AN EXPLORATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF REPORTING CRIME TO THE POLICE IN THE CITY OF TIANJIN,CHINA*

Western research has investigated three types of correlates of crime reporting–victim‐specific (individual or household), incident‐specific, and environment‐specific variables. The current study applies this general, analytical framework to explore the determinants of crime reporting to the police in contemporary urban China. Using data collected from a recent survey of criminal victimization in Tianjin, we assess the determinants for reporting of robbery, assault, personal theft, and household burglary. The results consistently show that offense seriousness is a significant predictor of reporting for all offenses studied. Also, a nonlinear relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and reporting of burglary is found. In contrast, individual‐specific and household‐specific factors do not affect reporting, with the exception of a cumulative measure of victimization experience. Measures of neighborhood social cohesion and informal control are also not associated with reporting. The implications of these findings are discussed with reference to the unique neighborhood organizational infrastructure in urban China.     

University Students’ Views of Formal and Informal Control in Japan: An Exploratory Study

Both formal and informal crime controls are used to deter individuals from engaging in criminal behavior in many societies, including Japan. This study used survey data from a convenience sample of 267 Japanese college students to examine the importance of formal and informal crime control. In general, there were higher levels of support for informal methods of crime control than formal methods. Respondents felt that fear of being rejected by family, neighbors, and peers was a stronger deterrent to crime than fear of being punished by the law. The respondents ranked family the most important mechanism in crime prevention, followed by peers, police, schools, neighborhoods, correction facilities, and courts. There was also a fair amount of support for blended formal and informal crime control methods. Mobility (i.e., the number of times the respondent had moved in his/her life) and age were positively associated with the belief that formal crime control deterred crime. The population size of the town where the respondent grew up was negatively associated with support for formal crime control. Students who grew up in larger urban areas tended to rate formal control higher than those who grew up in a small town or the countryside.     

Criminal Justice “Hollywood Style”: How Women in Criminal Justice Professions Are Depicted in Prime-Time Crime Dramas

With the abundance of prime-time crime dramas on television, it is imperative that researchers examine how female criminal justice professionals are depicted in the world of fiction versus in reality. In this study, a content analysis of 10 prime-time television crime dramas was conducted. Of the 69 characters observed, female criminal justice professionals were portrayed as young, White, and single. Female characters were more provocatively dressed, and they also were more likely to be victims of crime. Unlike previous studies that showed that female characters were underrepresented on prime-time television, here women were overrepresented as crime scene investigators, detectives, and special agents. Stereotypical images of women as subordinate, nurturing, affectionate, and sexually attractive still prevail. However, compared to their male counterparts, female characters were equally assertive, self-confident, and competitive.     

Anticipated shaming and criminal offending

Criminological research suggests that informal sanctions like shaming may have a stronger influence on crime than do formal sanctions, but research has yet to examine whether anticipated shaming may mediate the relationship between crime and variables derived from dominant micro-level theories. The present paper argues that variables derived from learning, control, strain, and deterrence theories influence criminal offending via their effect on anticipated shaming. Using data collected from a sample of young adults, results from both tobit and path analyses suggest that the prospect of shaming among friends and family bears a stronger direct relation to criminal intent than do more commonly examined variables and that the effect of such variables on criminal intent is largely indirect, mediated by anticipated shaming. We therefore suggest that crime control efforts might benefit from incorporating a greater role for Braithwaite's conception of reintegrative shaming.     

Female criminality: An overview

This article provides a broad overview of female crime and female offenders in the criminal justice system with a particular focus on the United States. The specific topics covered include the following: the age‐gender‐crime relationship, the types of crime committed by women, women and violent crime, the gender factor in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, and women in corrections. The article also includes the following: recommendations for improving comparative research and analysis in the study of female crime, a listing of important research topics in the comparative study of female crime, a discussion of the value of middle range theory in the study of female crime.     

Bureaucratic justice: the incarceration of mainland Chinese women working in Hong Kong's sex industry

Since Hong Kong's return to the People's Republic of China (PRC) there has been a significant rise in the number of Chinese visitors to Hong Kong, including women crossing the border to engage in sex work. Sex work itself is not a crime in Hong Kong, but related activities, like soliciting, are prohibited. Sex work is treated as work for immigration purposes, and visitors who engage in work without an employment visa are breaching their conditions of stay. More than 10,000 mainland Chinese women have been arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced in recent years, causing the correctional population to expand beyond capacity. The authors examine the experiences of 58 incarcerated women in their encounters with the Hong Kong criminal justice system and find that women are processed in a highly routinized bureaucratic manner. They consider the purpose served by the largely bureaucratic form of justice that has emerged in response to migrant sex workers in Hong Kong.     

Who is Afraid of Punishing Aggressors?: On the Double-Track Approach to International Criminal Justice

Since 1947, no alleged crime of aggression has ever been prosecuted,in spite of the many instances in which states have committedacts of aggression with the Security Council sometimes deemingan act to be such. A dual system of international criminal justicehas taken shape slowly. Crimes consisting of serious violationsof jus in bello, that is, war crimes, usually considered lessegregious than the crime of aggression, have been severely prosecutedand punished, in particular by the International Criminal Tribunalfor the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Yet, the ‘supreme internationalcrime’ — aggressive war — mostly committedby political and military authorities of major powers, has beenignored and its perpetrators still occupy the summit of internationalpower undisturbed.     

徇私枉法罪客观方面疑难问题探讨

徇私枉法罪的客观方面表现为,行为人在刑事司法活动中实施了徇私枉法、徇情枉法的行为。在刑法理论和司法实践中,本罪客观方面存在一些疑难问题,争议较大,如枉法的具体含义、枉法行为的对象、故重故轻追诉、利用职务上的便利是否为本罪所必备等。这些问题直接影响到本罪的正确认定,需要作深入探讨。     

Women in Crime and Justice

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon feminist research on women in crime and justice, this study examines patterns of female crime in Israel over four decades and the criminal justice response to female offenders over two decades. The data show that crime patterns of Israeli women and the criminal justice response to their transgressions show remarkable resemblance to those discerned in other western countries. The article concludes that feminist insights and explanatory mechanisms suggested in other western countries are congruent with findings about women in crime and justice in Israel.     

The Goods Transport Network’s Vulnerability to Crime: Opportunities and Control Weaknesses

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study into the goods transport sector and its vulnerability to crime. Based on 33 interviews with professionals and law enforcement agents, four interviews with convicted criminals, 26 case files from the Belgian Federal Police and the customs services and 9 informal conversations with law enforcement agency personnel, academics and professionals, the paper analyses what structures, mechanisms, conditions and interdependencies make the goods transport network susceptible to criminal activity. It is suggested that vulnerability to crime is twofold, consisting of opportunities based on weak sector conditions and weak regulation. It will be demonstrated that small and medium enterprises present particular opportunities for criminal exploitation due to their weaker financial position and the lack of crime prevention measures in place. The study found no criminal ‘front’ structures that are transport businesses alone, because of the high start-up costs within the industry; rather, non-transport companies are exploited to connect to the legal transport sector. Finally, the paper identifies key weaknesses in the sector, asking whether there should be due diligence or regulatory duties for certain roles in the supply chain like shipping agents.     

From West Africa to the Balkans: exploring women’s roles in transnational organized crime

There is a lack of reliable data on the role of women in transnational organized crime. So far, the focus of this research has overwhelmingly been on the Italian Mafia. Little is known about women’s roles in other types of organized crime activities. Since there is an ongoing perception that draws on stereotypical imagery of women in organized crime as appendixes to their male counterparts, this article explores whether women are indeed as oppressed in transnational organized crime as they are in other spheres of life. It focuses on the stereotypical constructions of femininity (victims) and masculinity (criminals) and argues that hegemonic gender roles are defined by the dominant European/American culture. The article takes a multicultural feminist approach and studies female criminality in the context of “doing gender,” an approach that assumes that the feminine gender role is something that must be accomplished in the context of specific situations. By studying the roles of women from West Africa and the Balkans in transnational criminal activities, it specifically examines how time and space, as well history and culture, contribute to one’s position in a criminal network.     

Self-reported crime rates of women prisoners

This paper presents findings from the first study of female prisoners' self-reports of criminal activity. Using the criminal career paradigm to frame the analysis, self-reported estimates of crime participation and frequency rates were examined for eight felony crimes. Important similarities between women and men were found in overall patterns of crime. Specifically, a small proportion ofboth women and men described committing a large portion of the total crimes reported. These data also suggest that women and men are similar in violent crime participation — a finding that varies from the current literature. Once active in a crime type, women and men committed assault, theft, and forgery at significantly different rates; no gender differences were found in the annualized frequency rates of burglary, robbery, motor vehicle theft, fraud, and drug dealing. However, although statistical differences were not found in the overall frequency of drug dealing, specific patterns of drug dealing reflected considerable gender variation, with a larger proportion of the female sample committing very frequent (daily) drug dealing activity. The findings reflect the value of the criminal career paradigm for the study of gender differences. Future research should include largescale quantitative designs that allow detailed analyses of correlates of the distinct criminal career dimensions.Points of view are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.This research was funded in part by the National Institute of Justice, Grant 87-IJ-CX-0048.     

论共同过失犯罪

关于共同过失犯罪问题,刑法理论界和司法实践部门聚讼颇多,特别是围绕共同过失犯罪能否成立共同犯罪的问题,国内外刑法理论界更是长期存在着肯定与否定之争,难以形成基本的共识。面对我国现代社会发展的新形势,立足于刑事司法实践,借鉴于前人的研究成果,应从正确贯彻刑事政策、完善刑法理论、正确理解共同过失的构造、正确追究刑事责任、兼顾诉讼便利等方面确认共同过失犯罪应当成立共同犯罪。     

THE GENESIS OF CARTEL INVESTIGATIONS: SOME INSIGHTS FROM EXAMINING THE DYNAMIC INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN U.S. CIVIL AND CRIMINAL ANTITRUST INVESTIGATIONS

The U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted over 1600 criminalantitrust (price-fixing and related) cases since 1970. Yet weknow precious little about the true genesis of these investigations.This paper uses the vector-autoregression methodology to examinethe dynamic interrelationships between the various criminaland civil antitrust enforcement variables. A key result is thatthe number of criminal prosecutions increases in the years immediatelyfollowing an increase in the number of civil cases, suggestingthat merger reviews and other civil investigations may alertthe antitrust authorities to criminal antitrust activities.To the best of my knowledge, this is the first econometric analysisthat demonstrates the quantitative size of this effect and thetime lags in the relationship. Other findings include importantdynamic interrelationships between grand jury investigations,the number of individuals and corporations prosecuted, and criminalcases, indicating that information unearthed during a givencriminal investigation and prosecution often reveals informationabout other conspiracies leading to future investigations andprosecutions. Finally, the number of criminal cases prosecutedincreases following an economic downturn. We relate this increaseto the literature, which points to cartel instability duringeconomic downturns.     

女性犯罪心理研究现状及趋向

近年来,在世界范围内女性犯罪的比率迅速上升,女性犯罪的类型也呈多元化的趋势。然而,由于传统上男性一直是犯罪的主体,对女性犯罪的研究因此受到了忽视。开展女性犯罪心理研究不仅是国际女性犯罪形势发展的客观需要,同时也为公安侦查、审讯、抓捕各个工作环节以及对女犯的司法改造工作提出了新的课题。研究的不足之处主要体现在研究的类型上。一般的经验型的理论研究较多,而系统的理论研究和实证性的研究较少;单一犯罪类型的研究较多,而不同犯罪类型间的比较研究较少;单一因素与犯罪行为的关系研究较多,而多种因素与犯罪行为之间的关系研究较少。应用研究与实证研究是女性犯罪心理研究的主要研究趋向。     

PARTICIPATION IN CRIME PARTNERSHIPS BY FEMALE DRUG USERS: THE EFFECTS OF DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS,DRUG USE,AND CRIMINAL INVOLVEMENT*

Research findings on the crime patterns of women suggest that social changes in gender roles are associated with increased female criminality. Some researchers note that the increasing participation of women in established criminal organizations increases female crime levels in general, Other researchers demonstrate that involvement with deviant boyfriends or husbands in particular not only introduces women to addictive drugs, but also contributes to greater crime participation. Measures of the domestic network, crime commitment, drug use, ethnicity, and participation in vice and predatory crimes are used to focus on women's formation and participation in crime partnerships. Findings reveal that ethnicity, living with boyfriends or husbands, high levels of crime commission, particularly while carrying weapons, and participating in vice and predatory crimes are factors that are shared by a number of crime partnerships. On the other hand, having children raised by others, a history of incarceration and arrest, and opiate use are factors that are important for specific crime partnerships; therefore, these factors are unique considerations that relate to the likelihood that criminal partnerships will develop.     

Women in transnational organized crime

The last two decades have seen a number of publications showing that women play an important role in transnational organized crime. The recent focus on this subject has revealed a growing body of evidence to suggest that women have been active as members and leaders of criminal organizations around the world in various periods of history. This evidence has cast doubt on the prevailing idea of a ‘sudden rise’ of female power and could provide us with new explanations for the rise of women to the top of the criminal world. This article shows that the transnational and fluid opportunities and the attractive image of crime (associated with wealth, power and freedom) seduce women into entering the criminal world. The changing character of organized crime provides women with new criminal markets and clients.     

In Her Own Voice: Presentations on Women,Crime, and Criminal Justice at American Society of Criminology Meetings From 1999–2008

We conducted a content analysis of presentations on women, crime, and criminal justice at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology from 1999 through 2008 to determine not only the range of topics that were presented on women and crime but also who made the presentations. By focusing on presentations of research on women, crime, and criminal justice, we attempt to determine whether these areas are more or less likely to be recognized, explored, and discussed. Findings suggest that (a) the issues of women, crime, and criminal justice were included in 16.13 percent of American Society of Criminology conference presentations during the period of study, and the annual percentage of presentations on these topic areas has remained constant; (b) although there is a wide array of topics in the presentations on women and crime, the most frequently addressed topics and rarely addressed topics are constant over the years; and (c) presentations on and about gender issues have been conducted primarily by female scholars.     

打击索马里海盗：既是责任也是挑战

＂海盗行为＂是一种国际法罪行,也是联合国安理会两次专门通过决议要予以坚决打击和惩治的犯罪活动。然而,要有效地打击与惩治索马里海盗,还必须具备一个有效的法律机制。不管是通过建立国际刑事法庭的形式,还是通过国内法庭的司法程序,都得适用已成为国际习惯法的＂司法公正＂原则。这对于中国及其他国家而言,是一种责任与挑战。     

Professional crime across the Finnish-Estonian border

Activities of Finnish professional criminals across theFinnish-Estonian border in the 1990s are studied in the light of two typesof data: non-public intelligence records of Finnish police and customs, andexpert interviews with Finnish and Estonian crime investigators and liaisonofficers. For practical purposes, professional crime is defined here asoffences that are planned, involve considerable material values, and aresanctioned with imprisonment. The volume of crime taking place in thecross-border scene is assessed to be much larger than reported in publicsources based on police-reported crimes and court verdicts. The largestgroups of crimes involved have to do with the import of narcotics, alcohol,and cigarettes from Estonia to Finland, price differentials being the centraldriving force. The total profile of professional crime in this scene, however,involves a much broader scope of criminal activities, including evenlarge-scale frauds where Finnish fraudsters have taken advantage of the goodfaith of Estonian banks and businessmen. The lifetime of the operationsdescribed mostly remains below one year. Many of the persons involved,however, do represent long and persistent careers. Their criminal operationsare usually organised according to a project model rather than a stableorganisation model. The authors recommend national police, customs andtax authorities to join forces and share intelligence for a fuller overallpicture of the situation and for improved efficiency of control andprevention. Further, co-operation between Finnish and Estonian lawenforcement agencies is judged to be in serious need of improvement, if the authorities sincerely wish to get to grips with the voluminous operationsof professional offenders in this scene.