Imperialism, crime and criminology: Towards the decolonisation of criminology

Cohen (1988) once concluded that it is ironic that critics in the West are identifying forms of social control that are more traditional in the Third World as better alternatives to the neo–classical and positivistic repressive traditions in the West while some suggest that what they found malignant in the West should be exported to the Third World as benign. In this paper, I am going beyond Western crime control models to examine the character of criminology itself as an imperialist science for the control of others.     

Translational criminology and its importance in policing: a review

ABSTRACT

Translational criminology is a decision-making perspective that emphasizes the dynamic coproduction of evidence by researchers and practitioners, focusing on obstacles to and facilitators of evidence generation and utilization. It incorporates several other data-driven decision-making models, including evidence-based policy making. This review suggests that the availability of empirical research is no longer the most significant impediment to evidence-based policing. Rather, translating and implementing knowledge about ‘what works‘ in policing has arisen as the field’s primary barrier to securing the effectiveness and efficiency improvements of research and data utilization. This article orients readers to translational criminology’s various components and explores their applications. Focusing on four central considerations, this review explores the roles of researcher practitioner partnerships, policy, technology, and government in developing and sustaining translational efforts in policing. The review concludes by acknowledging challenges to fostering a translational perspective in policing, and offers examples of where it has been applied with success.     

Schizophrenia: Causes,crime, and implications for criminology and criminal justice

This paper is aimed at criminologists and criminal justicians seeking to understand their role in educating law enforcement and correctional personnel who must deal with the mentally ill. It is motivated by William Johnson's (2011) recent call for rethinking the interface between mental illness, criminal justice, and academia, and his call for advocacy. We concur with his concerns, and insist that this rethinking must necessarily include grounding in the etiology of mental illness (specifically, with schizophrenia) as it is currently understood by researchers in the area. Advocacy must go hand in hand with a thorough knowledge of the condition of the people for whom we are advocating. We first examine major etiological models of schizophrenia, emphasizing the neurodevelopmental model that incorporates genetics, neurological functioning, and immunological factors guided by the assumption that the typical criminologist/criminal justician has minimal acquaintance with such material. We then address the link between schizophrenia and criminal behavior, and conclude with a discussion of the implications for criminology and criminal justice.     

Newsmaking criminology: Reflections of the media,intellectuals, and crime

Although academicians in criminology and criminal justice have come to appreciate the importance of the media in constructing ideological images of crime and punishment, apparently they have not considered how to use mass communications for the purposes of informing, interpreting, and altering those images to reflect more realistically the social, political, and economic conditions of crime and social control. Beginning with an analysis of the relationships among the developing political economy of the mass media, intellectuals, and conceptions of crime and justice, this essay introduces a criminological practice that can take advantage of the available opportunities in the production of crime news. I call this practice “newsmaking criminology.” It refers to the conscious efforts of criminologists and others to participate in the presentation of “newsworthy” items about crime and justice.     

Left realist criminology: Strengths,weaknesses and the feminist critique

Although there is an already large British literature both supporting and attacking left realism, and a growing North American interest on the subject among criminologists, there has been surprisingly little written which attempts to locate both the strengths and weaknesses of the left realist position on crime control. Perhaps the place where the left realists may be weakest is in response to a feminist critique. Actually, it is not only left realism but the socialist left in general which has been unsuccessful in providing adequate responses to the issues brought forth by feminists. This paper attempts to locate the position of left realism within the left criminology debate, and to find its strong and weak points. Further, it attempts to explicate the feminist critique, and to suggest responses critical criminologists might explore, such as those proposed by peacemaking criminology. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AW502012 00004     

Power, crime and criminology in the new imperial age

As a consequence of the U.S. pursuit of neo-liberal global hegemony in the post-Soviet era, the language of empire has returned to political discourse and social analysis after an eighty-year absence. Although the pursuit of empire and the exertion of imperial control is deeply and demonstrably injurious to the nations and people subjected to this control, orthodox criminology has given relatively little attention to this emerging world of transnational social injury, choosing instead to continue its traditional focus on private crimes of greed, lust and rage. In this essay I detail how legal formalism, methodological individualism, ameliorative motives, mass-communications and the reward structure of orthodox criminology combine to form a meta-theoretical framework that has kept the criminological gaze averted from injurious actions of transnational structures of power. I then offer an alternative framework for a criminology of empire and other power crimes focused on how intersections among economic, political and cultural processes generate social injuries that are analogous to crimes in their nature and consequences, and that, as a result should become as significant a focus of criminological inquiry as the street crimes that now dominate criminological research and writing. What do we do with our knowledge about the suffering of others, and what does this knowledge do to us? -Stanley Cohen      

Comparing cultures, comparing crime: Challenges, prospects and problems for a global criminology

Globalization will intensify contacts – and perhaps conflicts – betweencultures more than ever in the history of humankind. The flow of migrantsaround the world, global business and global consumption provide us withnew experiences of difference and diversity as well as of common ground.As in other social sciences, the concept of culture has recently emerged oncentre stage in criminology. Western criminologists look in awe to Asia, andtry to solve the enigma of modern, affluent societies with low ratesespecially of violent crimes. Asian criminologists warn of an impact ofWestern culture that might cause rising crime rates. Asian models of socialcontrol are studied and adopted in Australia, Europe and the US, and viceversa.Crime and social control are social and cultural phenomena. Therefore,comparing cultures and comparing crime will offer new insights, freshtheories and chances of innovative perspectives. What is to learn fromcultural differences, what from universals in crime and social control? Whatwill be the fate of ``general theories of crime'' in different cultures? Willpractices of criminal justice be efficient when transported to another socialand cultural environment?Criminologists should develop a clear notion of the problems that arerelated to comparing cultures and crime. Cultures are not monolithic.Cultural comparisons often suffer from exaggerations of differences, andproduce exaggerated predictions and expectations. On its way into theglobalized 21st century, criminology will have to develop strategies to meetthe challenge of comparing cultures, to avoid former errors, and to solvethe problems that lie ahead.     

向左、向右或向前:批判性进步犯罪学的现代展望

在批判学中,后现代主义、后基础主义、后结构主义以及马克思主义和新犯罪学法,都对犯罪学的发展产生影响,但女权主义者犯罪学是个例外,其坚持参与主流社会运动,以至参与到后基础主义所摆出的理论挑战行动中.而后基础主义者的理论框架能够帮助我们开拓批判的新空间,产生促进社会进步的新的团结力量,其挑战传统犯罪学的观点揭示了权力的某种运作形式,甚至从既估量消极后果又估量能动作用的方式上去理解权力,从而形成了权力运行方式的多样性并提供了正确的鉴别方法.犯罪学的研究及其学科建设也与政治有关,甚至包括文化对其的影响,尤其是一个进步的犯罪学不可能不与民主、公正、人权有关.     

C. Wright Mills and higher immorality: implications for corporate crime,ethics, and peacemaking criminology

During the past decade, there was a resurgent tendency in criminology to explain emerging patterns of crime within the United States by referring solely to dysfunctional families or dysfunctional individuals. Other criminologists questioned these latter approaches as detaching individuals and crime from the social institutions that envelope them. In light of this recent attempt to link crime to social institutions, it seems fruitful to revisit the work of one of the most astute analysts of institutional structure: C. Wright Mills. Hence, this article begins with an overview of Mills’ sociological perspective and then shows how it provides useful insights into institutional sources of illegal behavior. The article also illustrates ways the Millsian perspective can be directly applied to an analysis of corporate crime in relation to other forms of crime emanating from the structure of contemporary U.S. society. After that, the article explores how the Millsian perspective can broaden understanding of the growing decline of ethics within America’s leading industries, governmental agencies, and the justice system. The article concludes by addressing policy implications, particularly in regard to the prospects of linking the Millsian perspective with basic tenets of peacemaking criminology.

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The quality of doctoral programs in deviance,criminology, and criminal justice: An empirical assessment

While information regarding the doctoral programs in any discipline is of obvious and considerable relevance both to those in the discipline and to those seeking access to the best possible sites for graduate training, our knowledge about the quality of doctoral programs continues to be based on little more than speculation and highly ambiguous measures of institutional or departmental prestige. This study attempts to fill this gap for those who have special interests in the related fields of deviance, criminology, and criminal justice by ranking the thirty-six most significant doctoral programs in the nation by means of data derived from the Social Science Citation Index. Perhaps the most striking of our findings—and certainly to us the most distressing finding—is that those departments ranked by our measures as being the highest quality are consistently those which exist within the broader structure of departments of sociology. Given our firm conviction that the discipline of criminology is far, far more than that aspect of it which is closely related to issues of substantive significance to the field of sociology, we can only speculate that those in leadership positions in the growing number of independent schools or departments of criminology or criminal justice are not meeting their obligations to the discipline whose vitality and prospects depend so heavily on the quality of their judgment.     

New right,new left,new challenges: understanding and responding to neoconservatism in contemporary criminology

This essay examines the rise of neoconservative thought within criminological discourse from the enlightenment ‘quarrel’ with ancient philosophy and church supported scholasticism in the 1700s to the present day. From the perspective of criminology, it is argued that there is little new about the ‘new right’ with the exception that it has managed to galvanize itself as a popular retributionist alternative among the working class in the United States, Canada, and England. The current organization of social institutions in a modern ‘risk society’ facilitates the easy re-definition of the crises of late-modern capitalism into issues of social control. It is not surprising we find the right reinvigorated and prominent under these conditions. New left realism and crime control through social development are offered as competitive platforms from which to advance critique of barbaric right-wing crime-control policies. Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in cage (Smashing Pumpkins 1996)     

Palynology: its position in the field of forensic science

Here we examine the current state of palynology in the field of forensic science. Forensic palynology is discussed with reference to other forensic disciplines to help understand what is required for its progress. Emerging developments are also discussed. Palynomorphs potentially deliver excellent trace evidence, fulfilling the requirements relating to the transfer, persistence, and detection of such evidence. Palynological evidence can provide very powerful investigative and associative evidence. Despite this, the application of palynology to forensic science has had mixed success. There are many anecdotal stories where pollen evidence has had spectacular successes. But it is extremely underutilized in most countries because it is labor-intensive and requires considerable expertise and experience, there is a lack of control over sample collection and inadequate resourcing and funding, and its crime-solving power is not well known. Palynology has been applied to forensic problems in an unstructured way, resulting in a lack of formalized discussion of the underlying principles. As there is renewed questioning of the acceptability of most evidence types in the current legal environment, there is a need for the establishment of palynological evidence through validation-type studies and experimentation, and the implementation of independent proficiency testing.