Postmodern criminology in relation to radical and conflict criminology

The literature on postmodern criminology suggests that there is some relationship between it and radical criminology. This relationship apparently is based in part on the ract that both are further related to conflict theory. However, conceptual analyses on these types of theories have not fully explicated whatever similarities and differences exist among them. This essay identifies six core theoretical assertions in conflict criminology and compares them to parallel assertions in radical and postmodern criminology. Such comparison is followed by a discussion on the relevance of conflict and radical theory as conceptual backdrops from which to comprehend postmodern inquiry.     

Imperialism, crime and criminology: Towards the decolonisation of criminology

Cohen (1988) once concluded that it is ironic that critics in the West are identifying forms of social control that are more traditional in the Third World as better alternatives to the neo–classical and positivistic repressive traditions in the West while some suggest that what they found malignant in the West should be exported to the Third World as benign. In this paper, I am going beyond Western crime control models to examine the character of criminology itself as an imperialist science for the control of others.     

台湾犯罪学理论观点比较

台湾地区犯罪学研究十分繁荣,专家众多、学派林立,为了加强对台湾地区犯罪学发展情况的了解,有必要对岛内几个具有代表性的犯罪学理论观点进行梳理、比较。     

Politics and ethics in cultural criminology

This essay offers both a critique of the theory and practice of criminology and an alternative programme via a sketch of a cultural criminology utilising cultural and literary analysis. The first part of the essay calls for the problematisation of the issues of value and representation in the criminological project and offers a competing account of the theoretical basis of the project of criminology based upon a cultural politics of difference and the ethics of radical alterity. The second part of the essay is a demonstration of how this theoretical basis might operate in practice through a cultural criminological reading of Maurice Blanchot's novelThe Most High (1948, 1996). This novel is an account of the relationship between language and transgression in a totalitarian society at the end of history. An alteration in the discursive practices of the criminological project premised upon a competing theoretical perspective suggests that criminology (specifically the relation between law and transgression, deviancy and regulation) can become an important element in explanations regarding the organisation and disorganisation of contemporary urban culture utilising the strengths of its prior application (specifically narratology) and abandoning its fear of culture.     

Quantitative criminology in The Netherlands

This article briefly describes quantitative criminology in The Netherlands since the seventies. Dutch quantitative criminologists have been active in most fields of the discipline of criminology: research has been done on the etiology of crime and, in relation to this, the self-report methodology. A number of victimization surveys have been executed, and in relation to this, attention was given to fear of crime, victims in the judicial system, and situational approaches to crime. There has been research on policy evaluation, sentencing, and differential treatment in the criminal justice system, and alternative sanctions. Recently three major international studies have been coordinated by Dutch criminologists: an international self-report study, an international victim survey of households, and an international survey of victimization among businesses. In this article we describe the first two studies and briefly compare some of their features. Overall, it appears that Dutch quantitative criminology is embedded in the international mainstream of criminology and, in general, has been strongly related to policy concerns.     

Corporate environmental responsibility and criminology

This article addresses corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and aims to present a criminological analysis of it. We studied the opinion of a number of principle actors involved in CER in Europe in order to determine how they perceive it in terms of its definition, aetiology and approaches. For each of these dimensions we relate back to a criminological framework to ascertain how it is positioned in the green criminological debate. We start out by providing information on what corporate environmental responsibility is and how it relates to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. Then we outline the theoretical framework in accordance with the three central themes for the criminological analysis of CER: definition, aetiology and approaches. We also explain the method that was used (semi-structured interviews). Next, we present the results according to the same threefold structure. Finally we discuss these results in a last part, which is divided in two. First, we look at the challenges that the criminological perspective poses for CER in terms of definition, aetiology and approaches. The second part of the discussion turns the question around and wonders how CER could contribute to greening criminology.     

Ideology and relative autonomy in anglo-canadian criminology

This paper examines the concepts of ideology and relative autonomy as they have been applied in critical Canadian criminology. It is argued that criminologists have oversimplified the relationship between criminal law and state structure in Canada: first, because of their general failure to recognize that intensifying crime control is consensus-promoting, not consensus-threatening, since criminal law and the criminal justice system do not occupy the same position in relation to legitimation processes as do other institutions of the welfare state, such as education and health care; second, because they have assumed a necessary relationship between relative autonomy and the liberalization of criminal justice systems. We need to specify more carefully which types of reform threaten dominant classes and which are irrelevant to them.     

再论刑事法学领域的科际整合--从犯罪学的学科定位角度

我国目前的刑事法学内部存在很大的体系混乱现象.本文提倡科际整合,以明确各学科在刑事法学科体系中的定位,为学术交流创造更方便、规范的环境,进而推动刑事法学的发展.     

Key longitudinal-experimental studies in criminology

Following the tradition of Joan McCord's work, this paper reviews longitudinal-experimental studies in criminology with community samples of at least 100 persons, follow-up periods of at least 5 years, personal interviews, and measures of offending. The main advantages of such studies are in investigating both the natural history of development (including the effects of risk/protective factors and life events) and the impact of interventions on offending. This paper also reviews advantages and problems of prospective longitudinal surveys, randomized experiments, and longitudinal-experimental studies in criminology. Four key longitudinal-experimental studies were conducted by Joan McCord, Richard Tremblay, Lawrence Schweinhart and David Olds. Other studies have been conducted, or are currently under way, but no criminological study has yet been published with several years of personal data on participants both before and after an intervention.Joan McCord Award Lecture given at the American Society of Criminology, Toronto, Canada.     

Cultural relativism and comparative criminology

The recent spate of comparative studies of crime is long overdue as a potential palliative to the traditional ethnocentrism of American criminology. But their comparative method is uncritically taken from two incompatible propositions derived from Durkheimian empiricism. As such, the generalizations about criminal behavior that these studies advance should be treated more with caution than optimism. This essay discusses the alleged advances over Durkheimian empiricism made by two distinct forms of cultural relativism. If what every man believes as a result of perception is indeed to be true for him; if, just as no one is to be a better judge of what another experiences, so no one is better entitled to consider what another thinks is true or false... then, my friend, where is the wisdom of Protagoras, to justify his setting up to teach others and to be handsomely paid for it? Socrates, in Plato'sTheaetetus     

Conservative ideology in criminology and criminal justice

As often as the label “conservative” is used in criminological and criminal justice books, papers, articles, lectures and discussions, rarely is the substance of what “conservative” might mean raised. Its use as a prejoritive by those who are not conservative clouds the word and the complex of ideas it represents with a negative imagery. The author, a confessed conservative, seeks to dispel that cloud by identifying the common features of contemporary American conservative thought in its five major divisions: secular and theological fundamentalism, core conservatism, conservative pragmatism, and libertarian conservatism. How adherents of each of these five camps impact on criminal justice policy and criminological theory is explained. Proposals for a conservative pedagogy in criminal justice are offered to sympathizers and a conservative who’s who and reading list are provided for further reading.     

Determination of lithium content in human biological objects (liver, kidney) by the method of flame photometry

The authors give a method of determination of the content of lithium in biological objects (liver, kidney) by the method of flame photometry. It is possible to use this method in forensic medicine in cases of acute intoxication.     

Advancing knowledge about replication in criminology

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This article summarizes key points made in a session at the American Society of Criminology meeting in Philadelphia in November 2017, entitled “The...     

The analysis of case-control studies in criminology

Case-control designs, in which subjects are selected conditionally on the value of a dependent variable, are well suited for research in criminology. For many research issues, case-control studies should be preferred over cohort studies because they can provide estimates of the same parameters, with equal standard errors, for less cost. This paper describes the case-control design and some of the problems that arise in interpreting them. An approach to analysis and interpretation that has developed in epidemiology is presented.     

Biosocial criminology and modern crime prevention

Objective

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, criminological efforts to prevent or reduce crime were centered on addressing presumed biological causes of crime. Most of these strategies involved calls for eugenics—proposals that today are considered unethical and morally reprehensible. Biologically-oriented criminology and crime control policies have re-emerged with new sophistication and attention to the importance of social context. Additionally, developmental crime prevention, with a special focus on biological/physiological risk factors in the early life course, has become influential in criminology. This paper examines the relevance of biology to modern day crime prevention.

Materials and methods

Narrative review of the theoretical and empirical literature of biology and developmental crime prevention.

Results

There are a growing number of developmental crime prevention programs that address biological risk factors for delinquency and later criminal offending. These programs are found in the family, school, and community domains. Evidence suggests that these programs can reduce crime.

Conclusions

While “biological crime prevention” as a separate field has not yet emerged, findings show that crime prevention programs can and do address biology in a sociologically sensitive manner—and these programs have shown significant impacts on crime.     

The failure of postmodern criminology

Postmodernism has recently washed up on the shores of criminology, and is the subject of considerable theoretical debate. This essay critically assesses some of the most trenchant and relevant components of the theoretical bases for postmodernism, and sketches out their applicability to criminology. It argues that postmodernism can be of little assistance to intellectuals committed to critique and fundamental social change. While postmodernists look down so severely at ‘old-fashioned’ ‘meta-narratives’ like Marxism, it is now they who are falling off the contemporary agenda, because they are dated and theoretically flawed. My main argument is that the theoretical imporverishment of postmodernism creates an obstacle to the development of a truly critical criminology. One of the current challenges of critical criminology is to amplify the critique of postmodern criminology and to reorient the trajectory of critical criminology away from the postmodern detour. The essay explores the historical context of the emergence of postmodernism, the modernist/ postmodernist era, deconstructionism, ‘meta-narratives’, idealism, form and content, fragmentation/pluralism/relativism, absence of progressive praxis, conservatism and Marxism.