Crime in Asia: Toward a Better Future

There are two fundamental ways to reduce crime: fix crime prevention weaknesses or build on crime prevention strengths. Three crime prevention strengths that have delivered most Asian societies comparatively low and falling levels of violence are considered: (1) war reduction as a path to reduction of common criminal violence; (2) comparatively low levels of inequality; (3) comparatively low ratios of stigmatizing to reintegrative social control that respects human dignity. Transformative justice that addresses the root causes of wars, reduces inequalities of wealth and power, and empowers communities to do their own restorative justice are paths considered for building a nonviolent Asian future.     

Hurricane Katrina Victimization as a State Crime of Omission

Several popular narratives assign responsibility to a host of political officials on the local, state, and federal levels for the excess human suffering stemming from Hurricane Katrina. The three main goals of this article are to (1) summarize these claims and situate them within the burgeoning literature on state crime in criminology, (2) discern what victims of the hurricane subjectively identify as the source(s) of their victimization, and (3) compare the latter and the former in order to demonstrate the appropriateness of conceptualizing the excess suffering of Hurricane Katrina victims as a state crime of omission. We explore these three subjects through documentary analysis and interviews with thirteen victims of Hurricane Katrina. Major findings are that all of the interviewees express profound dissatisfaction with various state actions and inactions before, during, and after Katrina in ways consistent with the documentary and polling data. This constellation of similar claims and evidence along with the obvious social injury caused by multiple state failures provide the basis for conceptualizing governmental negligence in the context of Katrina as a state crime of omission.

---

侵犯著作权罪之犯罪未遂形态研究

侵犯著作权罪属于行为犯、情节犯.作为有自身特殊性的侵犯著作权罪存在犯罪未遂形态,但必须在修正后的"情节严重"前提下进行认定.侵犯著作权罪规制了四种可以对应于著作权法的实行行为:复制行为、发行行为、出租行为与信息网络传播行为.可以依据著作权法的理解来认定这四种实行行为的"着手"与"未得逞",从而认定其犯罪未遂形态.     

The Seriousness of Crime Revisited: Have Attitudes Toward White-Collar Crime Changed?

Social commentators have often observed that the public is indifferent to white-collar criminality. However, the growing attention that white-collar crime has received in recent years raises the possibility of changes in the public's perceptions of such violations. By replicating Rossi et al.'s survey in 1972 of the seriousness of 140 offenses, the present research presents data indicating that white-collar crime has increased in seriousness more than any other offense category, but that it is still viewed as less serious than most other forms of illegality. When different types of white-collar crime were analyzed, we found considerable variation in ratings, with high a degree of seriousness attributed to offenses involving physical harm. Further, while all categories of white-collar criminality increased in seriousness, attitudinal changes have been particularly apparent toward two types, Violent and Corporate Price-Fixing.     

On Victimology and Victimization

Victimology is, in literal translation, "the science of the victim" (from the Latin victima). Having recently been developed to a considerable degree in many countries of the world, victimology has assembled interesting empirical data and developed a number of theoretical propositions on the personality and behavior of persons who have suffered from crimes, their relationships with the criminals, and the role of the victim in the genesis of the crime. At the same time, sufficient clarity does not exist on the matter of the subject area of victimology, its relationship to disciplines on which it abuts, and the theoretical foundations and principal lines of victimological research. Therefore the question of what constitutes victimology remains pressing, and the answer to it cannot be unambiguous, particularly if one considers the fundamental difference between bourgeois and socialist criminology.     

Unemployment and Crime: Toward Resolving the Paradox

While official crime statistics from many countries show that unemployed people have high crime rates and that communities with a lot of unemployment experience a lot of crime, this cross-sectional relationship is very often not found in time-series studies of unemployment and crime. In Australia there have been no individual-level or cross-sectional studies of unemployment and adult crime which have failed to find a positive relationship and no time-series which have supported a positive relationship. Consistent with this pattern, a time series of homicide from 1921 to 1987 in Australia reveals no significant unemployment effect. A theoretical resolution of this apparent paradox is advanced in terms of the effect of female employment on crime in a partriarchal society. Crime is posited as a function of both total unemployment and female employment. When female employment is added to the model, it has a strong positive effect on homicide, and unemployment also assumes a strong positive effect.     

政府犯罪：研究国家国际犯罪的新视角

基于国际社会面对"国家犯罪"与国家刑事责任的争论,简要介绍政府犯罪观念产生的背景、初步概念、独立性及政府刑事责任双罚制;着重分析政府犯罪与国家犯罪的关系;得出尽管政府在国家不法行为和国际犯罪中扮演重要的角色,但政府犯罪不能完全等同于国家犯罪这一结论.在现有的国家责任体系中,建立政府刑事责任制度,具有法理和实践层面的可行性,符合国际社会现实状况.     

Law,the State,and the Dialectics of State Crime

Drawing on material from a study of civil society and state crime in six countries, this article reflects on two themes from Chambliss’s work: the debate between state-centred and more pluralistic views of law, and the “dialectical” approach to the analysis of state crime. It argues for a more pluralistic approach to law than Chambliss and Seidman adopted in Law Order and Power, along with a broader approach to the definition of state crime as a form of deviant behaviour. Case studies from the civil society research illustrate how the strategies adopted by organizations challenging state practices can be understood in terms of an interplay between different forms of law. With some qualifications, we support Chambliss’s dialectical approach, and attempt to clarify just what the term “dialectical” means. Finally we bring together the two strands of the argument to propose an approach to state crime founded on “dialectical legal pluralism”.     

Right,Crime, and Court: Toward a Unifying Political Conception of International Law

It is widely acknowledged that human rights law (hereafter, HRL) and international criminal law (hereafter, ICL) share core normative features. Yet, the literature has not yet reconstructed this underlying basis in a systematic way. In this contribution, I lay down the basis of such an account. I first identify a similar tension between a “moral” and a “political” approach to the normative foundations of those norms and to the legitimate role of international courts (hereafter, ICs) and tribunals adjudicating those norms. With a view to bring the debate forward, I then turn to the practices of HRL and international criminal law (hereafter, ICL) to examine which of those approaches best illuminates some salient aspects of the adjudication of ICs. Finally, I argue that the political approach best explains the practice. While each preserves a distinct role, HRL and ICL both establish the basic conditions for the primary subject of international law (HRL and ICL, for the purpose of this article), namely the state, to legitimately govern its own subjects constructed as free and equal moral agents.     

Queering State Crime Theory: The State,Civil Society and Marginalization

This article argues that criminology desperately needs to look at the ways in which states marginalize and persecute lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ) identities. It critically examines the ways in which states reproduce hegemonic dictates that privilege those who adhere to gendered heterosexual norms over all others. This article further considers how the application of state crime theories, in particular Michalowski’s (State crime in the global age, pp. 13–30, Devon, Willan, 2010) tripartite framework, might further foreground the responsibility of the state in protecting LGBTQ identities. Examples of how this framework could be applied are given, with the case study of criminalization of same sex relations being focused on in depth. The article concludes by positing four key points to be considered in any analysis that attempts to critique the role of the state in the perpetuation of heterosexual hegemony.     

Oil, Rape and State Crime in Nigeria

This case study seeks first to explore the culpability of the state of Nigeria in regards to recent allegations of rape and sexual torture by security forces and, secondly, to question why these rapes continue to occur despite Nigeria’s responsibility to address them. Though exact rates of violence are impossible to ascertain, reports by the media and various non-governmental organizations describe the widespread abuse of women, specifically at the hands of military officials. Evidence suggests that, by failing to respond appropriately to these acts of violence, the state of Nigeria is in direct violation of international law. Moreover, the decentralized nature of the Nigerian legal system creates an environment in which those Nigerian laws that do address rape and/or torture are rendered ineffective. This paper argues that what is happening in Nigeria does in fact constitute a state crime and, thus far, has not received appropriate attention from the International Criminal Court, to which Nigeria is a party, or the international community at large. As no action has yet been taken, we consider the factors that create an environment in which international and national punitive measures, as they are currently practiced, are ineffective.

---

State Crime: The North Korean Drug Trade

At least 50 documented incidents in more than 20 countries around the world, many involving arrest or detention of North Korean diplomats, link North Korea to drug trafficking. Such events, in the context of ongoing, credible, but unproven, allegations of large-scale state sponsorship of drug production and trafficking (especially heroin and methamphetamines), raise important issues for the global community in combating international drug trafficking. Rather than simply the activities of mercenary and corrupt individuals within the North Korean elite, the trafficking appears to be the result of a strategy initiated at the highest levels, directed through the shadowy organisation known as Bureau 39. As the DPRK's drug trade becomes increasingly entrenched, and arguably decentralised, analysts question whether the Pyongyang regime (or any subsequent government) would have the ability to restrain such activity, should it so desire.