Crime and punishment: an expressive voting view

Incarceration rates in many countries (the US and Australia among them) have risen spectacularly over the last twenty years and are only partially explicable by increases in crime rates. Moreover, in some countries where crime rates have shown a comparable time-path, incarceration rates have not shown the same spectacular increase. The aim of this paper is to explore the politics of punishment. The claim is that the US and Australian experiences are best understood in terms of political considerations; and that this fact lends some support to the “expressive” as distinct from the “interest” approach to electoral behaviour.

A comparison of the Russian and Canadian experiences with defining “organized crime”

The dangers stemming from organized crime have been widely acknowledged in the academic literature, government reports, as well as in popular discourse. This article focuses on the legislative efforts to define “organized crime” undertaken in Russia and Canada. Neither country has yet devised a satisfactory legislative definition of the varied phenomenon that is organized crime. Definitions in both jurisdictions are problematic due to their sweeping scope and insufficient delineation of a zone of risk for the accused as well as law enforcement officials. However, striking a proper balance between security concerns and human and civil rights in both countries will be problematic due to constant political pressure to “get tough on crime” as well as due to the amorphous nature of the phenomenon of organized crime.

Revisiting Patriarchy: Its Conceptualization and Operationalization in Criminology

In recent decades, patriarchy has increasingly been posited as an explanation for gender differences in crime and victimization. While researchers frequently allude to the “patriarchal structure of society” or to “male domination” when discussing their theoretical perspective or findings, rarely do they articulate their conceptualization of the term. As a result, patriarchy has been used as an explanatory wild card that lacks specificity and is purported to both increase and decrease female crime and delinquency. In this paper we examine the conceptualization of patriarchy in criminological theory and research, discuss why the failure to clearly conceptualize this construct is problematic, and offer potential avenues for operationalizing patriarchy with the goal of facilitating future research on gender differences in crime.

---

The Violence of Persuasive Argument: Using Durkheim to Outline a Latent Barrier to a Nonviolent Criminology

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of a form of violence that represents a potential barrier to the development of a nonviolent criminology. Using several contentions drawn from Emile Durkheim’s theory of crime and punishment, it is proposed that persuasive arguments entail a component of violence where they contradict strong collective sentiments. The general nature and normality of this form of violence are outlined. In addition, it is suggested that although neglect of this violence may allow progressive researchers to maintain nonviolent self-conceptions, such neglect also may serve the interests of “intellectuals” while undermining the power of “nonintellectuals.” The violence of persuasive argument thus constitutes a problematic paradox for scholars who embrace nonviolence and equitable distributions of power.

---

Black Mist and White Collars: Economic Crime in the United States and Japan

Comparative studies of crime have persistently challenged and daunted criminology scholars. For criminologists studying Japan, interest has traditionally been focused on the country’s much-heralded low crime rate. The current study examines white-collar lawbreaking in both the United States and Japan, focusing on similarities and differences in culture, law, criminal justice system response, corporate governance, and regulation. The study concludes that if Japan’s low crime rate is an enigma to criminologists, then its ample amounts of white-collar and corporate crime appear that much more puzzling. Given that the depth of the problem of white-collar crime goes far beyond adjudicated cases, Japan’s remarkably low rate of common crime is likely eclipsed by its rate of white-collar and corporate crime. The study concludes that the different legal and cultural contexts of the “law in inaction” go far in explaining the official nonrecognition of white-collar and corporate crime in both the United States and Japan.

Self-control Depletion and the General Theory of Crime

Criminological research on self-control focuses mainly on self-control failure. Such research has not, however, investigated the consequences of exercising self-control for the individual doing so. The present study investigates this issue within the framework of both criminological self-control theory and research on self-control depletion from social psychology, which depicts self-control as akin to a “muscle” that is “depletable” by prior use [Muraven and Baumeister (2000) Psycholog Bull 126:247–259]. Results are presented from a laboratory experiment in which students have the opportunity to cheat. Both “trait self-control,” as measured by the Grasmick et al. [(1993) J Res Crime Delinq 30:5–29] self-control inventory, and “self-control depletion” independently predicted cheating. The implications of these findings are explored for criminological perspectives on self-control and offender decision-making.

Crime and Residential Choice: A Neighborhood Level Analysis of the Impact of Crime on Housing Prices

Crime serves as an important catalyst for change in the socio-economic composition of communities. While such change occurs over a long period of time, crime is capitalized into local housing markets quickly and thus provides an early indicator of neighborhood transition. Using hedonic regression, we quantify this “intangible cost” of crime and extend the crime-housing price literature in several important ways. First, we disaggregate crime to the census tract level. Second, using longitudinal data, we examine changes in crime in addition to the neighborhood levels of crime. Third, we differentiate between the effects of property crime and violent crime. Fourth, we also disaggregate our sample into groups based on per capita income of the census tract. Finally, we show that it is vital to account for the measurement error that is endemic in reported crime statistics. We address this with an instrumental variable approach. Our results indicate that the average impacts of crime rates on house prices are misleading. We find that crime is capitalized at different rates for poor, middle class and wealthy neighborhoods and that violent crime imparts the greatest cost.

The power few: experimental criminology and the reduction of harm

The promise of experimental criminology is finding ways to reduce harm from crime and injustice. The problem of experimental criminology is that so few experiments produce evidence of big effects from the interventions they test. One solution to this problem may be concentrating scarce resources for experiments on the “power few:” the small percentage of places, victims, offenders, police officers or other units in any distribution of crime or injustice which produces the greatest amount of harm. By increasing the homogeneity and base rates of the samples enrolled in each experiment, the power few hypothesis predicts increased statistical power to detect program effects. With greater investment of resources, and possibly less variant responses to greater dosages of intervention—especially interventions of support, as distinct from punishment—we may also increase our chances of finding politically acceptable interventions that will work.

Poverty and Peacemaking Criminology: Beyond Mainstream Criminology

Mainstream criminology has traditionally focused on poverty as an isolated variable, whose effects are typically explored by inserting a limited measure of this variable in a multivariate analysis. Peacemaking criminology, however, offers an alternative perspective. In this paradigm, poverty is seen as a source of suffering and, to a degree, a “crime” in and of itself. Furthermore, the suffering poverty engenders is an enveloping social experience that exposes its victims to concentrated disadvantage—or, to use Jonathan Kozol’s (1991) term, to a range of “savage inequalities.” Thus, poverty is best understood not as an isolated variable, but as a master status of fundamental social reality that subjects people to lives filled with suffering—suffering that can engender criminal behavior. From a peacemaking perspective, a key avenue for preventing crime is, in the short run, diminishing the suffering poverty causes and, in the long run, embracing social policies that reduce the prevalence of economic suffering in contemporary society.

---

The entrepreneurial puzzle: explaining the gender gap

We document the substantial gender gap that exists among university scientists with regard to entrepreneurial activity using a variety of measures and explore factors leading to the disparity. We focus particularly on the biomedical sciences. The contextual explanation that women are under-represented in the types of positions from which faculty typically launch entrepreneurial activity is the most obvious. But the data suggest that for the biomedical sciences context is not sufficient in explaining the entrepreneurial gap. We look elsewhere to factors affecting supply and factors affecting demand. The former include gender differences in attitudes towards risk, competition, “selling” of “science,” type of research and geographic location. The latter include the role of networks, preferences of venture capitalists and “gender discounting.” We explore the associated hypotheses. We provide few tests and conclude that the research agenda is wide open and interesting.

Population Size, Change, and Crime in U.S. Cities

The sometimes noted contradiction between cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships concerning city population size and crime rates is reexamined using more complex analytic procedures, controlling for extraneous variables, and allowing for non-monotonic relationships. Instead of a simple cross-sectional relationship between population size and crime rates, the more sophisticated analysis reveals either no association or a quadratic relationship. Similarly, instead of a simple lack of longitudinal relationship or a negative one, the more complicated analysis shows a non-monotonic pattern for three of six offenses. However, we contend that these divergent patterns for cross-sectional relative to longitudinal data are not necessarily indicative of an “anomaly.” Instead, they represent different aspects of a dynamic process in need of more extensive theorizing. Finally, the cross-sectional results showing that city size and crime rates are either not linked or when linked are in a non-monotonic pattern call into question one of the accepted relationships in criminology that have long guided thinking about crime.

Hate Crime and the Privatization of Political Responsibility: Protecting Queer Citizens in the United States?

My purpose in this article is to address issues that arise with the emergence of “hate crime” law as a response to violence against historically subordinated groups, with particular reference to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered (henceforth “GLBT”), and otherwise queer citizens. The specific jurisdictional context of my reflection is the USA but the issues I raise have significance beyond that context. Increasingly in recent years hate crime legislation has been adopted or proposed in the US as well as other jurisdictions as a response to bigotry and violence directed against minority groups in multi-cultural societies. In 2006 in the UK, proposals to outlaw “incitement to religious hatred” were hotly debated. In 2008 demands are being made to extend the ‘incitement laws’ to include incitement to homophobic hatred. In 2007 in the US the Senate and House of Representatives in Washington DC passed an Act, which some described as the Matthew Shepard Act, to promote and enhance the use of the criminal law against perpetrators of crimes motivated by hatred based on perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. Ultimately the Act failed to become law. The debates in the UK and US provide the backdrop against which I want to examine the arguments for and against hate crime legislation, both generally and with specific application to queer citizens. This require us to think again about the relation of queer citizens to the state, the reach of political equality and human rights, and the aims and limits of the criminal law and system of “criminal justice”.

The incantations of the EU organised crime policy making

This article provides an analysis of the knowledge base of organised crime assessments and policy making in the European Union. It is argued that the current European organised crime (threat) assessments are no reliable and relevant instruments to make meaningful statements about organised crime. The data collection system of the current assessments is defective and to a large extent dependant on what Member States decide to disclose and not based on clear developed concepts, definitions and methods. There is no discernable “counting unit” as a basis for deducing threats or risks. More fundamental: the definition or criteria list used is defective, providing no basis for further deductions or conclusions. The conclusions of the open versions of the European reports are of a very general nature, not substantially different from what can be found in open sources. Though European decision making claims to be founded on these assessments, it looks more like a ritual incantation than a knowledge based process.

---

The prosecution of Chinese organized crime groups: the Sister Ping case and its lessons

This article analyzes the investigation and prosecution of contemporary Chinese criminal organizations through the study of one major human smuggling case: the trial of “Sister Ping.” Data were obtained from media reports, court documents, and from interviews with parties familiar with the case. It is argued that modern human smuggling groups such as the one run by Sister Ping are informal and decentralized organizations against which the RICO statute may be of little use.

Moral Convictions Often Override Concerns About Procedural Fairness: A Reply to Napier and Tyler

Napier and Tyler (this issue) question whether moral convictions about outcomes really override the influence of procedural fairness (PF) on fairness judgments and decision acceptance. The empirical answer to this question is “yes.” When people have strong moral convictions about outcomes, perceptions of outcome fairness and decision acceptance are primarily shaped by whether the morally “correct” outcomes are achieved. Pre-decision perceptions of PF have surprisingly little or no effect on these judgments. That said, pre-outcome perceptions of PF sometimes predict post-outcome perceptions of PF, even when people have morally vested outcome preferences. We provide further details supporting the validity and superiority of our data analytic approach and argue that our original conclusions were justified.

Babble: A Theater in Justice and Discourse

The world studied by empirical criminal justice research is babble—a congeries of voices whose meanings represent many normative worlds. Our research designs provide a frame for the babble, and our statistics codify and simplify it. We provide analytic portraits of it and, using the substantive language of crime control, give those portraits meaning. Yet, those meanings are located in a crime control discourse that de-legitimizes and destroys those normative worlds. This paper, an interpretive montage, is a collection of fractured narratives assembled to show that interpretation has something to offer the way we think about knowledge production in the field of criminal justice. It is also a cautionary tale to students in criminal justice, to remember that our scientific abstractions are an abstraction from the underlying realities of human life, not a “deeper” or in some way more real understanding. Our aim is to move the babble—the humanity from which the voices emerge—back into the foreground of justice research.

---

Gustav Shpet and the Semiotics of ‘Living Discourse’

Semioticians traditionally honor Russian linguistics of the early 20th century, and study Jakobson, Vinogradov, Vinokur or the early Trubetzkoy. They do, however, seldom consider Russian philosophers of the same period. Gustav Shpet is an important representative of Russian philosophers in discussion with Hegel, Neo-Kantian thinkers and contemporaries in Russia and abroad, among them Edmund Husserl, originator of transcendental phenomenology. Shpet introduced Husserl’s phenomenology in Russia and expanded those ideas in his 1914 Appearance and Sense. A triangle “Hegel—Husserl—semiotics” emerged where Shpet emphasized the concept of discourse in phenomenology: a philosophical challenge to modern semiotics. Significant portions of the material in this paper were originally prepared for publication in a chapter contributed to the volume A History of Russian Philosophy, 1830–1930, ed. Gary Hamburg and Randall Poole (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and are used here in a different context with the kind permission of that publisher.

---

Dual Arrest and Other Unintended Consequences of Mandatory Arrest in New York City: A Brief Report

In jurisdictions across the United States, the mandated arrest of individuals perpetrating domestic violence crimes termed “mandatory arrest” or “pro-arrest” policies has become a key policy solution to the issue of domestic violence. The purposes of the policies are to standardize the police response to, and increase the number of, arrests stemming from domestic violence incidents by removing or reducing police discretion to arrest. In 1994, the New York state legislature passed the Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act, which contained provisions enacting a mandatory arrest statute. Using information from 183 callers to a telephone helpline for victims of domestic violence, we describe four unintended consequences of the policy: “unwanted,” “dual,” “retaliatory,” and “no” arrest. Bi- and multivariate analyses are used to identify victim and perpetrator sociodemographic, situational, and legal factors associated with each arrest type. Results are discussed in the context of the effects of mandatory arrest policies and minimizing problems associated with it in the future.

A taxonomy of collaborative governance: a guide to understanding the diversity of international and domestic conservation accords

Partially in response to the increasing complexity of governance structures in the international environmental arena, international scholars have adopted a distinction between “Type 1” and “Type 2” international agreements. The former refer to agreements between governments, whereas the latter refer to agreements between governments and nonstate actors. While useful, this distinction offers only a partial taxonomy of the diversity of collaborative governance, and fails to incorporate “Type 3” dynamics among nonstate actors. As an initial attempt at sorting out the wide array of collaborative governance structures both domestically and across international borders, we propose a 3 × 3 matrix based on two typologies, one institutional (governmental, collaborative, nonstate), the other geopolitical (domestic, transborder, interstate/transnational). The result is a classification system of nine types of both domestic and international governance. In addition to identifying fundamental differences among the myriad forms of governance, the matrix reveals how the “softening of sovereignty” occurs in practice.