The criminality of female narcotics addicts: A causal modeling approach

A longitudinal model was developed relating early deviance, narcotics use, and three types of income-generating crime (property crime, drug dealing, and prostitution) among female narcotics addicts during the first 2 years of the addiction career. The model was tested by a confirmatory structural equation analysis. Early deviance predicted subsequent property crime involvement. Stability across time was demonstrated for narcotics use, property crime, and drug dealing. Strong contemporaneous relationships among these constructs were found. These findings partially replicate patterns found in previous studies for male addicts. In contrast to male addicts, a positive, instead of negative, contemporaneous relationship was found between property crime and drug dealing activities. Between constructs, cross-lag effects were generally small and only that between property crime and later narcotics use was significant. Finally, prostitution was failed to be incorporated in the model. Further research is needed to elucidate the diverse economic support systems among women which may affect the drug-crime relationship.     

Crime,criminology and human rights: Towards an understanding of state criminality

This paper explores issues related to the analysis of a type of criminality frequently ignored in criminological literature: crimes of the state. It explores the potential of critical criminology to deal with state criminality via investigation of such issues as state interventions, overlapping activities of criminal versus non-criminal organizations and the distinction between individual and state actors. The paper specifically examines state criminality via analysis of the activities of the CIA and FBI in the United States. These activities include methods of surveillance, wiretapping, mail tampering, and the use of agents provocateurs. It also examines issues related to relativity in the definition of terrorism and the use of terrorism by the state. It is argued that, unless criminologists begin to address these issues, criminologists may find themselves in the awkward position of aiding the criminalization of non-criminal peoples around the world.     

The criminality of women and girls in India

Sharing a legal status equal to that of males, females in India are by no means socially and economically equal, nor do they exhibit official and self‐reported crime rates any where near those of men and boys. As commonly found around the world, a distinct gender‐gap in arrests exists in India with overall male:female ratios of around 20:1. While commonly found in other third world countries, this ratio is about four times greater than occurs between males and females in economically developed countries. Self‐report data narrows this gender‐gap considerably. But, the remarkable thing about the criminality of women and girls in India is that their is so little of it. Due to the lack of basic data, explaining female crime in India remains a task yet to be undertaken. However, there is reason to believe that theoretical concepts of etiology developed in Western criminology may apply to India also. As such, the relatively minuscule offense rates for Indian females may reflect how their suppressed social position, in effect, inhibits their ability to initiate or engage in criminal conduct as such. Suggestions for future research on virtually all dimensions of female crime and justice are made.     

Sex estimation from foot dimensions in an indigenous Indian population

Dismembered/severed human remains are frequently found in cases of mass disasters and criminal mutilation. Sex estimation from foot dimensions, therefore, has a vital role in establishing personal identity. There is a paucity of literature on this issue from various Indian populations. The "Rajbanshi" is one such indigenous population located in the state of West Bengal, India. The present study attempts to estimate sex from foot length, foot breadth, and foot index among 350 living adult Rajbanshi (175 men and 175 women) individuals (age range: 18-50 years). The study concludes that foot dimensions show significant sex differences. Both sectioning point and regression analyses can be used to estimate sex from foot dimensions. However, multiple regression models appear to have the maximum accuracy in sex differentiation. Although statistically significant sex differences are evident for foot index, its practical utility appears to be limited because of considerable overlap.     

Personality and criminality a summary and implications of the literature

Recent studies purporting to correlate criminality and personality are reviewed to update the earlier works of Schuessler and Cressey, and Waldo and Dinitz. It was found that fifty-two different tests were used in the recent literature compared with the twenty-nine different tests found both in the Schuessler-Cressey and Waldo-Dinitz works. It was also found that more recent tests are no better at differentiating between the criminal and noncriminal than the older tests were, although the majority of the current tests find more differences within the groups.     

Independent forensic autopsies in an armed conflict: investigation of the victims from Racak, Kosovo

In January 1999, a team of Finnish forensic experts under the mandate of the European Union (EU forensic expert team, EU-FET) performed forensic investigations in a sovereign state, in Kosovo, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The team served as a neutral participant in the forensic investigation of victims of an incident at Racak, which was receiving considerable international attention. The Finnish team performed forensic autopsies, monitored forensic autopsies performed by local experts and verified findings of earlier executed autopsies. The victims had sustained varying numbers of gunshot wounds, which were established to be the cause of death. The manner of death remained undetermined by the EU-FET, because the scene investigation and the chain of custody for the bodies from the site of the incident to the autopsy were impossible to verify by the team. The events at Racak were the first of those leading to charges by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) against the highest authorities in power in the FRY for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.     

Consequences of legal risk communication for sanction perception updating and white-collar criminality

Objectives

Scholars have long emphasized that communicating, or “advertising”, information about legal sanction risk is necessary for the success of deterrence-based crime policies. However, scant research has evaluated whether direct communications about legal risk can cause sanction perception updating, the updating of ambiguity in sanction perceptions, or changes in persons’ willingness to offend. No prior studies have evaluated sanction perception updating for white-collar crimes.

Methods

To address this research void, the current study analyzes data from an experiment embedded in a recent national survey (N?=?878). Multivariate regression models estimate the effect of providing participants with information about the “objective” arrest risk for white-collar offenses on their sanction perceptions.

Results

The findings provide the first evidence that such information, when it is inconsistent with individuals’ prior beliefs, causes them to update: (1) their perceptions of the certainty of arrest; (2) their ambiguity about arrest risk; and, indirectly, (3) their willingness to commit white-collar crimes.

Conclusions

The results imply that individuals are willing to incorporate relevant information into their subjective beliefs about sanction risks. Importantly, however, they also make meaningful distinctions about the value of new information for understanding criminal risks.

     

The recruitment and retention of indigenous criminal justice agency staff in an Australian state

In Australia, as in other countries that have experienced colonisation, indigenous people are massively overrepresented in all stages of the criminal justice system. If criminal justice agencies are to provide culturally responsive and effective services to this group, it is important that they employ significant numbers of indigenous staff across all levels of their organisations. Despite the positive intentions of many justice agencies to increase the proportion of indigenous staff members they employ, the numbers remain low. In this article, we explore some of the possible reasons for this by reporting the results of focus groups conducted with existing indigenous justice agency employees. The employees raised a number of issues relevant to recruitment and retention. These are discussed in terms of their potential value in improving justice agency indigenous recruitment and retention strategies.     

Effect of incarceration on criminality in the state of Minas Gerais,Brazil

Crime, Law and Social Change - Criminality is a major factor in reducing the well-being of the Brazilian population. As a result, many researchers and governments strive to discover what can reduce...     

刑罚轻缓化的社会因素分析

当代世界刑罚的发展趋势是刑罚的轻缓化,对刑罚的轻缓化起决定作用的是社会的经济、政治、文化等因素,发达的市场经济、市民社会与政治国家相分立的二元社会结构和先进的社会文化是影响刑罚轻缓化的重要社会因素。     

Is crime a man's world? Issues in the exploration of criminality

Although the role of the woman offender in the scientific study of criminality has traditionally been largely unexplored, recent studies indicate both an increase in reported female crime and an upsurge in interest on the subject. The general state of the literature is examined and suggestions for the improvement of research in the area are offered.     

An experimental study of responses to armed police in Great Britain

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This study tested whether the presence of a firearm changed the way people reacted to police among a British sample. In an online study, participants were...     

Child fosterage in the United States: Signs of an African Heritage

In the course of the twentieth century, African American families have been the objects of a great deal of debate and commentary in social science fields, as well as in popular discourse. The article considers the basis for this discussion: the presence of significant numbers of family and household structures among African Americans that differ from traditional Euro-American models. Western nuclear families are typically centered around marriage, while African, and to a significant degree African American, families are structured around children. The recently developed U.S. Census public use samples and measures oriented to the practices of informal child fosterage are used to examine and compare these different bases of family life. Data from the turn of the century provide some historical distance from previous explanations of difference centered on slavery, or explanations that focus on contemporary social issues such as urban problems or the welfare state. Comparisons with studies of the contemporary U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, and historical materials give broader scope to fosterage analysis and to the consideration of cultural family differences.