Fisheries management in Jamaica,international perspectives

Abstract

This paper examines Jamaica's efforts to implement of the conservation and management provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), bearing in mind that prior to 1982 there was an existing legal framework that sought to address issues relating to fisheries management. More specifically, the paper looks at the issues related to the conservation and management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks under UNCLOS and subsequent agreements negotiated under the auspices of UNCLOS. It also addresses the problems Jamaica faces with the conservation and management of Queen Conch (Strombus Gigas), in particular, the UNCLOS provisions regarding access to such resource, taking into account the limitations to such access as regulated by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).     

YOUTH CRIME IN POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES An Integrated Perspective

Taking a few well-known facts about youth crime, the authors propose a more comprehensive theoretical framework, synthesizing other theories and attempting to describe the link between macro- and microdeviance analysis. Employing Durkheim's concepts of social integration, it is proposed that integration be viewed through patterns of role relationships. When adolescents have meaningful kin, community, educational, and work role relationships, they become socialized to the dominant norms. Conditions in the structural level of society affect the nature and quality of these relationships. Youth crime is specifically related to the salience of the peer relationships and the structural conditions imposed by the society on youth.     

Risk Perceptions and Fear of Criminal Victimization Among Visitors to Jamaica

ABSTRACT

Tourism is viewed as being particularly vulnerable to crime and data on the attitudes of visitors and travel agents tend to confirm this. Visitor perceptions of the risk of being criminally victimized in Jamaica have tended to be somewhat negative although the rate of criminal victimization of tourists is fairly low. Visitors' perceptions of safety are thus not in keeping with the objective indicators of the risk of tourist victimization. This paper attempts to explain this disjuncture between risk perception and the reality of visitor victimization. It discusses the likely long-term effects, and suggests possible responses to it.     

The Crime and Threat Image Set (CaTIS): a validated stimulus set to experimentally explore fear of crime

Objectives

Fear of crime may develop in response to crime specifically (the narrow pathway) or may be a projection of broader threats (the broad pathway). New approaches are needed to examine how crime and threat, independently and in combination, influence people’s fear. To address this need, we created, evaluated, and validated an image set that varied across the dimensions of threat and crime.

Method

We used a 2 (Threat: high vs. low) × 2 (Crime: high vs. low) within-subjects factorial design. In three studies, participants (N = 24, 29, and 176, respectively) gave threat, crime, and fear ratings towards images. Participants also completed two traditional fear of crime measures and a measure of anxiety. Two evaluation studies explored the suitability of 178 images to produce a final set of 80 images (20 in each of the four categories). We validated this final set of 80 images in a third study.

Results

The validated Crime and Threat Image Set (CaTIS) contains 78 images across four categories: threat-and-crime (high-crime, high-threat), threat-only (low-crime, high-threat), crime-only (high-crime, low-threat), and neutral (low-crime, low-threat). There were significant main effects of threat and crime, and an interaction between Threat × Crime, on participants’ fear ratings. Participants’ own ratings of threat—but not crime—had a strong relationship with their fear ratings.

Conclusions

Threat had a stronger influence on participants’ fear ratings than crime. Thus, what is typically referred to as fear of crime may reflect broader fear. Further research with the CaTIS could explore the expression of this fear.

     

Rising crime rates amidst transformations in Eastern Europe: Socio‐political transition and societal response

Unprecedented and dramatic increases in crime rates in countries of Eastern Europe (data are available to document the increases for Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and many of the former Soviet Republics) raise the issue of whether the political and social transformations that have been taking place in Eastern Europe must inevitably lead to social disruption and resulting crime increases. Since the nature of the phenomenon is historically unique (there has never been a similar revolutionary transition from socialism to capitalism), a new, unconventional, and innovative theoretical approach is needed to account for the phenomena being discussed here. Assuming that the transformations can be legitimately subsumed under the concept of ‘‘socio‐political process,’’ the purpose of the paper is to identify some basic and inherent characteristic features of the causal mechanism at work, specifically —?''How do the dynamics of the Eastern European socio‐political process explain the rising crime rates?'’ (''What causal factors inherent in the dynamics are responsible for the crime rises?'') Another issue to be examined is that because of the unprecedented nature of the process being talked about here, a different dimension of the socio‐political process theory must be realized and examined. The paper will be based on three hypotheses: 1. The Eastern European transformations imply a need for a new component of the socio‐political process theory (transition from socialism to capitalism, not vice versa as has historically been the case).

2. To the extent that crime is a product of socio‐political change, crime rates are bound to increase much more during a socialism‐to‐capitalism transition rather than during a capitalism‐to‐socialism transition.

3. Some inherent traits of socialism‐to‐capitalism transitions explain why crime rates increase much more during those transitions than during capitalism‐to‐socialism ones.

     

A LIFE‐COURSE PERSPECTIVE ON SPIRITUALITY AND DESISTANCE FROM CRIME*

Spirituality is a component of many drug and alcohol treatment strategies, and faith‐based programming is also common within prison settings. Yet research on religiosity—crime linkages has often relied on general youth or adult samples or has included a short time line for gauging positive effects. Life‐course researchers focused on serious delinquents, in turn, have often emphasized other factors associated with long‐term crime patterns, such as marital attachment and job stability, or the criminality of the individual's social ties. This study draws on quantitative and qualitative data derived from a long‐term follow‐up of a sample of serious adolescent male and female offenders to explore the role of spirituality and religious participation as influences on adult patterns of criminal involvement (N= 152). The respondents were first interviewed as adolescents, in 1982, and again as adults in 1995 and 2003. Results of longitudinal analyses that take into account self‐report and incarceration histories at both time periods do not reveal a significant association between these indices of religiosity and the likelihood of evidencing a pattern of sustained desistance. Our analysis of indepth life‐history interviews conducted with most respondents over these two time periods and 41 additional interviews focused specifically on spirituality and religion are used to explore in more detail the promise and challenges associated with relying on religiosity as a catalyst for sustained behavior change.     

You shouldn't feel that way! Extending the emotional victim effect through the mediating role of expectancy violation

Recent research has shown that the ‘emotional victim effect’ (an emotional victim is more readily believed than a nonemotional victim) is mediated by expectancy violation: people base their judgments about a victim's credibility on their expectations of the victim's suffering. Victims whose behavior is inconsistent with these expectations suffer a loss of credibility. In this article, we further examine the role of expectancy violation and explore possible negative effects of a victim's highly emotional post-crime reaction. Using several mediations, we demonstrate three important contributions to the existing literature. First, we demonstrate that, in the same way as expectancy violation mediates the effect from nonverbal emotional expression on perceived credibility, this mediating effect would also hold for the verbal expression of emotions. Second, we demonstrate that expectancy violation mediates the effect from a victim's verbal emotional expression on the observer's attitude toward the victim. More specifically, we demonstrate that a highly emotional written Victim Impact Statement (VIS) could lead to secondary victimization, dependent on the observer's expectations regarding the effects of the crime. Third, this article is the first to demonstrate that expectancy violation leads to a negative effect on people's acceptance of the VIS in the criminal justice procedure.     

Gun Control in a Developing Nation: The Gun Court Act of Jamaica

Generally, the study of Third World crime can be approached from two acutely different theoretical perspectives. “Modernization” theory attempts to attribute crime in Third World societies to the rapid pace of industrialization and attempts to apply a variety of criminological theories that focus on the individual and the immediate social context of the actor. “Political economy/dependency” theory attempts to address the processes of imperialism and underdevelopment and the whole range of law violations and legal controls present in post-colonial societies.

This paper explains the Jamaican firearm crime problem, and the societal response to it, during the 1970's and early 1980's by applying the political economy/dependency theoretical framework. The legislative policy designed to curb increases in firearm crimes in Jamaica during the study period was the Gun Court Act. This mandatory piece of criminal legislation is examined in order to develop the connection between crime in underdeveloped nations and crime and social control.     

Procedural justice,obligation to obey,and cooperation with police in a sample of Jamaican citizens

ABSTRACT

Procedural justice theory plays a central role in understanding police–citizen relationships. To test the universality of procedural justice theory, researchers have tended to assess the relative impacts of normative and instrumental models of policing in different geopolitical contexts. Building on Reisig and Lloyd’s study in Jamaica, we test in the current study the relative impacts of procedural justice (a normative factor) and police effectiveness and risk of sanctioning (instrumental factors) on Jamaicans’ obligation to obey the police and willingness to cooperate with police. We found that procedural justice predicted both obligation to obey and cooperation, although obligation did not predict cooperation. And while effectiveness predicted obligation, it was not significantly related to cooperation. Lastly, older citizens were more willing to cooperate with police. The study’s implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

MEASURING THE THREAT OF GLOBAL CRIME: INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH BY THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS INTO THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN*

Despite increasing concern about the threat of global crime, it remains difficult to measure. During the 1920s and 1930s, the League of Nations conducted the first social‐scientific study of global crime in two studies of the worldwide traffic in women. The first study included 112 cities and 28 countries; researchers carried out 6,500 interviews in 14 languages, including 5,000 with figures in the international underworld. By drawing on archival materials in Geneva and New York, this article examines the role of ethnography in developing a social‐science measure of global crime threats. The discussion covers the Rockefeller grand jury and formation of the Bureau of Social Hygiene; the League's research in Europe, the Americas, and the Mediterranean; controversy concerning the use of undercover researchers; the League's research in Asia; and the end of the Bureau. The League's experience demonstrates the promise of multisite ethnography in research about global crime as well as the difficulty of mapping crime on a global scale.     

Self-control and its manifestations among university students: An empirical test of Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory

This article presents an empirical test of Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime. Measures of crime equivalents were regressed on a measure of self-control and other relevant independent variables to determine their independent effects. Self-control was found to have the strongest effect.     

The Fall of the Finnish Prison Population

At the beginning of the 1950s, the prisoner rate in Finland was four times higher than in the other Nordic countries and among the highest in Europe. However, the steady decrease that started soon after the Second World War has continued, and in the beginning of the 1990s Finland reached the Nordic level. The paper discusses some backgound factors behind this ''success story''. In addition, the paper examines the relation of prisoner rates and recorded crime. A comparison between the Nordic countries reveals that the major crime trends have been practically similar despite striking differpractices ences in the use of imprisonment. As concluded in the paper, the decrease in the prison population is one of the major victories of Finnish crime policy.     

Citizen crime prevention: Domains and participation

Attempts to engender citizens' participation in crime-prevention activities have met with varied degrees of success. Indeed, studies find great differences in participants. Part of the reason may be that different types of crime prevention are considered in the various programs and analyses. The present study uses the National Crime Survey: Victims Risk Supplement to uncover different domains of crime prevention activity and to investigate who participates in crime prevention. Five distinct types of crime-preventive behavior are isolated in the analysis. Further, path analytic techniques reveal that different demographic and crime related factors influence participation in the various crime-prevention activities. These results suggest that participation in crime prevention is complex and that we need more knowledge about who participates in different crime-prevention programs in order to promote such participation more effectively.     

Criminal Violence and Youth in Sweden: A Long-term Perspective

Since the mid-1980s, the Swedish public has become increasingly concerned about juvenile violence. This article confronts the public belief of increasing juvenile violence with systematic criminological data from crime statistics and other sources. Based on police and court statistics, as well as data from victimization studies and cause-of-death statistics, it is concluded that there is good reason to believe that Sweden is currently experiencing an 'enforcement wave' with regard to juvenile violence (particularly in the youngest age brackets), which reinforces the image of dramatic increases in the level of juvenile violence. The reasons why juvenile violence is thought to be on the increase even in the face of a lack of hard empirical evidence are discussed. Four long- and short-term trends are proposed as possible explanations: (i) the well-ordered modern society; (ii) the role of the mass media; (iii) the growth of feminine values; and (iv) the application of an offensive model of crime policy.     

Talking Heads and Bleeding Hearts: Newsmaking, Emotion and Public Criminology in the Wake of a Sexual Assault

Using our own experiences in attempting to ‘do’ public criminology in the wake of a violent sexual assault on our campus, we offer a critique of the emerging public criminology framework. Focusing specifically on tensions between fact and emotion and representations of expertise in the news media, we argue for a greater respect for emotional responses to crime in moving the public criminology agenda forward. We suggest that if public criminology sets as its goal educating the public about crime with an eye towards injecting a counter/critical discourse into ‘get tough’ crime control policies, then public criminologists need to recognize and take seriously the public’s emotions rather than negate them. Drawing on the work of Ahmed (The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge, London, 2004), we suggest that the role of the expert is not to simply inform citizens of the ‘facts’ about crime, but to establish—through emotions—the relationship between themselves and the imagined criminal Other (Young in Imagining crime: Textual outlaws and criminal conversations. Sage Publications, London, 1996). Thus, alongside trying to convince the public to be more ‘rational’ when it comes to crime, critical criminologists must start to accept people’s fear and anger as legitimate reactions and try to redirect these emotions toward more productive ends.     

The role of sexual interests and situational factors on rapists' modus operandi: Implications for offender profiling

Purpose. Although it has often been suggested that there is a direct relationship between an individual's sexual interests and behaviours exhibited during the crime they commit, few studies have investigated this question empirically. The purpose of the present study was thus to examine the role of sexual interests and situational factors as to their possible relationship to three components of rapists' modus operandi: (a) the level of organization of the offence, (b) the level of force used by the offender, and (c) the level of injury inflicted on the victim during the sexual assault. Methods. This study is based on a sample of 118 offenders who sexually assaulted a female aged 16 or over. All participants were assessed phallometrically and through the CQSA, a computerized questionnaire. Data were analysed using multiple regression analyses. Results. Our findings showed links between sexual interests, situational factors, and rapists' modus operandi. Firstly, individuals demonstrating a greater sexual interest in nonsexual violence showed a higher level of organization in the modus operandi. Secondly, alcohol consumption prior to the offence was related to a higher level of coercion. Finally, a negative emotional state prior to the crime was related to a high level of injury inflicted on the victim. Conclusions. Despite the fact that several authors postulated a direct link between the offender's sexual interests and his behaviour at the crime scene, our results only partially support this hypothesis. Moreover, our results partly support the fact that crime scene behaviour is related to offenders' personal characteristics, challenging an assumption of criminal profiling. We still believe that the modus operandi is related to offenders' personal attributes. It is, however, dynamic and may fluctuate due to certain situational factors related to offenders and victims. Future studies should take into account situational factors related to offenders and their victims.     

Deciding mental retardation and mental illness in capital cases: The effects of procedure,evidence, and attitudes

Abstract

When finding unconstitutional the execution of defendants who were mentally retarded at the time of their crime in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the US Supreme Court left the States to decide on procedures for deciding a defendant's mental retardation. This has and will lead to substantial variation, and will include juries being responsible for these verdicts. Two studies are presented that test procedural, evidentiary, and attitudinal effects on mock juror verdicts as to a capital defendant's mental retardation. Both studies show significant effects of procedural variables. Making the retardation and death decision at the same trial phase changed jurors’ interpretation of evidence, including severity of mental problems. Jurors were insensitive to differences in the burden of proof on mental retardation verdicts, although demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt may make jurors more sensitive to retardation evidence when deciding on a death sentence. Areas for future research are outlined.