Race,Crime, and Criminal Justice

Fifty years ago, the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under President Johnson did not frequently mention race and ethnicity in its discussion of and recommendations for the criminal justice system, but it did have a lot to say about race and crime. Through the use of arrest rates to measure racial differentials in criminal involvement, the Commission concluded that Blacks commit more crime as a consequence of Black people living in greater numbers in criminogenic “slum” conditions. To address racial differences, the Commission favored the Great Society programs of Johnson's War on Poverty. Contemporary criminologists continue to debate the racial distribution of crime, the causes of crimes, and the best policies to reduce crime and racial differentials. The Commission did not anticipate the current debate among scholars regarding how much racial disproportionality exists in the criminal justice system and its causes and consequences. The policies that led to mass incarceration have been significant drivers of continued criminal justice racial disparity. Those policies are inconsistent with the recommendation in The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967), upending the pursuit of a more fair and just system.     

虚拟犯罪刑事司法的前瞻性探讨

随着互联网的普及以及移动网络终端的广泛应用,虚拟化的角色定义与参与模式在商品服务、社交交流、媒体传播、网络安全等新兴领域方兴未艾。网络本身的安全问题以及虚拟化带来的道德、法律风险得到社会的关注,然而当前社会治理理念和司法研究与实践相对迟滞,未能就虚拟领域犯罪构建行之有效且具有一定前瞻性的规制体系。构建对虚拟犯罪的刑事司法规制,将是法律理论探讨和司法实践的重心。     

Aquatic Crime: A New Horizon in Criminal Justice Research

This article focuses upon a relatively unexplored area of criminal activity, namely, aquatic or water based criminal activity. The specific concern is the need to focus upon the vast domain of water, engulfing over two-thirds of the earth's surface, in understanding and expaining many forms of intranational and international criminality. Emphasis is placed upon the need for comprehensive research in order to fill a void in criminological theory and to generate a better understanding of the potential of aquatic environments in promoting and concealing criminal activity. Moreover, comprehensive research is essential in order to promote a realistic assessment of the nature and extent of aquatic crime and to improve our ability to effectively combat such activity.     

Ethnic Minorities, Social Integration and Crime

This article first discusses various dimensions of the social integration of minorities into society. The Netherlands is taken as an example, although research from other countries (such as the US and Sweden) is also taken into consideration. Useful concepts in this regard include the level to which these groups have social, informative and cultural capital that can help them to integrate into the dominant society. The second part considers the theoretical links between integration and criminal behaviour. The author assumes that the fundamental causal processes that lead to the development of criminality and other negative behaviour are independent of country of origin, ethnic group or the country of residence. In other words – that these processes, as they emerge in social control theory, have a universal character. In the second place, she assumes that differences in crime between ethnic groups are linked to group differences in socio-economic integration in the host country and in culture-related variables. Furthermore, there are also differences in the criminality of allochtonous youth within ethnic groups. These are similarly assumed to be linked to differences in commitment to social institutions such as family and school and to differences in accepting specific Western norms and values.     

Prevention,Crime Control or Cash? Public Preferences Towards Criminal Justice Spending Priorities

We propose and test a new methodology to assess the public’s criminal justice spending priorities. Respondents are asked to trade‐off alternative crime prevention and control policies as well as a potential tax rebate. In a nationally representative sample, we found overwhelming support for increased spending on youth prevention, drug treatment for nonviolent offenders, and police. However, the median respondent would not allocate any new money to building more prisons and would not request a tax rebate if the money were spent on youth prevention, drug treatment, or police. At the margin, we estimate the public would receive $3.07 in perceived value by spending $1.00 on youth prevention; $1.86 in value for every dollar spent on drug treatment; and $1.76 for a dollar spent on police. However, the public would not spend more on prisons, deriving only 71 cents in value for every tax dollar spent.     

Corruption as an International Crime and Crime against Humanity: An Outline of Supplementary Criminal Justice Policies

Transnational corruption has in recent years been elevated toan international offence but in practical terms it is not consideredserious enough in order for heads of state or cabinet membersto be prosecuted in foreign jurisdictions. There is evidenceto suggest that, in certain cases, corruption may take the formof a crime against humanity. This possibility extends significantlythe jurisdictional ambit of national courts and empowers theInternational Criminal Court to consider a case. Moreover, therestorative component of such criminal prosecutions should aimat restoring, through civil mechanisms, the funds illegallyappropriated to their rightful recipients, the defrauded localpopulations, under the principle of self-determination.     

Stocktaking after two sessions of the commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

B.A., Victoria University of Wellington 1964; LL.B., Victoria University of Wellington 1964; LL.M., Victoria University of Wellington 1967; LL.M., Columbia University 1968; J.S.D., Columbia University 1972. Professor Clark was a member of the former United Nations Committee on Crime Prevention and Control and represented New Zealand as an observer at the first two meetings of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Any views expressed here are his own.See generally Roger S. Clark,United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Program: Formulation of Standards and Efforts at Their Implementation (forthcoming 1994).     

Distributive Justice and Crime

The heavy concentration of crime on a few areas, and the concentration on the chronically victimised within those areas, together illustrate the gross inequality of the risk of crime victimisation. This inequality also characterises other hazards of life. Criminology has too often reduced the problem of crime to the problem of the offender. Recognising crime hazard as an issue of distributive justice requires a different mind set. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 recognises the drivers of crime as lying outside criminal justice, but does not put in place a panhazard analysis of the kind required, community safety being presented as a type of crime prevention. Movement towards panhazard thinking may well be somewhat facilitated by the workingthrough of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, actions flowing from section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act, and a reconsideration of how emergency services might work.