Trust is hard to come by: Disentangling the influence of structural characteristics and race on perceptions of trust in the police in a major Southern County

The current study will add to the literature on public attitudes toward law enforcement by assessing the individual and contextual-level predictors of one of the key concepts in police legitimacy literature: trust. Examining individuals nested within zip code results showed a significant equalizing effect of structural resource deprivation on both White and Black respondents' perceptions of trust in the police. Additionally, results found respondents who perceived racial profiling to be widespread had a universally decreased likelihood of having trust in the police, and these disparities were exacerbated as structural resource deprivation increased.     

China’s rule of law in the globalization era

Globalization of the economy, public affairs, human rights, environmental issues and laws indicate the developing tendency of human beings and society, and this has a great influence on the third reform of Chinese law in many aspects. Upon its entrance into the WTO, China carried out a large-scale clarification and amendment of its laws and regulations, and incorporated itself into the global governance structure. This marks the beginning of the third legal reform in the country. This reform includes the reform of the political and legal system, restructuring of the legal system, and evolution of the real meaning of law. In the future development of Chinese law, the fundamental nature of modern, global and human civilization, and the legal profession will penetrate much more into the whole Chinese law and its operation.     

Translational criminology and its importance in policing: a review

ABSTRACT

Translational criminology is a decision-making perspective that emphasizes the dynamic coproduction of evidence by researchers and practitioners, focusing on obstacles to and facilitators of evidence generation and utilization. It incorporates several other data-driven decision-making models, including evidence-based policy making. This review suggests that the availability of empirical research is no longer the most significant impediment to evidence-based policing. Rather, translating and implementing knowledge about ‘what works‘ in policing has arisen as the field’s primary barrier to securing the effectiveness and efficiency improvements of research and data utilization. This article orients readers to translational criminology’s various components and explores their applications. Focusing on four central considerations, this review explores the roles of researcher practitioner partnerships, policy, technology, and government in developing and sustaining translational efforts in policing. The review concludes by acknowledging challenges to fostering a translational perspective in policing, and offers examples of where it has been applied with success.     

中国大陆与台湾地区刑事再审程序之比较研究

近年来 ,刑事再审程序的改革已越来越受到诉讼理论界和司法实务界的关注。借鉴其他国家和地区的诉讼制度势必会促进我国诉讼制度的完善。我国台湾地区的刑事诉讼法主要借鉴了德、日诉讼制度 ,同时也吸收了美国诉讼制度的内容。为此 ,在探讨我国刑事再审制度改革的今天 ,借鉴台湾地区的刑事再审制度 ,有着十分重要的意义。     

祖国大陆与我国台湾地区的毒品犯罪立法比较

科学而严密的刑法规范是有效打击毒品犯罪的重要手段。通过比较分析,借鉴我国台湾地区的经验之所长,是进一步完善祖国大陆地区法律规范的重要途径。我国台湾地区在防制毒品犯罪方面有着比祖国大陆地区更长的历史,其立法经验也显得更为成熟。我国台湾地区将毒品依其成瘾性、滥用性及对社会危害性的不同予以分级,对不同级别的毒品所涉及的犯罪行为分别设置轻重不同的刑罚,将制造、贩卖、运输、持有专供制造或施用毒品器具的行为、转让毒品行为、服毒驾驶行为等予以犯罪化,其刑罚规范具有明确化特点。这些立法经验,都是值得祖国大陆借鉴的。     

The Sutherland tradition in criminology: a bibliometric story

In this article, we provide an overview of the body of knowledge associated with the Sutherland tradition in criminology. We track Sutherland’s impact through a bibliometric analysis of papers citing any of Sutherland’s works and by focusing on publications that are co-cited with Sutherland. This approach enables us to visualize Sutherland’s role in relation to the forerunners and founding fathers of criminology during his own active period, to his followers, and to contemporary scholars. The dataset consisted of 2596 genuine articles that cite at least one of Sutherland’s publications, in which he appears as first author in Web of Science ^TM published between 1955 and 2010. The results show a clear impact of the Sutherland tradition more or less throughout the twentieth century, peaking during the 1930s and 1940s and decreasing in the 1990s, when the Sutherland tradition was more powerfully challenged, primarily by the life-course tradition.     

Confidence in the Police: Where does Taiwan Rank in the World?

The study of public opinion toward the police in Taiwan has not, heretofore, included comparative research. The current study fills this void in the literature by analyzing the data from the World Values Surveys. It was found that Taiwanese confidence in the police was reasonably good for a society experiencing democratic transition. Although lower than many more mature democratic societies such as Finland and the USA, confidence in the police is among the top one-third of fifty countries and is significantly higher than those found in other Asian and European countries that also experienced democratic transition. Further regression analyses of data from the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan indicated that the differences between those three countries are substantive and cannot be explained away after the demographic social and attitudinal variables have been controlled.An early version of this paper was presented at “The Second International Conference in Crime and Its Control,” Taiwan, April 2005. We would like to thank Professors Susyan Jou and Lanying Huang, for providing information on Taiwan, and Professor Alethea Helbig, for polishing the languages of the paper. The views expressed in the paper are all ours.     

Armed,but too dangerous? Factors associated with citizen support for the militarization of the police

Images of police officers riding in armored vehicles and carrying military-grade weapons have become part of the public consciousness following the events in Ferguson, Missouri and several other high-profile police–citizen encounters. Although a great deal of research has investigated how and why US citizens perceive the police in various ways, almost no empirical work has asked how citizens perceive the militarization of the police. The current study analyzes data from a survey of 1005 US citizens to identify characteristics that are related to support for the use of military weapons and vehicles by local police departments. The results indicate that several demographic factors and perceptions of crime and the police are significantly related with citizen support for the militarization of the police. The implications of this research are discussed.     

粤港警察院校警务技能与战术教学训练之比较

加强粤港警察院校在警务技能与战术教学训练方面的研究，对粤港警察警务技能与战术的课程设置、教学内容与训练方法、教官队伍建设等方面加以比较，可以学习香港警察在警务技能战术教学训练方面先进的经验和做法，以促进广东警察在警务技能战术方面的发展。     

Public assistance of police during criminal investigations: Russian experience

This study examines the high levels of public unwillingness to assist police in criminal investigations in Russia. Variables of public trust of police, fear of crime, victimization, and prior contact with police are used to explain this phenomenon. Also included in the study are variables of police fear and avoidance of police. The findings suggest that higher levels of distrust in, as well as fear and avoidance of police are strong predictors of citizens’ unwillingness to assist police in Russia. The paper discusses potential implications of these findings for the 2011 police reform in Russia.     

The interface between exercise of state power and personal powerlessness: a study of police perceptions of factors impacting professional practices

Police legitimacy is crucial to the maintenance of law and order in any society. In communities marred by high instances of societal manifestations of dysfunction, tenuous legislative frameworks, poradic implementation, and dismantling of crime fighting strategies, there is greater emphasis placed on quick-fix crime fighting solutions and policing initiatives. The focus is placed primarily on what police officers are mandated to do as opposed to practical applications underscored by systematic hindrances to professional practice. Examining interview data from a pilot study on police fear of crime in Trinidad and Tobago, this study is intended to explore connections between police perceptions about personal powerlessness and the exercise of state power. Here we examine the discourses of N = 12 senior police officers with an average of 22.83 years of service to attain a preliminary understanding of instances presenting a conflict between professional practice and perceptions of self-preservation. The findings suggest a need for officers’ constant consideration of the repercussions of professional competence and the need for continued navigation of blurred constructions of police legitimacy and subjective determinants of criminality against a backdrop of acknowledged personal powerlessness.     

India's Grand Advocates: a legal elite flourishing in the era of globalization

This article examines a flourishing group of elite litigators, that we call ‘Grand Advocates’, who practice before the Indian Supreme Court and some of India's High Courts. In a court system marked by overwhelmed judges with little assistance, multiplicity and blurriness of precedent, and by the centrality of oral presentation, the skills and reputational capital of these lawyers enables them to play a central, lucrative, and unique role. Indeed, it is often the Grand Advocates, as much as the judges, who lead and propel forward the Indian judicial system.     

论公安教学创新

公安教学创新是公安院校加强内涵建设,提高公安教育教学质量,培养能够充分适应公安工作实际要求的、具有创新意识和能力的各类公安专门人才的不容回避的任务。公安教学创新包括公安教学思想创新、公安专业课程创新、公安专用教材创新、公安教学方法创新、公安教学活动创新等五方面。它要求公安院校教师和教育教学管理人员改革公安教学思想,创造出新的公安教学观点、理念,更好的适应新时期公安工作的需要。     

Advancing police use of force research and practice: urgent issues and prospects

Leading police scholars and practitioners were asked to reflect on the most urgent issues that need to be addressed on the topic of use of force. Four themes emerged from their contributions: use of force and de-escalation training needs to improve and be evaluated; new ways of conceptualizing use of force encounters and better use of force response models need to be developed; the inequitable application of force, and how to remediate biases, needs to be more fully understood; and misconceptions about police use of force need to be identified and corrected. The highlighted topics serve as an agenda for future research. Such research should provide greater insight into when, where, and why force is used by police officers, and how it can be applied appropriately. If implemented, the practical recommendations included in the contributions should have a positive impact on police performance, public trust and confidence in the police, and citizen and officer safety.     

Perceived police legitimacy: investigating its association with college-based informal social controls

Research has found that when private citizens view law enforcement as legitimate authority figures, they are more likely to obey laws and voluntarily comply with police demands. Although procedural justice has shown to be an important predictor of perceived police legitimacy, a recent line of studies has found other significant correlates of this outcome, including media exposure, ethnic identity and strain. To date, however, few studies have explored the role collegiate-based informal social controls play in predicting law enforcement legitimacy evaluations. Using questionnaire data from a convenience sample of college students, linear regression equations were estimated to explore whether Hirschi's four social bond measures predict the obligation to obey and trust in police constructs of police legitimacy. Across both models and even after controlling for procedural justice, respondent beliefs were positively correlated with these measures. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

全球化时代的知识产权犯罪及其防治

当今世界许多国家都在采取不断修订国内知识产权法和制定合适的知识产权保护政策等手段,以适应国际经济发展以及国际竞争的需要。本文分析了我国知识产权犯罪的现状和特点,并从知识产权自身的特点、我国的知识产权制度、经济、文化和法制等方面对我国的知识产权犯罪原因进行剖析,在此基础上提出我国知识产权犯罪的防治措施。     

Perceptions of children during a police interrogation: Guilt,confessions, and interview fairness

Abstract

Jurors are often provided with confession evidence and must determine whether the confession was true, false, coerced, or voluntary. As more juveniles are tried in adult criminal court, jurors must increasingly make these determinations about minors’ statements. In this study, mock jurors read an actual interrogation of a child suspect that included confession evidence, and then provided judgments regarding the coerciveness of the interrogation, the child's and police's knowledge and behaviors, and guilt. Child age (11 versus 14 years) and gender were manipulated and examined in relation to participant gender and pre-existing sympathy levels for juvenile offenders. Factors external to the suspect – participant gender and sympathy for juvenile offenders – interacted with child suspect factors to influence perceptions of the child, the interrogation, and guilt. When multiple factors were considered, perceptions of suspect credibility and police fairness were the strongest predictors of guilt and perceived culpability. The findings have implications for decision-making in cases involving juvenile defendants and confession evidence.     

Quantitative criminology in The Netherlands

This article briefly describes quantitative criminology in The Netherlands since the seventies. Dutch quantitative criminologists have been active in most fields of the discipline of criminology: research has been done on the etiology of crime and, in relation to this, the self-report methodology. A number of victimization surveys have been executed, and in relation to this, attention was given to fear of crime, victims in the judicial system, and situational approaches to crime. There has been research on policy evaluation, sentencing, and differential treatment in the criminal justice system, and alternative sanctions. Recently three major international studies have been coordinated by Dutch criminologists: an international self-report study, an international victim survey of households, and an international survey of victimization among businesses. In this article we describe the first two studies and briefly compare some of their features. Overall, it appears that Dutch quantitative criminology is embedded in the international mainstream of criminology and, in general, has been strongly related to policy concerns.     

两岸走私犯罪立法比较与借鉴——兼论走私犯罪类型化立法

走私罪是违反海关法律法规,逃避海关监管,偷逃应纳税款、逃避国家有关进出境的禁止性或者限制性管理规定,情节严重的行为。两岸立法分别采用刑法典和特别刑法的形式对走私犯罪进行了规定,但在走私犯罪成立标准上存在一定的差异。两岸走私犯罪立法基本上是以犯罪对象作为标准,体现了类型化立法的特点。但大陆刑法类型化立法不彻底,导致司法解释频繁。建议大陆刑法走私犯罪立法采用例示法,分别设立走私应税货物物品罪、走私限制进出境货物物品罪和走私禁止进出境货物物品罪,并通过发达之刑法解释确保罪刑法定原则的实现。     

条款增补:我国信托法中的重要创造性规定的完善

关于确认信托财产所有权由委托人享有、将信托合同定性为诺成合同、确认委托人享有因其重大侵权行为而变更受益人或解除信托的权利和确认受托人可以向信托财产权利归属人行使报酬权和补偿权的规定,为我国信托法中重要的创造性规定,对它们需要通过增补关于遗嘱信托的信托财产所有权由受益人享有、委托人负有交付信托财产义务、受托人因不同意而辞任与解任和在特定情形下权利归属人可以拒绝满足该报酬权和补偿权的规定来完善。