Call for Papers: Advances in Assessment and Treatment of Forensic Populations

Law and Human Behavior -     

Call for Papers: Advances in Assessment and Treatment of Forensic Populations

Law and Human Behavior -     

A Level Playing Field: Conceptualizing an Empowering Research Framework for Criminologists Who Engage with Marginalized Communities

Some criminologists use empowering research approaches but fail to deliver on their promise to empower marginalized populations. This article explores the origins of such failures, identifies deficit perspectives as the main culprit, and explains how deficit narratives in participatory research advance marginalization processes. Distinguishing key channels of power in research—power of knowledge, power to self-direct, and power of socio-political influence—reveals that (contrary to deficit discourses) marginalized social groups are not powerless, criminologists wield less socio-political influence than frequently suggested, and power in research relationships distributes inconsistently, incongruently, and heterogeneously. To counteract deficit thinking, empowerment is defined from a counter-imperialist perspective. Given that the opposite of imperialism is self-determination and that the concept of empowerment origins in self-determination theory, the latter is used to conceptualize an empowering research framework, which is designed to enhance knowledge of all research parties and meet their need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.     

Missing Data Problems in Criminological Research: Two Case Studies

This paper considers the problem of missing data in two circumstances commonly confronted by criminologists. In the first circumstance, there is missing data due to subject attrition—some cases drop out of a study. In this context, analysts are frequently interested in examining the association between an independent variable measured at time t(x _t ) and an outcome variable that is measured at time t + 1(y _t + 1); the problem is that the outcome variable is only observed for those cases which do not drop out of the study. In the second circumstance there is missing data on an independent variable of interest for typical reasons (i.e., the respondent did not wish to answer a question or could not be located). In this case, researchers are interested in estimating the association between the independent variable with missing data and an outcome variable that is fully observed. Criminologists often handle these two missing data problems by conducting analyses on the subsample of observations with complete data. In this paper, we explore this problem with two case studies and we then illustrate the use of methods that directly address the uncertainty produced by missing data.     

Conducting Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Through a Healing-Informed Approach with System-Involved Latinas

Latina girls are disproportionately represented in the US juvenile justice system (Freiburger and Burke 2011). Almost all girls involved with juvenile justice report some form of emotional, physical or sexual abuse prior to interactions with the juvenile justice system; with over 60% of girls reporting trauma before the age of 5 (Dierkhising et al. 2013). For Latina girls, juvenile detention is associated with early death as Latina girls who have been detained are nine times more likely to die by the age of 29 than the general non-detained population (Teplin et al. 2014). The stark reality faced by system-involved Latinas calls for innovative solutions.In 2015, the National Compadres Network (NCN), with over 30 years of work embedded in the Chicano/Latino and Indigenous communities in California, developed a project to respond to the disparities in the juvenile justice system faced by Latina girls. Through this project, the NCN used a healing-informed curriculum (Xinachtli) and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) to engage Latina system-involved girls as equal partners to inform detention alternatives and reform.This paper will describe these efforts, provide insights from the YPAR facilitators and youth researchers, and provide recommendations for other community-based facilitators who are considering utilizing YPAR through a healing-informed approach within their own work with Latina girls.     

Juvenile Delinquency in the USSR: A Criminological Survey

This article examines some statistical data concerning juvenile delinquency in the USSR, analyzes social and demographic characteristics of juvenile delinquents, and describes special methods of preventing and combating juvenile delinquency in the USSR.

In those cases when the article does not contain direct references to the source of the data, the author cites the results of various research studies which are in his possession.     

Responding to the Structural Violence of Migrant Domestic Work: Insights from Participatory Action Research with Migrant Caregivers in Canada

This study explores international domestic workers’ response to employer abuse and exploitation following changes to Canada’s Live-in-Caregiver Program in 2014. This research followed an interpretive policy analysis research design, using feminist, participatory, and action research methods. University-based researchers, advocates, and peer researchers collaborated to develop and implement the project’s research and advocacy goals. Thirty-one caregivers in Toronto and Calgary participated in individual and/or focus group interviews to discuss access to permanent residence, working conditions and forms of support. Many shared examples of labor exploitation and psychological hardship due to precarious work conditions and long periods of family separation. Barriers to accessing services and fear of losing status led the majority of caregivers to rely primarily on informal networks for mutual aid and support. This paper identifies how changes in Canada’s temporary foreign worker program for live-in-caregivers exacerbates the structural violence of migrant care work, where the risk for abuse, exploitation, and risk of losing status is normalized. Migrant caregivers accept the precarious work conditions with the promise of permanent residence and the chance to improve their lives for themselves and their children. Towards envisioning improvements in social service delivery, our research highlighted the need for social services to increase outreach and safety planning for migrant workers who are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and the loss of legal immigration status. Our research also supports grassroots advocacy to call for all migrant workers to be granted permanent resident status upon arrival to ameliorate the structural violence of migrant labor.     

Intersectional Criminology: Interrogating Identity and Power in Criminological Research and Theory

Intersectional criminology is a theoretical approach that necessitates a critical reflection on the impact of interconnected identities and statuses of individuals and groups in relation to their experiences with crime, the social control of crime, and any crime-related issues. This approach is grounded in intersectionality, a concept developed from the tenets of women of color feminist theory and activism. To demonstrate how intersectionality is useful in criminology, this article reviews a sampling of feminist and critical research conducted on Black girls’ and women’s experiences with crime, victimization, and criminal legal system processes. This research demonstrates the interlaced social impacts of race, gender, femininity/masculinity ideals, sexuality, and socioeconomic class. This article also provides a basis for widely deploying an intersectional approach throughout the field of criminology across all social identities and statuses.     

Ethnographic Methods in Criminological Research: Rationale,Reprise, and Warning

Use in criminological research of observation, semi-structured interviewing, and analysis of personal documents has been commonplace for more than a century. These research techniques can be employed to develop and test theoretical explanations and to examine the process of policy implementation. This paper briefly explicates how they were used in studies of the decision making and criminal careers of street-level thieves and hustlers, to test theoretical notions about the delegitimantion effects of white-collar crime, and to examine the implementation of a crackdown campaign by Australian tax authorities direct at crash transactions in the small building and construction industry. Investigations may profit, however, from awareness of recurrent challenges in the use of ethnographic methods before launching research of this type.     

Toward a Refinement of Purpose in Comparative Criminological Research: Research Site Selection in Focus

This paper draws on a distinction between two purposes of comparative research: (1) testing the universality of a proposition (theory testing) and (2) specification of a proposition (theory construction). These two distinct activities have been inadvertently mixed in comparative criminology thereby causing a great deal of confusion. The present paper argues that attention by comparative researchers to this distinction between theory testing and theory construction will contribute to the resolution of one major methodological problem: that of research site selection. We suggest that in light of the distinction drawn, the testing of the universality of a proposition is most appropriately done in research comparing Western and non-Western nations (“dissimilar design”). But comparative research aimed at the specification of a proposition is best conducted by comparing Western nations (“similar design”).     

Cultural Criminology and Sex Work: Resisting Regulation through Radical Democracy and Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Taking a feminist cultural criminological analysis to the regulation of sex work in the United Kingdom, this paper argues against the dominant deviancy and the increasingly abolitionist criminal justice model for regulating sex work. The paper begins by offering a critique of the dominant regulatory regimes which have operated since the Victorian era, amended in part in the 1950s with Wolfenden, and currently being reinscribed with the Home Office strategy on prostitution and various pieces of legislation. The focus is specifically upon research with female sex workers and the usefulness of using Participatory Action research methodologies (PAR) with sex workers, agencies, and policy makers in order to foreground the diverse voices and experiences of sex workers, challenge the current focus on abolitionist criminal justice regimes and outcomes, and offer an alternative framework for a cultural materialist analysis of sex work, drawing upon the work of Nancy Fraser.     

Lost in Translation: Doing (And Not Doing) Ethnographic Research in Village India

This paper is a reflection on the difficulties of conducting criminological research in rural India. It tells the story of two periods of ethnographic fieldwork (1999 and 2002) conducted in one North Indian village (pseudonym: Nagaria). This article is written in the ‘tales from the field’ narrative tradition, relying primarily on my own fieldwork experience and later reflections, and intentionally making little reference to the methodological literature. Much of the paper - particularly the fieldwork extracts - is written in the ‘ethnographic present’. A dramaturgical approach is adopted (Goffman 1959), with a focus on the ways in which social interaction may be understood as performance. Theatrical terminology is used to underscore the ways in which field relationships may be stage managed. Contrary to conventional notions of the power of the researcher, in this tale from the field it becomes clear that the superior acting skills of gatekeepers and key informants led to the upstaging of this ethnographer.

The Criminological Enterprise in Europe and the United States: A Contextual Exploration

European criminology obviously means more than simply the collaborative efforts (on drugs, restorative justice, youth gangs) between researchers and scholars from Europe. In this essay, the author compares and contrasts American criminology with criminology in Europe (as it exists in individual countries), without aiming for the essence of European criminology. She points to differences between the US and Europe with regard to the criminological enterprise (such as history, scale, degree of institutionalisation, accessibility, diversity in theory and method, the critical and self-reflexive stance, and focal research questions), and to the differences in doing science, doing justice, and doing crime. American criminology is a powerful influence in Europe, although there may be a tendency to overestimate the importance of American criminology, because of the dominance of English-language publications. American criminology has made many positive contributions to the field of the study of law, crime and social control, and it continues to do so. However, if one defines the essence of American criminology as being policy-oriented, methodologically-driven, and lacking theoretical lustre, diversity, and critical edge, then the fear of Americanisation of European criminology is well-placed. It is not the criminological enterprise of the US per se, but rather the notion of Americanisation which is really at issue here.     

环境污染诉讼:原告无法完成的举证——一起村民诉化工厂污染案的田野调查

自从相关法律规定环境污染民事诉讼实行举证责任倒置和因果关系推定,看似减轻了原告的举证责任,但一起村民诉化工厂污染损害的个案却让潜伏在环境污染诉讼中的一个紧迫问题浮出水面:举证责任倒置和因果关系推定的前提是原告完成相当程度的举证;那么,原告举出何种证据才算完成了举证责任?为解决原告无法完成举证的难题,应当降低原告完成举证责任的标准:只要原告提供污染损害的经验事实即可,在此基础上,由法官形成自由心证来确定污染行为和损害事实的有无。     

Racial Discrimination and Hirschi's Criminological Classic: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge

In Causes of Delinquency, Travis Hirschi attempted to falsify the strain theory claim that racial discrimination might contribute to the delinquency of African American youths. A reanalysis of the Richmond Youth Project data used in his classic study, however, reveals that perceived racial discrimination is a robust predictor of delinquent involvement. This finding suggests that Hirschi missed a historic opportunity to focus the attention of a generation of criminologists on how the unique experiences of African Americans may shape their criminality. Given the salience of perceived racial bias in the lives of many African Americans, the subsequent neglect by scholars of discrimination as a potential source of crime is a remarkable omission—so much so that it constitutes a significant and as yet untold chapter in the sociology of knowledge.