Representing Theory and Theorising in Criminal Justice Studies: Practising Theory Considered

The author considers the role and place of theory in criminal justice studies. The argument is that the operation and interrogation of fundamental categories is integral to social scientific enquiry and if criminal justice studies is to resist a technocratic “protective service” orientation it must promote theorising and thinking conceptually via the texts which represent the discipline to undergraduates. Although theory is situated at the core of social science curricula, there is little or no agreement on its role or place in research and pedagogy. The dominant understanding of theory within criminal justice studies (including its sociological and criminological incarnation) is that it is something to be referred to. What is seldom emphasised in theory or methods texts is the practice of theorising. Texts that are designed to be the student’s first contact with the field of criminal justice studies, and which reflect broader attitudes toward social enquiry, seldom consider the methodological and pedagogical issues related to the production and role of analytic concepts and do not present social science as an imaginative or reflexive practice. Drawing on critical realist metatheory, this paper advances a distinction between social and sociological problems and social science and protective service toward illustrating that a social science approach to the study of criminal justice demands the operation and interrogation of analytic categories and explicit consideration of issues of epistemology and ontology. Works which seek to avoid this serve only to foster a passive rather than active engagement with their subject matter.     

PTSD Symptoms Experienced and Coping Tactics Used by Crime Scene Investigators in the United States

Few investigations have assessed the prevalence of posttraumatic stress experiences among Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs). We recruited a nationwide sample of 225 CSIs to complete online questionnaires assessing PTSD symptoms, use of specific coping tactics, perceived social support, trait resilience, and demographics. Seven symptoms had been experienced by at least 50% of participants during the previous month, and 9.3% had total checklist scores suggestive of PTSD. A significant regression analysis revealed that higher PTSD scores were associated with drinking alcohol more frequently to deal with stress, admitting more frequently one could not deal with stress and not trying to do so, lower social support, getting angry and letting emotions out more frequently, lower resilience, and finding comfort in one's religious beliefs. Given the proportions of CSIs that experience exposure‐related stress, more should be done to mitigate the prevalence and severity of these symptoms.     

Jeremy Wallace,Cities and Stability: Urbanization,Redistribution, and Regime Survival in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

The ‘Groundhog Day’ of the Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Debate: New Directions in Criminological Understanding

This paper considers the intellectual framework that is used to understand human trafficking and the limitations that it imposes on the criminological study of this phenomenon. First, there is a brief historical perspective which allows for comparisons between current debates and the moral crusades of the Victorian/Edwardian social purists. The contemporary focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation, rooted in Victorian/Edwardian construction has, the authors argue, narrowed the policy remit and the criminological investigation into human trafficking. The paper then proceeds to address the interaction between these enduring (historical) myths, the role of trans-national organised crime and the constraining effects of the contemporary intellectual framework. It is argued that in order to challenge the cyclical nature of the debates, it is necessary to make redundant the use of the term human trafficking and to widen the criminological lens through which we consider the problem. In doing so, we hope to highlight those groups whose experiences are missing or marginalised in the current construction of the problem and urge a reconsideration of the way in which criminology approaches this issue.