Legislation Targeting Sex Offenders: Are Recent Policies Effective in Reducing Rape?

In recent years, several pieces of state and federal legislation have imposed new restrictions on convicted sex offenders, including registration with law enforcement agencies, community notification provisions, and sexually violent predator designations permitting civil commitment following a prison sentence. This paper uses panel data for the American states for the years 1970–2002 to assess the impact of these policies on the rate at which rapes occur. Our research finds no evidence that our current policies reduce the incidence of rape.     

All in Favour? Attitudes of Stakeholders and Drug Users Towards Judicial Alternatives

Different judicial alternative sanctions and measures exist on the three levels of the criminal justice system. These alternative sanctions and measures can be applied to a specific target group, namely drug users. The current study is a qualitative assessment of the application and execution of alternative measures and sanctions for drug users, based on semi-structured face-to-face interviews in which stakeholders (magistrates, judicial assistants and social workers) and drug users were asked for their attitudes towards these sanctions and the factors that influence them in their convictions and beliefs. In conclusion we can state that the interviews have increased the insight in the attitudes of decision makers, social assistants, judicial assistants and drug users towards alternative sanctioning. From the interviews we learn that there are strong similarities between the three profiles, which provide for a strong basis for the continued functioning of alternative sanctioning.

Investigating Probation Strategies with Juvenile Offenders: The Influence of Officers’ Attitudes and Youth Characteristics

Probation officers are the focal point for most interventions with delinquent youths in the juvenile justice system. The present study examines probation strategies and interventions in a sample of 308 probation officers who completed the Probation Practices Assessment Survey (PPAS) in a web-based survey. The PPAS measures six probation approaches: deterrence, restorative justice, treatment, confrontation, counseling, and behavioral tactics. Structural equation models and latent class analyses showed that probation officers use multiple approaches with delinquent youths consistent with the balanced and restorative justice movement. Younger youths, high-risk youths, and youths with prior social service involvements are likely to receive more intensive interventions. The implications of these findings for improving probation practices with delinquent youth are discussed.     

Symbolic Racism and Whites’ Attitudes Towards Punitive and Preventive Crime Policies

This study analyzes the determinants of Whites' support for punitive and preventive crime policies. It focuses on the predictive power of beliefs about race as described by symbolic racism theory. A dataset with 849 White respondents from three waves of the Los Angeles County Social Survey was used. In order to assess the weight of racial factors in crime policy attitudes, the effects of a range of race-neutral attitude determinants were controlled for, namely individual and structural crime attributions, perceived seriousness of crime, crime victimization, conservatism and news exposure. Results show a strong effect of symbolic racism on both types of crime policies, and in particular on punitive policies. High levels of symbolic racism are associated with support for tough, punitive crime policies and with opposition to preventive policies. Sub-dimensions of symbolic racism qualified these relationships, by showing that internal symbolic racism (assessing perceived individual deficiencies of Blacks) was most strongly predictive of punitiveness, whereas external symbolic racism (denial of institutional discrimination) predicted opposition to structural remedies. On the whole, despite the effects of race-neutral factors, the impact of symbolic racism on policy attitudes was substantial. Thus, White public opinion on both punitive and preventive crime policies is at least partially driven by racial prejudice.     

Sex and Capacity: The Management of Monsters?

The first consideration by a civil court of the test of capacity to engage in sexual relations – X City Council v MB, NB and MAB – is as recent as 2005. This article places this and subsequent cases in the historical context of the way in which the law has constructed the sexuality of persons with intellectual impairment. The article argues that, beginning with a series of rape cases in the mid to late nineteenth century, which recognised the concept of consent given through the expression of animal instincts, the law has accepted and deployed a model of intellectual impairment which understands expressions of sexuality in terms of an increasingly unstable opposition between vulnerability and danger, understood as the presence or absence of instinct, and as indicating an underlying ‘monstrosity’. The article argues that the historical continuity apparent in the modern case law is unfortunate and should be rectified.     

Internationalization and quality assurance: Towards worldwide accreditation?

This paper addresses two very closely related issues, namely the integration of the quality dimension in internationalization policies in higher education and the adaptation of quality assurance policies and practices to an increasingly international environment. Through an analysis of some issues and challenges in internationalization on the one hand and an overview of recent developments in quality assurance on the other, our objective is to question how internationalization and quality assurance can be integrated. Internationalization policies and practices are lacking a quality assurance dimension and quality assurance approaches are too much confined to national contexts. Can quality assurance give answers to the challenges facing internationalization and can the introduction of an international dimension give a solution to issues in the field of quality assurance. This paper then focuses on the concept of multiple accreditation and the development of worldwide mutual accreditation networks among institutions as a possible avenue for future progress. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Marriage and Desistance from Crime in the Netherlands: Do Gender and Socio-Historical Context Matter?

Over the last two decades, research examining desistance from crime in adulthood has steadily increased. The evidence from this body of research consistently demonstrates that salient life events—in particular, marriage—are associated with a reduction of offending across the life course. However, previous studies have been largely limited to male samples in the United States. As a result, questions regarding the universal effect of these relationships remain. Specifically, research is needed to assess whether the desistance effect of life events like marriage varies by gender and/or socio-historical context in countries other than the U.S. The present research addresses these gaps by examining the relationship between marriage and criminal offending using data from the Criminal Career and Life Course Study (CCLS). The CCLS includes criminal conviction histories spanning a large portion of the life course for nearly 5,000 men and women convicted in the Netherlands in 1977. Because we assess change over multiple observations within and between individuals, we utilize hierarchical models to estimate gender and contextual effects of marriage on criminal offending (i.e., any, violent, and property convictions). Overall, we find consistent support for the idea that marriage reduces offending across gender and socio-historical context. Notably, we find that the reduction in the odds of offending due to marriage is significantly greater for individuals in the most contemporary context. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Sex Disaggregated Trajectories of Status Offenders: Does CINS/FINS Status Prevent Male and Female Youth From Becoming Labeled Delinquent?

This study sought to provide a more recent and longitudinal examination of the effect of formal processing on status offenders’ subsequent delinquency using data from a large sample of first-time referral status offenders in the state of Florida. Results from semi-parametric group-based trajectory models suggested that roughly half of the status offenders subsequently accumulated delinquent arrests in adolescence following their initial referral for a status offense. Furthermore, the number and type of trajectory groups were more similar than different across sex. Study limitations and policy implications are also discussed.     

Desistance or Displacement? The Changing Patterns of Offending from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Research has devoted substantial attention to patterns of offending during the transition to early adulthood. While changes in offending rates are extensively researched, considerably less attention is devoted to shifts in the type of offending displayed during the transition to adulthood. Changes in the type of offending behavior suggest a pattern of “displacement” or shifts between various types of crime, rather than desistance from deviant behavior. In this paper, I integrate methods previously developed in stratification research and use longitudinal data from the National Survey of Youth that span the transition to adulthood to examine the extent to which desistance and displacement of deviant behavior are defining attributes of offending during the transition to early adulthood. The findings indicate that while desistance is clearly present, altering patterns of offending, or within-person displacement, rather than termination of illicit activity is most evident in the data.

Need,Connections, or Competence? Criminal Achievement among Adolescent Offenders

Variations in criminal performance have been much less explored than other parameters of criminal careers. We explore the factors associated with differential criminal achievement in a sample of 154 adolescent offenders involved in cannabis cultivation. Drawing from theories of earnings attainment, we examine the role of drug use, criminal social capital and criminal human capital in providing either (a) monetary, or (b) in kind (cannabis) rewards from crime. Results reveal that criminal social capital and criminal human capital are related to performance while drug use explains little of the variation. Their effects, however, differ between outcomes: young offenders who are mainly connected to adult growers tend to be paid in kind, whereas respondents connected to a majority of other young growers tend to receive money. Criminal human capital is crucial to earning money but insignificant to obtaining larger payments in cannabis. Implications for criminal career and desistance research are discussed.     

Procedural Justice for Victims and Offenders?: Exploring Restorative Justice Processes in Australia and the US

Sociolegal research indicates that when citizens perceive that legal processes and procedures are fair, both positive and negative legal outcomes will be viewed as acceptable. However, little is known about perceptions of fairness in informal contexts such as in restorative justice (RJ) practices and with victims (and offenders) who participate in these programs. Drawing on interviews with key actors engaged in post-conviction RJ programs for serious crimes in Australia and the USA, this paper asks, do post-conviction therapeutic RJ programs for violent crimes enhance procedural justice for victims and offenders? The data reveal that RJ is compatible with procedural justice for both victims and offenders. Specifically, RJ aids in correcting the harms created by the formal criminal justice system and, thus, satisfies and even greatly enhances procedural justice goals for both victims and offenders.     

Sex offender laws in the United States: smart policy or disproportionate sanctions?

In the 1990s, the United States began enacting a series of laws to monitor and supervise sex offenders living in the community. These evolved to include Internet registries of sex offenders, sex offender residence restrictions, GPS monitoring, and even civil commitment of sex offenders at the conclusion of their criminal sentences. Though other countries have enacted legislation to monitor sex offenders, none have implemented laws impinging on the civil liberties of offenders to the extent of those in the United States. This article examines the basis of the US laws and their challenges, provides an overview of their efficacy, and compares the US approach to those of other countries.     

File-sharing and downloading: goldmine or minefield?

Legal context: Major copyright owners have been slow to rise to the challengepresented by illegal file-sharing and downloading. In recentyears, they have scored a number of significant Court victoriesagainst file-sharers, but the recent decision in Promusicaev Telefónica, in which the ECJ held that the right tothe protection of industrial property does not necessarily outweighthe right to privacy, indicates that rights holders may benefitfrom a more creative and co-operative approach to file-sharing. Key points: The author provides an analysis of the Promusicae decision,along with a summary of the statutory position in the UK. Thisis also accompanied by a review of the recent internationallitigation landscape on file-sharing and a review of currentattitudes towards addressing illegal filesharing, includingrecent proposals from the British Government and the EuropeanParliament and new models of co-operation between rights holdersand file-sharing service providers. Practical significance: The Promusicae decision will disappoint copyright owners. TheECJ decision left it to Member States to determine whether thereshould be an obligation to disclose personal data in order toprotect copyright, so long as the interpretation of the lawattempts to reconcile the parties' competing rights and principlesand demonstrates proportionality. Copyright owners will, therefore,have to tailor enforcement strategies to individual Member States.This will hamper their ability to take action against individualinfringers efficiently. In addition to litigating against infringers,however, they may benefit from the new models of co-operationbetween copyright owners and file-sharing services which areemerging.     

Russia and Ukraine: Transition or tragedy?

Conclusion The political-criminal nexus that emerged in the post-Soviet period represents a transformation of the relationships which existed in the Soviet period. The division of the property of the Soviet state gave ample possibilities for the political-criminal nexus to obtain significant political assets. They were able to transform their power from one that was rooted in the managerial apparatus of the Soviet state and the consumer economy into one with international dimensions and control of very large shares of the domestic economy. The rise of the political-criminal nexus, while hardly surprising in light of the structure of power relations in the final decades of the Soviet period, precludes full democratization or the rise of a real market economy. In the initial years of the transformation process from a socialist to a post-socialist economy, insufficient attention was paid to the containment of the political-criminal nexus in both Russia and Ukraine. Most Western politicians and international organizations focused on the collapse of communism rather than the rise of these pernicious alternative power relationships. The prognosis for the containment of the political-criminal nexus in either country is rather limited at the moment. Ukraine, however, is at a comparative disadvantage because it has failed to sufficiently acknowledge the high costs of organized crime and its political links. This has been done at the highest levels of Russian government although precious little has been done to address the problem. The Ukraine situation is more difficult because its institutional resources are much more limited than Russia which inherited a disproportionate share of the Soviet Union's financial and institutional resources. With limited civil society and the economic precariousness of much of the population, little can be done to control the problem at its roots. The political-criminal nexus in Russia and Ukraine will remain a serious problem in coming decades. It cannot be ignored in appraising the development of the domestic political situation in either country or determining foreign policy in relation to these two newly independent states.     

Fast Tracking Persistent Young Offenders: To What Effect?

The last few years have seen much emphasis being placed on the speed of justice. In particular there has been an emphasis on speeding up youth justice, and this has resulted in quite a few Youth Courts establishing fast tracking schemes for persistent and spree offenders. One of the first of these started two years ago at Sheffield Youth Court. Its progress has been closely monitored by both the court staff and by research carried out at the University of Sheffield. The paper presents some of the results of this research, considering the purpose of fast tracking, what effect it has had on the court process, and the consequences for young offenders themselves. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Disability Law as an Academic Discipline: Towards Cohesion and Mainstreaming?

This article calls for a strengthening of Disability Law as an academic discipline and offers orientation for its future development. It argues that there is a need for enhanced cohesion among those already applying a critical disability perspective within disciplines such as Equality Law, Mental Health and Capacity Law, and Social Care and Protection Law and also for greater mainstreaming of this approach across the full breadth of sociolegal scholarship. The article is divided into three main sections. The first contextualizes Disability Law by reflecting on its relationship with other legal disciplines and broader pools of scholarship. The second focuses on issues of scope and structure. The third offers orientation for future Disability Law work by outlining four key cross-cutting challenges with the potential to bring together scholars with expertise in different areas of substantive law.     

Reluctant Participants in Restorative Justice? Youthful Offenders and Their Parents

This paper examines offender and parental involvement in the Vermont Juvenile Restorative Panels Program. In this program, juvenile offenders on probation appear before citizen‐run boards to negotiate the terms of their probation, which may include apologies, community service, restitution, and competency development tasks. Victims and parents of the offender also participate. This study reports findings from a qualitative analysis of 22 cases, including observations of panel meetings and interviews with program coordinators, offenders, parents, and victims. We find that offenders vary in level of participation as well as in their willingness to take responsibility. Parents do not understand the program well, worry about their child’s likelihood of compliance, but generally support the goals of the program. The implications of these findings for restorative practices with juveniles are explored in the concluding section.     

Police Officer Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam: “Worlds Apart”?

American Muslims may be the most diverse group of Muslims in any country in the world. There are an estimated 5–7 million Muslims in the United States. They represent a number of different nationalities, ethnicities, and interpretations of Islam. Moreover, over the past few years there appears to be an increase in the immigration of Muslims to the United States. Law enforcement agencies are currently concerned with the danger of “homegrown” terrorists and terrorism in the U.S. American Muslims likely represent the best source of information regarding those who have been dangerously radicalized within their various communities. To cull important information from the community, police agencies need to contact and communicate with their Muslim population. The ability to achieve these goals would seem to be shaped by both organizational and individual officer understanding and perception of both Muslims and Islam. Organizations and officers with accurate views would likely find efforts at communication and information exchange more fruitful. The current research seeks to assess the knowledge of and attitudes toward Muslims and Islam among our sample of American police officers. Four general areas will be explored in the survey. First, we examine the respondents’ general understanding of many of the basic tenets of Islam. Next, we wish to explore some of the respondents’ attitudes regarding Muslims and Islam. Third, we explore the respondents’ perception of media treatment of Muslims and Islam. Last, the level of officer contact with Muslims is examined.