Showing papers in "Crime and Justice in 1983"
TL;DR: Situational crime prevention can be characterized as comprising measures (1) directed at highly specific forms of crime (2) that involve the management, design, or manipulation of the immediate environment in as systematic and permanent a way as possible (3) so as to reduce the opportunities for crime and increase its risks as perceived by a wide range of offenders as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Situational crime prevention can be characterized as comprising measures (1) directed at highly specific forms of crime (2) that involve the management, design, or manipulation of the immediate environment in as systematic and permanent a way as possible (3) so as to reduce the opportunities for crime and increase its risks as perceived by a wide range of offenders. These measures include various forms of target hardening (making the objects of crime less vulnerable), defensible space architecture (which encourages residents in housing projects to exercise territorial surveillance of the public spaces outside their dwellings), community crime prevention initatives (e. g., neighborhood watch and citizen patrol schemes), and a number of less-easily categorized measures such as improved coordination of public transport with pub closing times, or more sensitive public housing allocation policies that avoid the concentration of children in particular housing developments. Traditional criminological theories ha...
470 citations
TL;DR: The conclusion that emerges is that rates oftrue and treated criminal behavior vary independently of rates of true and treated mental disorder when appropriate controls are made for such demographic factors as age, gender, and social class and for such life history factors as prior experience in the mental health and criminal justice systems.
Abstract: The analytic framework of epidemiology can be used to study the relation between crime and mental disorder, distinguishing between the true rates of crime and mental disorder, that is, the rates at which crime and mental disorder actually occur, and their treated rates, that is, the rates at which the criminal justice and mental health systems respond to them. The conclusion that emerges is that rates of true and treated criminal behavior vary independently of rates of true and treated mental disorder when appropriate controls are made for such demographic factors as age, gender, and social class and for such life history factors as prior experience in the mental health and criminal justice systems. When these controls are not applied, rates of true and treated mental disorder are higher among criminals than among the general population, and rates of true and treated crime are higher among the mentally disordered than among the general population. When these controls are applied, the observed relations te...
191 citations
TL;DR: The relation between gender and criminality is strong, and is likely to remain so as discussed by the authors, and there is no clear evidence that the defendant's gender systematically affects prosecution, plea negotiat...
Abstract: The relation between gender and criminality is strong, and is likely to remain so. Women have traditionally been much less likely than men to commit violent crimes, and that pattern persists today. Rates of female involvement in some forms of property crime-notably petty theft and fraud-appear to be increasing. However, while the relative increase in women's property crime involvement is significant, female participation even in these crimes remains far less than that of men. The relation of gender to case processing decisions in the criminal justice system varies from stage to stage. Although the pertinent literature is plagued by methodological and interpretive problems, several tentative conclusions can be offered. Women are more likely than men, other things equal, to be released on recognizance; however, when bail is set, the amount of bail does not appear to be affected by the defendant's gender. There is no clear evidence that the defendant's gender systematically affects prosecution, plea negotiat...
187 citations
TL;DR: Randomized experiments as discussed by the authors investigate the effect of changes in one factor (the independent variable) on another (the dependent variable), under the control of the researcher, which is especially useful for testing causal hypotheses.
Abstract: An experiment investigates the effect of changes in one factor (the independent variable) on another (the dependent variable). The independent variable is under the control of the researcher. A randomized experiment is one in which people (or other units) are assigned to conditions according to a table of random numbers, with every person having the same probability of being assigned to each condition. These experiments are especially useful for testing causal hypotheses. Their unique advantage over other methods is their high internal validity, or high ability to demonstrate the effect of one factor on another. The randomization ensures that people assigned to one condition are equivalent in every possible way to those assigned to another condition, within the limits of statistical fluctuation. Despite their methodological advantages, very few randomized experiments have been carried out on crime and justice topics. Most have investigated the effects of providing special help for offenders, and in most c...
178 citations
TL;DR: A number of estimates of incapacitative effects from incarceration of convicted offenders are available as mentioned in this paper, and the studies consistently find that crime reduction achieved by existing collective incapacitation policies is modest, at under 20 percent of crimes prevented.
Abstract: A number of estimates of incapacitative effects from incarceration of convicted offenders are available. While these estimates vary in absolute magnitude, the studies consistently find that crime reduction achieved by existing collective incapacitation policies is modest, at under 20 percent of crimes prevented. Further crime reduction from alternative policies that would impose fairly stringent mandatory five-year prison terms after convictions for serious offenses is similarly modest. Implementing these alternative policies, however, would result in dramatic increases in already record-size prison populations. In view of the limited crime reduction and enormous increases in prison population associated with collective incapacitation policies, recent research has explored the potential benefits of more selective or targeted incapacitation. If a small number of high-rate offenders commit a disproportionately large amount of crime, targeting limited prison resources on these offenders should achieve increa...
110 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify two kinds of violence in public and secondary schools: predatory adolescent male trespassers who enter school buildings to steal or rob; assaults may occur to disable victims; and other types of violence committed by enrolled students against members of the school community: teachers, fellow students, staff members.
Abstract: Violence in school is not new. Especially on the college level, deaths and injuries from hazing have long occurred sporadically, as have student riots. But widespread violence in public and secondary schools seems to have developed only in the past generation, especially in the United States but increasingly in other urban-industrial societies. Two kinds of violence should be distinguished. One is violence perpetrated by predatory adolescent male trespassers who enter school buildings to steal or rob; assaults may occur to disable victims. Intruder violence is most common in the largest cities. The other type of violence is committed by enrolled students against members of the school community: teachers, fellow students, staff members. Their violent acts include robbery, especially extortion of money and valuables from fellow students, but their main motivation appears to be anger, expressed in assaults against both students and staff members. Both these types of school violence can be understood in terms of the weakening of social control over adolescents and young adults in modern societies. Lack of family and neighborhood controls frees those youngsters not committed to the school and its values to express their predatory or aggressive impulses. This is, of course, not the whole explanation of school violence. Individual personality development explains why some persons take advantage of these opportunities for violence that are offered by a fluid society. If modern societies are to reverse course and reduce violence in public secondary schools, they probably will have to gain greater control over adolescents. One approach to this end is to increase the voluntariness of student enrollment, thus giving students in public secondary schools a greater stake in behavioral conformity. Such an approach requires a reexamination of an established tradition of modern societies: compulsory school attendance.
82 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a variety of evidence to the effect that the widespread availability of firearms contributes to the criminal homicide rate and influences violent crime patterns in several other respects as well.
Abstract: The spectacular increases in violent crime that began in the mid-1960s continue, and Americans are currently being murdered, robbed, and raped at historically unprecedented rates. Firearms are used in a minority of violent crimes but are of special concern because more than 60 percent of the most serious crimes-criminal homicides-are committed with firearms. This essay presents a variety of evidence to the effect that the widespread availability of firearms contributes to the criminal homicide rate and influences violent crime patterns in several other respects as well. A gun is usually superior to other weapons readily available for use in violent crime; even in the hands of a weak and unskilled assailant, a gun poses a credible threat and can be used to kill quickly, from a distance, and in a relatively "impersonal" fashion. Guns are particularly valuable against relatively invulnerable targets. Hence, gun availability facilitates robbery of commercial places and lethal assaults on people who would ordi...
72 citations
TL;DR: In this article, women's institutions and their inmates have received little attention in the literature on prisons, in part due to the fact that over time women have comprised but a small fraction of the total prisoner population.
Abstract: Until recently, women's institutions and their inmates have received little attention in the literature on prisons. This neglect in part stems from the fact that over time women have comprised but a small fraction of the total prisoner population. Yet it is also the product of two common assumptions: that the development of the women's prison system and experiences of its inmates closely resemble those of men; or that, if different, the evolution of the women's prison system and female experience of incarceration are irrelevant to mainstream penology just because they can shed little light on the nature of the prison system as a whole. Neither assumption is correct. During the first stage in the development of the women's prison system (1790-1870), female penal units outwardly resembled male penitentiaries, but in some respects their inmates received inferior care. During the second stage (1870-1935), strenuous and often successful efforts were made to establish an entirely new type of prison, the women's...
51 citations
TL;DR: The history of juvenile delinquency has attracted considerable scholarly attention as discussed by the authors, reflecting both the recent popularity of social history and the desire of some historians to become involved in the policymaking process.
Abstract: During the past decade, the history of juvenile delinquency has attracted considerable scholarly attention. This reflects both the recent popularity of social history and the desire of some historians to become involved in the policymaking process. Generally, interpretations have emphasized the social-control motives of the founders of institutions and the juvenile court while portraying the delinquents themselves as victims of social and economic discrimination. Recent research has neglected case studies and the comparative approach. Several recent works have uncovered some popular support for institutions and shown American policies, at least in the nineteenth century, to be less disadvantageous than European formulations. These studies have also stressed the significant differences between programs and institutions in the United States. Future research can profitably examine the post-World War II era, focusing particularly on the influence of legal changes, professional study, and government policy on ...
44 citations
TL;DR: In many countries the number of reported sex offenses and prosecuted sex offenses have decreased in recent years, most noticeably for crimes, such as consensual sexual intercourse with underage girls, where there is no complaining victim as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The extent to which the law should concern itself with the regulation of consensual sexual activities is a subject of continuing controversy. Dramatic differences exist between countries in regard to law and practice concerning abortion, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, pornography, and the age of consent. In many countries the numbers of reported sex offenses and prosecuted sex offenses have decreased in recent years, most noticeably for crimes, such as consensual sexual intercourse with underage girls, where there is no complaining victim. Consensual acts account for a substantial proportion of recorded sex crimes. In England and the United States, however, there has been a significant increase in the minority of serious, assaultive sex crimes, notably forcible rape. Children and young persons are involved as participants or victims in a high proportion of sex offenses. Studies of offenders point to the existence of subgroups with very different characteristics. Many offenders, once caught, are ne...
28 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that lack of policy and determination rather than inexorable external constraints have been the crucial factors in the failure to use prison labor efficiently, and that effective political intervention is possible.
Abstract: Idleness is a leading characteristic of the American prison system. It is a feature so familiar to prison administrators and penologists that many accept it as inevitable. One need not share Calvin Coolidge's view of work as "the only means to manhood and the measure of civilization" to regard this situation as deplorable. Two explanations have been forcefully propounded and widely accepted. One is that a satisfactory solution to the prison employment problem is precluded by economic forces over which it is impossible to exercise control. The other is that lack of policy and determination rather than inexorable external constraints have been the crucial factors in the failure to use prison labor efficiently. Although the problem of prisoners' work and prison industry has commonly been viewed as peripheral to penal policy, it is in fact a key issue. The barriers to a rational solution to this problem are not impenetrable; effective political intervention is possible.
TL;DR: The main source of support for criminological research comes from government funds, and more than half of all the research workers engaged full-time in this pursuit are employed by official agencies as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Criminological research is a recent event in the history of the social and behavioral sciences in the United Kingdom. Its practice on any significant scale is a feature of the last quarter of a century, although the roots of this development were laid half a century ago and may be traced back even further. At the time of writing-May 1982-the main source of support for criminological research comes from government funds, and more than half of all the research workers engaged full-time in this pursuit are employed by official agencies. The account that follows reflects this perspective. And, since any speculation about the likely direction of research is determined in some degree by the past, attention will be given to those strands which, woven together, not only make up the present pattern but are likely to influence the future design.
TL;DR: The first European settlement in Australia in 1788 was essentially for the purpose of establishing a penal colony to ease the crowding of English prisons, and very little of this could be described as criminological in its focus.
Abstract: The first European settlement in Australia in 1788 was essentially for the purpose of establishing a penal colony to ease the crowding of English prisons. With such a criminologically relevant beginning, it might have been expected that the systematic study of crime and criminals would have been established early in the development of the nation, but such was not to be the case. Only in very recent years has there been any detailed study of Australia's convict ancestry, and very little of this could be described as criminological in its focus. An exception is the biography of an early penal reformer, Alexander Maconochie, by the late Sir John Barry (1958) of the Supreme Court of Victoria. This work is widely regarded as the first serious contribution to Australian criminology, but it was preceded by The Habitual Criminal (Morris 1951) and some studies of Australian police systems. The dearth of criminological talent until recent years is probably best illustrated by the fact that the first two editions of a monumental tome on all aspects of Australian society (Davies and Encel 1965/1970) made no mention of crime, delinquency, prisons, or criminal justice. Even today Australia cannot claim to have an especially large community of scholars engaged in teaching or research in criminology, though there has been significant growth in the past twenty or thirty years. In the last five years, however, there has been a slight decline in the strength of most research centers. This growth and subsequent decline are sketched in this essay. Section I describes the major research institutions, Section II assesses the extent of governmental influence
TL;DR: The Netherlands, a small country with about 14 million inhabitants, has eight full-fledged universities, three institutes of higher technology, and numerous schools for higher professional training in social work, nursing, physiotherapy, and the like as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Netherlands, a small country with about 14 million inhabitants, has eight full-fledged universities, three institutes of higher technology, and numerous schools for higher professional training in social work, nursing, physiotherapy, and the like. Although two universities were founded and originally supported by the churches and their members (Nijmegen's Catholic University and Amsterdam's Protestant University), all are now financed entirely by the state and all university personnel are civil servants. Traditionally each university has had a criminological institute or department with teaching and research functions.
TL;DR: Criminology in West Germany has come of age since the late 1960s as mentioned in this paper and has been recognized as a maturing academic specialty in the 1990s and 2000s.
Abstract: Criminology in West Germany has come of age since the late 1960s. Until recently, few academics would admit to being criminologists, the volume of research was small, and criminology received little institutional support from the universities and government. Now, however, the volume and quality of work and the institutional recognition of criminology have increased to a point where criminology can fairly be described as a maturing academic specialty in West Germany. The slow-paced development of criminology in West Germany was in part the consequence of a tension between its methodological affinities to the social sciences and its historical origins and institutional location in criminal law faculties. Dahrendorf (1961, pp. 27-28), in explaining similar tensions in sociology, demonstrated that the debate about whether sociology is value free emanated in part from conflict over sociologists' roles and sociology's functions. This conflict existed between the goals of social research and the goals of social policy. The tension affecting criminology's development resulted from interaction between criminology and criminal law. This tension could be seen in issues of criminal law reform and in academic policy controversies. Criminologists traditionally occupied a peripheral position within \"criminal law theory,\" a field dominated by academic lawyers. Until the 1970s, this position was reflected in the small number of academic positions for criminologists, the infrequency of university lectures on criminology, and the limited importance of criminology for the bar examinations. This lack of standing and credibility was also manifested
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the possibility of shifts in the aggregate, in Canada, in the direction of a more unitary focus, in which a single portion of this aggregate, for example, within a research institution or within a funding agency, might be expected to be located closer to the "unitary focus" end of the continuum than would be the aggregate.
Abstract: The organization and funding of almost any area of research might be described, in the aggregate, as falling somewhere along a continuum from a highly planned, unitary, focused research program to an unplanned laissez-faire--even anarchistic-situation without an identifiable focus. Any single portion of this aggregate, for example, within a research institution or within a funding agency, might be expected to be located closer to the "unitary focus" end of the continuum than would be the aggregate. The issue that I explore in this essay will relate largely to the possibility of shifts in the aggregate, in Canada, in the direction of a more unitary focus. Canada, like some other Western countries, both funds and carries out its social science research through a number of different mechanisms. The federal government is involved both through its granting council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and two government departments, the Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Department of Justice. The provinces each have at least one ministry involved in criminal justice matters, and from time to time they fund specific projects having to do with their responsibilities. The provinces and federal government also support criminological research through their funding of the universities--direct in the case of the provinces and indirect in the case of the federal government. Criminological research centers, funded by the universities and by direct contributions from the federal government, now exist in seven Canadian