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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Towards systematic knowledge building: An anti-crime research and development continuum

This response argues that the National Research Council (NRC) report, while valuable and thorough, would have benefited from conceptualizing evaluation activities along a continuum of knowledge development, with evaluations initially verifying the effectiveness of program concepts, before moving to evaluations of the feasibility and generalizability of anti-crime strategies and, finally, to evaluations of the costs and benefits of implementation of new strategies.

Greening the security council: climate change as an emerging “threat to international peace and security”

Climate change is a security problem that requires global solutions. Despite some important recent advances, current international responses to climate change are inadequate. This paper assesses whether the United Nations Security Council possesses sufficient legal authority to compel states to address the causes and consequences of climate change. While not advocating the immediate adoption of coercive measures, this paper initiates discussion of this issue, with the goal of developing an institutional framework within which to respond to this emerging threat, if necessary. The paper begins with a brief overview of the clear links between climate change and security, and the inadequacy to date of international remedial efforts. This is followed by a detailed analysis of Security Council legal authority, in particular the UN Charter, including a discussion of its evolving invocation in the context of non-traditional threats. Applying this legal framework to the specific issue of climate change demonstrates the substantial authority of the Security Council to take binding decisions relating to this subject, and its wide range of available enforcement measures, recognizing that political will to exercise and support this authority is required for any successful Security Council efforts to address climate change. The paper concludes that the Security Council has the legal authority to address the causes and consequences of climate change, and that its recent counter-terrorism and non-proliferation measures provide an illustrative institutional framework within which to address this emerging ‘threat to international peace and security’.

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.

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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How you can tell if the simulations in computational criminology are any good

Computational criminology applies computer simulations to study topics of interest for criminologists. Just as for all computer modelling in science, the validity of the simulations ultimately depends on whether they are able to reproduce empirical phenomena with sufficient accuracy. The only way in which this can be determined is by comparing model output to real observations. This paper provides an overview of how such model evaluations can be undertaken.

Majority shareholder protection by variable qualified majority rules

In this paper, we analyze judicial review according to the German Stock Corporation Act (Aktiengesetz, §§ 243 et seqq.) and its blocking effect with the help of concepts of cooperative game theory. In particular, we suggest variable qualified majority rules as ingredients of arrangements which balance the interests of a majority shareholder and of the minority shareholders.

Justice Under Global Capitalism?

Under conditions of polycentric globalisation, a positive concept of justice is definitively impossible. Justice is aimed at removing unjust situations, not creating just ones. The justice of fundamental rights coerces expansive social systems into self-restriction. Human rights in particular take the role of counter-principles to communicative violations of body and soul, a protest against inhumanities of communication, without it ever being possible to say positively what the conditions of humanly just communication might be. The article analyses some consequences of this view for social counter-movements and counter-institutions.

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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Regional Arrangements as Agents of the UN Security Council: Some African and European Organisations Contrasted

The increased burden placed upon the UN Security Council in the post-Cold War era in respect of its discharge of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security has fuelled calls for the greater use of regional arrangements as agents of the Council, to relieve its burden. However, the various agendas and capabilities of different arrangements make it difficult to adopt a uniform template of the role which regional arrangements can play as conductors of peace support operations authorised by the Security Council. This article attempts to provide a framework against which the potential role of different arrangements as viable agents to which the Security Council can entrust military enforcement operations, before going on to assess how selected African and European organisations fare against this framework. It will be demonstrated that when assessed against this framework, the organisations selected for comparison are remarkably similar.

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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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).

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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The ‘Perils’ of an Identity Politics Approach to the Legal Recognition of Harm

In the past, and it still remains the case, people with learning difficulties who are victims of violence have been cast as being in need of protection rather than rights and justice. Such an approach belies an institutionalised perspective of harm that does not readily engage with criminal justice structures or solutions. At the same time, Sect. 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gives the court the power to pass enhanced sentences where it can be proven that a crime was motivated by hostility towards someone because s/he is disabled. However, this provision may simply remain a symbolic pledge to equality that fails to tackle the complex and deep rooted causes of violence and oppression in modern society. The consequences of automatically turning to hate crime ‘solutions’ have yet to be explored. This article will draw from the ideas of a number of thinkers in the context of diverse activism to construct a bridge between current debates about how to theorise and tackle violence and oppression in the modern world and the campaigns fought by people with learning difficulties and their supporters. The hope is that this exercise will not only help people with learning difficulties to access the current debate but will further develop current thinking about how to understand and tackle violence in the modern world.

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.

Justice in Our World and in that of Others: Belief in a Just World and Reactions to Victims

Framed by the Belief in a Just World theory (BJW; Lerner, M. J. (1980). Belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation), this article presents two studies that analyze people’s reactions to the suffering of victims belonging to an ingroup and an outgroup. In Study 1, participants viewed a videotaped film containing the victimization story. The victim was presented as a non-categorized, ingroup or outgroup (Gypsy) victim. Threat to BJW was measured using the modified Stroop task developed by Hafer (J Pers Soc Psychol 79:165–173, 2000). In the second study, a non-victimization story was introduced and a 2 (victim, non-victim) × 2 (ingroup, outgroup) between-subjects design was used. Both studies show that the ingroup victim is more threatening to the BJW than the outgroup victim. The expected secondary victimization of the ingroup victim was only obtained in the second study when a non-obtrusive derogation measure was used.

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.

Hommage à Gérard Cornu

Sans résumé

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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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Child Justice in Canada and the Four Ps: Protection,Prosecution, Prevention,and Participation

This article provides an analysis of the flaws in the Canadian legal system with respect to child rights, in the light of the three Ps set forth by former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler (2004–2006): Protection, Prosecution, and Prevention. Contrary to the general trend of research on “youth” crime which focuses on the visible criminal activities of children and for which they are readily ascribed the status of “young offenders,” I examine whether the legal system is just as swift in giving child victims adequate Protection and Prosecution against their assailants. Six specific child victimization contexts have been identified, which are all characterized by invisibility: in the home, in care, in school and public spaces as well as by corporations and the criminal justice system. I explore why these victimizations are invisible and what legal protection is offered to affected children. Finally, I analyse the extent to which a fourth P, that of Participation, can strengthen the three Ps of Protection, Prosecution and Prevention in fighting crimes committed against children. The contents of this article reflect the author’s opinions only.

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