Participant or Spectator? Victim‐Focused Political Activity since 2010

The public significance of the victim has shifted over successive governments. Each party, when in power, has utilised and politicised the victim to support its policy and legislative agenda. However, on the whole, this attention has been reserved for those who are victims of serious crime (such as murder, sexual violence and domestic abuse) and not volume offences (such as burglary, criminal damage, theft). Recent years have seen the inquiry rising in popularity, a ‘quick political fix’ to satisfy victims—and the public—that action on societal ills is being taken. However, in so doing, successive governments have, perhaps inadvertently, tended to replicate the ‘hierarchy of victimisation’ that is witnessed in frontline criminal justice activities. This has the result of affording victims only a spectator role when policy and legislative changes are being developed in their name. By contrast, the actions taken in developing expert and practitioner‐led policy around victim experience have proved to be more ‘successful’ in generating lasting change. This article suggests that there is no single ‘right’ approach to involving victims in policy development, but that each particular incident or situation needs consideration as how most ‘effectively’ to involve first‐hand victim experience.     

论刑法中的行为概念界定

目前刑法理论界对刑法中行为的概念存在不同的界定。分析这些界定发现,行为概念实与犯罪成立体系关系甚大,行为概念不但在犯罪成立体系内部和外部研究会存在不同,而且行为概念的机能发挥一定程度上也受犯罪成立体系影响。我国刑法中的行为概念界定应充分考虑我国现有犯罪成立体系的特点。     

Testing the School‐to‐Prison Pipeline

The School‐to‐Prison Pipeline is a social phenomenon where students become formally involved with the criminal justice system as a result of school policies that use law enforcement, rather than discipline, to address behavioral problems. A potentially important part of the School‐to‐Prison Pipeline is the use of sworn School Resource Officers (SROs), but there is little research on the causal effect of hiring these officers on school crime or arrests. Using credibly exogenous variation in the use of SROs generated by federal hiring grants specifically to place law enforcement in schools, I find evidence that law enforcement agencies learn about more crimes in schools upon receipt of a grant, and are more likely to make arrests for those crimes. This primarily affects children under the age of 15. However, I also find evidence that SROs increase school safety, and help law enforcement agencies make arrests for drug crimes occurring on and off school grounds.     

‘There will be burning and a‐looting tonight’: The Social and Political Correlates of Law‐breaking

In the aftermath of the August 2011 riots, politicians and commentators offered a range of explanations for the social unrest and wanton violence. Drawing on survey and focus‐group data, this paper investigates those explanations by analysing how socio‐economic, normative and political factors shape contemporary attitudes towards law breaking in Britain. The paper finds that both economic deprivation and personal moral values help to explain attitudes toward illegal behaviour, but citizens’ mistrust of political leaders and their disengagement from public affairs are also an important factor. The findings suggest that politicians who want to provide moral leadership need to do so through their actions as well as their words.     

侦查信息化存在的问题及对策

随着社会的发展,信息技术给整个社会带来巨大变革,同时,犯罪行为也日趋隐蔽化、智能化、职业化,这给公安刑侦工作带来了重大挑战。面对严峻的犯罪新形势,如何将信息处理技术、网络工程技术和计算机技术等高科技领域的成果注入刑事侦查工作中,向高科技要警力,向高科技要效益,如何更好地推进侦查信息化进程,成为侦查机关和侦查人员面临的一大现实问题。     

打捞海底沉没物的行为是否构成犯罪的法理分析及思考

打捞海底沉没物从行为方式上分析,在刑法规范的技术运用上具有无法克服的障碍。从法理角度分析,一种行为构成犯罪,往往具有二次性违法的特征。在行为能够通过民法或其他法规制约的时候。不应直接运用刑法作跳跃式的分析认定。     

论情商对犯罪心理和行为的影响

情商是个体对情绪的控制能力。低情商通过影响个体的认知、气质、性格、人际交往等催化其形成反社会的人格品质,且对犯罪心理和动机具有激化作用。在犯罪人实施犯罪过程中,情商高低直接影响其在犯罪现场的行为表现。剖析情商对犯罪心理的作用特点,有利于更深层次地认识犯罪心理的产生、形成及变化规律,为揭露、打击犯罪提供帮助。     

Changes and Fluctuations in Issue Ownership: The Case of Sweden, 1979–2010

Issue ownership (IO) has been an important concept in the analysis of party behaviour, party strategy and party competition for several decades. More recently, it has also been of growing interest for research on voting behaviour. Traditionally, IO has been regarded as a stable phenomenon where parties have different issue profiles and are advantaged by different political issues or issue‐areas. Recently, however, many studies have reported change and fluctuations of IO, and the same studies also makes it clear that we know surprisingly little about what might cause, or facilitate, change in issue ownership. In fact, we do not even have systematic studies of how stable issue ownership is, or how frequent shifts in issue ownership actually are. The aim of this article is to explore the extent of change and stability in issue ownership in Sweden. For this purpose, the Swedish national election studies from 1979 to 2010 are utilised. Although recent research has indicated that changes in IO have increased over time, this is not supported in the Swedish case. Instead, issue ownership seems never to have been a particularly stable phenomenon. However, in line with our theoretical expectations, we show that ownership of economic issues is more volatile compared to ownership of other issues.     

黑社会性质组织行为的认定

随着刑法打击方向和力度的变化,黑社会性质组织的行为也不断翻新。与传统违法犯罪相比,其行为实现了四个转变:由硬暴力向软暴力转变,由内生暴力向雇佣暴力转变,由犯罪行为向违法活动转变,由并联向串联转变。与此相伴,司法认定和适用中也面临着一些困扰和问题,如违法犯罪活动累计次数统计欠妥,非法手段与合法手段处理失当,对暴力雇佣行为认定混乱,黑社会性质组织行为的违法性排除不当等。因此,对黑社会性质组织行为的认定要有新思路,活动次数应予明确,行为的暴力基础不应忽略,雇佣行为应区别对待,另外还要注意行为认定须与结构层级相联系。     

浅谈我国刑法中的“公理之情”

我国刑法中贯穿着"公理之情",这种"情"有助于我国刑法作用的充分发挥。理解"公理之情"的含义,在司法实践中运用好这种"情",有助于我国刑法任务和刑罚目的的实现,促进我国的法治建设。     

以指纹工作站为切入点寻找刑事技术新的增长点——铁路公安处对基层指纹工作站日常管理工作的探索与实践

近几年来指纹自动识别系统迅速在全国推广应用,并在实际工作中发挥了明显的破案效益.如何使基层的指纹远程比对工作站发挥作用,为铁路公安日常工作增添新的活力,并和查堵追逃等工作紧密结合起来,提高查堵追逃工作的水平和效率,这是新形势下我们铁路公安刑事技术部门面临的重大课题,也是必须认真思考的迫切问题.     

Decision‐making Italian style: The new code of criminal procedure

Government action in Italy is notoriously slow in most policy areas, but, when necessary, the government can act both decisively and effectively. This article is a case‐study of the decisional process surrounding such an issue, the new code of criminal procedure that was implemented in late 1989. Factors other than the alluring explanations of government longevity and coalition stability account for the success of this institutional reform. In the case of the new code, a sense of urgency was created and a champion for the cause was found in government; these two factors and public demand for changes generated a momentum towards implementation of major institutional reform that survived onslaught by interest groups and even the fall of two governments.     

关于盗窃罪司法解释的思考

新近公布的盗窃罪司法解释全面贯彻了宽严相济的基本刑事政策。盗窃是否意味着"秘密窃取",旧司法解释将其定义为秘密窃取,而新司法解释则适应犯罪形势变化的需求取消了该规定。在盗窃罪牵连犯的处罚原则上,新司法解释确定为从一重从重处罚,更符合罪责刑相适应原则。单位相关人员犯非法定单位犯罪是否构成盗窃罪应以自然人的盗窃罪犯罪构成要件为判断标准,符合盗窃罪构成要件的应依法追究相关人员的刑事责任。     

The Limits to Evidence‐Based Policy: Evidence,Emotion and Criminal Justice1

While ‘evidence‐based’ or ‘rationalist’ approaches to criminal policy may appeal to technocrats, bureaucrats and a number of academics, they often fail to compete successfully with the affective approaches to law and order policies which resonate with the public and which appear to meet deep‐seated psychological needs. They also often fail to recognise that ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ are related concepts and that debates about criminal justice are played out in broader arenas than the academy, the bureau or the agency. To be successful, penal reform must take account of the emotions people feel in the face of wrongdoing. Further, successful reform must take into account changes in public ‘mood’ or emotions over time and be sensitive to different political and social cultures. This article argues that criminal justice policies are more likely to be adopted if, in addition to the gathering and presentation of evidence, they recognise and deal with the roles of emotions, symbols, faith, belief and religion in the criminal justice system. It also recognises that evidence alone is unlikely to be the major determinant of policy outcomes and that the creation and successful implementation of policy also requires extensive engagement and evidence‐based dialogue with interested and affected parties. This necessitates a different kind of modelling for evidence‐based policy processes.     

Civic implications of restorative justice theory: Citizen participation and criminal justice policy

Restorative justice, a normative theory and reform movement emphasizing dialogue and reconciliation between victim, offender, and community, is a widespread, if experimental, part of the practice of criminal justice in the United States. This essay argues that restorative justice draws connections between civic engagement and punishment practices that distinguish it as a normative theory of criminal justice. Advocates of restorative justice expect the growth of non-punitive attitudes and the weakening of support for incarceration to emerge from a public and lay-oriented context of adjudication. The role of lay participation in achieving social change, although prominent in restorative justice critiques of mainstream criminal justice norms and practices, has not been clearly articulated in practical terms. Significant ambiguities remain regarding the degree of lay participation, scope of authority, and the focus of restorative justice forums. The essay argues that an adequate assessment of restorative justice experiments should include an analysis of their impact on public attitudes towards crime and crime control policy and not simply on their impact on the specific victims and offenders involved. The link between less incarceration and restorative justice forums is public willingness to grant them the authority to hear and sanction offenses that would ordinarily receive incarceration. Whether and how they can influence broader public attitudes, then, is a critical test of restorative justice effectiveness.     

Policy Diffusion: The Issue‐Definition Stage

We put forward a new approach to studying issue definition within the context of policy diffusion. Most studies of policy diffusion—which is the process by which policymaking in one government affects policymaking in other governments—have focused on policy adoptions. We shift the focus to an important but neglected aspect of this process: the issue‐definition stage. We use topic models to estimate how policies are framed during this stage and how these frames are predicted by prior policy adoptions. Focusing on smoking restriction in U.S. states, our analysis draws upon an original data set of over 52,000 paragraphs from newspapers covering 49 states between 1996 and 2013. We find that frames regarding the policy's concrete implications are predicted by prior adoptions in other states, whereas frames regarding its normative justifications are not. Our approach and findings open the way for a new perspective to studying policy diffusion in many different areas.     

IMPLEMENTATION OF EVIDENCE‐BASED PRACTICE IN HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: IMPLICATIONS FROM AGENT‐BASED MODELS

Much of the impact of a policy depends on how it is implemented, especially as mediated by organizations such as schools or hospitals. Here, we focus on how implementation of evidence‐based practices in human service organizations (e.g., schools, hospitals) is affected by intraorganizational network dynamics. In particular, we hypothesize intraorganizational behavioral divergence and network polarization are likely to occur when actors strongly identify with their organizations. Using agent‐based models, we find that when organizational identification is high, external change agents who attempt to direct organizations by introducing policy aligned messages (e.g., professional development emphasizing specific teaching practices) may unintentionally contribute to divergence in practice and polarization in networks, inhibiting full implementation of the desired practices as well as reducing organizational capacity to absorb new practices. Thus, the external change agent should consider the interaction between the type of message and the intraorganizational network dynamics driven by organizational identification.     

Constituency Demands and Limited Supplies: Comparing Personal Issue Emphases in Co‐sponsorship of Bills and Legislative Speech

Parliamentary party groups typically comprise members of parliament (MPs) with diverse preferences and different personal issue emphases. At the same time, speaking in plenary debates is a scarce resource controlled and allocated by parliamentary party group leaders. This has led recent research to investigate how speakers for plenary debates are selected. This contribution connects with this literature by asking whether MPs’ personal issue emphases deviate from their parliamentary party groups’ issue emphases. In order to answer this question, the issue emphases which individual MPs devote to a set of issues in an open access parliamentary instrument is measured and compared to the emphases MPs devote to these issues in speeches. The results for the 2005–9 legislative period of the Norwegian Storting indicate that MPs differ in how closely aligned their issue emphases are in these two instruments and that these differences vary in a way consistent with theories on candidate selection and individualized MP behaviour.