State Crime,the Prophetic Voice and Public Criminology Activism

State crimes are, by far, the most destructive of all crimes. The use and threat to use nuclear weapons, the aerial bombardment of civilians, wars of aggression, torture, the failure to mitigate global warming and adapt to climate change ecocide, along with myriad other state-corporate crimes, fill the world with death and devastation, misery and want. This article argues that criminologists have a responsibility to act as public criminologists by speaking in the “prophetic voice” concerning these crimes and their victims, and then acting in the political arena in an attempt to control and prevent these harms. The paper briefly describes three approaches to engaging in what Belknap (Criminology 53:1–23, 2015) calls “criminology activism” on these issues. The first approach is for criminologists to counter the cultures of denial and normalization that usually cover state crimes. The second involves contesting the global corporate capitalist system and the power of the American capitalist state in an effort to achieve specific progressive policy reforms and structural changes in the global political economy. Finally, criminologists can work to enhance the democratization of the international political community and strengthen the ability of specific international legal institutions to control state crimes.     

Law and the Image of a Nation: Religious Conflict and Religious Freedom in a Brazilian Criminal Case

This article examines a criminal trial in Brazil that touched on the imagined role of religion in public life. The case involved a Protestant minister accused of religious discrimination and of vilipending an image of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil. The prosecution argued and the court concurred that the minister's iconoclastic verbal and physical gestures endangered the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Yet the defense claimed that his actions, stemming from his religious convictions, expressed this same principle of freedom. Different visions of religious free-dom are at stake in the case as well as how such freedom relates to the rights and private lives of citizens. Placed in the history of church-state relations in Brazil, the case raises the problem of interpreting concepts of religious pluralism, religious freedom, and freedom of expression in Brazilian law.     

US Intelligence Performance and US Policy during the Polish Crisis of 1980–81: Revelations from the Kukliński Files

Drawing on intelligence documents that were recently declassified, this article assesses the quality of US intelligence analysis during the 1980–81 Polish crisis and the impact of the intelligence analysis on US policy toward Poland and the Soviet Union. After discussing the value and limitations of the declassified materials, the article raises questions about US policy during the crisis and discusses how intelligence inputs helped to shape policy. The newly available documents confirm that the US intelligence community's analytical products were often deficient and that these shortcomings put a crimp on US policymakers' choices.     

Troubled Talk and Talking Cures: From "Smart Talk" to Wise Conversations

Interpersonal communications is widely viewed as both a source of conflict in many social relationships and a cure-all for resolving such conflict. Some theorists assert that we simply do not interact, or talk, enough in modern society; others point out that our communication styles seem increasingly argumentative, exclude important potential contributors, or are strategically facile but shallow. The author discusses the various forms of dysfunctional "talk" in which people engage, then reviews four recent books, all of which focus (at least in part) on how we might talk (and negotiate) with one another more constructively: Bargaining for Advantage , by G. Richard Shell; Winning 'Em Over , by Jay C. Conger; Difficult Conversations , by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen; and The Magic of Dialogue by Daniel Yankelovich.     

Bericht über die 32. Fachtagung der Gesellschaft für Umweltrecht

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Fear and anxiety at the basis of adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors: a case study

Juvenile delinquency is rarely associated with success in psychotherapeutic treatment. Up until now, few data have been recorded regarding possible overlaps or common features of conduct disorders with anxiety disorders. This case report of a delinquent adolescent's presenting an obsessive-compulsive disorder discusses possible underlying common features of externalizing and internalizing disorders, mainly in terms of fear and anxiety regulation. The successful psychotherapy is discussed with regard to efficient psychological assessment and treatment of delinquent adolescents, and it underlies the importance of detailed analysis of psychopathology in cases of juvenile delinquency.