Why rural crime and justice really matter

While it is true that in general urban crime is roughly three times higher than rural crime, over the last decades rural crime has increased at the same rate as crime in big cities. Whereas violent crime in large cities rose from 1966 through 1991 and then declined, rural rates drifted upward for the entire period. Moreover, some crimes are more prevalent in rural settings than in cities, while some others by definition cannot even be committed in cities at all (“rural-specific offenses”). Meanwhile, researchers have paid little attention to rural crime and justice. This is highly regrettable given that studying rural crime and justice can potentially contribute in very important ways both to criminological theory and to crime policy. This article deals with why it is important for researchers, the justice system, and society in general to pay greater attention to issues of rural crime and rural justice. Among the reasons discussed are statistical arguments defying popular misconceptions, arguments in the field of criminological theory, counterintuitive trends in rural crime, various disadvantages which rural areas suffer compared with urban ones, strategies for dealing with crime which must be adapted to the rural environment, and some others. Finally, both theory and policy implications are discussed, demonstrating that rural crime cannot be understood or controlled in the same ways as urban crime is. Author Note: Dr. Wojciech Cebulak recived his Master's in Law from Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, and his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University. He has taught at Salem State College, Oklahoma State University, Kent State University, and is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Justice, Minot State University, 500 University Avenue West, Minot, ND 58707. He has also been Project Director of the Research Partner/Crime Analyst Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) initiative for the District of North Dakota.     

The department of justice merger guidelines: The search for empirical support

This paper examines the Department of Justice Merger Guidelines to determine whether there is any objective support for the critical values they suggest. The conclusion, based on empirical results using Census of Manufacturers data, is that there is nothing to suggest a unique level at which one can suspect collusion will arise that in turn will lead to enhanced profitability of firms within an industry.     

Managing crime through quality education: A model of justice

The study examines the role of quality education in access to justice, using a panel data of 21 diversified countries for the period of 1990–2015. The findings show that there is a positive relationship between the presence of scientific and technical journals (STJ) articles and crime rates. The R&D expenditures does not substantially reduce crime rate while per capita income, trademark applications, and technical cooperation grants significantly reduce crime rates across countries. The panel fixed effect (FE) model confirmed the inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income (GDPpc) and crime rate in the presence of STJ, while this result is changed in the case of GMM estimator. The results of panel causality confirmed the unidirectional causality running from crime rate to STJ and R&D expenditures, while there is bidirectional causality between i) GDPpc and technical cooperation grants, and between ii) energy efficiency and refugee population by country. The variance decomposition analysis (VDA) shows that R&D expenditures have a greater share to influence crime rate, while technical cooperation grants will affect STJ for the next 10 years time. This finding bolsters the conversation on the relationship between education and a reduction in crime rates.     

Race, conventional crime, and criminal justice: The declining importance of skin color

Blacks in the United States are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the population. One explanation is that racial discrimination against Blacks pervades the American system of criminal justice. This study examined the nature and extent of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system by evaluating five propositions using data from extant literature. Little evidence was found to support the allegation that the criminal justice system systematically discriminates against Blacks.     

Victims of crime in the criminal justice system in Barbados

The study focused on the treatment of victims in the criminal justice system in Barbados, a developing country in the English speaking Caribbean. Based on the administration of a pre-designed questionnaire to 458 respondents from a simple random sample of victims who made reports to the police in Barbados. It focused on victims' experiences with the police in the law enforcement process, their experiences in the courts in the adjudication process, and factors associated with these. The findings were mixed, but showed that the respondents' experiences in the law enforcement and the adjudication process were generally positive. Regression analysis showed that police seriousness about, and interest in the case were statistically significant predictors of victims' satisfaction with the police, and that these together with police politeness, and response time explained 67 percent of the variance in respondents satisfaction with the police.     

Data sources in Chinese crime and criminal justice research

This paper reviews major criminological data collected in China over decades. Very few quantitative criminological data-sets are available to international and comparative scholars because of the sensitivity of the topic. Studies have been scattered and intertwined in other areas of study, such as law. However, several major projects have been conducted, although they may not be widely known to the international research community. The paper describes and analyzes the major projects in terms of their designs, samples, and measures. It also assesses their nature, scope, and utility that may be informative for further research on crime and justice in China.

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