OFFENDER–VICTIM INTERACTION AND CRIME EVENT OUTCOMES: MODUS OPERANDI AND VICTIM EFFECTS ON THE RISK OF INTRUSIVE SEXUAL OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN*

Criminological research has shown the relevance of examining offender–victim interaction and related factors to understand crime event outcomes. In sexual offenses against children, an obvious lack of knowledge exists regarding this issue. From a criminological perspective, we seek to improve our understanding of the offender–victim interaction in sexual offenses against children and, in particular, what factors might increase the risk of a more intrusive offense. We argue that modus operandi strategies play a central role in crime event outcomes and examine this hypothesis with data obtained from a semistructured interview conducted with offenders. As expected, modus operandi was found to have a strong effect on crime event outcomes, especially victim participation during sexual episodes. Victim effects also emerged from the analyses. Specifically, a strong interaction effect between age and gender of the victim was found for victim participation, which suggests that as the victim gets older, offenders are more likely to make their victim participate in sexual episodes when abusing a male victim but are less likely to do so when abusing a female victim.     

权利的另一个成本:国家认证及其西方经验

国家认证的西方经验表明,认证是权利的另一种成本,是建构良好的法治和治理秩序的必要条件,是一项政府应该提供的公共物品。国家认证的公共性,体现在它几乎是所有国家制度的前提,因此堪称国家治理体系的"基础的基础"。在建设法治国家、税收国家、福利国家和监管国家的过程中,现代国家需要不断增强其认证能力,让多数人进入认证体系,从而加快国家基本制度建设的进程,提升法律与政策的有效性,最大限度地降低国家沟通国民的中间成本,逐步实现关注绝大多数人的期望并为绝大多数人服务的良治状态。认证这种"治理术"在发达国家的制度化和例行化,应当为追求民主法治的人们所正视。     

RESISTING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF VICTIM ACTION ON THE OUTCOMES OF CRIMES

This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27, 595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and nonforceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action.     

经济犯罪的成本分析与预防

经济犯罪很大程度上是通过行为人预先的利弊权衡与理性计算后付诸实施的。超额利润的吸引力与刑法的威慑力相比,作为市场主体的经济人往往会选择前者,这是资本的逐利性使然。因此,用经济学的观点研究经济犯罪,通过提高经济犯罪的成本,降低犯罪收益,从而治理经济犯罪,具有理论和实践意义。     

UNDERSTANDING THE INFLUENCE OF VICTIM GENDER IN DEATH PENALTY CASES: THE IMPORTANCE OF VICTIM RACE,SEX‐RELATED VICTIMIZATION,AND JURY DECISION MAKING*

Using data from the Baldus, Woodworth, and Pulaski (1990) study of Georgia's death penalty system, we examine the influence of victim gender in death penalty cases. Furthermore, to improve our understanding of the meaning of victim gender, we consider 1) the joint effects of victim gender and victim race, 2) victimization characteristics that might explain victim gender effects, and 3) the impact of victim gender at different decision‐making stages in the death penalty case process. We find that both victim gender and race are associated with death sentencing outcomes and that an examination of the joint effects of victim gender and race reveals considerable differences in the likelihood of receiving a death sentence between the most disparate victim race–gender groups. In particular, it seems that black male victim cases are set apart from all others in terms of leniency afforded to defendants. We also show that the effect of victim gender is explained largely by gender differences in the sexual nature of some homicides. An examination of prosecutorial and jury decision making reveals that although victim gender has little impact on prosecutorial decisions, it has a meaningful impact on jury decisions.     

A HEAVY THUMB ON THE SCALE: THE EFFECT OF VICTIM IMPACT EVIDENCE ON CAPITAL DECISION MAKING*

The past several decades have seen the emergence of a movement in the criminal justice system that has called for a greater consideration for the rights of victims. One manifestation of this movement has been the “right” of victims or victims' families to speak to the sentencing body through what are called victim impact statements about the value of the victim and the full harm that the offender has created. Although victim impact statements have been a relatively noncontroversial part of regular criminal trials, their presence in capital cases has had a more contentious history. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned previous decisions and explicitly permitted victim impact testimony in capital cases in Payne v. Tennessee (1991) . The dissenters in that case argued that such evidence only would arouse the emotions of jurors and bias them in favor of imposing death. A body of research in behavioral economics on the “identifiable victim effect” and the “identifiable wrongdoer effect” would have supported such a view. Using a randomized controlled experiment with a death‐eligible sample of potential jurors and the videotape of an actual penalty trial in which victim impact evidence (VIE) was used, we found that these concerns about VIE are perhaps well placed. Subjects who viewed VIE testimony in the penalty phase were more likely to feel negative emotions like anger, hostility, and vengeance; were more likely to feel sympathy and empathy toward the victim; and were more likely to have favorable perceptions of the victim and victim's family as well as unfavorable perceptions of the offender. We found that these positive feelings toward the victim and family were in turn related to a heightened risk of them imposing the death penalty. We found evidence that part of the effect of VIE on the decision to impose death was mediated by emotions of sympathy and empathy. We think our findings open the door for future work to put together better the causal story that links VIE to an increased inclination to impose death as well as explore possible remedies.     

SENTENCING HOMICIDE OFFENDERS IN THE NETHERLANDS: OFFENDER,VICTIM, AND SITUATIONAL INFLUENCES IN CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT*

Empirical investigations of criminal sentencing represent a vast research enterprise in criminology. However, this research has been restricted almost exclusively to U.S. contexts, and often it suffers from key data limitations. As such, an examination of more detailed international sentencing data provides an important opportunity to assess the generalizability of contemporary research and theorizing on criminal punishment in the United States. The current study investigates little-researched questions about the influence of prosecutorial sentencing recommendations, victim/offender relationships, and extralegal disparities in sentencing by analyzing unique data on the punishment of homicide offenders in the Netherlands. The results indicate that offender, victim, and situational offense characteristics all exert important independent effects at sentencing and that prosecutorial recommendations exert powerful influences over judicial sentences. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions for comparative sentencing research across international contexts.     

An Analysis of Miranda Warnings and Waivers: Comprehension and Coverage

Miranda warnings enshrine the constitutional rights of custodial suspects against self-incrimination. However, the wording and sentence complexity of Miranda warnings and waivers vary dramatically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This study is the first extensive investigation of Miranda warning variations examining 560 Miranda warnings from across the United States. With Flesch-Kincaid reading comprehension as a useful metric, Miranda warnings varied from very simple comprehension (i.e., grade 2.8) to requiring postgraduate education. Miranda warnings are composed of five components (e.g., silence and evidence against you); marked variations were also observed in the comprehensibility of individual components. On average, the Miranda warning component on "continuing rights" requires a reading comprehension level six grades higher than the comparatively simple expression of the right to silence. Similar analyses were conducted on Miranda waivers. The content of these warnings differed on such issues as communicating (a) when access to an attorney would be granted (e.g., 45.9% specified only "during questioning") and (b) explicitly that indigent legal services were free (e.g., 31.8% directly informed suspects). Finally, the study identified representative Miranda components at different levels of reading comprehension as a template for further research.     

刑事司法过程的社会效果与社会成本——关于刑事司法效率的思考

刑事司法的高效率不仅仅指司法过程的迅速和司法资源的低消耗,而且指司法过程良好的社会效果和社会成本的最低支付.司法的社会效果与社会成本被忽视,反映出人们司法效率理念的缺陷.提高刑事司法效率,应当注重司法过程的社会效果,防止司法成本社会化.