Researching the use of force: the background to the international project

This article provides the background to an international project on use of force by the police that was carried out in seven countries. Force is often considered to be the defining characteristic of policing and much research has been conducted on the determinants, prevalence and control of the use of force, particularly in the United States. However, little work has looked at police officers’ own views on the use of force, in particular the way in which they justify it. Using a hypothetical encounter developed for this project, researchers in each country conducted focus groups with police officers in which they were encouraged to talk about the use of force. The results show interesting similarities and differences across countries and demonstrate the value of using this kind of research focus and methodology.

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Criminal victimization in contemporary China: a review of the evidence and challenges for future research

The rapid economic growth in China over recent decades has been accompanied by higher levels of crime, but there have been few studies of the Chinese experience of criminal victimization. A recent victimization survey of a representative sample of households in Tianjin represents a major effort to fill this gap in the literature. The present paper reviews the research based on the Tianjin survey along with other studies of crime and criminal victimization in China that have been published since 1990. We summarize the major findings, discuss the theoretical perspectives and methodological strategies that have been applied, identify the limitations of the research to date, and offer suggestions for future research.

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Singing the same tune? International continuities and discontinuities in how police talk about using force

This article focuses on a research project conducted in six jurisdictions: England, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Venezuela, and Brazil. These societies are very different ethnically, socially, politically, economically, historically and have wildly different levels of crime. Their policing arrangements also differ significantly: how they are organised; how their officers are equipped and trained; what routine operating procedures they employ; whether they are armed; and much else besides. Most relevant for this research, they represent policing systems with wildly different levels of police shootings, Police in the two Latin American countries represented here have a justified reputation for the frequency with which they shoot people, whereas at the other extreme the police in England do not routinely carry firearms and rarely shoot anyone. To probe whether these differences are reflected in the way that officers talk about the use of force, police officers in these different jurisdictions were invited to discuss in focus groups a scenario in which police are thwarted in their attempt to arrest two youths (one of whom is a known local criminal) by the youths driving off with the police in pursuit, and concludes with the youths crashing their car and escaping in apparent possession of a gun, It might be expected that focus groups would prove starkly different, and indeed they were, but not in the way that might be expected. There was little difference in affirmation of normative and legal standards regarding the use of force. It was in how officers in different jurisdictions envisaged the circumstances in which the scenario took place that led Latin American officers to anticipate that they would shoot the suspects, whereas officers in the other jurisdictions had little expectation that they would open fire in the conditions as they imagined them to be.

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The impact of the US legislation on company measures of control and prevention

The spectacular business scandals in recent years have led both the legislative and business companies to rethink and redesign their strategies. This article analyzes the worldwide impact of reforms in economic crime legislation emanating from the USA. Empirical data are reported showing that the US regulations are generating a spillover effect spreading beyond its sphere of operation. It is particularly notable that international stock-exchange-listed companies are orienting themselves increasingly toward the legal standards of the USA. Translated from the German by Jonathan Harrow, Bielefeld.

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Connecting the dots: Crime rates and criminal justice evaluation research

The National Research Council’s report on evaluating anticrime programs contains sensible suggestions for improving evaluation research in criminal justice but neglects the important role of substantive theory in linking evaluations of anticrime initiatives to variation in crime rates across time and place. A working knowledge of crime rates is essential for designing and evaluating anticrime programs. This essay calls for the development of a policy evaluation infrastructure that would support the continuous monitoring of crime rates, generate knowledge of crime-producing conditions, and link evaluation research findings to one another and to expected policy outcomes, notably crime reduction.

Assessing problematic research: How can academic researchers help improve the quality of anti-crime program evaluations?

In this essay I examine some of the problems that prompted the National Research Council (NRC) report and consider how academic researchers might help resolve them. Many of the problems were found to be associated with research designed to assess program effects on child victimization and violence against women, areas in which research participation by subjects is particularly burdensome and difficult to obtain. Yet, program evaluations often assume that the process of subject participation is well understood and that outcome measures are reliable and valid across all subjects. A multidisciplinary, comprehensive and systematic review of victimization programs and past research is needed to advance the rigor of future evaluations. However, academics should not insist that all victim service programs warrant program evaluation as a condition of continued public support, because the decision to retain a program inevitably involves more than a scientific estimate of its effect.

Thinking Critically About Rural Gender Relations: Toward a Rural Masculinity Crisis/Male Peer Support Model of Separation/Divorce Sexual Assault

After decades of neglect, a growing number of scholars have turned their attention to issues of crime and criminal justice in the rural context. Despite this improvement, rural crime research is underdeveloped theoretically, and is little informed by critical criminological perspectives. In this article, we introduce the broad tenets of a multi-level theory that links social and economic change to the reinforcement of rural patriarchy and male peer support, and in turn, how they are linked to separation/divorce sexual assault. We begin by addressing a series of misconceptions about what is rural, rural homogeneity and commonly held presumptions about the relationship of rurality, collective efficacy (and related concepts) and crime. We conclude by recommending more focused research, both qualitative and quantitative, to uncover specific link between the rural transformation and violence against women. This paper was presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Los Angeles, California. Some of the research reported here was supported by National Institute of Justice Grant 2002-WG-BX-0004 and financial assistance provided by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Vice President for Research at Ohio University. Arguments and findings included in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the US Department of Justice or Ohio University. Please send all correspondence to Walter S. DeKeseredy, e-mail: walter.dekeseredy@uoit.ca. All of the names of the women who participated in DeKeseredy and colleagues’ rural Ohio study and who are quoted have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

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Conversations with Russian mafiosi

Open interviews and unplanned conversations with criminals are an important part of ethnographic research in criminology. This paper presents an analysis of conversations with members of Russian criminal groups. An attempt is made to explore the value of these informal interviews, the danger of informal contacts with criminals, and the reliability of the information received.

Does illegality breed violence? Drug trafficking and state-sponsored protection rackets

Illegality does not necessarily breed violence. The relationship between illicit markets and violence depends on institutions of protection. When state-sponsored protection rackets form, illicit markets can be peaceful. Conversely, the breakdown of state-sponsored protection rackets, which may result from well-meaning policy reforms intended to improve law enforcement, can lead to violence. The cases of drug trafficking in contemporary Mexico and Burma show how a focus on the emergence and breakdown of state-sponsored protection rackets helps explain variation in levels of violence both within and across illicit markets.

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The Costs to Criminal Theory of Supposing that Intentions are Irrelevant to Permissibility

I attempt to describe the several costs that criminal theory would be forced to pay by adopting the view (currently fashionable among moral philosophers) that the intentions of the agent are irrelevant to determinations of whether his actions are permissible (or criminal).

Hommage à Gérard Cornu

Sans résumé

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Working with People Who Are Violent to Their Partners: A Safety Building Approach

This article offers a new perspective on the assessment, treatment and management of adults who are violent to their partners. Using a worked case example, it describes how a solution-focused approach is used to develop, and evidence, safety for all family members.

Institutionalized corruption: power overconcentration of the First-in-Command in China

Among various kinds of corruption in China, corruption of the First-in-Command (FIC) is most pernicious, threatening the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party and the stability of the state. This paper examines several specific institutional arrangements under China’s current political structure, including the people’s congress, the ruling party system, and the collective leadership team system, to see how they have contributed to power overconcentration in the hands of FICs. This is done in a two-round process: first through the collective leadership team and then by the gestating decision-making rule. The paper also assesses four institutional innovations designed to prevent FIC corruption.

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The entrepreneurial society

This paper explains why and how entrepreneurship has emerged as an engine of economic growth, employment creation and competitiveness in global markets. The entrepreneurial society reflects the emergence as entrepreneurship as an important source of economic growth.

To Discipline and Publish: Scottsboro and Narratives of Delinquency

With the economics of racism of the 1930s and 1950s American South in mind, our essay explores the relationship between the act of writing and institutional penology. Taking an obscure, but visceral autobiographical account by Paterson and Conrad (Scottsboro Boy, Garden City Doubleday, 1950), we examine how discipline, punishment, and institutional identity emerge out of publishing, or, as Foucault put it, “the power of writing.” Narratives of delinquency born out of a racialized penal economy tend to resist attempts to tame the criminal, making institutional survival a productive discourse, and its articulation, a unique revolutionary act.

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Measuring corporate environmental crime rates: progress and problems

The problem of corporate crime rates has been the subject of debate, speculation and operationalization for decades, largely stemming from the complexity of measuring this type of crime. Examining corporate environmental crime poses challenges and creates opportunities for advancing the discussion of corporate crime rates, but criminologists are less familiar with environmental data. In the current paper, we review the strengths and weaknesses of existing environmental data that can be used to construct the components of an environmental crime rate. We also present a corporate environmental crime rate derived from data on violations of the Clean Water Act and describe problems with using it in real world data. Implications for theory, practice and future research are discussed.

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Torn between two targets: German police officers talk about the use of force

Considering earlier research into police use of force as well as the judicial and practical frame of police work in Germany, the article presents the results of an empirical study on the individual and collective legitimization of the use of force by German police officers. There are numerous justifications for the use of force expressed by focus group participants in eight German Federal States who were responding to a hypothesized scenario. In the discussions observed within the groups, reference is first made to the state’s duty to prosecute alleged offences and the measures or formal actions to do this—hence, the legal authority to use force. In the course of the discussions, however, it became obvious that illegal violence may occur, although it was not perceived as such by the officers. Overall, and after an intensive analysis of the focus group discussions, it can be stated that use of force (whether legal or not) depends on the police officer’s perception of the resistance of the person being engaged with. In this regard, different social–cultural or physical–material factors can be identified. They have different influences on the individual legitimization of police actions, intertwined with the perception of the situation as constructed by the officer. Three ways of perceiving the situation can be deduced, resulting in different patterns of justification for the use of force.

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Does neighborhood watch reduce crime? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Neighborhood watch grew out of a movement in the USA during the late 1960s that promoted greater involvement of citizens in the prevention of crime. Recent estimates suggest that over a quarter of the UK population and over 40% of the US population live in areas covered by neighborhood watch schemes. The current paper presents the results of a recent systematic review of evaluations of neighborhood watch. The main findings of the narrative review were that about half of the schemes evaluated showed that neighborhood watch was effective in reducing crime, with most of the other evaluations having uncertain effects. The main findings of the meta-analysis were that 15 of the 18 studies provided evidence that neighborhood watch reduced crime. While the results of the review are encouraging, it was concluded that more high-quality research needs to be done to help explain why study variations exist.

Design and Crime: Proofing Electronic Products and Services against Theft

This paper introduces the work of Project Marc (an EU-funded project to develop mechanisms for assessing the risk of crime) and discusses both difficulties encountered throughout the project and progress made since the project ended. The authors introduce the papers contained within this special edition and summarise their relevance to crime-proofing. The paper discusses progress made within this field in the decade prior to Project Marc and makes recommendations to ensure that the ideas move forward.

Bank regulation and supervision in bank-dominated financial systems: a comparison between Japan and Germany

This paper compares bank regulation and supervision in Japan and Germany. We consider these countries because they both have bank-dominated financial systems and their banking systems are often lumped together as one model, yet, bank stability differs significantly. We show that Japan and Germany have chosen different approaches to bank regulation and supervision and ask why they made their choices. We argue that bank regulation and supervision were less efficient in Japan than in Germany and that these differences were decisive for bank behavior.