Selective incapacitation and the Philadelphia cohort data

The University of Pennsylvania study of delinquency in a Philadelphia birth cohort has been described byNewsweek as perhaps the most influential piece of criminal justice research in the last decade (March 23, 1981). Many have construed the findings as showing that, if imprisonment were focused on the minority of offenders with especially bad prognoses, the rate of crime could be reduced substantially. But others have taken the opposite view that the cohort data, far from endorsing such a selective incapacitation strategy, might actually provide strong evidence that such an approach is futile. Through some further analyses of the Philadelphia data, we attempt to clarify their policy implications.     

Appeals to community and crime prevention

This paper considers the growing appeals to the idea of community in criminal justice policy and the involvement of actual communities in criminal justice initiatives. It draws on a completed two year research study of a number of community-based crime prevention initiatives in the South East of England. The paper considers the nature of community to which appeals are made in criminal justice discourse and policies, the contribution of community to the practices of social order and the nature of community representation and participation in crime prevention initiatives. It is argued that appeals to community in crime prevention, and crime control more generally, embody shifts in what constitutes the legitimate responsibilities of individuals, collectivities and the state. This has a number of implications, the first of which is a redrawing of the cost of policing and security services. Additionally, there is an associated shift in blame for failure. Finally, actual community involvement in crime control gives rise to new structures and forms of local governance that evoke key questions about the regulation of social relations, the nature of conflict resolution, citizenship, democracy and social justice.     

Forfeiture and money laundering laws in the United States

Today Europe is faced increasingly with the phenomenon of organized crime, creating problems similar to those the United States faced as early as a decade ago. American forfeiture and money laundering laws provide the state with sweeping powers for use in its efforts to combat organized crime. Although study of these instruments might inspire European lawmakers to adopt similar ones, the instruments themselves carry a societal price tag that cannot be ignored. Classical principles limiting the reach of the criminal law (and the powers of its enforcement apparatus) and in a broader sense the liberal concept of the fragmentary nature of the criminal law have largely been abandoned by lawmakers in the area of organized crime. Thus, modern American forfeiture and money laundering laws have lowered the standards of protection against state intrusion into citizens' basic rights despite the lack of sufficient empirical proof that their investigative and punitive powers are efficient in skimming profits and deterring further crime.     

Constructing an index of officially recorded crime: The use of confirmatory factor analysis

Researchers using officially reported crime statistics must frequently combine rates of individual crimes into a single composite. The most popular composite is the FBI Crime Index, which is the sum of the seven Part I crimes; alternatives include forming separate indices for personal and property crimes and weighting the crime categories by their seriousness before summing them. In this paper we construct crime composites through the use of confirmatory factor analysis methods. The results suggest that the measurement assumptions of conventional crime indices are problematic and demonstrate how more satisfactory alternatives can be developed with confirmatory factor analysis techniques.     

Measuring the Convergence/Divergence of “Serious Crime” Arrest Rates for Males and Females: 1960–1995

It is now almost a quarter of a century since Adler (1975) and Simon (1975)stimulated a debate about the convergence of crime rates for men andwomen. The ensuing debate generated literally dozens of papers. Given theexistence of a series that now extends from 1960 to 1995, this papersuggests an appropriate way to examine the convergence hypothesis usingtime series techniques. These techniques take into consideration the effectsof the following factors: (a) random shocks orinnovations, (b) the potentially lasting effects of suchinnovations, and (c) the autocorrelation that time series oftenexhibit. Using time series techniques on annual data, we examine trends inthe arrest rates for males and females for six Part I crimes (homicide,robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft)for the years 1960 through 1995. We test for convergence, divergence, notrend, and a special condition of equilibrium between series calledcointegration.     

The statistical prediction of violent behavior

Considerable attention in the popular and professional literature has focused on the relative costs and benefits of using public protectionist versus civil libertarian models of social control. In this article, we develop statistical analogs of these models to predict violent behavior among samples of defendants found incompetent to stand trial in New York State. The societal and personal costs (errors of prediction) of each model are compared and their implications for clinical practice and social policy are discussed.This research was supported in part by PHS Grant MH 20367 from the NIMH Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency. The assistance of Thomas Arvanites in data analysis and the comments of Monroe Lefkowitz and Mary Evans Melick on earlier drafts of this paper are gratefully acknowledged.     

Fiat Iustitia,Ruat Coeli?: The Misuse of Computers Act 1990

Conclusion It is considered, then, that wereCox v. Riley to come before the courts today, liability would arise under the offences of strict liability created by the Misuse of Computers Act 1990; as well as under the Criminal Damage Act 1971. Moreover, our sceptical layman, it is thought, would not be able to feel uneasy at the outcome, if the above arguments are correct. It is beyond doubt that the Act of 1990 was enacted to curb, insofar as is possible, the computer hacker and that still more insidious threat, the progenitor of computer viruses. It is interesting, too, that the act of a disaffected and possibly alienated employee, as presumably the act of the defendant in the case was, would now fall within the compass of that Act. The law would be applied; Justice would be done and seen to be done; and, dare it be said, Justice would be felt to have been done.     

From fiddle factors to networks of collusion: Charting the waters of small business crime

Small business crime has been largely ignored in American criminology; studies of nontraditional crime have focused mainly on corporate crime or on the misdeeds of employees pursuing personal gain. This paper calls for criminologists to redirect their efforts toward the systematic study of small business crime. In particular, it advocates in-depth qualitative studies that explore small business culture and opportunity structures, and that examine the networks of collusion that subvert the legitimate economy. The paper concludes with illustrations from an own story currently being shared with the author by a small businessman who participated for five years in an urban crime network that infiltrated the redistributive economy.     

The thin line between legitimate and criminal enterprises: subsidy frauds in the European Community

This paper describes and analyses a large fraud against the financial interests of the European Community (EC). On the basis of this case and our interviews with officials in five EC countries, we highlight structural impediments to the control of such frauds, draw parallels with other research on organisational crime and suggest that the distinction between organised crime and white-collar crime be abandoned in favour of an enterprise model of crime. We conclude by pointing out that legal changes and strict controls alone cannot substantially reduce the huge potential for EC frauds, especially in view of the abolition of EC's internal borders in 1993. Antifraud policies must also address the underlying structural factors.     

Lifestyle changes and risks of criminal victimization

Routine activity/lifestyle theories have been used to explain temporal changes in crime rates, the social ecology of crime, and individuals' risks of criminal victimization. Using a panel of 33,773 individuals and 19,005 households at two points in time, the current study extends previous research by examining whether changes in lifestyles are associated with changes in individuals' risks of personal and property victimization. Changes in lifestyles which signal greater target visibility or exposure to motivated offenders (greater daytime and nighttime activity outside the home) and reduced guardianship (decreases in the number of household members) are generally associated with increased risks of both types of victimization. Persons who maintained high levels of nighttime activity outside the household were also more likely to remain victims at both time periods. However, active lifestyle changes (increased precautionary actions) did not have their expected impact on reducing victimization risks, and several other changes over time also were inconsistent with expectations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role of passive and active lifestyle changes on victimization risks and the implications of our findings for developing sociological theories of criminal victimization.An early draft of this paper was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology, November 11–14, 1987. The data for this study were originally collected by the Bureau of Census for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. Neither the collectors of the data nor the Consortium bears any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.     

Russian Robber Barons: Moscow Business, American Style

Russia after communism is a hotbed of crime. Russian Robber Barons addresses villainy in market construction and draws on U.S. experience for comparisons. Crime will not be eradicated in Russia, nor has it been eliminated elsewhere, but a carefully crafted legal system can reduce damage wrought by unproductive criminal activity and guide entrepreneurs into legal operations beneficial to themselves and society. Robber baron activities match Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction, but Mafia-style crime is merely destructive. Economic success demands that Russia join Western market societies in the search for laws to throttle destructive crime and encourage entrepreneurship.     

The use of economic analysis by the Supreme Court in applying the concept of the relevant market

Attention by the courts to what constitutes a market has resulted from litigation enforcement by both the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, especially in connection with the amended section 7 of the Clayton Act. The termmarket is not mentioned in either the Clayton or the Sherman Acts. What constitutes a part of commerce, a line of commerce, or section of the country has been interpreted by the courts to mean a market. A market in antitrust administration then becomes judicial—a process of interpreting the language of the antitrust statutes.     

Interviewing Preschoolers: Comparisons Of Yes/No and Wh- Questions

This study investigated the influence of question format on preschool-aged children's errors, their response accuracy, and their tendency to say I don't know when given non-misleading questions in a neutral, unbiased context. Children (3 to 5 years old) participated in a craft-making session that included a staged accident with two experimenters differing in gender and appearance; the environment also had several distinctive features. One week later children were interviewed about actions, participants, and environment; questions were yes/no format with the veridical response yes (yes questions), yes/no format with the veridical response no (no questions), and specific wh- format questions. Question format substantially influenced children's responses: they were most likely to make errors if asked no questions, and were unlikely to answer either yes/no question with I don't know. In contrast, children spontaneously and frequently said I don't know to wh- questions about content they did not recall (environment), but not about content that was well recalled (actions). Implications of question format for reliability of eyewitness testimony by preschoolers are discussed.     

Retributivism,Consequentialism, and the Intrinsic Goodness of Punishment

Retributivism is commonly taken as an alternative to a consequentialist justification of punishment. It has recently been suggested, however, that retributivism can be recast as a consequentialist theory. This suggestion is shown to be untenable. The temptation to advance it is traced to an intrinsic good claim prominent in retributive thinking. This claim is examined, and is argued to be of little help in coping with the difficulties besetting the retributive theory, as well as clashing with a desert claim equally central to that theory.     

Precedent Externality, Network Effect, and the Possible Inefficiency of the Evolution of Laws

Using the traditional scenario of tort conflict as an example, I argue that the marginal precautionary costs of injurers and victims are not constant, as was assumed by most previous researchers. The precedent of a liability rule has some natural externality on the precaution technology, and hence marginal cost, faced by future agents involved in torts. The adoption of legal rules therefore has a network effect, meaning that the present prevalent adoption of one rule increases the probability of its future adoption. Treating the dynamic evolution of legal rules as a random process, we are able to apply an established result in the literature of network economies to conclude the path-dependence, non-predictability, and potential inefficiency concerning the final legal rule to which the dynamics converge.     

Human and fundamental rights: What are they about?

Conclusion Human rights, distrusted by Bentham, through emergence ofGesellshaft, have sometimes been identified with rights of market men and gradually on an ad hoc basis and so have been given a relational or relativist character for that reason. Such a view ignores the test of humanness or the tele of human rights surviving any political association and the need for full development of human personality as an autonomous being inherent in full respect for all as moral persons. This disposes of the view of human rights in terms of rules of a game, or of connection between human rights and human action, or of the standard of the prudent man or, finally, of the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie. Equally, that very test of humanness disposes of criticisms of the human rights theory based on a concern for implementation of rights, on concentric circles based on the specific and concrete, on the impossibility of liking the billions, on the distinction between negative, positive and administrative rights, on the condition of being able to make valid claims and thereby denying human rights to the deprived millions in poor countries, on the social justice model, on the potential for violence and conflict and, finally, on the vagueness or subjectivity of human rights. An eclectic synthesis not between good and evil nor between right and wrong but between the extremes of the views presented in such critical explanations e.g. between the New Right and the New Left and between Hobbes and Rousseau) is what is needed in order to present a workable theory of human rights in the modern-day world.     

Women on the edge of crime: Crack cocaine and the changing contexts of street-level sex work in New York City

In this paper, we attempt to examine, engender and contextualize the theses that (i) women's emancipation escalates [women's] crime and violence and (ii) women's drug use escalates [women's] crime and violence, by drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in relation to women crack smokers and the changing contexts of street-level sex work in New York City. The paper attempts to illustrate how the position of women crack smokers can only be understood by locating their lives, their illicit drug use and their income-generating activities within the context of a specific set of localized socio-economic and cultural developments. We suggest that observations from our research refute the theses that women are becoming more criminal and/or violent in the context of either their consumption of crack cocaine or their alleged emancipation.An earlier version of this paper was presented by the first author at the Joint Meetings, Law and Society Association and Research Committee on the Sociology of Law of the International Sociological Association, Amsterdam, 26–29 June 1991.     

Social sciences and the evolving concept of corruption

The term corruptio appears in many languages, but behind it lie several contrasting strands of thought and language. Current political usages of corruptio--emphasizing bribery, which in turn is just one of several families of ideas to which the term has variously been attached--date from the late 18th or early 19th century, have been strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon legal thought, and may be traced to Roman roots. But French lexicographers developed a richer and more diverse vocabulary to encompass the crimes of civil servants and judges in addition to those of the people who sought to influence them. Religion, and in particular offices within the Church, also strongly influenced the ideas and vocabulary of corruption. Ultimately, corruptio can be said to have Biblical origins and a core meaning centered around injustice. The complexity and richness of the idea of corruption, as viewed from that perspective, in often lost in the narrower and more technical usages that dominate contemporary debate and analysis.     

Do trials have real winners?

Conclusion In this paper, narrative coherence has been looked at as an institutional strategy in anticipation of the verdict rather than in retrospect of the crime or charge. The analysis of binary notions has been instrumental in the reconstruction of the coherence between the narrative(s) and the theoretical outcomes of the criminal trial. As the abstraction and polarisation of narrative versions focus on the achievement of professional consensus, the verdict, which is almost always based on the selection of a binary option does injustice to any narrative which is unfolded in the court-room. Whether the defendant is acquitted or convicted, therefore, does not make him a winner or a loser, as his personal experience is abducted and institutionalised for the facilitation of smooth institutional decision-making.     

Sex @ the End of the Twentieth Century: Some Re-marks on a Minor Jurisprudence

This article offers a re-reading of Goodrichs essay, Law in the Courts of Love. My contention here is that the idiom of love that Goodrich provides us with in this essay cannot address the complexity of sexuality and sexual politics that inhabit our contemporary technoscientific culture. In so doing, I will juxtapose his essay with Laven Berlant and Michael Warners essay, Public Sex. This article will be divided into three sections. In the first section, I will evaluate and review Goodrichs genealogical approach to law and the image of justice that arises out of his approach. The second section will be a re-reading of Goodrichs Law in the Courts of Love through feminist and technoscientific discourses. Its aim is to problematise and re-think not only the idiom of feminine justice that Goodrich offers, but also to question the presuppositions upon which his work is based, primary presuppositions surrounding issues of privacy, sexuality and sexuated rights. Finally, in the third section I will conclude by suggesting that the re-figuration of justice necessitates a re-figuration of the relationship that law has with time and space.