Juvenile Crime Trends in Post-War Europe

In the literature, two models - routine activity and social control - are most often used in attempts to account for a continuous upward trend in the number of juvenile offenders during the post-war period. In Sweden, contrary to what we might expect given these models, the number of juvenile offenders has been stable, and may even have decreased, over the last 25 years. This article will present an analysis of juvenile crime trends in West European countries during the post-war period (1950-1995). A sensible way to begin a comparative study is to take advantage of the analyses already carried out by researchers in the relevant countries. Besides the official crime statistics this study also uses alternative statistics, that is, self-report studies and victim surveys. An obvious advantage with these surveys is that they are independent of the relevant country's judicial system and official statistics. The availability of data played an important part in the choice of countries to be included. In addition, contacts were established with researchers and research centres in most countries covered by the study.     

论抢劫罪的加重犯

对构成抢劫罪加重犯的严重情节应该作严格的限制解释。“入户抢劫”应理解为非法侵入住宅抢劫。“在公共交通工具上抢劫”是发生在公共交通工具上并危及交通运输安全的抢劫。把“多次抢劫”规定为抢劫罪的加重犯不够妥当。“抢劫数额巨大”不包含抢劫未遂的情形。抢劫 (过失 )致死与抢劫 (故意 )杀人有必要分开作规定 ,并且对后者应规定比前者更重的法定刑。“冒充军警人员抢劫”比真正的军警人员抢劫有更严重的危害性。“持枪抢劫”不包括持假枪抢劫。     

Using Social Media to Measure Temporal Ambient Population: Does it Help Explain Local Crime Rates?

A challenge for studies assessing routine activities theory is accounting for the spatial and temporal confluence of offenders and targets given that people move about during the daytime and nighttime. We propose exploiting social media (Twitter) data to construct estimates of the population at various locations at different times of day, and assess whether these estimates help predict the amount of crime during two-hour time periods over the course of the day. We address these questions using crime data for 97,428 blocks in the Southern California region, along with geocoded information on tweets in the region over an eight month period. The results show that this measure of the temporal ambient population helps explain the level of crime in blocks during particular time periods. The use of social media data appear promising for testing various implications of routine activities and crime pattern theories, given their explicit spatial and temporal nature.     

TRAJECTORIES OF CRIME AT PLACES: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF STREET SEGMENTS IN THE CITY OF SEATTLE*

Studies of crime at micro places have generally relied on cross‐sectional data and reported the distributions of crime statistics over short periods of time. In this paper we use official crime data to examine the distribution of crime at street segments in Seattle, Washington, over a 14‐year period. We go beyond prior research in two ways. First, we view crime trends at places over a much longer period than other studies that have examined micro places. Second, we use group‐based trajectory analysis to uncover distinctive developmental trends in our data. Our findings support the view that micro places generally have stable concentrations of crime events over time. However, we also find that a relatively small proportion of places belong to groups with steeply rising or declining crime trajectories and that these places are primarily responsible for overall city trends in crime. These findings are particularly important given the more general decline in crime rates observed in Seattle and many other American cities in the 1990s. Our study suggests that the crime drop can be understood not as a general process that occurred across the city landscape but one that was generated in a relatively small group of micro places with strong declining crime trajectories over time.     

DOES CRIME JUST MOVE AROUND THE CORNER? A CONTROLLED STUDY OF SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF CRIME CONTROL BENEFITS*

Recent studies point to the potential theoretical and practical benefits of focusing police resources on crime hot spots. However, many scholars have noted that such approaches risk displacing crime or disorder to other places where programs are not in place. Although much attention has been paid to the idea of displacement, methodological problems associated with measuring it have often been overlooked. We try to fill these gaps in measurement and understanding of displacement and the related phenomenon of diffusion of crime control benefits. Our main focus is on immediate spatial displacement or diffusion of crime to areas near the targeted sites of an intervention. Do focused crime prevention efforts at places simply result in a movement of offenders to areas nearby targeted sites—“do they simply move crime around the corner”? Or, conversely, will a crime prevention effort focusing on specific places lead to improvement in areas nearby—what has come to be termed a diffusion of crime control benefits? Our data are drawn from a controlled study of displacement and diffusion in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two sites with substantial street‐level crime and disorder were targeted and carefully monitored during an experimental period. Two neighboring areas were selected as “catchment areas” from which to assess immediate spatial displacement or diffusion. Intensive police interventions were applied to each target site but not to the catchment areas. More than 6,000 20‐minute social observations were conducted in the target and catchment areas. They were supplemented by interviews and ethnographic field observations. Our findings indicate that, at least for crime markets involving drugs and prostitution, crime does not simply move around the corner. Indeed, this study supports the position that the most likely outcome of such focused crime prevention efforts is a diffusion of crime control benefits to nearby areas.     

农民抢劫犯罪研究

抢劫犯罪是当前影响社会治安的突出问题,而农民在抢劫犯罪中占的比例最大,社会影响也最严重,其中很多人既是害人者又是受害者.因此研究农民抢劫犯罪的特点、成因、对策,对于从根本上预防、遏制抢劫犯罪,构建和谐社会具有重要的现实意义.     

论我国双层模式犯罪构成理论的建构

基于对中外犯罪构成理论的考究与分析,揭示并遵循犯罪构成理论的必要规则,正视中国大陆刑法的实然规定与犯罪构成理论的基本现实,应当建构我国双层模式的犯罪构成理论。犯罪成立必须具备本体构成符合与严重危害充足二个阶层要件;本体构成符合为第一层次,描述犯罪的基本轮廓,严重危害充足为第二层次,限定犯罪的实质底线。犯罪成立是本体构成与严重危害两者缩限评价的结论。     

Crime in Central and Eastern European Countries in the Enlarged Europe

An enlarged European Union not only means more territory and a greater population, but also more crimes and perpetrators of crimes. The European integration brings a new challenge to criminology. Comparison of crime statistics across countries is still one of the most difficult methodological problems in criminological analyses. Countries differ in respect of their penal systems and penal policies. Reporting and statistical systems are also different. How, then, can one compare crime between European countries? Can one say where it is safer or where the police work better? Can one determine what the manner of data collection should be so that it reflects reality accurately? This article concentrates on a representation of some trends of crime in Central and Eastern European countries. A main source of information about crime are official crime statistics collected according to the methodological rules worked out by the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics. In the case of homicide, police data are confronted with vital statistics gathered by the World Heath Organization (WHO). The statistics on assault and robbery were compared, as much as possible, with the victimization data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS). The socio-economic context of the crime, the main circumstances of the crime statistics, which affected the interpretation of the crime trends for Central and Eastern European Countries, is presented.     

民国时期土匪恐怖活动研究

土匪恐怖活动分析是一个非常复杂的问题,民国时期的土匪是中国社会转型的一个畸形产物,其活动范围之大,地域分布之辽阔,人数规模之多,危害性甚重都是空前绝后的。造成这种情况,因素和条件多种多样,细细的考察对于现代恐怖活动研究有很大的益处。     

转化犯若干问题探析——以转化型抢劫罪为视角

转化犯为我国刑法所独创的犯罪类型,具有立法实践在先、理论研究在后的特点。转化犯与准犯、结合犯、牵连犯的内涵均不相同,不应将其与此三个概念混同起来。转化犯的成立条件包括前提条件和必要条件这两个方面,应当以转化后之罪的既未遂标准来判断转化犯的既未遂问题。     

贷款诈骗罪定性问题研究

司法实践中 ,在对贷款诈骗罪的认定上 ,无论是客观方面、犯罪主体、主观方面 ,还是犯罪数额及犯罪形态 ,都有许多特殊的问题需要加以明确 ,这对于正确处理贷款诈骗案件具有重要意义     

UNSTRUCTURED SOCIALIZING AND RATES OF DELINQUENCY

This article applies an individual-level routine activities perspective to explaining rates of delinquency. The theoretical analysis also links the opportunity processes of that perspective to key themes of social disorganization theory. Multilevel analyses of 4, 358 eighth-grade students from thirty-six schools in ten cities support the central hypothesis: Time spent in unstructured socializing with peers has both individual and contextual effects that explain a large share of the variation in rates of delinquency across groups of adolescents who attend different schools. In addition, parental monitoring has a very strong contextual effect on unstructured socializing, which supports the proposed integration of routine activity and social disorganization perspectives.     

Wages of Sin? The Link Between Offending, Lifestyle and Violent Victimisation

In this study the authors examine whether there is a link between offending and violent victimisation. They explore the extent to which this link can be explained by differences in people's lifestyle. In keeping with recent criminological developments, they seek to explain differences in the risk of violent victimisation throughout peoples life course. For this purpose, data has been analysed on the past 25 years in the lives of 1,939 respondents, who constituted a representative sample of the Dutch population in 1996. The data was taken from the Netherlands Survey of Criminality and Law Enforcement. For each year of their life, data were recorded on the respondents' marital, fertility, residential, educational and employment history. What is more, for each year in this period, data are available on their violent victimisation and their offending. The data was analysed with multi-level models. The results show that people who engage in violent crimes and vandalism are at greater risk of being victims than people who do not and that this relationship can only be partially explained by lifestyle.     

GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM FOR EXPLAINING CRIME

General assessments refer to individuals’ overall judgment of their standing on broad dimensions that have special relevance for the explanation of crime, such as their overall bond to society or their prospects for success. These assessments are partly a function of the independent variables that are commonly considered in contemporary crime theories and quantitative research. But these standard etiological variables are far from fully determinative of general assessments because individuals differ in how they interpret, weigh, and combine their standing along these variables. The social–psychological factors that affect the subjective judgments underlying general assessments have yet to be theorized in any comprehensive, systematic manner. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that the incorporation of general assessments in models of offending will greatly enhance their explanatory power because these assessments are the most proximate, comprehensive, and personally relevant causes of crime. Moreover, we anticipate that once these assessments reach certain threshold levels, such as the view that bonds to society are severed irreparably or success is beyond reach, they result in a nonlinear jump in the frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending (i.e., chronic offending). A consideration of general assessments and their associated thresholds should therefore substantially improve efforts to explain crime.     

Robberies in Prague

This paper is concerned with the issue of robberies in the Czech Republic, primarily in the capital city, Prague. Statistics show that there has been a sharp rise in the number of robberies recorded in the Czech Republic following the political upheavals of 1989. In spite of this, current Czech criminology does not give proper attention to this kind of criminal activity. For this reason, the authors will attempt not only to summarise research efforts hitherto undertaken in this field and place them in a wider international context, but also to offer basic and criminologically relevant data on offenders, victims and some other significant factors, making use of official crime statistics as well as special police statistical records, including data obtained through the authors' own analysis of a sample of court files.     

罪数形态研究述评

在过去的三十年间,我国关于罪数形态的理论研究从无到有、从粗到细。目前,罪数形态已经成为学术界关注程度相当高的一个研究领域。总体来看,在罪数判断标准和一罪类型体系这两个问题上,理论界已经基本形成通说观点,当然也还存在不同声音;与之相比,关于具体罪数形态的概念内涵、处罚原则、存废取舍等诸多问题,则存在更多争议,个别问题的研究显得较为混乱。     

Twenty years of homicide and robbery in Chicago: The impact of the city's changing racial and age composition

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) arrest and offense data for Chicago for 1960 to 1980 and population data from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 censuses are used to assess the extent to which demographic changes help explain trends in the city's homicide and robbery arrests. The results indicate that a changing racial composition contributed to changes in the age composition of Chicago's population as well as to changes in the homicide rate. Age-specific analysis by race and gender suggests that as much as 24% of the total increase in homicide arrests and 45% of the increase in robbery arrests (from 1962 to 1980) can be attributed to an increase in the number of nonwhite men in the population. Increasedrates of arrest of nonwhite men appear to account for large parts of the increases in homicide and robbery arrests, with increased rates for white men and nonwhite women also accounting for some of these increases. The paper closes with a discussion of the issues raised by these trends for Chicago and other urban areas.Revision of a paper presented at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Cincinnati.