desist from class A drug use.
114 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a broad range of policing components, including unobserved actions such as electronic surveillance, respecting the limits of one's legal authority, and unequal or equal distribution of policing resources between different groups, are investigated.
Abstract: Procedural justice theory predicts a relationship between police behaviour, individuals’ normative evaluation of police and decisions to comply with laws. Yet, prior studies of procedural justice have rather narrowly defined the potentially relevant predicates of police behaviour. This study expands the scope of procedural justice theory by considering a broad array of policing components, including unobserved actions such as electronic surveillance, respecting the limits of one’s legal authority, and the unequal or equal distribution of policing resources between different groups. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we (1) present a comprehensive investigation of the heterogeneous elements of policing related to legitimacy judgments and (2) contribute to debate about the nature of legitimacy.
99 citations
TL;DR: This article found that videorecording capabilities across the citizenry and concurrent opportunities for the public to disseminate footage of police occurrences through online file-sharing are profoundly integrated into the consciousness of most rank-and-file officers and have influenced significant behavioural changes through the deterrence of certain practices.
Abstract: Today, the ubiquity of cameraphones and online social media's contributions to sociopolitical discourses on policing have exponentially increased the public's exposure to police mis/conduct. This article reports on research that inquired into the influence of 'policing's new visibility' on front-line officers. Participants in the project included 231 operational police officers and institutional policing officials in Toronto and Ottawa (Canada). The study found that videorecording capabilities across the citizenry and concurrent opportunities for the public to disseminate footage of police occurrences (and conduct) through online file-sharing are profoundly integrated into the consciousness of most rank-and-file officers and have influenced significant behavioural changes through the deterrence of certain practices, including moderations in police violence across a majority of study participants.
98 citations
TL;DR: 18 criminal investigations into phishing and malware networks are analysed and four models of growth are developed, showing how cybercriminals meet, how cybercriminal networks develop and what this means for the criminal capabilities of these networks.
Abstract: Online forums serve as offender convergence settings for cybercriminals, but it is unknown whether all cybercriminal networks use forums. Important questions are how cybercriminals meet, how cybercriminal networks develop and what this means for the criminal capabilities of these networks. To gain insight into these questions, we analysed 18 criminal investigations into phishing and malware networks and developed four models of growth. Social ties still play an important role in the origin and growth of the majority of networks. Forums, however, also play a significant role in a number of networks, for example, to find suitable co-offenders or to get into contact with enablers. Criminals with access to forums are able to increase criminal capabilities of their network relatively quickly.
86 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that the study of everyday security provides an invaluable critical vantage-point from which to reinvigorate security studies and expose the differential impacts of both insecurity and securitisation.
Abstract: This article develops a conceptual framework that prompts new lines of enquiry and questions for security researchers. We advance the notion of ‘everyday security’ which encompasses both the lived experiences of security processes and the related practices that people engage in to govern their own safety. Our analysis proceeds from a critical appraisal of several dominant themes within current security research, and how ‘everyday security’ addresses key limitations therein. Everyday experiences and quotidian practices of security are then explored along three key dimensions; temporality, spatial scale and affect/emotion. We conclude by arguing that the study of everyday security provides an invaluable critical vantage-point from which to reinvigorate security studies and expose the differential impacts of both insecurity and securitisation.
83 citations
TL;DR: In 2014, the coalition government's Transforming Rehabilitation reforms led to the wholesale restructuring of probation services in England and Wales, and more than half of the employees of public sector Probation Trusts were transferred to 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) set up to manage medium and low-risk offenders and destined for sale in the criminal justice marketplace.
Abstract: In 2014, the coalition government’s Transforming Rehabilitation reforms led to the wholesale restructuring of probation services in England and Wales. As part of this reconfiguration of probation services, more than half of the employees of public sector Probation Trusts were transferred to 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) set up to manage medium- and low-risk offenders and destined for sale in the criminal justice marketplace. This article presents the findings of an ethnographic study of the formation of one CRC, with a specific focus on the construction and negotiation of identities. We identify a number of key themes, prominent among which is ‘liminality’: i.e. the experience of being betwixt and between the old and the new, the public and the outsourced. Other themes discussed in the article include separation and loss, status anxiety, loyalty and trust, liberation and innovation.
77 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report findings from a national UK study about experiences of online abuse amongst women who debate feminist politics and argue that online abuse is most usefully conceived as a form of abuse or violence against women and girls, rather than as a communication.
Abstract: Abuse directed at visible and audible women demonstrates that cyberspace, once heralded as a new, democratic, public sphere, suffers similar gender inequalities as the offline world. This paper reports findings from a national UK study about experiences of online abuse amongst women who debate feminist politics. It argues that online abuse is most usefully conceived as a form of abuse or violence against women and girls, rather than as a form of communication. It examines the experiences of those receiving online abuse, thereby making a valuable contribution to existing research which tends to focus on analysis of the communications themselves.
77 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the applicability of the narrative identity theory of desistance to a sample of substance-using pregnant women and mothers, a highly stigmatized and increasingly criminalized group, and found that desisting women constructed narrative identities that emphasized their moral agency and resisted the stigmatizing discourse surrounding substance using mothers.
Abstract: Recent research has examined the role of the narrative construction of identity in desistance from criminal offending and substance use. The narrative identity theory of desistance was developed with a population of male offenders. The present analysis explores the applicability of the theory to a sample of substance-using pregnant women and mothers, a highly stigmatized and increasingly criminalized group. The analysis of in-depth interview data reveals that desisting women constructed narrative identities that emphasized their moral agency and resisted the stigmatizing discourse surrounding substance-using mothers. The results support the narrative identity theory of desistance by demonstrating its applicability to a population for which the theory was not specifically designed and have implications for future research on identity theories of desistance as well as offender supervision practices.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply routine activities theory to a subset of online fraud, online identity theft, by exploring country level and individual determinants via a multi-level analysis of the Eurobarometer survey data.
Abstract: Online fraud is the most prevalent acquisitive crime in Europe. This study applies routine
activities theory to a subset of online fraud, online identity theft, by exploring countrylevel
mechanisms, in addition to individual determinants via a multi-level analysis of
Eurobarometer survey data. This paper adds to the theory of cybercrime and policy
debates by: i) showing that country physical guardianship (e.g. cyber security strategy)
moderates the effects of individual physical guardianship; ii) introducing a typology of
online capable guardianship: physical passive, active personal and avoidance personal
guardianship; iii) showing that online identity theft is associated with personal and
physical guardianship; and iv) identifying public Internet access and online auction selling
as highly risky routine activities. The paper concludes by emphasising the importance of
studying country level effects on online identity theft victimisation.
TL;DR: In this article, the European Union under the FP7 Framework Programme (Fiducia Project, Grant Agreement 290563) was supported by the European Research Council (ERC).
Abstract: This work was supported by the European Union under the FP7 Framework Programme (Fiducia Project, Grant Agreement 290563).
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the occupation of the senses as the sensory technologies that manage bodies, language, sight, time and space in the colony, and analyze the parades, marches and festivals performed in the Palestinian city space of occupied East Jerusalem.
Abstract: Colonial and settler colonial dispossession is performed through various forms of violence, justified by cultural, historical, religious and national imperatives. In this paper, I define one of these forms of violence as the occupation of the senses, referring to the sensory technologies that manage bodies, language, sight, time and space in the colony. This paper analyses the parades, marches and festivals performed in the Palestinian city space of occupied East Jerusalem; shares the slogans, chants and graffiti used by Israeli civil, religious and nationalist entities; and explores what is lived, seen, heard, felt and smelled by the colonized to uncover the political violence implicated in the occupation of the senses.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider participants' reasons for, and experiences of, disclosing their encounters of street harassment online and examine the extent to which these "map on to" a selection of victim's justice needs.
Abstract: Emerging scholarship has considered the potential for online spaces to function as sites of informal justice. To date, there has been little consideration of the experiences of individuals who seek justice online, and the extent to which victims’ justice needs can be met online. Drawing on the findings of a mixed-methods research project with street harassment victims in Melbourne, Australia, I consider participants’ reasons for, and experiences of, disclosing their encounters of street harassment online. I examine the extent to which these ‘map on to’ a selection of victim’s justice needs. While it is evident that online spaces can function as sites of justice, it is vital to ask for whom and in which contexts justice can be achieved online.
TL;DR: Halsey et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that giving up crime is indeed a fragile project and that the implications of fragility in the desistance process are rarely integrated into pre-and post-release planning and support strategies.
Abstract: For nearly two decades there has been concerted interest in desistance from crime (Maruna 2001; Giordano et al 2002; Maruna & Immarigeon 2004; Laub & Sampson 2006; McNeill 2006; King 2013a) with the conditions that spark and sustain it the subject of ongoing debate (e.g. Bushway et al 2003; Burnett & McNeill 2005; Barry 2013). Evidence suggests that even for those who have ‘made it’, re-building one’s life after being convicted of a criminal offence frequently involves minor and more serious setbacks (Bottoms & Shapland, 2011; Farrall 2002a; Bereswill 2010; Halsey & Deegan 2015; Wright 2015). In this article, we demonstrate that giving up crime is indeed a fragile project (Halsey 2007) but that the implications of fragility in the desistance process are rarely integrated into preand post-release planning and support strategies. In more specific terms, we argue that fragility – the omni-present threat of the derailment of desistance – is especially pronounced for people evincing serious and lengthy custodial and release histories (see our respective datasets, below). Unlike, say, the airline pilot whose capacity to cope with major turbulence typically increases with each flying hour, the ‘battle-hardened’ would-be desister often becomes overwhelmed by circumstances in spite of having ‘been there’ many times before. Rather than viewing such relapses as entirely the result of individual shortcomings, we show this unraveling to be linked to bureaucratic (in)action over the legitimate fears and concerns of those struggling to desist. Our contention, therefore, is that the phenomenological foreground (Katz 1988) of relapse and reoffending has been under-examined in desistance research (but see Gadd & Farrall 2004; Agnew & Messner, 2015), and that such knowledge is central for breaking the cycle of crime and reincarceration.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study how the policing of goods and transport workers is less concerned with "risky" individuals than it is with promoting international trade flows, and the effects of these changes on officers' use, experience and perception of discretion as well as on their occupational identity.
Abstract: This article challenges the assumption that border officers enjoy a high level of discretion. By studying customs, it provides insight into how the policing of goods and transport workers is less concerned with ‘risky’ individuals than it is with promoting international trade flows. In this context, border officer discretion may be seen as a hindrance that must be channeled or curtailed. Interviews with Canadian customs officers demonstrate that technologies facilitate the redistribution of compliance and risk management responsibilities among border policing actors. Such alterations in customs operations have reconfigured discretion in paradoxical ways, both extending and reducing officers’ hold on decision-making. This article considers the effects of these changes on officers’ use, experience and perception of discretion as well as on their occupational identity.
TL;DR: In this article, the problems experienced by 294 male prisoners serving very long life sentences received when aged 25 or under were reported, and they were grouped into conceptual dimensions, and by drawing on interviews conducted with 126 male prisoners, a more nuanced analysis of this pattern was provided.
Abstract: Drawing on an amended version of a survey employed in three previous studies, this article reports the problems experienced by 294 male prisoners serving very long life sentences received when aged 25 or under. The broad findings are consistent with previous work, including few differences being found between the problems experienced as most and least severe by prisoners at different sentence stages. By grouping the problems into conceptual dimensions, and by drawing on interviews conducted with 126 male prisoners, we seek to provide a more nuanced analysis of this pattern. We argue that, while earlier scholars concluded that the effects of long-term confinement were not ‘cumulative’ and ‘deleterious’, adaptation to long-term imprisonment has a deep and profound impact on the prisoner, so that the process of coping leads to fundamental changes in the self, which go far beyond the attitudinal.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors pointed out the role of wider social factors in shaping crime and prevention, arguing that socio-political factors are critical too in the South African case and called for a fuller analysis of the particular material and design realities of informal housing.
Abstract: Violence and crime in countries such as South Africa are shaped by deep socio-economic inequalities, however, the spatial designs of urban areas and housing also play a role, but often in differing ways. There is little qualitatively-derived research published on the design realities of poor informal housing where the hyper-permeability of housing structures directly shapes residents’ experiences of crime, often in gendered ways. This paper speaks to the wider literature on Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), and applauds its recognition of the role of wider social factors in shaping crime and prevention, arguing that socio-political factors are critical too in the South African case. However this paper calls for a fuller analysis of the particular material and design realities of informal housing, realities which are ever-present across the global South, which in practice can undermine efforts towards target hardening. Key words: informal housing, design, violence, gender, South Africa
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors elucidate the way the gender gap in crime has changed in Sweden since the mid-19th century, focusing on theft offences and violent crime, and analyze the long historical per...
Abstract: In this article, we elucidate the way the gender gap in crime has changed in Sweden since the mid-19th century. The analysis is directed at theft offences and violent crime. The long historical per ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw upon data derived from an ethnographic field study of covert policing to shed light on the occupational culture of those officers engaged in the targeted surveillance of the public.
Abstract: In this article, we draw upon data derived from an ethnographic field study of covert policing to
shed light on the occupational culture of those officers engaged in the targeted surveillance of the
public. Although many of the attitudes and working practices of covert officers mirror those offices
found in more ?traditional? areas of policing, they also differ from them in a number of important
ways. In particular, aspects of the occupational commonsense inherent to covert surveillance work
reveals a distinct working culture, which operates in isolation from the clich�d cultural expressions
of uniformed police that have been the focus of much scholarship. These alternative expressions of
police culture, we suggest, arise from crucial differences in police logics and method.
TL;DR: Employment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison as mentioned in this paper. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post-...
Abstract: Employment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post- ...
TL;DR: The authors conducted a systematic and holistic examination of cross-examination strategies to discern: (1) the range of tactics that defence lawyers use to challenge rape complainants' accounts; and (2) whether the approaches used currently differ from those used prior to the reforms.
Abstract: Despite widespread reforms to legislation and policy, rape complainants still find cross-exam-
ination distressing, demeaning and humiliating. We conducted a systematic and holistic examination of cross-examination strategies to discern: (1) the range of tactics that defence lawyers use to challenge rape complainants’ accounts; and (2) whether—and if so, how—the approaches used currently differ from those used prior to the reforms. We compared the strate-gies and tactics used in cases that were prosecuted in the 1950s to those used in cases from the turn of the twenty-first century. Although contemporary complainants were subjected to lengthier cross-examinations involving a broader range of tactics than their historical counterparts, there was little difference in the breakdown of strategies and tactics across time periods.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that attempts to design out crime create environments which are not only doomed to fail in their primary objective, but actively create environments that perpetuate and exacerbate the decline in symbolic efficiency and the narcissistic, competitive-individualist and asocial subjectivities which, as recent work from left-wing criminology consistently reveals, have the capacity to significantly contribute to forms of harm, crime and deviance.
Abstract: Situational crime prevention and CPtED (Crime Prevention through Environmental Design) strategies have been broadly criticized within much of theoretical criminology. Most of these criticisms dismantle the notion of the fully rational criminal actor, questioning the shaky ground of classical criminology on which its claims are made. Through positioning hyper-regulated city centres as post-social, post-political ‘non-places’ of consumption, this article builds upon these critiques arguing that attempts to ‘design out crime’ create environments which are not only doomed to fail in their primary objective, but actively create environments which perpetuate and exacerbate the decline in symbolic efficiency and the narcissistic, competitive-individualist and asocial subjectivities which, as recent work from left-wing criminology consistently reveals, have the capacity to significantly contribute to forms of harm, crime and deviance.
TL;DR: In this article, a preliminary analysis of the consequences of these new media zones, acknowledging their allure, excitement and everyday cultural position, is presented, focusing on a distinctive hallmark of much online pornography and massively popular violent videogames - the offer of unchecked encounters with others who can be subordinated to violent and sexual desire.
Abstract: New media formats and technologies raise questions about new-found abilities to indulge apparently limitless violent and sadistic curiosity within our culture. In this context the mainstreaming of sex and violence via mobile and screen media systems opens important questions about the degree to which these influences are harmful or indicative of deeper social problems. In this article we offer a preliminary analysis of the consequences of these new media zones, acknowledging their allure, excitement and everyday cultural position. In particular we focus on a distinctive hallmark of much online pornography and massively popular violent videogames - the offer of unchecked encounters with others who can be subordinated to violent and sexual desire. We suggest that a key implication of these zones of cultural exception, in which social rules can be more or less abandoned, is their role in further assisting denials of harm from the perspective of hyper-masculinist and militaristic social value systems.