SAFE AND SECURE,HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

By 2015, it is predicted that there will be 25 billion connected products and processes like smart phones, and tablets using eGovernment systems, eHealth systems and law enforcement agencies. This is of grave concern when setting against a projected world population of 7 billion. It illustrates the need for a safe and secure Future Internet （FI） capable of allowing all to communicate without interference from eybercriminals and malicious intruders. Examples of Internet security breaches including the possible misuse of PLC （Programmable Logic Controlled） nationally strategic systems by criminals having gained access via the Internet will be outlined. The development of secure Future Internet protocols （IPV7） in this area will be discussed. Crime and its prevention are multi-million euro industries that are developing rapidly. Biometrics can reduce crime rates by establishing secure banking transactions, improving passport control, enhancing eGovernment activity, increasing the detection and prevention of human trafficing, preventing illicit terrorist activity as well as the development and improvement of policing and forensic crime detection techniques. Case studies of recent developments in the USA where UCLA is collaborating with law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles （LA） using predictive analytic techniques to forecast crime activity will be presented. Linkeages between the use of biometrics and big open data bases in the EU that could mirror the activities in LA will be explored. The possibilities of obtaining funding from Horizon 2020 call to develop these themes, which will improve the safety of EU citizens. This will be outlined. Human and machine activity on the internet would be inherently more secure if biometric access protocols were adopted. This presentation will also give the results of recent research and developments of biometric security systems in the Social Welfare Public Services to combat fraud, waste and duplication. It will discuss current research in the application of bi     

HEURISTICS AND BIASES,RATIONAL CHOICE,AND SANCTION PERCEPTIONS*

The relevance of several cognitive heuristics and related biases for rational choice perspectives on crime, and for perceptions of sanction risk, were investigated. We present findings from a series of randomized experiments, embedded in two nationwide surveys of American adults (18 and older) in 2015 (N = 1,004 and 623). The results reveal that offender estimates of detection risk are less probabilistically precise and more situationally variable than under prevailing criminological perspectives, most notably, rational choice and Bayesian learning theories. This, in turn, allows various decision‐making heuristics—such as anchoring and availability—to influence and potentially bias the perceptual updating process.     

POVERTY, URBANIZATION, AND CRIME

In an effort to evaluate the situational determinants of crime, principal components analysis was used to reduce 59 demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of 840 American cities to six independent factors: affluence, stage in life cycle, economic specialization, expenditures policy, poverty, and urbanization. When regressed upon crime rates two of these six factors, urbanization and poverty, were found to be the more important criminogenic forces. The exception to this generalization was the South, where stage in life cycle was more important than poverty in explaining crime. One reason for this exception may be that the South, though having a lower standard of living than other regions of the country, does not have the “culture of poverty” usually associated with lower income. Contrary to the assumption upon which most ecology of crime studies are based, larger cities (over 100,000 in population) are not representative of all cities. Greater association between socioeconomic variables and crime was found in larger than in smaller cities.     

PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL CAPACITY,HOMELESSNESS, AND CRIME AND ARREST RATES*

As a result of developments in pharmacology, stricter standards for involuntary commitment, and changes in public expenditures, there has been a dramatic decline in the capacity of public psychiatric hospitals to maintain America's most severely mentally ill. Psychiatric deinstitutionalization has led to an increased presence of persons with mental illness in urban areas, many “falling through the cracks” of community‐based services. This is hypothesized to have contributed to homelessness, crime, and arrests. Individual‐level research has documented disproportionate and increasing numbers of mentally ill persons in jails and prisons. It has also found higher rates of violence and arrest among persons with mental illness compared to the general population. This study takes a macro‐level social control approach and examines the relationships between psychiatric hospital capacity, homelessness, and crime and arrest rates using a sample of eighty‐one U.S. cities. I find that public psychiatric hospital capacity has a statistically significant negative effect on crime and arrest rates, and that hospital capacity affects crime and arrest rates in part, through its impact on homelessness. In addition, I find no crime‐reducing effect of private and general psychiatric hospital capacity.     

CHILDREN,THE UNCRC,AND FAMILY LAW IN ENGLAND AND WALES

There is no doubt that, overall, there has been a great deal of activity in relation to children's rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since it was ratified by the UK government in 1991. Of particular significance in the context of family law, however, are the provisions of Article 12, which have in many ways proved to be more problematic than other provisions, not least because, in the context of family law, children's participation rights are necessarily juxtaposed with the long‐standing and hitherto unchallenged rights of parents to make important decisions about family life. The reorganisation in 2001 of the family court welfare services in England and Wales with the creation of the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), generated a new impetus for the consideration of children's participation rights and, at an organizational level, considerable progress has been made in embracing the provisions of the UNCRC. More problematic, however, is the acceptance of children's participation in making decisions about their futures by adults using and working in the family justice system. At the level of the courts, judicial attitudes are slow to change and in England, as court judgments often demonstrate, these are firmly rooted in a view of children as being incompetent in such issues; at the level of parents using the system, it is arguable that new discourses about the best interests of the child serve as a proxy for continuing discourses about parents’ rights that have become evident, most recently, in the context of an increasingly influential fathers’ rights lobby; and at the level of welfare practitioners, recent research also demonstrates that, although the rhetoric of children's rights is widely accepted, the willingness and ability to make these real in the context of family proceedings is, for a variety of reasons, less in evidence.     

WORK, FAMILY, AND INCOME

The relation between work and families is undergoing extraordinary levels of change at the current time. Most of the policy discussions assume that it is possible to continue moving in the directions which dominate at the end of the century: commitment to long hours of work which then permits obtaining a high standard of living. The basic problem is that there is now overwhelming evidence that continuation of current trends is tearing cultures apart. Some are capable of earning larger and larger incomes. Those at the bottom are both money and knowledge poor. And the middle class is shrinking. If we are to benefit from the potential of today's world, we can only do so by moving outside our current thinking and asking how we want to define the quality of life in the twenty-first century.     

WOMEN, RACE, AND CRIME

This article examines the interrelationships among women, race, and crime as presented by Adler. The empirical assertions concerning the pattern of crime for black and white males and females are examined using victim survey data. It was concluded that the explanations for racial differences in female crime and delinquency advanced by Adler have little value since the empirical differences they purport to explain are not supported by the data.     

MASCULINITIES,PERSISTENCE, AND DESISTANCE

In life‐course criminology, when gender has been the focus of study, it has predominantly been treated as a variable. Studies that explore the gendered nature of criminal careers through the lived experiences of offenders are rare, even though these studies can make important contributions to our understanding of crime and the life course. Analyzing qualitative data, this article uses life‐history narratives of a small sample of male juvenile delinquents (N = 25), born in 1969–1974, to explore the possible link among masculinities, persistence, and desistance from crime. The findings of the study suggest that processes of persistence and desistance are imbued with age‐specific norms of what it means to “be a man” and successfully do masculinity in different stages of life. Analyzing these gender‐specific practices gives a deepened understanding of processes that underlie the offenders’ lives as they go through stages of continuity and change in crime. The findings of the study further suggest a complex intersection between gendered biographies and gendered structures, with fruitful contributions to life‐course criminology. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

RISK,RACE, AND RECIDIVISM: PREDICTIVE BIAS AND DISPARATE IMPACT*

One way to unwind mass incarceration without compromising public safety is to use risk assessment instruments in sentencing and corrections. Although these instruments figure prominently in current reforms, critics argue that benefits in crime control will be offset by an adverse effect on racial minorities. Based on a sample of 34,794 federal offenders, we examine the relationships among race, risk assessment [the Post Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA)], and future arrest. First, application of well‐established principles of psychological science revealed little evidence of test bias for the PCRA—the instrument strongly predicts arrest for both Black and White offenders, and a given score has essentially the same meaning—that is, the same probability of recidivism—across groups. Second, Black offenders obtain higher average PCRA scores than do White offenders (d = .34; 13.5 percent nonoverlap in groups’ scores), so some applications could create disparate impact. Third, most (66 percent) of the racial difference in PCRA scores is attributable to criminal history—which is already embedded in sentencing guidelines. Finally, criminal history is not a proxy for race, but instead it mediates the relationship between race and future arrest. Data are more helpful than rhetoric if the goal is to improve practice at this opportune moment in history.     

PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND THEIR SEXUAL,REPRODUCTIVE, AND PARENTING RIGHTS: AN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Despite important gains in human rights, persons with disabilities — and in particular women and girls with disabilities — continue to experience significant inequalities in the areas of sexual, reproductive, and parenting rights. Persons with disabilities are sterilized at alarming rates; have decreased access to reproductive health care services and information; and experience denial of parenthood. Precipitating these inequities are substantial and instantiated stereotypes of persons with disabilities as either asexual or unable to engage in sexual or reproductive activities, and as incapable of performing parental duties. The article begins with an overview of sexual, reproductive, and parenting rights regarding persons with disabilities. Because most formal adjudications of these related rights have centered on the issue of sterilization, the article analyzes commonly presented rationales used to justify these procedures over time and across jurisdictions. Next, the article examines the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the attendant obligations of States Parties regarding rights to personal integrity, access to reproductive health care services and information, parenting, and the exercise of legal capacity. Finally, the article highlights fundamental and complex issues requiring future research and consideration.