Does gang membership pay? Illegal and legal earnings through emerging adulthood*

Gang membership is believed to impede success in the legitimate economic market while simultaneously supporting success in the illegal market. We extend the study of the economic effects of gang membership by using a within‐ and between‐individual analytic design, decomposing gang membership into multiple statuses (i.e., entering a gang, continuously in a gang, leaving a gang, and inactive gang membership), examining legal and illegal earnings simultaneously, and accounting for factors endogenous to gang membership that may contribute to economic achievement. By using panel data from 1,213 individuals who participated in the Pathways to Desistance Study to conduct a multilevel path analysis, we find that active gang membership status is unrelated to legal earnings. Alternatively, entering a gang is associated with increased illegal earnings, attributable to changes in delinquent peers and drug use, whereas leaving a gang has a direct relationship with decreased illegal earnings. Our results indicate that the positive economic effect of gang membership (i.e., illegal earnings and total earnings) is short‐lived and that, on balance, the sum of the gang membership experience does not “pay” in terms of overall earnings.     

The Moderating Effect of Criminal Thinking on Certainty of Apprehension in Decisions to Engage in Antisocial Behavior: Replication and Extension

This study explored whether the rational (certainty of punishment) and nonrational (criminal thinking) aspects of antisocial decision‐making interact. A convenience sample of 319 undergraduates (106 men, 213 women) completed a measure of criminal thinking and responded to three fictional vignettes (i.e., cheating on a final examination in a class they were in jeopardy of failing, stealing $50 off a table in a dorm room, and selling marijuana for a friend) at three different levels of risk or certainty of apprehension (50%, 10%, and 1%). Results indicated that participants reported that they would be more likely to engage in antisocial behavior when the certainty of getting caught was low and the level of proactive (P) or reactive (R) criminal thinking was high. An interaction between certainty and criminal thinking was also observed in which the gap between lower and higher criminal thinking respondents grew as the probability of getting caught fell.     

Sympathy for the devil: state engagement with criminal organisations in furtherance of public policy

Governments have long relied on non-state actors to assist in the implementation of public policy. Legitimate elements of civil society have become familiar instruments of governance. States have also engaged criminal actors to this end. This article will note examples of state collaboration with criminal interests, from pirates turned privateers during the 17th and 18th centuries, to the patriotic hackers of today. It will discuss the strategic considerations giving rise to such engagements, the pitfalls that may beset them, and the ethical considerations that might inform the decision by a state to enlist the services of illicit organisations.     

Marriage,Cohabitation, and Crime: Differentiating Associations by Partnership Stage

A wealth of scholarship generally finds that marriage protects against crime, but there is less consistent evidence for cohabitation. In this article, we contribute to scholarship on marriage and put forward new evidence about cohabitation by examining marital and cohabiting partnerships as transitions with distinct stages of entry, stability, and dissolution. We use within-person change models with contemporary data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to analyze these stages for the full sample and separately for men and women. The findings show differential protective associations of marriage and cohabitation depending on the stage of the partnership. Both recently formed cohabiting partnerships and stable cohabiting partnerships are associated with reductions in the level of offending, although to a lesser degree than marital relationships. Cohabiting partnerships that are stable, in that they have lasted at least a year, are associated with larger decreases in offending, particularly among women.     

中国古代判词与当代刑事判决书对比研究

中国古代判词作为古代司法官员听讼断狱所制作的司法文书,反映着中国历史上的礼法文化传统。当下中国的刑事判决书改革,不仅需要借鉴国外的先进庭审制度和制判模式,而且需要从我国的本土断案决狱文化中汲取营养,把我国优秀的传统法律文化发扬光大,从而更好地推动司法改革的发展。本文首先对中国古代判词进行分类,继而从古代判词的文学性特征、道德化倾向、天理、人情和法意的兼顾、文本结构和用词的感情色彩等角度探讨了古代判词与现代刑事判决书的差异,并揭示了其对当今刑事判决书改革的启示。古代判词的这些特征不仅有利于实现古代社会的司法目的,对于中国当下的司法改革,尤其是刑事判决书改革也具有现实的参考价值。     

走出“共犯与身份”的教义学迷思:“主从犯体系”下身份要素的再定位

我国"主从犯体系"不同于德日区分制体系,主要表现为作用分类法与分工分类法具有实质差异、主犯判断与正犯评价存在根本区别。在欠缺身份犯总则性规定的前提下,不宜直接运用德日区分制体系下的"共犯与身份"理论来解决相关问题,而应当对其进行中国语境的转化。据此,"违法的连带性"应转换为"违法的共同性","责任的个别化"应蜕变为对"不法程度"及责任要素的双重评价。故而,在"主从犯体系"下,身份的作用仅限于两点:一是在整体上或共同违法意义上作为犯罪构成要件,从而在非身份者与身份者实施的共同犯罪中,身份者未必都是主犯,也可以是从犯或胁从犯;二是在归责意义上,非身份者的责任在同等条件下相对于身份者会有所克减。     

Referrals to a mental health criminal justice Liaison and diversion team in the North East of England

There is growing interest in the health correlates of people detained in police custody, and a number of innovations have been introduced to try to meet the complex needs of detainees. The implementation of Criminal Justice Liaison and Diversion (CJL&D) Services commissioned by the Department of Health in England is a substantial part of this investment. In this paper, we describe data from 858 detainees who were referred to the CJL&D service of a busy metropolitan police station in the North East of England. The detainees referred to the service had complex mental health needs, substance misuse and a range of vulnerabilities requiring specific intervention. The effective operation of these teams and how they interface with health and criminal justice systems also depend upon a number of systematic issues that emanate both from within the teams, and from external policy drivers.     

我国刑事被告人品格证据规则之探索

近年来,我国在刑事司法领域开展一系列制度性改革,其中"和谐司法"、"认罪认罚从宽"、"恢复性司法"等缓和性司法理念与制度正在全面铺开。某些缓和性刑事政策需要被追诉方的品格加以佐证支撑,以对其人身危险性进行度量。因此了解和审查被追诉方品格因素就显得很关键。品格证据可以对被告人刑事责任承担产生较大影响。故研究品格证据,可在理论上界定品格证据含义特征,探究域外规则发展路径,归纳我国建立该规则的可行建议,完善我国证据规则体系。     

THE LANGUAGE OF STIGMATIZATION AND THE MARK OF VIOLENCE: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CRIMINAL RECORD STIGMA

After years of stagnation, labeling theory has recently gained new empirical support. Simultaneously, new policy initiatives have attempted to restructure criminal record stigma to reduce reintegration barriers, and subsequent recidivism, driven by labeling. For example, in a recent Department of Justice (DOJ) language policy, person‐first terms (e.g., “person with a conviction”) were substituted for crime‐first terms (e.g., “offender”). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has also issued guidelines to structure how decision‐makers use criminal records. Unfortunately, little is currently known about the social construction and use of criminal record stigma or the potential effects of such policy changes. In the current study, we provide two unique empirical tests. In study 1, we examine the social construction of stigma by testing DOJ's language policy with experimental data from a nationally representative sample of American adults (N = 996). In study 2, we use a separate nationwide experiment (N = 1,540) to examine how the contextualization of criminal records influences social exclusion decisions. Across both studies, we find consistent evidence of a “mark of violence.” The public perceives that individuals with violent convictions are the most likely to commit future crimes, and it is more supportive of excluding these individuals from employment. Crime‐first terms exacerbate perceived recidivism risk for individuals with violent convictions.