Left Realism,community and state-building

Left Realism, as it emerged in the mid 1980s in the UK was a policy-oriented intervention focusing on the reality of crime for the working class victim and the need to elaborate a socialist alternative to conservative emphases on ‘law and order’. It saw the renewal of high crime, deprived communities as involving democratic police accountability to those communities. During the subsequent period developments have moved very much against the orientations of Left Realism. This paper compares two different contexts of renewal—the deprived urban community in the UK and the war-torn ‘failed state’ in Bosnia—and identifies certain common policy orientations which are then criticised from a Left Realist perspective.     

Crime trends through two decades of social changes in Spain

Over the last two decades, the Spanish social fabric has undergone a variety of profound changes, which in turn may explain the rise in police-recorded crime and prison population figures. Although the rise in crime reported to the police has been higher for common offences—misdemeanors—, the mainstream media concentrates overwhelmingly in serious violent crimes—felonies—. Spain does not have an official agency responsible for conducting victimization surveys to measure crime trends as directly experienced by the citizens. Based on this methodology, our study shows that contrary to information gathered from police data, and despite social fabric changes, crime in Spain is decreasing. The present study also reveals the distorted public perception of this trend, which seems to respond to a repetitive coverage of serious crime by the mainstream media.     

Trust in the Police in Rural China: a Comparison Between Villagers and Local Officials

Although the past decade has witnessed the rise of studies on Chinese evaluations of the police, rural villagers’ assessments of the police remain under-researched. Drawing upon performance theory and survey data from China’s countryside, this study tested whether variations in satisfaction with government performance and life are linked to villagers’ and officials’ trust in county and local/town police. We found that villagers displayed lower levels of trust in the police than local officials. Higher satisfaction with government performance and integrity were associated with greater trust in county police among both villagers and officials. Villagers’ greater satisfaction with crime control and safety led to their stronger trust in both county and town police, but such satisfaction was not significantly related to officials’ trust in both levels of police forces. Rural residents’ generalized trust and particularized trust were associated with a greater likelihood of viewing the police as trustworthy. Meanwhile, female respondents, both villagers and officials, and higher-income officials were more likely to view the police as trustworthy. Directions for future research and policy are discussed.

     

Organized Crime and Trust:: On the conceptualization and empirical relevance of trust in the context of criminal networks

Organised crime networks are often characterised as being held together by bonds of trust, but the conventional wisdom regarding the relation between trust and organised crime lacks a comprehensive theoretical and empirical underpinning. The purpose of this paper is to explore where deeper research on this issue may lead and how it can potentially contribute to a better understanding of organised crime in general. Drawing on the general sociological literature, it provides a preliminary conceptualisation of trust in the context of organised crime centred around a fourfold typology along the micro-macro dimension. The authors use anecdotal evidence from their research on illegal markets for highly taxed goods in Norway and Germany to illustrate that there are different types of trust, that there are different consequences of the violation of trust, and, finally, that there are criminal relations not based on trust at all.     

Aboriginal organized crime in Canada: Developing a typology for understanding and strategizing responses

The present study explores the theory and, to the greatest degree possible given the limitations of the data, the reality of aboriginal participation in what may be defined as ‘organized crime’ in Canada, engaging the possibility of a definition of ‘aboriginal organized crime’ and the proposal of a ‘typology’ of participants. In the development of both the definition and typology, the researchers build upon Beare's definition of organized crime to include the dimension of motivations—whether social, political or economic—which theorists agree are crucial in understanding organized crime activities, but which do not appear in current definitions of the term, as well as important contextual factors informing participation in aboriginal organized crime networks.     

From “habitual offenders” to “career criminals”

Mainstream positivistic criminology has recently been challenged by a sociological perspective which views crime as a social construction and attempts to account for the collective definition of categories of crime and deviance. The purpose of this paper is to present a sociohistorical analysis and interpretation of the construction of two specific and related criminal categories: “habitual offender” and “carreer criminal.” The analysis focuses on the broad historical development of these two categories and the symbolic functions they serve. The data show that similar social conditions in two different time periods led to the development of two similar legal categories. Furthermore, both categories are judged to have served important and similar symbolic and ideological functions.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Random Activities Theory</Emphasis>: The Case for ‘Black Swan’ Criminology

In the United States, infamous crimes against innocent victims—especially children—have repeatedly been regarded as justice system “failures” and resulted in reactionary legislation enacted without regard to prospective negative consequences. This pattern in part results when ‘memorial crime control’ advocates implicitly but inappropriately apply the tenets of routine activities theory, wherein crime prevention is presumed to be achievable by hardening likely targets, increasing the costs associated with crime commission, and removing criminal opportunity. In response, the authors argue that academic and public policy discourse will benefit from the inclusion of a new criminological perspective called random activities theory, in which tragic crimes are framed as rare but statistically inevitable ‘Black Swans’ instead of justice system failures. Potential objections and implications for public policy are discussed at length.     

Subjective Proximity to Crime or Social Representations? Explaining Sentencing Attitudes in Switzerland

Lay sentencing attitudes are considered in the light of two theoretical perspectives. The first perspective views sentencing attitudes as parts of broader sets of social representations anchored in one’s position in the social structure. The second perspective explains sentencing attitudes by their subjective experiences of crime. This paper tests both theories by performing a series of multiple regressions on two dimensions of sentencing: punishment goals and severity of punishment. Empirical data comes from a quantitative survey conducted in Switzerland. Findings reveal that indicators of subjective proximity to crime largely account for sentencing attitudes. Nevertheless, social representations of crime measured by causes of crime also have a significant impact on sentencing attitudes. Implications of these findings for sentencing in Western democracies are discussed.     

Organized crime and the political-criminal nexus in China

The research goals of this study, undertaken on behalf of the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC), were to describe the evolution of the political-criminal nexus (PCN) in China and predict its development, examine the causes and patterns of PCN in China, assess the anticipated threats of Chinese PCN, and identify options for external factors—inside and outside government—to weaken PCN in China. The researchers used a variety of techniques as part of an overall exploratory methodology, including interviews and field observations in three Chinese provinces. Key informants included law enforcement officers, government officials, scholars, prosecutors, judges, businessmen, and underworld figures. Interviews and site visits were supplemented with the review of a large collection of English and Chinese literature on the subject. The major findings are (1) in China, PCN is primarily a nexus between gangsters and low- and mid-level government officials from the criminal justice system; (2) the Chinese government is concerned with the problem of PCN mainly because it is eroding the authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and not because of the threat of organized gangs to social and economic stability; (3) organized crime in China is going to be a local problem for many towns and cities in the foreseeable future; (4) reasons for the development of PCN in China could be categorized as economic, structural, social/cultural, and psychological/ideological and the impact of PCN could be categorized as social, economic, and political; and (5) several options exist for external governmental and nongovernmental measures to curb or at least control PCN in China, including research, education, and judicial reform.     

TURNING POINTS IN THE LIFE COURSE: WHY CHANGE MATTERS TO THE STUDY OF CRIME*

This article examines conceptual issues relating to continuity and change in crime over the life course. Building on past efforts, we first distinguish self-selection from a cumulative, developmental process whereby delinquent behavior attenuates adult social bonds (e.g., labor force attachment, marital cohesion). We then conceptualize various types of change and argue that social capital and turning points are crucial in understanding processes of change in the adult life course. These concepts are illustrated by examining person-based, life-history data drawn from the Gluecks' longitudinal study of 1,000 men. Although adult crime is clearly connected to childhood behavior, these qualitative data suggest that both incremental and abrupt change are structured by changes in adult social bonds. We conclude with some hypotheses and implications for future research on subjective contingencies, opportunity structures, and chance encounters as potential turning points for change, especially as they interact with race, class location, and historical context.     

A Multilevel Test of Minority Threat Effects on Sentencing

Prior studies of criminal sanctioning have focused almost exclusively on individual-level predictors of sentencing outcomes. However, in recent years, scholars have begun to include social context in their research. Building off of this work—and heeding calls for testing the racial and ethnic minority threat perspective within a multilevel framework and for separating prison and jail sentences as distinct outcomes—this paper examines different dimensions of minority threat and explores whether they exert differential effects on prison versus jail sentences. The findings provide support for the racial threat perspective, and less support for the ethnic threat perspective. They also underscore the importance of testing for non-linear threat effects and for separating jail and prison sentences as distinct outcomes. We discuss the findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy.     

Social support and homicide: a cross-national test of an emerging criminological theory

The social support (also known as social altruism) perspective in criminological theory has emerged as a potentially important explanation of aggregate levels of crime. Recent studies have tested the theory's ability to predict levels of violent and property crimes at the city and state levels in the United States, yet a formal test of the theory using data from outside of the U.S. has yet to be conducted. Accordingly, this article draws on insights from social support theory in a cross-national context. Consistent with the core proposition of the theory, the analyses show that, net of statistical controls, the indicator of social support is inversely and significantly related to rates of violent crime (measured by homicides). The implications of these results for criminological theory development and for the construction of effective crime control policies are discussed.     

Comparative criminology in the era of neoliberal globalization

Public trust has become a critical issue in transitional societies, such as China and Taiwan, where the legitimacy and accountability of the government in general, and legal authorities in particular, have been frequently scrutinized. Based on nationwide random samples, this study tests the explanatory power of three theories, the social structural thesis, the institutional performance thesis, and the cultural thesis, in accounting for public trust in police in China and Taiwan. Results show that Chinese citizens have higher levels of trust in police than do Taiwanese. The higher level of Chinese trust, to a large extent, derives from greater confidence in macroeconomic conditions and satisfaction with government responsiveness. The performance thesis, thus, receives the strongest support. Results also show some support for the cultural perspective that traditional values, such as interpersonal trust, promote trust in police in both societies. Policy implications are provided for enhancing police legitimacy and facilitating police reform in China and Taiwan.     

Integrated Theory and Crimes of Trust

The integrated theory first proposed by Elliott et al. (1979), combining strain, social control, and social learning (and sometimes social disorganization) theories, has been repeatedly tested and consistently supported for a wide range of behaviors including licit and illicit substance use, violence, and other forms of illegal behavior. It has not, however, been tested for a class of illegal behaviors best described as crimes of trust, which include different types of fraud, workplace theft, and income tax evasion. This category of offending includes offenses commonly regarded as white collar crime, and also offenses that have been more or less marginal to the study of white collar crime. The present paper tests the integrated theory specifically for crimes of trust in the National Youth Survey Family Study, a national, multigenerational sample of individuals whose focal respondents were 11–17 years old in 1976–1977, and who are now in middle adulthood. Relying on structural equation modeling (SEM), parallel tests are performed for two generations, the focal respondents in early middle age (ages 38–45) and their adult offspring (ages 18–24) for the period 2002–2004.     

Assessing the relationship between individual characteristics, neighborhood context, and fear of crime

The purpose of this study is to examine citizens’ fear of crime based on the neighborhood in which they live. Integrating individual characteristics, citizens’ perceptions, and neighborhood structure provides a more complete perspective on understanding fear. Individuals were asked to report on proximate level of fear, social cohesion, neighborhood disorder and level of police/citizen satisfaction. Neighborhood structure emerged as a predictor of citizen's fear even after controlling for race, age, gender and education. Results indicated that perceived disorder neighborhood structure was strongly associated with citizens’ fear of crime. Considering individual characteristics, perceptions of disorder, and neighborhood context simultaneously provides an opportunity to develop a more comprehensive understanding of fear and policies to reduce fear.     

缺失与生成：农民工犯罪问题研究——社会资本理论视角的分析

农民工犯罪问题已日益引起社会的关注。以苏州工业园区农民工犯罪问题为蓝本,以社会资本理论为视角分析得出的结论是：社会纽带断裂、社会结构解体、公民参与不够、社会信任不足等导致的社会资本缺失,是引发农民工犯罪现状的不可忽视的重要社会因素。强化农民工与社会的纽带、稳定社会结构和构建社会信用体系,是增加社会资本存量、提高社会控制能力、减少和预防农民工犯罪的合理取向。     

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.

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POVERTY, INCOME INEQUALITY, AND COMMUNITY CRIME RATES

This paper examines the relationship between crime rates and aggregate economic conditions for 57 small social areas. The principal analyses address a continuing controversy—are community crime rates associated with absolute poverty, relative poverty (i.e., income inequality), or both. Using victimization data from 57 small residential neighborhoods, the analyses examine the association between absolute and relative poverty and rates of violent crime and burglary. The findings indicate that absolute poverty is more strongly associated with neighborhood crime rates, although the relationship is conditional on the type of crime considered. The implications of the findings are discussed within a perspective of community social control.     

SOCIAL INTERACTION AND COMMUNITY CRIME: EXAMINING THE IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBOR NETWORKS

The social disorganization perspective assumes that social interaction among neighbors is a central element in the control of community crime. Moreover, social interaction among neighbors that occurs frequently, such as every day, is assumed to be most effective. This analysis tests that assumption by exploring the consequences of frequent and infrequent interaction. I construct 10 alternative measures of social interaction and separately examine the effect of each on the rates of three serious crimes across 60 urban neighborhoods. Findings suggest that type of interaction matters. Getting together once a year or more with neighbors has the most consistent and generally strongest effect on burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery. Further this form of interaction mediates a significant proportion of the effect of ecological characteristics on community crime. Implications for community crime research are discussed.     

Organized criminal involvement in the illicit antiquities trade

From the ”glocal” perspective of a large sample of archaeologists conducting fieldwork throughout the world and working on the very sites of interest to looters, this paper explores the question whether and to what extent organized crime is involved in the theft and illicit export of archaeological resources. Two major findings are presented: first, archaeologists tend almost unanimously to consider that organized crime operates within the ‘global’ antiquities market, but when asked about their own personal experiences with looting on the sites where they work, many fewer report observations of organized crime; second, however, it is apparent that respondents’ conceptions of “organized crime” involve media-driven, stereotypical representations of mafia-style structures. Therefore, although in their reporting of observed local activities they do not provide substantial survey evidence of the presence of organized crime so defined, they do report appreciable “organization” among those who have looted their sites—which, again, they have almost unanimously experienced. This paper considers the implications of such findings for both the definitional debate on organized crime and the academic analysis of the trade in looted antiquities.