Showing papers in "Criminology & Criminal Justice in 2008"

Police effectiveness and police trustworthiness in Ghana: An empirical appraisal

Abstract: Although police researchers have often assumed that perceptions of police effectiveness enhance police legitimacy, there has been very little empirical support for this assumption. Employing the legitimacy scale developed by Sunshine and Tyler, this study sought to fill this gap in our criminological knowledge using data from a representative public survey in Accra, Ghana (N= 374). The article reports a lack of reliability, in the Ghanaian context, for the overall Sunshine—Tyler scale, and therefore focuses attention on a sub-scale labelled `perceptions of police trustworthiness'. The findings show that though perceptions of police effectiveness exercise a direct impact on perceived police trustworthiness, the relationship is stronger if the police are also perceived to be procedurally fair. The findings are significant as they show that building public trust in the police requires democratic reforms that simultaneously improve the capacity of the police to achieve both substantive effectiveness and proce...

Human trafficking: Sketchy data and policy responses

Abstract: This article looks at the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings, with examples drawn from intergovernmental organizations, the European Union and the UK. It begins by outlining legal recognitio...

Organized fraud and organizing frauds: Unpacking research on networks and organization

Abstract: This article examines the settings for frauds in the context of crime networks, fraud opportunities and of a victim-centric typology of fraud. It demonstrates the variety of actors, settings and the variable need for knowing collaboration between co-offenders in frauds of different types. It explores what is known about those involved in the organization of some forms of frauds; how they find both co-offenders and victims in face-to-face and remote settings; and the barriers to growth of the `fraud business'. It concludes that the globalization of crime is part of contingent relationships between settings, with their rich and varied opportunities (reflecting patterns of business, consumer and investment activities), the variable abilities of would-be perpetrators to recognize and act on those opportunities (the `crime scripts' perspective), and their interactions with controls (including, but not restricted to, law enforcement). Constructs of `organized crime' are becoming less obsessed with the structure of groups than with what people need from the largely illicit and largely licit worlds before they commit fraud. Although some frauds are committed by generic transnational `organized crime' networks, others are merely mobile small groups or individuals who can transplant techniques wherever they go; and others still commit very large one-off frauds without a need for long-term or any involvement in `organized crime'.

Researching the organization of serious crimes

Abstract: In a sense, the problem of organized crime is the concept of `organized crime' itself. The implications of shifting the analytical focus from explanations of `it' toward building theories of the organization of serious crimes are considered in relation to three ways of framing research: organized crime as an external threat; the organization of serious crimes through routine activities; and their organization through social relations. Beyond taxonomic assessments of various threats, organized crime groups, their regional theatres of operation and involvement in illicit markets, a major fault-line exists within social scientific studies of the organization of serious crimes over the appropriate scope of inquiry. Specifically, whether this should be limited to the particular settings in which discrete serious crime events occur and/or broadened to encompass the social structural antecedents of these events. This boils down to an argument over what constitutes the necessary relations for the commission of serious crimes for economic gain, and how their contingent concentration in certain places and moments amongst particular populations can be adequately explained. This also suggests that the interplay between more remote `distal' causes, situational opportunities presented by public and private sector controls, and pre-existing networks of relationships have to be understood in combination for an adequate explanatory account of the organization of crimes.

Evaluating offending behaviour programmes: Does only randomization glister?

Abstract: Despite considerable investment there has been a marked reluctance by the Home Office to publish the evaluations of the various Pathfinder Programmes. Arguably, this reluctance stems from the `official' view that the commissioned researchers conducted the wrong type of research, specifically in not using randomized control trials (RCTs). The utility of RCTs is considered here with particular reference to the evaluation of the Offending Behaviour Pathfinder Programmes. It is argued that the Home Office `Reconviction Scale', favouring RCTs, is seriously flawed and is used to present a misleading view of the extant research. An overview of the wider literature shows that RCTs are not uniformly agreed to be the single design of choice in evaluating complex interventions such as offending behaviour programmes. The trend in disciplines such as the clinical sciences, with a history steeped in RCTs, is to utilize a range of research designs, both quantitative and qualitative, to evaluate complex interventions.

Restorative justice—the perplexing concept: Conceptual fault-lines and power battles within the restorative justice movement:

Abstract: Although the fast-growing literature on restorative justice is extensive, and in some regards repetitive, there is still no consensus as to the nature and extent of applicability of the restorative notion. This article claims that the restorative movement is experiencing a tension between normative abolitionist and pragmatic visions of restorative justice. It proceeds to identify six conceptual fault-lines that characterize this tension. These do not only refer to various definitional positions, but also disagreements that negatively affect both the theoretical and practical development of restorative justice. These tensions also encourage a power-interest battle between different stakeholders within the restorative movement including practitioners, theoreticians, researchers and policy makers. To approach these controversies, there needs to be an acknowledgment of the multidimensional nature of the conceptual problem of restorative justice and the impact it has on its application. The article attempts to...

Recidivism in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract: As prison populations increase, the need for successful reintegration of ex-prisoners becomes more pressing. The challenge of what has become known as `re-entry' has stimulated an extensive body of research, much of it concentrated in a small number of jurisdictions and concerned with levels and predictors of recidivism. The limited geographic breadth of the research effort has hindered our capacity to consider theoretically relevant questions, such as whether particular societal conditions thought to be conducive to successful prisoner reintegration (e.g. high levels of social capital and informal social control) in fact translate into lower levels of recidivism. In this article we expand the reach of existing research by exploring levels and patterns of recidivism in uncharted territory—the Republic of Ireland—and by drawing out the implications of the patterns observed there for comparative analysis.

Vehicles of desistance?: The impact of electronically monitored curfew orders

Abstract: Electronic monitoring has become an integral part of the criminal justice process in England and Wales. Since the first trials in the 1980s the range of applications of electronic monitoring and the number of offenders subject to it have increased. Knowledge about the impact of electronic monitoring on offenders is limited and crucial questions about its effect on offending and desistance remain unanswered. This article addresses these questions by reviewing evidence from a study that interviewed offenders subject to electronically monitored curfew orders. It suggests that for some offenders curfew orders reduce offending and contribute to desistance by addressing levels of social capital in two ways. First, by decreasing levels of anti-social capital by reducing offenders' links with situations, people, places and networks correlated with their offending. Second, by improving levels of pro-social capital by encouraging offenders to connect or re-connect with influences linked with desistance such as fami...

The 2003 Licensing Act's impact on crime and disorder An evaluation

Abstract: The Licensing Act 2003, coming into force in November 2005 in England and Wales, abolished set licensing hours for pubs and clubs. The aim was to liberalize a rigid system while reducing the proble...

Community penalties and Home Office research On the way back to `nothing works'?

Abstract: This article discusses recent research on community penalties in the UK, and in particular the contribution of the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics division (of which the relevant s...

The organization of 'organized crime policing' and its international context

Abstract: This article reflects upon a decade of developments in the organization of organized crime policing, particularly within the international context. The review illustrates that the policing (in its widest sense) of organized crime is based on certain prerequisites. Other actors besides law enforcement agencies have key roles to play. The creation of an appropriate instrumental framework is equally as important as having competent and appropriate agencies in place. The multiplicity of interests beg questions about what is feasible in the co-ordination of organized crime policing, given that organized crime is a global phenomenon beyond the scope of any one agency or jurisdiction to deal with alone.

Assessing UK drug policy from a crime control perspective

Abstract: Over the entire last quarter of the 20th century the British drug problem worsened, despite the implementation of a variety of approaches and commitment of substantial criminal justice and other resources. The link between chronic use of expensive drugs and property crime makes this experience important for understanding trends in crime and justice in Britain. The worsening of the problem can be seen in the growing number of new heroin users each year over almost the entire period 1975—2000, on top of which was layered, starting in the late 1990s, the first major outbreak of chronic cocaine use. This was not the common pattern in Western Europe over that time and by 2000 the UK had Western Europe's most serious drug problem.One component of the response has been increasing enforcement against drug markets; in just the decade 1994—2005 the number of prison cell years handed out in annual sentences has tripled. Even with this expansion we estimate that the annual probability of incarceration for a class A d...

Partners in crime: A study of the relationship between female offenders and their co-defendants

Abstract: Criminologists have paid relatively little attention to the relationships between male and female co-offenders. Most of the published research has been published in the USA and relates to the stree...

Organized crime and local businesses

Abstract: Victimization surveys have found that small local businesses experience far higher rates of crime than individuals and households. Previous research also suggests some of the crimes suffered may be...

Taking care of business Public police as commercial security vendors

Abstract: The article examines practices in `user-pays' policing. It locates these practices historically as well established, with a lineage that stretches back to the beginnings of the police in Britain and earlier. The article identifies different forms of user-pays policing, the various practices they include and the regulatory issues raised by them. Consideration of the tension between a conception of policing as a public service and charging for police services suggests that user-pays policing can be, and often is, compatible with public interests and the provision of public goods. A case study of events policing within an Australian Police agency explains this further. The article concludes with a consideration of the risks that may be associated with user-pays policing and of possible future directions for police participation in the market-place as security vendors.

Seeing private security like a state

Abstract: Based on a systematic and detailed statutory analysis of 58 jurisdictions in Canada and the United States, this article constructs a modal typology of state regulation of contract private security. State regulation of private security has been neglected despite the fact it has grown across North American jurisdictions in the past two decades. Moving beyond rudimentary regulatory models and focusing on the contract security sector exclusively, five key dimensions of state regulation of private security are identified: governing-at-a-distance, character, identity, training, and information. Whether and how these dimensions relate to management protocols at the security agency level are then examined by combining these results with an analysis of an international survey of contract security managers within these jurisdictions. In turn, each dimension is found to relate to security agency management protocols. Implications for understanding state regulation and future research on private security governance a...

Prison privatization In search of a business-like atmosphere?

Abstract: This article explores one interesting finding emerging from early findings of studies comparing private and public prisons in the UK: the relationship between prisoners and staff. These relationshi...

The killing of children by children as a symptom of national crisis Reactions in Britain and Japan

Abstract: In this article, we describe and analyse the public and political responses to two notorious cases of the killing of children by children, one in Merseyside, England and one in Kobe, Japan. We discuss the ways in which the cases were presented as symptomatic of wider social problems, and how in both Britain and Japan they acted as a catalyst for changes in the juvenile criminal justice system. The article describes and attempts to explain both similarities and differences in the reactions to the killings in Britain and Japan, arguing that while the differences may be more obvious the similarities may be more instructive, and setting the description in the context of penological arguments about globalization and the emergence of a postmodern penality. We conclude that neither country is as unique in its responses to juvenile crime as is sometimes claimed, and that despite `postmodern' anxieties and scepticism in both countries, a `modernist' welfare approach to the reintegration of the killers remained feasible in both Britain and Japan.

Criminal convictions among children and young adults:changes over time.

Abstract: This study focuses on court conviction rates—that is, the numbers and proportion of the population in England and Wales who are convicted of a crime between the ages of 10—25. Data on over 47,000 male and 10,000 female offenders for six specific birth cohorts (those born in 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973 and 1978) were extracted from the Offenders Index. We related convictions in three age groups (10—15, 16—20, 21—25) to population estimates for these age groups. Striking differences in the conviction rates over time were observed for both males and females. There is a remarkable decline among the 10—15 age group for more recent cohorts which echoes the increasing use of court diversionary procedures in this age group. There is no corresponding increase in conviction rates for the later age groups. These figures suggest that efforts in the 1980s and early 1990s to divert offenders away from court convictions have been successful, and that such diversionary schemes need to be encouraged.

Determining the impact of intoxication in a desert-based sentencing framework

Abstract: Research has consistently found a significant correlation between alcohol consumption and offending. Although this finding does not prove any direct causal link, many offenders subsequently claim that the fact they had been drinking should mitigate their sentence. As the argument advanced by offenders is framed in retributive terms - culpability is reduced because of intoxication - this article aims to analyse the impact, if any, that intoxication should have under a 'desert' model.

The Children's Fund and the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour

Abstract: Early intervention prevention programmes form a significant element in the UK's complex and sometimes contradictory youth justice system. This article focuses on one such national programme in England, the Children's Fund, which has combined a broad aim of tackling children's social exclusion with a specific objective of reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour, influenced by the Youth Justice Board's risk factors paradigm. In order to understand how these aims have been pursued in practice, the article discusses findings from a `Theory of Change' evaluation of a range of preventative initiatives developed through a single Children's Fund programme located in a large English city. The article discusses the implications of this kind of programme for the development of socially inclusive interventions with children and young people thought to be `at risk' of involvement in crime and anti-social behaviour, but also draws attention to uncertainties and tensions in the relationship between risk-based cri...

Gender and probation in the Second World War: Reflections on a changing occupational culture

Abstract: An autobiographical novel by Julia Steel recounts a year in the life of a probation officer working in London in 1945. The unpublished manuscript, written in the mid-1950s, provides a rare contemporary glimpse into the lives and social regulation of a group of families living on a housing estate at the end of the Second World War. Steel herself was a wartime graduate of the Cromwell Road Home Office Training Centre. This article sets primary source material, including lecture notes from Steel's training course, in the context of both contemporary and recent academic and professional literature. Following the centenary year of the Probation Service in England and Wales, it aims to contribute some new insights into the history of (women) probation officers and their daily work. It argues that Steel's manuscript and lecture notes can be interpreted within an analysis of state intervention in the lives of working-class families that places professional women in a tutelary and disciplinary relationship with mo...

Book Review: Alan Wright Organised Crime Cullompton, Devon: Willan, 2006. 237 pp. £18.99 ISBN—10: 1— 84392—140—5; ISBN—13:978—1—84392—140—0:

Abstract: At a far less challenging level than the previous book, Alan Wright’s Organised Crime aims at providing an approachable introduction for novices to the study of organized crime. The book examines four principal themes of historical and contemporary perspectives of the study of organized criminal activities. These themes usefully examine the contentious aspects that continue to beleaguer the characteristic features and concepts attached to the ‘organized crime’ label. Wright’s well-resourced account of criminological theory and state interventions to combat the real or perceived threats created by organized criminal activities, and law enforcement activities to combat them, covers much of the already exposed terrain of knowledge on organized crime and adds a useful chapter on British organized criminal firms. The book has nine chapters, which examine:

Book Review: Lol Burke From Probation to the National Offender Management Service: Issues of Contestability, Culture and Community Involvement Issues in Community and Criminal Justice Monograph 6, Napo, 2005. 50 pp. £10 ISBN 0—901617—21—0

Abstract: ‘disorganized’ gang membership was originally published (Decker and Curry, 2002). While some effort has been placed on the analysis of two distinct illicit activities (drug smuggling and human trafficking), as a contemporary analysis of organized crime it is disappointing to see that the identification of a number of modern European developments in particular types of increasingly popular entrepreneurial market-based crime for profit activities have not been noted nor discussed. As a modern text it would have benefited to have broadened the level of evaluation of entrepreneurial criminal activities, particularly as two chapters on British and European organized crime are set aside aide to discuss the changing patterns and activities of organized crime. Despite these minor gripes this textbook will be of benefit to newcomers to the study of organized crime and I recommend it as a useful addition to the existing collection of works.