A snapshot of scja members: An analysis of paper presentations at the 1998–2003 scja annual meetings

This paper contains an analysis of papers scheduled for presentation at the annual meetings of the Southern Criminal Justice Association during a six-year period (1998–2003). The goal is to discover which research topics are most popular and which are least popular in order to develop a clearer picture of what the SCJA is, what its members value, what they stand for, and what they think is important.     

Testing a promising homicide reduction strategy: re-assessing the impact of the Indianapolis “pulling levers” intervention

Since the publication of analyses suggesting the significant impact on youth homicide of the Boston “pulling levers” intervention, a series of studies of similar strategies have indicated promise in reducing homicide and gun assaults. One of these studies was an assessment of a pulling levers strategy in Indianapolis, where trend analyses indicated a significant reduction in homicide following the intervention, while six other similar Midwestern cities did not experience a significant decline in homicide. We re-assess the results of the Indianapolis study by disaggregating the offenses into gang- and non-gang homicides. Given that the pulling levers program focused on influencing gangs and networks of chronic offenders, the impact of the intervention should be more apparent for gang homicides than for non-gang homicides. Alternatively, should the impact be similar for non-gang homicides, then it is more likely that the downward trend would be caused by unmeasured external forces. Coefficient-difference tests relying on estimates obtained from autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time–series models indicate that gang homicides declined significantly more than did non-gang homicides following the Indianapolis intervention. These findings suggest ‘something happened’ to gang homicides that did not happen to non-gang homicides, which adds further support that the pulling levers initiative was the driving force behind the overall reduction in homicide in Indianapolis.

Toward “Safer” and “Better” Communities?: Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act,Aboriginal Youth and the Processes of Exclusion

After a decade of high incarceration rates, the Canadian Department of Justice has revised its approach to juvenile justice. Enshrined in the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), the renewed youth justice system stresses the importance and responsibility of community for crime control. While on the surface the state’s appeals to such programmes as restorative justice seem laudable, caution should be exercised in fully endorsing this approach. While community initiatives have been criticized for “widening the net of social control” and intruding state control deeper into social life, their exclusionary potential is perhaps more troubling. Following Derrida’s metaphysics of presence, I suggest that ‘community’ perpetually finds meaning in opposition to the other. In this environment, Aboriginal youth, who are among the most marginalized in Canadian society, will likely be the most unfavourably effected. This paper does not, however, entirely reject the Act’s appeal to community. Nevertheless, I argue that for meaningful challenges to contemporary constructions of community and youth justice to occur the discursive limits forced upon ‘community’ must be fractured and fashioned in ways that renounce homogeneity. We strongly believe the solution to youth crime is in the community. Give the community the ability to deal with it and they will (Canada 1997).     

Applying the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) to studies of mental health provision for juvenile offenders: a research note

The degree of reporting transparency in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is an important factor when the validity of any results is being considered. The use of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guidelines has improved the reporting standards of RCTs in many healthcare journals, but these guidelines have yet to be adopted universally. In this study, we applied the CONSORT Statement to RCTs identified from a systematic review of mental health provisions for juvenile offenders. We assessed the number of CONSORT items reported in each trial and investigated the extent of endorsement by journal editors. The findings showed that some items were fully endorsed (e.g., the aim of the study) whereas other items, such as sample size estimations, were not presented in any of the trials. A minority of journals supported the use of the CONSORT Statement in their journals’ instructions for authors. The overall reporting standard for this sample of trials was, therefore, mixed. Comparisons with trials conducted in other disciplines are discussed, and suggestions for improving reporting standards are presented.

Scales for perceived risk of student-on-student victimization in grades 7 through 10: A psychometric analysis of the adolescent index on school safety

Although past research has developed scales for the incidence, prevalence, and fear of student-on-student victimization (SSV), little is known about the scaling of perceived risk (i.e., the cognitive appraisal of the chances of experiencing SSV). Hence, this study examined self-report survey data for the perceived risk of SSV as measured in the Adolescent Index for School Safety (AISS). Children in grades 7 through 10 (n=337) in a single Florida public school completed the AISS. Factor analyses using Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Oblimin Rotation identified nine unique factors for perceived risk. Reliability analyses found standardized Cronbach Alphas that ranged from .64 to .91, and seven out of the nine identified scales were above .80, which suggested good to excellent internal consistency. Future research should examine the content validity, construct validity, and predictive validity for the AISS and other self-report surveys of SSV dynamics. This publication was made possible by a grant [#97-MU-FX-KO12 (S-l)] from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (O.J.J.D.P.), United States Department of Justice (U.S.D.O.J.). This grant is administered through the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence at George Washington University. This specific study was developed and implemented by staff at: 1) East Carolina University’s Department of Criminal Justice; and 2) Florida State University’s Center for Educational Research and Policy Studies. All points of view and opinions in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of East Carolina University, Florida State University, the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence, the O.J.J.D.P., or the U.S.D.OJ. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Bill Doerner and Jennifer Jolley for their support, editorial feedback, and insightful comments regarding earlier drafts of this paper.     

How important are interview methods and questionnaire designs in research on self-reported juvenile delinquency? An experimental comparison of Internet vs paper-and-pencil questionnaires and different definitions of the reference period

There has been relatively little change over recent decades in the methods used in research on self-reported delinquency. Face-to-face interviews and self-administered interviews in the classroom are still the predominant alternatives envisaged. New methods have been brought into the picture by recent computer technology, the Internet, and an increasing availability of computer equipment and Internet access in schools. In the autumn of 2004, a controlled experiment was conducted with 1,203 students in Lausanne (Switzerland), where “paper-and-pencil” questionnaires were compared with computer-assisted interviews through the Internet. The experiment included a test of two different definitions of the (same) reference period. After the introductory question (“Did you ever...”), students were asked how many times they had done it (or experienced it), if ever, “over the last 12 months” or “since the October 2003 vacation”. Few significant differences were found between the results obtained by the two methods and for the two definitions of the reference period, in the answers concerning victimisation, self-reported delinquency, drug use, failure to respond (missing data). Students were found to be more motivated to respond through the Internet, take less time for filling out the questionnaire, and were apparently more confident of privacy, while the school principals were less reluctant to allow classes to be interviewed through the Internet. The Internet method also involves considerable cost reductions, which is a critical advantage if self-reported delinquency surveys are to become a routinely applied method of evaluation, particularly so in countries with limited resources. On balance, the Internet may be instrumental in making research on self-reported delinquency far more feasible in situations where limited resources so far have prevented its implementation.

The Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles

The Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles (Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbescherming) is an independent advisory, supervisory and judiciary board to the Netherlands Minister of Justice on matters relating to the prison system, the hospital order detention system, the probation system and the youth incarceration system. Members are recruited from a variety of backgrounds, such as magistracy, science, medicine, psychiatry and social work. As a rule, they have a full-time job in society. They are recruited by virtue of their expertise, competence and professional experience in relevant fields. Nowadays, there are about 60 members. The combination of the Council’s three tasks has been criticised. The argument is that the advisory and supervisory tasks of the Council could interfere with the independent and impartial nature of its judicial task. The supposed incompatibility of the three tasks has been one of the arguments of the Minister of Justice in defending his decision to set up an Inspectorate for the whole field of the administration of justice. This Inspectorate would overlap the Council’s supervisory task. So, legislation has been prepared in order to prevent overlap by taking away this task from the Council. The resistance to these plans was an important reason for the Dutch government to ask the Verwey-Jonker Institute to evaluate the performance of the Council. The Council performed very well in this evaluation. Its performance could not, therefore, really be used as an argument for curtailing its tasks. The independent nature of an Inspection Board is open to question, as it is functioning under the responsibility of the Minister of Justice. However, the Minister of Justice has not been convinced by this and other arguments, so there is a big chance that the Council will loose its supervisory task.

Publication and Research Trends in Police Psychology: A Review of Five Forensic Psychology Journals

Police psychology (PP) articles in five forensic psychology journals (Behavioral Sciences and the Law; Criminal Justice and Behavior; Law and Human Behavior; Legal and Criminological Psychology; Psychology, Crime, and Law) were identified in order to examine PP publication and research trends within the field of forensic psychology. A level of interest (LI) score was calculated by dividing the total number of pages dedicated to PP articles by the total number of journal pages. Article characteristics (e.g., research location, topic) were also coded. The overall LI-score across all journals was 0.13, with Legal and Criminological Psychology having the highest LI-score. Results also showed that interest in PP research is growing, particularly in Law and Human Behavior and Criminal Justice and Behavior. PP research has primarily been conducted in the United States, dedicated to operational issues, and experimental in nature. The alignment of these research trends with practice is discussed.

Power and Criminal Law: Criminalization of Conduct Norms in a Colonial Regime

A content analysis of the published materials in the Journal of Criminal Justice: An International Journal (JCJ), and the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice (IJCACJ) was undertaken to evaluate if the international functional agenda of the journals to fill the present need for dissemination of new information, ideas and methods (to both practitioners and academicians in the criminal justice area) has been achieved. It was found that there is very limited international discourse currently going on in the Journal of Criminal Justice and that the bulk of the discussion in print in the journal is virtually inter- and intra-American. On the other hand, it was found that a substantial number of materials published in the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice emanated from outside the United States, were written by non-U.S. practitioners and academicians, and focused on non-American criminal justice systems. It was concluded that in terms of regional composition of both journals' editorial staff, regional distribution of articles by source of origin and regional distribution of articles by subject content, the IJCACJ is more global in scope than the JCJ. The net result is that this journal is more “international” because it is seen to be more likely to generate and promote cross-cultural dialogue in the criminology/criminal justice enterprise.     

Complainants’ Views about Civilian Review of the Police: A Study of the Philippines

In search of effective control of the police, several countries have created civilian review boards. The Philippines recently adopted such an approach by establishing the People’s Law Enforcement Board (PLEB). The board is envisioned to enable citizens to participate in the process of police control. This study examines the perceptions of complainants about the board in a metropolitan area in the Philippines. Using surveys, the study aims to determine the integrity, legitimacy, and efficiency of the board as well as the satisfaction of complainants with the review board. The findings suggest that complainants were highly satisfied with the People’s Law Enforcement Board. Complainants also showed great concern for the legitimacy of the board and the timely resolutions of their cases. In addition, the study confirms previous studies’ findings on the predominant influence of case outcomes on complainants’ satisfaction.

Assessing the prestige of journals in criminal justice: A research note

This study extends earlier periodical prestige research by determining journal prestige for three criminal justice membership categories and reexamines the emergent rankings, controlling for a potentially salient variable—previous journal publication. Data for the project were derived from questionnaire responses of 1,028 criminal justice educators who were members of either the American Society of Criminology, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, or both associations, via a three-wave mail survey. Generally, the findings demonstrated conflicting or competing professional ideologies operating in assessments of the relative importance of criminal justice publications. Particularly, respondents' subjective evaluations established two relatively divergent stratification systems of journal prestige.     

Exploring relations between crime and disadvantage on merseyside

The research discussed in this article is supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant number L210252014 as part of the Crime and Social Order Research Programme. This analysis utilized the Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Crime software developed by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. The authors also wish to thank Merseyside Police and the Merseyside Information Service for supplying data sets used in the research.     

罪刑法定视域中的刑法适用解释

The judicial interpretation of criminal law should be an application interpretation to individual cases that is guided by judges and participated by the prosecutor and the accused, for which the judicial judgment should be combined with the application of criminal law of specific cases, and the criminal precedents should be as a carrier. The Supreme People’s Court should change from the previous practices of issuing normative and abstract interpretation to the dual approaches of the interpretation of criminal law application through direct creation and indirect acknowledgement. Liang Genlin, Professor and Vice Dean of Law School of Peking University and as a visiting professor of University of Tuebingen (2001–2002). His main research focuses on criminal law and criminal policy, and his important publications include “On the Structure of Punishment”, “Liang Genlin’s Review on Criminal Policy, Volume I, Criminal Policy: Standpoint and Category”, “Liang Genlin’s Review on Criminal Policy, Volume II, the Arm of the Law: Expand and Limit”, “Liang Genlin’s Review on Criminal Policy, Volume III, Criminal Sanction: Manner and Choice”. Besides, he has also published over 40 discourses on criminal law and criminal policy since 1996.     

Constant costs in the public provision of judicial services

The nature of the cost conditions surrounding the provision of judicial services by state and local governments is examined. It is suggested that these services fit Werner Hirsch’s category of horizontally integrated public services and a priori arguments are presented to support the kypothesis that judicial services are provided under conditions approximating constant costs. Empirical tests for the existence. of scale economies are made which yield results consistent with the constant cost kypothesis. Hence, the conclusion is drawn that differences across states per capita expenditures on count systems ane due primarily to variations in demand factors rather than differences in the sizes of judicial systems. This paper was partially prepared under Grant Number 75-NI-99-0037 from the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, U. S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Community police crime prevention

This study examines the opinion of citizens regarding the police becoming a part of the community, by locating police station in all communities irrespective of size, in order to prevent crime from occurring. The results indicate that a significant number of residents interviewed would want the police to live and work in their community, be integrated into the school system, as well as participating in the community activities. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Sociological Association (Criminal Justice Section), Governor’s House Hotel, Montgomery, Alabama October 27–30, 1993. I would like to thank Professors Donald Yates and Salathiel Ansah, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Who is that Masked Man? Candrakīrti’s Opponent in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Prasannapadā</Emphasis> I 55.11–58.13

The paper aims to determine the identity of an unnamed opponent in a passage of the first chapter of the Prasannapadā whose school affiliation eluded traditional Tibetan scholars and is disputed by modern scholars. The individual(s) in question, whose fundamental ontological views are made evident in the passage’s opening objection as presented by Candrakīrti, has/have alternatively been identified as the Mādhyamika Bhāviveka, as representatives of the Naiyāyika school and, following Stcherbatsky, as Dignāga and/or later members of his epistemological-logical tradition. Although textual evidence adduced by authors of recent publications has been viewed as supportive of the hypothesis that the interlocutor is Dignāga, the general nature of this evidence and awareness of Dignāga’s ontological presuppositions suggest that the matter requires reconsideration.     

Race and the death penalty in Kentucky murder trials: 1976–1991

This study re-examines the effect of race of the victim on the probability that an accused murderer is charged with a capital crime and sentenced to death in Kentucky. It adds over five years of data to our original study. The results show that Blacks accused of killing Whites had a higher than average probability of being charged with a capital crime (by the prosecutor) and sentenced to die (by the jury) than other homicide offenders. This finding remains after taking into account the effects of differences in the heinousness of the murder, prior criminal record, the personal relationship between the victim and the offender, and the probability that the accused will not stand trial for a capital offense. Kentucky’s “guided discretion” system of capital sentencing has failed to eliminate race as a factor in this process. An earlier version of this article was presented at the “Variations in Capital Punishment” panel, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Chicago, IL. This paper is based upon a report that was developed in response to Kentucky Senate Bill 8 —Bias Related Crime Reporting passed by the 1992 Kentucky General Assembly. The authors wish to express their appreciation to the following persons who assisted in the development of this report: Fonda Butler of the Kentucky Justice Cabinet, Dale Helton of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, Kathy Black-Dennis, Colleen E. Williams, and Bill Clark of the Kentucky Department of Corrections, and James Oakes, Greg Bucholtz, and Jeanne M. Fenn, our graduate research associates at the University of Louisville.     

Perceived fairness of drug-testing policies: An application of Leventhal’s principles of procedural justice

Employees rate the fairness of organizational policies by applying principles of distributive and procedural justice. Using Leventhal’s (1980) Principles of Procedural Justice, the current study surveyed 279 upper-level college and graduate students to determine the impact each principle has on support for drugtesting policies. The results support the hypothesis that drug-testing programs that violate these principles are viewed as unfair.     

Does Post-identification Feedback Affect Evaluations of Eyewitness Testimony and Identification Procedures?

Two experiments were conducted to test whether post-identification feedback affects evaluations of eyewitnesses. In Experiment 1 (N = 156), evaluators viewed eyewitness testimony. They evaluated witnesses who received confirming post-identification feedback as more accurate and more confident, among other judgments, compared with witnesses who received disconfirming post-identification feedback or no feedback. This pattern persisted regardless of whether the witness’s confidence statement was included in the testimony. In Experiment 2 (N = 161), witness evaluators viewed the actual identification procedure in which feedback was delivered. Instructions to disregard the feedback were manipulated. Again, witnesses who received confirming feedback were assessed more positively. This pattern occurred even when witness evaluators received instructions to disregard the feedback. These experiments are the first to confirm researchers’ assumptions that feedback effects on witnesses translate to changes in judgments of those witnesses.     

Land use and forestry based CDM in scientific peer-reviewed literature pre-and post-COP 9 in Milan

This article explores the science-policy interactions between peer-reviewed literature and decisions and declarations on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) taken at Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings. The results are based on a literature analysis capturing 88 articles published from 1997 to 2005. By using a matrix search method and a structured reading form, the method and analysis focussed on whether issues of CDM and LULUCF were presented as ‘supportive of the inclusion of LULUCF’ and ‘critical of the inclusion of LULUCF’. A matrix search method and a structured reading form were applied. Of the 88 articles, 66% included discussions supportive to the inclusion of LULUCF. Forty-nine percent had a first author affiliated in natural sciences. Only 19% had first authors affiliated in developing countries while the same number for contributing authors was 38%. The results show no clear connection between scientific literature and decisions and declarations, but indicate that policymakers set the research agenda by declarations, while researchers feed the process up until decisions are made.