Trends in the management of registered sexual offenders across England and Wales: a geographical approach to the study of sexual offending

Abstract

Social scientists, and geographers in particular, have long been interested in examining spatial patterns of offending in order to generate a “geography” of crime and criminality. This paper examines what value, if any, a geographical approach to the study of sexual offending might offer. Utilising published official data from England and Wales it presents for the first time geographical analyses of the registration, risk assessment and management of Registered Sexual Offenders (RSOs) across 42 Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement (MAPPA) areas. In doing so it considers and evaluates the methodological issues pertaining to the use of such data and such a geographical approach. We conclude that geographical interpretations of both the incidence of RSOs and the rates of risk allocations between MAPPA areas provide valuable insights and raise new questions about the way in which RSOs are managed nationally and are thus worthy of further exploration.     

Administering a victim impact curriculum to inmates: a multi-site replication

While restorative justice has been the topic of much research, a specific type of program included in restorative justice, Impact of Crime (IOC) on Victims programs, has not been widely studied or assessed for effectiveness. This study examines IOC on Victims Curriculum Development Programs. Offenders from programs in California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia were participants in this research. A four-state evaluation methodology was developed in order to assess the effectiveness of these programs in educating offenders about victims’ right and victim facts, as well as increasing their sensitivity to victims’ difficulties. The findings in this evaluation lend support to previous studies, indicating efficacy for IOC programs. Suggestions for future research are briefly discussed.     

情报导防在经济犯罪侦查中的应用研究

为适应经济犯罪总量不断攀升、体系化、组织化等特点日趋明显的经济犯罪形势,实现对经济犯罪的有效防控和准确预警,不仅需要持之以恒地对经济犯罪进行打击,更需要防患于未然,建立由情报主导犯罪防控的经济犯罪侦查工作新机制。具体到运行流程中,在情报信息收集上报中需实现“专群”联动,针对需要的情报信息类型,拓展情报收集的来源;在分析研判中要实现“动静”兼顾,既分析个案特点和地区经济犯罪形势,又做好专项内容分析;在结果转化中要坚持“内外”结合,为政府部门、企事业单位和社会成员提供服务。     

论我国金融犯罪刑事立法理念的重构

立法理念对立法技术、立法内容和立法效果有着基础性的导向作用,树立科学的金融犯罪立法理念是引导金融刑法改革的先决条件。受制于计划经济时期金融抑制思想的影响,我国金融犯罪刑事立法理念相对落后,进而导致了立法内容与立法实践脱轨、立法目标与立法价值偏离等问题。为此,有必要在反思我国现行金融刑法立法理念的基础上,树立以金融自由为基础、风险防范为导向、金融效率为核心、金融安全为保障的全新理念,为金融犯罪刑事立法立法改革提供科学的发展方向。     

大数据时代下的主动型侦查模式研究

侦查模式是侦查的最一般路由,侦查人员借助其对案件侦查形成基本的工作思路.当前犯罪出现了动态化、智能化、组织化的异化现象,处于基础性地位的反应型侦查模式在应对犯罪异化时遇到了困难.本文研究反应型侦查向主动型侦查转型的相关问题,借助了大数据对于行为、事件的预测功能扩展了原有的主动型侦查模式适用的外延范围并厘清了其在适用时所要解决的与反应型侦查所不同的法律问题.     

Access to Reliable Public Records as Evidence for Freedom of Information in Commonwealth Africa

Abstract

International attention to the benefits of openness for empowering citizens, strengthening economic performance and ending poverty has emphasised the importance of achieving accountability and transparency through freedom of information and open data. The ability to achieve openness depends upon the quality, completeness and accessibility of government records and data. However, chronic problems in managing this information in many Commonwealth countries, particularly in the digital environment, undermine the ability to achieve these goals. There is a critical need to develop and share solutions for managing this essential resource as a basis for digital governance across the Commonwealth, especially in relation to the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.     

RACIALLY HOMOPHILOUS SOCIAL TIES AND INFORMAL SOCIAL CONTROL

Social disorganization theory argues that racial/ethnic heterogeneity is a key neighborhood characteristic leading to social disorganization and, consequently, higher levels of crime. Heterogeneity's effect is argued to be a result of its fragmentation of social ties along racial/ethnic lines, which creates racially homophilous social networks with few ties bridging racial/ethnic groups. Most studies of social ties in social disorganization models, however, have examined their quantity and left unaddressed the extent to which ties are within or across different racial groups. This study goes beyond previous studies by examining the effects of both racially homophilous and interracial friendship networks on informal social control. Using multilevel models and data from 66 neighborhoods with approximately 2,300 respondents, we found that heterogeneity actually increased the average percentage of residents with interracial friendship networks, but the percentage of residents with interracial networks decreased the likelihood of informal social control. In contrast, the percentage of residents with White racially homophilous networks increased the likelihood of informal social control. Examining the microcontext of individuals’ networks, however, we found residents with interracial ties reported higher likelihoods of informal social control and that this effect was enhanced in neighborhoods with higher percentages of non‐White racially homophilous networks.     

CLOSE‐UPS AND THE SCALE OF ECOLOGY: LAND USES AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL CONTEXT AND CRIME

Whereas one line of recent neighborhood research has placed an emphasis on zooming into smaller units of analysis such as street blocks, another line of research has suggested that even the meso‐area of neighborhoods is too narrow and that the area surrounding the neighborhood is also important. Thus, there is a need to examine the scale at which the social ecology impacts crime. We use data from seven cities from around the year 2000 to test our research questions using multilevel negative binomial regression models (N = 73,010 blocks and 8,231 block groups). Our results suggest that although many neighborhood factors seem to operate on the microscale of blocks, others seem to have a much broader impact. In addition, we find that racially and ethnically homogenous blocks within heterogeneous block groups have the most crime. Our findings also show the strongest results for a multitude of land‐use measures and that these measures sharpen some of the associations from social characteristics. Thus, we find that accounting for multiple scales simultaneously is important in ecological studies of crime.     

TESTING FOR TEMPORALLY DIFFERENTIATED RELATIONSHIPS AMONG POTENTIALLY CRIMINOGENIC PLACES AND CENSUS BLOCK STREET ROBBERY COUNTS

This study examined street robbery patterns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from the years 2009 to 2011 to determine whether the effects of potentially criminogenic places are different across different periods of the day. Census block (N = 13,164) street robbery counts across four periods (6:45 a.m . to 9:59 a.m., 10:00 a.m . to 4:29 p.m ., 4:30 p.m . to 9:14 p.m ., and 9:15 p.m. to 6:44 a.m. ) were modeled with 12 different potentially criminogenic places, 3 measures of illicit markets, 4 compositional control variables, and spatially lagged versions of the 12 potentially criminogenic places and population using simultaneously estimated negative binomial regression models. Differences in the magnitudes of the parameter estimates across the time periods were assessed with Wald tests. Overall, the patterns across the four models were mostly consistent with the effects hypothesized based on the study's crime pattern theory and time‐geography theoretical frame; yet differences in the magnitudes of the coefficients were less pronounced than hypothesized. Overall, the results provide moderate support for the crime pattern theory and time‐geography explanation of spatial‐temporal robbery patterns; however, numerous points are raised for future crime and place research.     

GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM FOR EXPLAINING CRIME

General assessments refer to individuals’ overall judgment of their standing on broad dimensions that have special relevance for the explanation of crime, such as their overall bond to society or their prospects for success. These assessments are partly a function of the independent variables that are commonly considered in contemporary crime theories and quantitative research. But these standard etiological variables are far from fully determinative of general assessments because individuals differ in how they interpret, weigh, and combine their standing along these variables. The social–psychological factors that affect the subjective judgments underlying general assessments have yet to be theorized in any comprehensive, systematic manner. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that the incorporation of general assessments in models of offending will greatly enhance their explanatory power because these assessments are the most proximate, comprehensive, and personally relevant causes of crime. Moreover, we anticipate that once these assessments reach certain threshold levels, such as the view that bonds to society are severed irreparably or success is beyond reach, they result in a nonlinear jump in the frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending (i.e., chronic offending). A consideration of general assessments and their associated thresholds should therefore substantially improve efforts to explain crime.