Safety demand and supply: An alternative to fear of crime

This review provides an opportunity to assess the current state of gang research and suggest directions for its future. There has been a dramatic increase in research on gangs, gang members, and gang behavior since the early 1990s, making this review especially timely. We use Short’s three-level framework of explanation to organize the findings of prior research, focusing on individual-, micro-, and macro-level research. Attention is focused on the findings of such research, but we also examine theoretical and methodological developments as well. Drawing from Short and life-course research, we introduce a cross-level temporal framework to guide future directions in gang research.     

重塑心灵:救助中心内流浪儿童的心理干预实践

流浪儿童作为特殊群体,近些年来得到了社会各界的普遍关注。由于流浪儿童自身特殊的心理问题和行为特点,需要中心在救助过程中建立心理干预机制,借助社会力量并运用专业的工作方法帮助流浪儿童改变不良的心理状况,为流浪儿童最终回归家庭、回归社会提供条件。     

Estimating the size of criminal populations

The estimation of total population size for various phenomena of crime is an important factor critical for criminal justice policy formulation and criminological theory development. In this paper, methods are discussed for estimating the size of a criminal population from police records. Capture-recapture analysis techniques, borrowed from the biological sciences, are used to predict the size of population for migrating (or fleeing) fugitives and for street prostitutes. Heterogeneity and behavioral responses to previous police encounters are identified as major complicating factors. The basic problem is that the police records are virtually unaffected by a potentially large pool of cryptic criminals. It is shown how independently collected auxiliary data can address this problem.     

黑社会性质组织犯罪疑难问题新探

《刑法》第2 94条规定,黑社会性质组织犯罪包括:组织、领导、参加黑社会性质组织罪;入境发展黑社会组织罪;包庇、纵容黑社会性质组织罪。黑社会性质组织犯罪的刑事立法以及司法解释,对正确适用刑法规定是非常有利的。但在司法实践中,仍有一些值得深入探讨的难题,即:如何把握黑社会性质组织的含义;如何区分黑社会性质组织与黑社会组织、恶势力、恐怖组织、普通犯罪行为,怎样正确认定入境发展、包庇、纵容犯罪行为。对上述疑难问题进行深入研究无疑具有重要的现实意义。     

Explaining San Diego’s Decline in Illegal Street‐Racing Casualties

Illegal street racing has become a pressing problem for cities and counties throughout the United States. In response to the problem, San Diego was the first city to pass a spectator ordinance, making attendance at an illegal street race an arrestable offense. Shortly after the spectator ordinance went into effect, a forfeiture ordinance was passed. This provides for forfeiture of vehicles used in illegal speed contests. A recent drop in illegal street‐racing casualties has been attributed to both ordinances, but other explanations are plausible, including an increase in media attention to the problem, a highly publicized prosecution for murder stemming from two illegal street racing fatalities, an increase in the number of sanctioned racing events, and enforcement of certain provisions in California’s Vehicle Code. Even in the face of these possible alternative explanations, several regression analyses revealed that the forfeiture ordinance had the most pronounced effect on street‐racing casualties.     

珠三角地区恶势力违法犯罪团伙研究

恶势力违法犯罪团伙,拉拢腐蚀基层治安人员、竭力寻求"保护伞"趋势明显;从其自身规模实力看,抗打击能力低,脆弱性特征明显;从其运转方式看,大多结构松散,雇用式特征明显;从其对社会的冲击方式来看,隐蔽性特征明显。政府对无业人员的管理缺位,法律法规的不完善以及打黑除恶专业队伍建设的滞后,为恶势力团伙提供了滋生发展的空间。应针对恶势力团伙的特点、形成原因入手,寻求对恶势力团伙的打击防范之策。     

Gangs and public policy

Research Summary Attention to gang issues has dramatically increased in the last several decades, both in the scholarly literature and in law enforcement. Despite widespread attention to the gang problem, researchers, police officers, and lawmakers have yet to agree on definitions used to characterize and understand the problem. This article summarizes the existing literature concerning the importance of accurately defining and classifying gang members, documents and analyzes state and federal gang legislation in the United States, and provides a detailed analysis of one state's system that might serve as a useful model for other states. Policy Implications Serious risks to public safety and civil liberties are associated with Type 1 and Type 2 classification errors regarding gang membership. The wide variation in state statutory definitions of “gang member” and in the construction and administration of gang databases presents major challenges for policymakers and academic researchers. This article addresses these challenges and argues that a more rigorous and unified system, based on one state's existing model, might be possible and could offer significant advantages in our efforts to address the delinquent and criminal behavior of gangs throughout the United States.     

“杨天庆涉黑案”的特点、成因与防控类似违法犯罪的对策

“杨天庆涉黑案”是重庆2009年“打黑大审判”第一案。该案既有我国黑社会性质组织的一般特点,也有其个别化特点,前者使本案成立黑社会性质组织犯罪,后者使该犯罪具有残暴性、隐蔽性和迷惑性。该黑社会性质犯罪组织的滋生和形成,主要源于溺爱型的家庭教育、基层行政执法不力、重庆的“袍哥文化”、刑满释放人员等的社会化不足问题等因素。为防控类似违法犯罪的滋生和蔓延,应针对这些因素采取相应对策。     

Cannabis sales and immigrant youth gangs in Denmark – An exploratory study of market structure and youth gang evolution

Cannabis sales by youth gangs consisting of male descendants of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries are subject of much public debate in Denmark and Scandinavia. Only little research has explored the intersection between the wider social context of the drug market and the criminal engagements of these groups using qualitative methods. Using eleven semi-structured interviews with youth, police and experts, collected between 2011 and 2013, this study examines how the overall structure of the cannabis market in Copenhagen affects the opportunities to engage in cannabis sales for immigrant youth gangs. The study rests on an assumption that increased deterrence in specific geographic areas will displace buyers and shift market shares between competing groups. The result was that increased cannabis dealing furthered gang evolution even at the lowest organizational steps, from neighbourhood groups to more delinquent collectives. A key finding is that neighbourhood youth clubs play a central role in the lives of the interviewees. Youth clubs served as social spaces but also functioned as a form of turf to be conquered from city officials.     

Using ‘Participatory’ Methods with Young People in Contexts of Violence: Reflections from Guatemala

This article is based on research carried out with young people in Guatemala City, in communities with a high incidence of youth gang violence. The demands of working with a traditionally ‘disempowered’ social group, youth, and in situations of violence, provide a timely opportunity for methodological reflection. The central objective is to discuss the means through which perceptions and experiences of gang violence were reported during the research. It deals in particular with the relative benefits of Participatory Appraisal methods in research with young people in situations of violence. Empirical material from Guatemala is used to reflect on the particular ways in which violence is variously revealed and explained. It also comments on the ways in which violence, in turn, impacted upon the conduct of the research itself.