Implementing and evaluating crime prevention and control programs and policies

The history of crime prevention and control efforts in the United States has demonstrated little progressive improvement in our ability to deter crime. The major obstacles to implementing effective interventions and policies have been a weak scientific knowledge base about how to prevent crime, the research community's inability to effectively disseminate what is known about the causes of crime and to translate this knowledge into operational programs and policies, and a resistance on the part of practitioners and policy makers to evaluate programs and policies and to use this information in the development of new programs and policies. In the last decade, there have been major advances in our understanding about the causes of crime and we have now demonstrated the effectiveness of selected prevention programs. But there is little evidence that this scientific knowledge is informing current practice or policy. Problems in the dissemination of this information and the resistance to utilizing it remain. These problems are discussed and suggestions are made for addressing them. Our knowledge base remains modest, but it is now sufficient to inform policy and practice. The research community must work to do a better job of disseminating this information and overcoming the resistance to utilizing it before we will be successful in implementing effective crime prevention programs and policies. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

流浪乞讨与管制--从贫困救助看中央与地方权限的界定

随着《收容遣送办法》的废止,个人自由权利与社会治安秩序之间的现实冲突比过去更为突显。应转变中央和地方关系的传统思维,在允许地方更多自主权和选择权的同时,更充分地保障公民个人的宪法基本权利。无论是中央和地方关系的法律界定,还是公民权利的宪法保障,都要求建立独立的司法机构以审查地方立法的有效性。     

Elderly widows and widowers and their coresidents in late 19th- and early 20th-century England and Wales

This article examines the family and household patterns of widowers and widows in England and Wales between 1891 and 1921 in terms of the proportion of widowers and widows who lived with never- or ever-married children, servants, or inmates, with nonrelatives only, or on their own. The absence of marked change between 1891 and 1921 in the frequency with which elderly widowers and widows lived with a married or never-married child are in line with the Laslett [J. Fam. Hist. 12 (1987) 263.] expectation that family patterns evolve only slowly, certainly much slower than the forces of political and economic change. Where changes can be detected, as in the decline in frequency of coresidence with servants or inmates, these changes were experienced by the younger as well as the older widowed and by married people. Apparently, the residence patterns of the elderly widowed changed due to the introduction of means-tested old-age pensions in 1910. A second investigated is the extent to which the socioeconomic environment influenced the residence patterns of the widowed in a given time period. The effect in general proves to be weak with little difference between one environment and another in the frequency with which widowers coresided with their children and evidence of gender balancing of the household (relatively more widows living with sons and more widowers with daughters) visible only in agricultural environments.     

Associations Between Experiencing and Witnessing Physical and Psychological Abuse and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Yemeni Children

There is little research on how family violence affects children who live the Arab world. This study had three aims. First, to examine the prevalence of family violence in Yemen. Second, to examine the associations between family violence and internalizing and externalizing problems in Yemeni children. Third, to examine participant gender as a possible moderator. A total of 598 children, 11–16 years old, completed measures of experiencing and witnessing physical and psychological abuse in the home, and reported emotional symptoms and conduct problems. Findings indicate that prevalence rates of all forms of abuse are high among Yemeni children (57.5% experiencing physical abuse, 71.2% psychological abuse, 33.6% witnessing physical abuse, and 78.9% witnessing psychological abuse). Boys experienced more physical and psychological abuse in the home than girls, although the level of physical and psychological abuse children witnessed in the home did not differ for boys and girls. The structural equation model indicated that witnessing psychological abuse was associated with emotional symptoms and conduct problems in children. Experiencing physical abuse was associated with conduct problems, whereas experiencing psychological abuse was associated with emotional symptoms. These associations were similar for boys and girls. These findings suggest that living in an abusive home can have harmful effects on Yemeni children.     

Elderly widows and widowers and their coresidents in late 19th- and early 20th-century England and Wales

This article examines the family and household patterns of widowers and widows in England and Wales between 1891 and 1921 in terms of the proportion of widowers and widows who lived with never- or ever-married children, servants, or inmates, with nonrelatives only, or on their own. The absence of marked change between 1891 and 1921 in the frequency with which elderly widowers and widows lived with a married or never-married child are in line with the Laslett [J. Fam. Hist. 12 (1987) 263.] expectation that family patterns evolve only slowly, certainly much slower than the forces of political and economic change. Where changes can be detected, as in the decline in frequency of coresidence with servants or inmates, these changes were experienced by the younger as well as the older widowed and by married people. Apparently, the residence patterns of the elderly widowed changed due to the introduction of means-tested old-age pensions in 1910. A second investigated is the extent to which the socioeconomic environment influenced the residence patterns of the widowed in a given time period. The effect in general proves to be weak with little difference between one environment and another in the frequency with which widowers coresided with their children and evidence of gender balancing of the household (relatively more widows living with sons and more widowers with daughters) visible only in agricultural environments.     

Jurisprudence and Communication: Secular and Religious

In considering Van Schooten’s study of the Eric O. case (s.1), I ask whether the different approaches taken by the two different “legal institutions”—the prosecuting authorities on the one hand, the courts on the other—are reflective of different images of warfare (a semantic difference) or of the different images each group holds of its own role (a pragmatic difference). If we consider these two “legal institutions” as distinct semiotic groups (s.2), is there an inevitable “communication deficit” (Van Schooten) between them (and the public) and how does this relate to the Hartian account of such a “crisis in communication” (s.3)? I agree with Van Schooten about the role of underlying images in the construction of legal sense, and relate this to the issue of intuitional judgment, both in and outside the law (s.4). I then turn to comparable issues which arise in my other research area, Jewish law, which reflects quite different ideological premises (s.5), reviewing the original (biblical) conception of the (intuitive) role and functions of judges (s.5A), decision-making, justification and consequentialist ethics in postbiblical Jewish law (s.5B), and the conclusions drawn, not least for the pragmatics of communication, in a recent research study on the wife’s rights in divorce. Paradoxically, I argue (s.5C), that the system rests at base on trust rather than objective truth. But trust, too, is a form of meaning, and susceptible to semiotic analysis. I suggest, in conclusion (s.6), that this is an issue which should be treated more seriously in the theory of secular law and legal communication.     

当前广东拐卖妇女儿童犯罪的特点、原因及对策

近年来,广东一些地区拐卖妇女儿童犯罪屡禁不绝,愈演愈烈.拐卖妇女儿童犯罪是一种十分野蛮的犯罪活动,它严重侵害了妇女儿童最基本的人身权利,极大地危害了社会秩序,败坏了社会风气.本文通过分析其犯罪特点及原因,进一步提出相应对策.     

Commercial and company law and sustainable development

This paper reviews key areas of commercial and company law that are relevant to sustainable development. It includes an overview of international and regional frameworks, and examines good practice in national laws in the specific areas of company law, securities law and corporate insolvency. It does so with a view to providing conclusions and recommendations that represent a starting point for Commonwealth member countries when engaging with law reform and strengthening in the area of commercial law. The recommendations aim, in particular, at supporting law reform that enables commercial law frameworks to make a clear contribution to attainment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.     

IT and Law,and Law Schools

If 'computing and law' as a discipline is to push forward and develop, it will do so best within the context of the law school rather than as a joint enterprise between law and other disciplines. It is in the law school that the understanding of the nature of law is at its height. Yet there are problems here-law schools have a strained relationship with technology and their concept of the breadth of 'legal scholarship' can be limited by conventional (or ideologically-biased) views of law and an undergraduate-oriented view of the law school's purpose. There are also problems arising from the nature of communications between lawyers and computer scientists. In this article, I highlight these problems and also argue for a more developed and extended view of legal scholarship which will be able to incorporate study and research of the impact of the computer upon legal society as well as the legal control of the unwanted elements arising from these new technologies. Most writings on IT and the law school concentrate upon its use as an educational tool. My interest here is not so much in this side of things, but in the research culture of the law school. Whilst there is sometimes a view that the linkage of law school and IT is purely related to the use of technology in legal education, the remit is wider and includes the understanding of the link between substantive law and the context of the new computerized world and also the impact of the computer in the practice of law. This latter aspect is becoming increasingly important with the Woolf reforms and computerization of the procedural elements of law, but also in substantive law: for example, administrative systems are becoming more and more mediated by technology, and administrative law must be reviewed and re-worked in this context.     

Laws and Universality,Laws and History

The article begins by examining two arguments used by Derrida in work published in 1967. The first claims against Lévi-Strauss that an empirical pattern of events cannot be injected into or superimposed onto an historical pattern claiming universality, for then there can be no disconfirmation of what is said. (This argument is used against Marxian history by some who write in the wake of Existentialism, Paul Roubiczek for instance.) The second claims against Foucault that he does not distinguish between reason as part of thinking and language and reason as an empirical historical structure capable of modification along time. The article then discusses the use of very similar if not identical arguments in Derrida’s much more recent work on laws, Force of law. The intelligibility, the interpretability, of laws and their history comes after the laws, not before, and is thus not fully universalisable.     

Psychological Injury and Law: Editorial on Truth and Consequences, Psychologists and Attorneys

Psychology and law are established but evolving professions that need to communicate better with each other. In the interface of psychology and law in civil proceedings, such as in cases of psychological injury in tort, psychology can help in arriving at just and fair legal decisions that are appropriate in context. Professionals in the legal and mental health communities will find that the combination of the journal, Psychological Injury and Law, and its housing association, ASAPIL, function as a bridge between the two communities.     

Strengthening Socialist Legality and Law and Order

During the period of the comprehensive building of communism, problems related to shaping a new kind of human being, overcoming remnants of the past, uprooting anti-social phenomena and, in particular, the most serious of these - crime - are coming to be of ever greater significance in the activity of Party organizations.     

The reliability and validity of self,peer and staff reports of bullying and victimisation in correctional and care institutions

Abstract

Connell and Farrington (1997) carried out the first study of the reliability and validity of reports of bullying and victimisation in correctional institutions, using individual interviews. The present research describes the second study on this topic using questionnaire measures of self, peer and staff reports of bullying and victimisation in one Children's Home (N=16 residents, 15 peers, 6 staff, making up to 1440 comparisons) and one Correctional Home (N=19 residents, 18 peers, 6 staff, making up to 2052 comparisons) in Croatia. The present study improved on the Connell and Farrington study by examining the test–retest stability of the questionnaire and using relative improvement over chance coefficients in assessing inter-rater reliability. Unlike in the Connell and Farrington study, self-reports of bullying and victimisation were collected in small groups rather than in individual interviews. Generally, there was significant agreement between residents, peers and staff in identifying bullies and victims, and the test–retest stability of the questionnaire was high. In line with the findings of Connell and Farrington, it is concluded that self-reports provide the most reliable and valid data about bullying amongst institutionalised youth.     

Economic cycles and punishment: Unemployment and imprisonment

Research on the relations between the labor market and forms of punishment, inaugurated by Rusche, has developed along two lines, broadly speaking: first, the historical evolution of the links between the structure of the labor market and the structure of punishment and secondly, the conjunctural variations in admissions to prison and in prison populations with fluctuations in the employment situation. The present study is of the latter type. It stems from observations on two aspects of the French situation:

The concomitant long-term evolution (1875–1985) of curves for unemployment and for prison populations, given the downward trend in imprisonment rates until recent years.

The constant over-representation, among prisoners, of groups whose position on the labor market is insecure.

The link between unemployment and imprisonment was tested by multiple regression using data on economic, demographic, penal and correctional aspects (French figures, 1920–1985). The results show the participation of demographic factors in the variations in prison populations. They point to a significant correlation between variations in unemployment (in volume and rate) and the evolution of prison populations, all else being equal in terms of recorded crime. Analysis of the functioning of the criminal justice system, showing the existence of an internal subsystem characterized by its procedures — pretrial detention —, the offenses — street crime —, the sentences — imprisonment — and the social characteristics of those convicted, suggests an approach to the interpretation of these findings.     

Globalisation and Latin American and Caribbean Organised Crime

The longstanding institutional weaknesses of most states in Latin America and the Caribbean, in combination with the existence of a highly lucrative underground drug trade in the Western hemisphere, make the countries in that corner of the world system not only especially prone to indigenous organised crime, but also attractive targets for transnational criminal enterprises. In most of the region, the dynamics of globalisation over the last two decades have resulted in almost ideal conditions for the rapid penetration and spread of transnational organised crime. Thus, as well as considering the overall situation in Latin America and the Caribbean, this article will particularly consider the scope and impact of the post-Cold War wave of Russian transnational organised crime to illustrate this phenomenon.     

Confessions and denials and the relationship with personality

Purpose. The main aim of the study was to examine the reasons and personality factors associated with confessions and denials. It was hypothesized that antisocial personality traits and active involvement in criminal behaviour would distinguish true confessors and true deniers from false confessors and false deniers. Method. The participants were 1,080 students in further education in Iceland. Each was asked about false admissions made to teachers and parents in the past, as well as about confessions or denials (true and false) made to the police during questioning, and the reasons for having responded in the way they did. The participants also completed questionnaires relating to offending, personality and self‐esteem. Results. One‐quarter (25%) of the participants stated that they had in the past been interrogated by the police in relation to a suspected offence, of whom 59% said they had confessed. A small minority of those interrogated (3.7%; 1% of the total sample) claimed to have made false confessions to the police, whereas 10% claimed to have made false confessions to teachers or parents. Males were significantly more likely to report false confessions than females. False confessions and false denials were significantly associated with antisocial personality traits, with Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Psychoticism being the single best predictor. Those participants who made true confessions and true denials were most normal in their personality. Conclusions. Personality is a significant predictor of who makes false confessions and false denials.     

Law and Speed: Asylum Appeals and the Techniques and Consequences of Legal Quickening

This article examines how a politics of speed is manifest in a legal context via a detailed ethnography of the French National Court of Asylum (CNDA). It identifies the temporal, spatial, and organizational ordering techniques that characterize asylum appeals in France and discusses the consequences of these techniques for the way in which the appeal process is experienced by legal decision makers and subjects. It reveals adverse impacts of legal quickening on legal quality, in particular through identifying: ‘cracks’ in the performance of legal roles like lawyer and judge that begin to appear when law is executed rapidly and repetitively; dwindling opportunities to demonstrate and experience respect between parties; and the ‘thinning-out’ of legal process, as heuristics rather than deliberation come to dominate legal reasoning. The article contributes to a burgeoning body of socio-legal literature on law and time by establishing the negative impact of excessive legal quickening on role performance, respect, and legal quality.     

Contract Rights and Remedies,and the Divergence between Law and Morality*

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate in the philosophical and jurisprudential literature regarding the nature and possibility of Contract theory. On one hand, are those who argue (or assume) that there is, or should be, a single, general, universal theory of Contract Law, one applicable to all jurisdictions and all times. On the other hand, are those who assert that Contract theory should be localized to particular times and places, perhaps even with different theories for different types of agreements. This article considers one facet of this debate: evaluating the relevance of the fact that the remedies available for breach of contract can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. This wide variation in remedies for breach of a (contractual) promise is one central difference between promises in morality and enforceable agreements in law. The article asserts that variation of remedies strongly supports the conclusion that there is (and can be) no general, universal theory of Contract Law.     

Longitudinal and cross-sectional data collection and analysis in the study of crime and delinquency

In response to recent debates about the utility of longitudinal as opposed to cross-sectional designs in the study of crime and delinquency, we examine empirical evidence on the extent to which longitudinal and cross-sectional data may be used interchangeably without altering substantive conclusions. We distinguish between longitudinal or cross-sectional methods of data collection and longitudinal or cross-sectional data, and acknowledge that longitudinal data may be collected by using a cross-sectional method. We examine the extent to which longitudinal data collected cross-sectionally are compatible with longitudinal data collected in a prospective longitudinal design. We then compare correlations and predictive models that use cross-sectional and longitudinal data to study the same substantive problem. We conclude with an examination of the issue of temporal order as a test of competing hypotheses. We find that longitudinal data collected in a cross-sectional design do not consistently produce the same results as longitudinal data collected in a prospective longitudinal design, and that longitudinal and cross-sectional data do not consistently yield the same substantive results in correlation and prediction models. Longitudinal data allow us to generate strong tests of competing hypotheses which would be impossible without longitudinal data. We conclude that cross-sectional data, or longitudinal data collected in cross-sectional designs, are inadequate substitutes for prospectively collected longitudinal data in the study of crime and delinquency.