Academic Criminology Research Articles

Women and crime in contemporary China: a review essay

In the neoliberal West, while the growing awareness of women’s crimes in academic criminology has greatly extended our knowledge and understanding of the relation between women and crime, the growing visibility of female crime in popular culture brings with it a set of distinct problems that relate to the common misrepresentation of the actuality of female crime. In this article, we question whether similar trends can be identified elsewhere. We seek to address this question by focusing on female offending in China since the 1980s. Following a partial and preliminary account of female offending in this vast country, our attempt is to make some meaningful comparison and also to identify one or two key theories that might enable us to better understand the increased visibility of female offending in this non-“Western” country – one destined to play a much more active role in global culture and politics as the twenty-first century unfolds.

Making History: Academic Criminology and Human Rights

David Garland has written that ‘an engagement with human rights is essential for 21st century criminology that aspires to depth and relevance’. But what does it mean to do human rights criminologically? Also, should it be viewed as a new phenomenon or are there histories of engagement with rights to be found within academic criminology? And what is the relationship between any such histories and the methods and goals that are influencing contemporary criminological positions on human rights? This article engages with these questions, though it will not answer them. Its goal is a preliminary one: to explain why academic criminology ought to enquire into its own history with human rights. Given the range of engagements with, and repudiations of, rights discourse over time, that history is likely to be complex. But understanding it, we suggest, is important for criminology going forward.

The Scholarship of Jean-Paul Brodeur

This issue of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice contains a number of contributions to mark the scholarship of Professor Jean-Paul Brodeur, of the Ecole de criminologie at the Universite de Montreal, Canada, and the Western world of academic criminology, lost one of its brightest stars when Jean-Paul passed away in 2010. Jean-Paul was also Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Criminology for many years. In this brief introduction, we provide some information on Jean-Paul, his career in criminology, and the contributions which follow.

The prospects and pitfalls of Ken Clarke's package of penal reforms

In the Conservative‐led coalition's recent green paper Breaking the Cycle Ken Clarke aims to justify reducing the scale and costs of imprisonment. These proposals have been met with a generally positive response from penal reform groups and academic criminologists who see them as a departure from the expansionist policies of the last two decades. Many of the reform proposals presented in the green paper are however unlikely to save the taxpayer money or increase community safety.

The construction of ‘So What?’ criminology: a realist analysis

From a realist perspective there is a growing body of criminology that can be classified as ‘So What?’ criminology in that it involves a low level of theorisation, thin, inconsistent or vague concepts and categories, embodies a dubious methodology or has little or no policy relevance. The production of ‘So What?’ criminology is, of course, no accident but the outcome of a number of lines of force that have served to shape the nature of mainstream academic criminology in recent years. The aim of this article is to identify some of these lines of force and to assess their impact.

Academic Engagement of International Policing-Reform Assistance: Putting Foucauldian Genealogy to Practical Use

In this paper, I develop an approach for normative engagement by academic criminologists through the test case of international policing-reform assistance. By examining some of the known controversies and difficulties associated with international policing-reform assistance, I illustrate the practical policy utility of Foucauldian genealogical analytic inquiry. I argue that the insights and capacities for lateral thinking opened up through this approach are usefully “brought to bear” by taking a page from Jürgen Habermas to institutionalize discursive space and thereby democratic experimentalism.

Criminology as social control: discriminatory research & its role in the reproduction of social inequalities and crime

The law discriminates against low status offenders, but so too might criminologists during the course of their research. In this paper, we address the following question: Does the social status of lawbreakers have an effect on their likelihood of being recruited to offender-based research? The answer to this question is important for reasons that extend beyond academic criminology. If criminologists discriminate, then they themselves are active agents in the reproduction of social disadvantage. If criminology is to reduce inequality, the field must first identify and reduce discriminatory behavior within its own research community.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Transnational Crime and Transnational Policing

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Transnational Crime and Transnational Policing

Book Review: Covert human intelligence; a view from the police

More than 20 years ago Gary Marx broke ground with his foray into the sociology of undercover policing. His view was, and still is, that these policing tactics are essentially a necessary evil, but that they are a double-edged sword and that it is conceivable that such methods can, in principle, be regulated and controlled in order that the worst excesses and least desirable (unintended) outcomes are avoided. In his review of the original book, the European criminologist Cyrille Fijnaut basically agreed, but he also signaled his awareness of the corrupting potentiality of police undercover practices and of the need to bring them under the cover of law and legality. Covert policing tactics raise troubling questions that are with us still. Roger Billingsley’s slim edited collection is a recent addition to this literature and, although under theorized and largely descriptive, it will be a useful resource to academic criminologists and other scholars who are interested to explore and understand the latest developments. Whilst mainly focused on the contemporary situation in the United Kingdom, the contributions in the book (mostly penned by former or currently serving police officers or lawyers) offer many useful insights into one crucial tactic in the broad array of covert policing practices: the use of clandestine informers. The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with legal issues: the perspective of defense lawyers, the administrative regulation of covert human intelligence sources (CHIS), the use of promises of immunity in informant handling, Crime Law Soc Change (2010) 53:205–206 DOI 10.1007/s10611-009-9218-9

Beyond ‘so what?’ criminology

There has been a growing concern about the lack of policy relevance of criminology in recent years. Two influential responses to this dilemma have been presented. On one hand, it has been argued that academic criminologists should become more active in mobilizing points of consensus about what works, while on the other hand it has been suggested that there should be a division of labour among academics and that the subject be broken down into public, professional, policy and critical criminologies. This article argues that neither of these responses are tenable and instead calls for an approach that links theory, method and intervention with the aim of developing a coherent critical realist approach that is able to go beyond the existing forms of ‘so what?’ criminology.

Third Wave criminology

Evidence-based policy-making implies greater clarity in the relationship between science, politics and crime control. This is especially the case with a highly polarizing topic like gun-crime. Specifically, the enrolment of social science by pressure groups, political parties and other political actors raises questions about the possibility and desirability of a scientifically detached appraisal of the problem. One resolution is to reject the feasibility of objective detachment, treat science and politics as synonymous and locate criminology firmly in the domain of politics and morality—to `take sides' as it were. This renders the purpose of academic criminology problematic, for if its practitioners are to be regarded as inevitably partisan, what do they contribute as social scientists to public issues defined as political and moral in content? Why should criminological knowledge claims be especially valued over that of other political and moral actors? More recently, attempts to define concepts about the formative intentions, intrinsic and extrinsic to the politics of scientists' work, suggest ways of demarcating science from politics in this and other criminological disputes. They provide a rationale for the distinctive contribution of social science to public controversies over crime and control.

How Situational Crime Prevention Contributes to Social Welfare

Situational crime prevention has been met with considerable scepticism from academic criminologists primarily for its indifference to social welfare. It has been seen as contributing to a law-and-order agenda with its focus on making public places secure for business and as supplanting social welfare policies as means of responding to crime. But situational crime prevention contributes more to social welfare than sceptics allow and its advocates (may) believe. Situational crime prevention has enjoyed its fullest and robust expression, not in the free-market, neo-liberal environment of America, but within the leading welfare states of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. This essay considers the politics of the situational approach, the alleged benefits of social crime prevention, criminalisation of social policy, unplanned social welfare benefits, assumptions about the role of business, and concerns about privacy, surveillance and control. The discussion centres on the European experience: the UK, France, The Netherlands and the Nordic countries.

The aesthetics of redemption

The released prisoner was a stock figure in American popular culture throughout the 20th century, and there is an enduring aesthetic associated with such narratives. Despite the artifice of the aesthetic, the best of them attempt to say serious things about the perils and pleasures of `straight time'. This paper explores the way in which a cluster of books and films, dating from the 1990s, has addressed the experiences of released prisoners and notes an emergent focus on the personal agony of redemption. This has a contingent rather than an integral relation to the concern with rehabilitation and control espoused by criminal justice officials, but none the less enables the communication of culturally enriching stories to audiences who might not otherwise be interested in the problems of released prisoners. Academic criminology should take heed of these stories, and make more use of them, pedagogically and politically.

“Scholarly influence” and white-collar crime scholarship

This article explores many of the factors that play a role in the relative lack of scholarly influence of criminology and criminal justice professionals who focus on studying white-collar and corporate crime. The latest studies of “scholarly influence” in criminology and criminal justice journals and textbooks based on citation analyses confirm the absence of scholars who study white-collar and corporate crime. The sparse inclusion of white-collar and corporate crime topics in criminology and criminal justice curriculum in academic programs also indicate that the area is considered by many as a subfield rather than a mainstream component of academic criminology. Whether or not this status will change remains to be seen, but, on a positive note, there are a few encouraging signs that scholarly influence in the field will include more white-collar criminologists in the future.

Science, values and politics: an insider’s reflections on corporate crime research

Diverse social and political forces have long shaped research on corporate crime and its social control in the U.S., and they have responded to this work in plural and contradictory ways. These forces range from the abstract and institutional to the local and personal. In this essay, I reflect on my three decades of research experience in this arena in an examination of these forces and their implications for research and public policy. More overtly than other forms of criminological research, the study of corporate lawbreaking has conjoined issues of values and politics with issues of science. This feature of the work has made consistently problematic such foundational questions as how to define the subject of inquiry, how to study it, and how to communicate about it. While this volatility has contributed to the ongoing marginalization of this research stream in both academic criminology and regulatory policy, it has also created a certain intellectual dynamism that should attract future generations of investigators to these questions, and to greater cross-disciplinary efforts to address them. Such developments may even pave the way to greater consideration of such research by policy-makers, should socioeconomic conditions in the U.S. and around the world raise the public salience of corporate wrongdoing. ‘Why do you want to study corporate managers? We know how they think.’ ‘…a book entitled Corporate Crime automatically puts us on guard to defend the corporations…such a book should never have been written in the first place.’

Crime, film and criminology

This article aims at giving crime-film research a stronger sense of purpose by asking: How do crime films relate to criminology? Using the example of recent films about sex crimes, I argue that crime films should be conceptualized as an aspect of popular criminology, and popular criminology as an aspect of criminology itself. If we define criminology as the study of crime and criminals, it becomes clear that film is one of the primary sources through which people get their ideas about the nature of crime. Some of those ideas echo academic criminology, while others bring to bear ethical, philosophical and psychological perspectives beyond the scope of academic research. By recognizing that popular criminology is integral to criminology, we can invigorate the study of crime films—and criminology itself.

Public criminologies

The origins of this Special Issue of Theoretical Criminology can be located in a ‘Modernizing Criminal Justice’ conference that we both attended in London in June 2002. The high-profile event was co-sponsored by John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, the Metropolitan Police and the FBI. Broadcasting crews were on hand to digest the plenary speeches of senior representatives of the British government, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies. It was also a highly corporate event, promoting the commercial products of global security and IT companies specializing in criminal justice ‘problem solving’. The opening session of the conference featured a slow motion replay of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers with a voice-over informing the audience that the course of criminal justice had changed forever. This ‘post 9/11’ global war on crime and terrorism theme echoed throughout the plenary speeches and keynote sessions. What was striking was the relegation of the scheduled criminology workshops to the margins of the conference. This set off a discussion between us, during a coffee break, about why academic criminological knowledge was extraneous to the interests of the policy audiences brought together by this conference. And, of course, this quickly moved to discussion of whether criminologists should have a central place in such a forum. But while this is how our interest in criminology and public policy was initially sparked, we later found ourselves trying to pinpoint, more systematically, the different positions criminologists have taken on questions of their relevance and status within larger public policy debates.2 Our purposes in this introduction, and in the Special Issue that follows, are twofold. One aim is to outline a range of views that have been offered by academic criminologists on the discipline’s public status and its relationship to public policy formation and intellectual practice. A second goal is to argue the need for a diversity of ‘public criminologies’ wherein explicit value is placed on moving policies in more progressive directions. Our own point of view is that much more could be done than at present, particularly since there would seem to be broad criminological consensus about many policy issues facing us including punitive policies around the globe as well as the detrimental consequences of a range of harms and risks.

Seeing War as Criminal: Peace Activist Views and Critical Criminology

A hallmark of critical criminology is its critique of the traditional definition of crime. For decades, critical scholars have proposed humanistic definitions of crime that bring state violence into the purview of academic criminology—although outside of critical criminology this is a matter of great contentiousness. This study investigates the views of those involved in peace activism, but not in any way associated with academic criminology, about the application of the term ‘crime’ to war, specifically the recent US war on Iraq. Given that there is no existing research on this subject, the article also examines how peace activists define crime generally and whether they believe those responsible for the war should be regarded as war criminals. Not surprisingly, semi‐structured interviews with 13 anti‐war activists reveal significant support for elements of critical criminological definitions of crime but an unexpected concern on the part of some that the application of the term ‘crime’ to war could be counterproductive in efforts to stop state violence. The rationales for this concern, as well as those for other issues addressed in the study, are largely presented in the interviewees’ own words.

The Media and Criminologists: Interactions and Satisfaction

Traditionally, academic criminologists have addressed two audiences—other academics and students—while largely ignoring other segments of society. Frequently neglected is attention to educating the public. This paper uses a random sample of American Society of Criminology (ASC) members to measure the level of interaction with and attitudes toward criminologists working with the media. Findings suggest that most criminologists have participated in an isolated incidence of working with the media, tend to be generally satisfied with this experience, and perceive working with the media as a worthwhile endeavor for criminologists.

“So what does all of this have to do with Criminology?”: Surviving the Restructuring of the Discipline in the Twenty-First Century

This commentary reflects back on an article that we published in the 1999 volume of this journal, which offered a number of observations about the condition of Canadian academic criminology at the turn of the new century. In this brief update, we consider some of the trends that have unfolded over the intervening six years, which have contributed to the continuing polarization of the discipline and the resurgence of traditional paradigms of state crime control and order maintenance (albeit under the purportedly new banners of risk management, computational criminology, administrative criminology, crime mapping, and the like). While innovative, progressive, and counter-hegemonic work continues to flourish in many quarters, the reward structures of twenty-first-century corporate university systems and criminological research environments militate overwhelmingly, and increasingly, in favour of the (re)ascendant “new orthodoxy.”