Why Should Remorse be a Mitigating Factor in Sentencing?

This article critically examines the rationales for the well-settled principle in sentencing law that an offender’s remorse is to be treated as a mitigating factor. Four basic types of rationale are examined: remorse makes punishment redundant; offering mitigation can induce remorse; remorse should be rewarded with mitigation; and remorse should be recognised by mitigation. The first three rationales each suffer from certain weaknesses or limitations, and are argued to be not as persuasive as the fourth. The article then considers, and rejects, two arguments against remorse as a mitigating factor in sentencing: that the crime, not the offender, is the focus of punishment; and that the truly remorseful offender would not ask for mitigation. The article concludes with a brief consideration of whether a lack of remorse should be an aggravating factor.

Body Disposal Patterns of Sexual Murderers: Implications for Offender Profiling

Offender profiling postulates that crime scene behavior should predict certain offender characteristics. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between offender characteristics, situational factors, and body disposal patterns. Sequential logistic regression analysis on a sample of 85 sexual murderers shows that those who were in a relationship at the time of the crime and who present organized psychological characteristics are more likely to move the victim’s body after the homicide. However, when the victim is older and a conflict with the offender occurred prior to the crime, the body is more likely to be left at the crime scene. Implications for offender profiling are discussed in light of the results.

Response to Tudor: Remorse-based Sentence Reductions in Theory and Practice

Steven Tudor defends the mitigation of criminal sentences in cases in which offenders are genuinely remorseful for their crimes. More than this, he takes the principle that such remorse-based sentence reductions are appropriate to be a ‘well-settled legal principle’—so well settled, in fact, that ‘it is among those deep-seated commitments which can serve to test general theories as much as they are tested by them’. However, his account of why remorse should reduce punishment is strongly philosophical in character. He sets to one side the many practical difficulties in implementing such reductions in the real world of criminal justice institutions so that he can focus on the question of whether a plausible account of sentencing can show that remorse should mitigate punishment. I contend that Tudor’s defense of such reductions is unpersuasive in certain respects. Yet even if it can be made more persuasive, I argue that the conditions that would have to be satisfied for remorse-based sentence reductions to be justifiably implemented are so many and various that they would likely exceed our abilities to responsibly grant them in real world legal contexts. I therefore claim that Tudor has failed to provide a defense of the ‘remorse principle’ that serves to explain or justify existing legal practices.

Causeless complicity

I argue, contrary to standard claims, that accomplice liability need not be a causal relation. One can be an accomplice to another’s crime without causally contributing to the criminal act of the principal. This is because the acts of aid and encouragement that constitute the basis for accomplice liability typically occur in contexts of under- and over-determination, where causal analysis is confounded. While causation is relevant to justifying accomplice liability in general, only potential causation is necessary in particular cases. I develop this argument through the example of the role of U.S. legal officials in abetting the acts of unlawful interrogation that have taken place since 2001. I also suggest that there may be a limited justification for ex post ratificatory accomplice liability.

Offender as Forager? A Direct Test of the Boost Account of Victimization

Recent research has demonstrated that burglary clusters in space and time, resulting in temporal changes in crime hotspot patterns. Offender foraging behavior would yield the observed pattern. The offender as forager hypothesis is tested by analyzing patterns in two types of acquisitive crime, burglary and theft from motor vehicle (TFMV). Using a technique developed to detect disease contagion confirms that both crime types cluster in space and time as predicted, but that the space–time clustering of burglary is generally independent of that for TFMV. Police detections indicate that crimes of the same type occurring closest to each other in space and time are those most likely to be cleared to the same offender(s), as predicted. The implications of the findings for crime forecasting and crime linkage are discussed.

Why We Punish in the Name of Justice: Just Desert versus Value Restoration and the Role of Social Identity

Two different notions of justice might motivate people to demand punishment of an offender. The offense could be seen as lowering the victim’s and community’s status/power position relative to the offender, requiring a degradation of the offender to restore a moral balance (just desert). Or, the offense could be seen as questioning community values, requiring a reaffirmation of those values through social consensus (value restoration). Two studies referring to tax evasion and social welfare fraud yielded supportive evidence. Just desert was related to traditional punishment, especially when participants did not identify with a relevant inclusive community (Australians). Value restoration was related to alternative (restorative) punishment, especially when community values were regarded as diverse and requiring consensualization. It tended to be related to traditional punishment when community values were regarded as clear and consensual.

Programs for Men who Perpetrate Domestic Violence: An Examination of the Issues Underlying the Effectiveness of Intervention Programs

This review paper seeks to explore some of the reasons why rehabilitation programs for male perpetrators of domestic violence appear to be less effective in reducing recidivism than programs for other offender groups. It is argued that while the model of systems response to domestic violence has predominated at the inter-agency level, further consideration might be given to way in which men’s intervention groups are both designed and delivered. It is concluded that the program logic of men’s domestic violence programs is rarely articulated leading to low levels of program integrity, and that one way to further improve program effectiveness is to incorporate some of the approaches evident in more general violence prevention programs and from what is know about good practice in general about offender rehabilitation.

Black Mist and White Collars: Economic Crime in the United States and Japan

Comparative studies of crime have persistently challenged and daunted criminology scholars. For criminologists studying Japan, interest has traditionally been focused on the country’s much-heralded low crime rate. The current study examines white-collar lawbreaking in both the United States and Japan, focusing on similarities and differences in culture, law, criminal justice system response, corporate governance, and regulation. The study concludes that if Japan’s low crime rate is an enigma to criminologists, then its ample amounts of white-collar and corporate crime appear that much more puzzling. Given that the depth of the problem of white-collar crime goes far beyond adjudicated cases, Japan’s remarkably low rate of common crime is likely eclipsed by its rate of white-collar and corporate crime. The study concludes that the different legal and cultural contexts of the “law in inaction” go far in explaining the official nonrecognition of white-collar and corporate crime in both the United States and Japan.

Why criminal harms matter: Plato’s abiding insight in the Laws

Commentators have contested the role of resulting harm in criminal law since the time of Plato. Unfortunately, they have neglected what may be not only the best discussion of the issue, but also the first—namely, Plato’s one-paragraph discussion in the Laws. Plato’s discussion succeeds in reconciling two, seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints that till now have been in stalemate. Thus, Plato reconciles the view, that an offender’s desert is solely a function of his subjective willingness to act in disregard of the legitimate interests of others, with the view that criminal sentences can appropriately be made to depend upon how indignant, angry, and upset society is at an offender based upon the results of his culpable conduct. In doing so, Plato casts light on retributive theories of punishment by suggesting that an adjudicator can be committed to retribution and yet rightly believe that it is inappropriate to give an offender the full punishment he deserves. He also lays a basis for the view that causation, rather being predicates for the just punishment of offenders toward whom the public is intuitively angry for harm, is the consequence of the public’s being intuitively angry at offenders for harm.

Who are ‘we’? Don’t make me laugh

This paper explores the implications of uses of the word ‘we’ in post-apartheid South African fiction. ‘We’ in these novels is typically a contested linguistic site – which tells of the loss of inherited communities, and reflects the ethically complex negotiations of a ‘we’ perhaps still to come. Yet if the internal narratives assert a loss of community, each event of the novel’s being-read inaugurates a new ‘community’ of readers. The paper considers the ethical implications of the act of reading a literary text in post-apartheid South Africa. In the course of the argument, I draw links between African philosophies of community, and Jean-Luc Nancy’s proposition that ‘I’ does not precede ‘we’. Thus I suggest some ways in which philosophies from Africa contribute towards current debates about ‘we’ in contemporary continental philosophy.

The Silence of the Lambdas: Deterring Incapacitation Research

This essay provides an economist’s perspective on criminological research into incapacitation effects on crime. Our central argument is that criminologists would do well to substantially scale back the enterprise of trying to estimate the various behavioral parameters central to a micro-level approach to measuring incapacitation effects, including the annual rate of offending outside of prison (λ) and the lengths of criminal careers. One problem with this line of research is practical: for example, mean estimates of self-reported criminal activity by incarcerated prisoners are quite sensitive to reports by the most criminally active offenders. But the larger concern is conceptual—the incapacitation effects from a given change in sentencing policy may be undermined by the possibility of replacement effects, and at the same time omit other benefits that may arise from deterrent effects on crime. A more promising approach is to identify plausibly exogenous changes in sentencing policy in order to estimate the net impact on crime from the combined effects of incapacitation, deterrence and replacement.

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.

Influencing public policy: an embedded criminologist reflects on California prison reform

Criminologists bemoan their lack of influence on U.S. crime policy, believing that the justice system would be improved if their research findings were more central in decision making. I had an opportunity to test that notion as I participated in California’s historic attempt to reform its prisons over the past 4 years. I became an embedded criminologist, where I was able to observe and contribute to the inner workings of state government. This article reports on my accomplishments with respect to fostering research activities and shifting the department’s focus towards prisoner reintegration. It discusses some of the lessons I learned, including the personal toll that such work entails, the importance of the timing of policy initiatives, and the power of rigorous methodology and clear communication. I conclude by recommending that other policy-oriented criminologists seek out similar experiences, as I believe our academic skills are uniquely suited and ultimately necessary to create a justice system that does less harm.

Revisiting Incapacitation: Can We Generate New Estimates?

A substantial body of empirical research examines how the huge expansion in incarceration in the United States since the early 1970s has influenced crime. These studies merge the effects of three conceptually distinct paths by which incarceration might reduce crime: general deterrence, specific deterrence and incapacitation. This issue of the Journal focuses specifically on the incapacitation path. This Introduction reviews the individual papers and offers the editors’ judgment as to the plausibility of progress using different research strategies. It emphasizes the potential for using individual level data to take advantage of natural experiments.

The Violence of Persuasive Argument: Using Durkheim to Outline a Latent Barrier to a Nonviolent Criminology

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of a form of violence that represents a potential barrier to the development of a nonviolent criminology. Using several contentions drawn from Emile Durkheim’s theory of crime and punishment, it is proposed that persuasive arguments entail a component of violence where they contradict strong collective sentiments. The general nature and normality of this form of violence are outlined. In addition, it is suggested that although neglect of this violence may allow progressive researchers to maintain nonviolent self-conceptions, such neglect also may serve the interests of “intellectuals” while undermining the power of “nonintellectuals.” The violence of persuasive argument thus constitutes a problematic paradox for scholars who embrace nonviolence and equitable distributions of power.

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From the economy of deficit to the black-market: car theft and trafficking in Bulgaria

Official and victimisation data show that despite falling rates for motor vehicle thefts, much of the EU ‘organized crime’ related thefts have remained almost stable. Nevertheless, the car-theft market in the EU has changed, and so has the role of traditional destinations for stolen vehicles, such as Eastern Europe. The paper examines the demand, supply, and regulation factors that shape the structures of the vehicle theft market in Bulgaria, and smuggling patterns and offender behaviour in source countries, in particular Spain. We argue that such nuanced historical approach that takes into account a wider range of factors in destination countries can help explain the recent transformations in Europe’s vehicle-theft markets.

Mafia markers: assessing organized crime and its impact upon societies

This study develops a causal model of the independent effect of organized crime, rule of law, and corruption on national wealth. To measure the level of organized crime a Composite Organized Crime Index (COCI) is constructed combining data on the perceived prevalence of organized crime, unsolved homicides, grand corruption, money-laundering and the extent of the black economy, drawing on the World Economic Forum’s annual surveys among CEOs of larger companies, the Merchant International Group’s assessments of investment risks in 150 countries, studies by the World Bank Institute, and official crime statistics. The findings of the explorative analysis show that a political strategy of tolerating activities of local criminal groups in the hope of beneficial effects on the wealth of a nation is unlikely to bring the expected results. Although some types of organized crime may bring in significant revenues, tolerating Mafia-type activities implies letting the Trojan horse of racketeering and grand corruption into the walls of government.

A Developmental Approach for Measuring the Severity of Crimes

There is widespread agreement in criminology that some crimes are more severe than others, but precise definitions of crime severity and straightforward methods for measuring it have been elusive. Public perceptions of crime severity and economic estimates of crime costs to society or willingness to pay offer a variety of metrics for the public’s perceptions of severity, but they may not accurately describe severity as reflected in offender preferences. The behavior of offenders is critical for understanding developmental progressions in criminal careers, as one may assume that typically more severe offenses are not undertaken until less severe crimes have been committed. In the present paper we propose an alternative metric of crime severity, drawing on findings from developmental criminology that indicate that more severe crimes occur after less severe crimes in the criminal life course, and a method for estimating crime severity that uses the generalized Bradley–Terry model of multiple paired comparisons. We demonstrate this approach on two samples of youthful offenders: the National Youth Survey and the RAND Adolescent Outcomes Project. The results suggest that sample-specific estimates of crime severity can be derived, that these estimates provide insight into the developmental progression of crime, and that they correspond well to crime severity rankings produced by the public.

White-collar,organised and cyber crimes in the media: some contrasts and similarities

This article examines the media reportage of white-collar crimes, organised crimes and cybercrimes, principally in the British but also in the US media. It illustrates the ways in which different newspapers depict crime seriousness and how some defendants adapt to these portrayals. It examines competing explanatory models and suggests that although reportage has an ideological component, ‘news values’ and production pressures as well as ‘action triggers’ such as prosecutions or regulatory interventions are important.

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Excuses in law and in morality: a response to Marcia Baron

In this analysis of Marcia Baron’s account of excuses, I seek to do two things. I try to draw out the nature of the distinction between forgiving and excusing. I also defend the distinction between excuses (like duress), and denials of responsibility (like insanity).