Anti-crime Policies Research Articles

Criminal populism: crime as political capital in the Philippines and the United States

ABSTRACT This study examines the phenomenon of transforming crime into political capital, drawing on cases from the Philippines, then Donald Trump in the United States. It introduces three archetypes of politicians who use crime as political capital: the Criminal Politician, the Political Criminal, and the Fascist Criminal Politician. Additionally, the concept of criminal populism is introduced, highlighting how a politician’s criminal acts can become political assets by enhancing their appeal in electoral processes. The focus here is on intersections of crime and electoral processes, on how criminals use public performance and narrative construction within criminal justice institutions and political arenas to strengthen their support as populist leaders among the electorate. Furthermore, the concept of penal populism, 1 defined as the advocacy for anti-crime policies and legislation , is juxtaposed with criminal populism to offer a comprehensive understanding of the three new archetypes and their impacts on the intersection of crime and politics.

JINOYATCHILIKKA QARSHI KURASHISHNING BUYUK BRITANIYA MODELIGA XOS XUSUSIYATLAR

In the article, the author seeks to reveal the specific aspects of the fight against crime in the UK. In particular, it considers certain elements of the crime fighting system-doctrinal and criminological approaches on which criminal policy is based-features of legislation on combating crime, as well as notable aspects of law enforcement. It is known that the British model of fighting crime was formed under the influence of the Anglo-Saxon legal system and Anglo-American criminological schools. The basis of doctrinal and criminological approaches to crime are administrative-classical and sociological theories. In criminal policy, there is periodically a focus on the priority of criminal law measures (tightening) or on the priority of socially liberal measures (mitigation). Since there is no codified legislative system in the UK, the development of anti-crime policies is based on medium-term (3-5 years) strategic concepts. Despite the fact that crime in the UK is growing at a high rate, there is a loss of ability to maintain accurate crime statistics. At the same time, it turns out that this loophole in the detection of crimes is being overcome by the systematic introduction by the British police of the practice of studying latent crime. The British practice of crime prevention is notable for the fact that it includes situational and victimological measures involving a number of public organizations.

News and noise in crime politics: The role of announcements and risk attitudes

We examine the process of intertemporal decision-making among potential offenders by analyzing their response to announcements of future changes in anticrime policies. We specify the utility function of potential criminals based on Epstein-Zin preferences to explicitly account for risk attitudes. In this setting, news shocks in anticrime policies can bring about immediate changes in delinquency, but heterogeneous risk attitudes among potential offenders may cause unintended outcomes in the short run. We further show that short-run effects may solidify in the event that the announced policy changes are not ultimately implemented (noise shocks). We demonstrate that rising uncertainty about policy changes may be beneficial in crime prevention, but only among risk-averse agents. Hence, this paper highlights potential pitfalls that result from neglecting the importance of risk attitudes in crime prevention – and potentially other policies.

Freeze! Financial Sanctions and Bank Responses

Abstract Using regulatory data, we study German bank lending in countries targeted by financial sanctions. We find that domestic banks in Germany reduce lending in sanctioned countries, whereas their foreign bank affiliates outside Germany increase lending. In some cases, this is because the bank affiliates’ host countries have not imposed sanctions themselves. However, even German bank affiliates in host countries that enact sanctions like Germany increase lending if these host countries lack strong institutions and anticrime policies. These findings suggest that even universally adopted sanctions distort bank capital flows and competition if the level of their enforcement varies across bank locations. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online

The Armed Career Criminal Act and the Puzzle of Federal Crime Control in the Reagan Era: “It’s at the state and local levels that problems exist”

AbstractThis article examines how Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s Armed Career Criminal Act attempted to respond to the 1980s crisis of state prison overcrowding while also maintaining a political commitment to get tough on crime. Although commonly thought of as a straightforward punitive sentencing bill, this article shows that the Armed Career Criminal Act was also a desperate attempt to navigate a national crisis of state prison overcrowding in the 1980s that threatened to undercut racialized “get tough” politics and the burgeoning carceral state. In doing so, this article reshapes scholarship on the history of the United States carceral state by demonstrating that the United States’ decentralized political structure and federal government hostility toward funding state correctional expansion created significant gaps between a national discourse of law and order and actual anticrime policy making in the Reagan era, suggesting a far more contested development of the United States prison nation.

Prison, mental health and family spillovers

Prison, mental health and family spillovers Overlooking victims of crime and their relationships to criminals has led to an incomplete and distorted view of crime and its individual and social costs. While a better understanding of these social interactions is crucial for designing more effective anti-crime policy, existing research in criminology, sociology and economics has struggled to identify causal effects due to data limitations and difficult statistical identification issues. This project will push the research frontier by combining register datasets that have never been merged before and by using several state-of-the-art statistical methods to estimate causal effects related to criminal peer groups and their victims.

Reassessing the Relationship Between Mortgage Loan Investment and Crime Across Race/Ethnicity, Disadvantage, and Instability

Home loans are associated with fewer crimes in neighborhoods and some research shows investment may be especially helpful in disadvantaged or minority neighborhoods. To replicate and extend this research, we estimate a series of multilevel negative binomial models on crime to (1) replicate prior research, (2) examine the robustness of extant findings to variable specification, and (3) expand on prior work by examining the conditional role of residential instability. In line with prior work, our results show that tracts receiving larger absolute and relative loan amounts experience fewer violent crimes. However, the magnitude of crime-reduction benefits of investment are attenuated when including aggravated assaults or accounting for the relative value of the loans. Though investment was associated with lower violent crime in all types of tracts, disproportionate benefits of investment—that is, more bang for the buck—occurs more consistently in White tracts than tracts of color. These findings underscore the importance of replication for ensuring sound housing and anti-crime policies.

Tempering the Taste for Vengeance: Information About Prisoners and Policy Choices in Chile

Punitive anti-crime policies in the Americas have contributed to steadily increasing rates of incarceration. Harsh penalties are often demanded by citizens, making them attractive to politicians. Yet the contextual determinants of participation in crime are rarely understood by the public. In this article, we employ a survey experiment conducted in Chile in order to examine how the provision of information about the prison population shapes tastes for punitive anti-crime policies. Respondents in the treatment group received information about the low educational attainment of prisoners. This information led to substantial changes in policy preferences. Tasked with allocating resources to anti-crime policies using a fixed budget, treated respondents assigned between 20% and 50% more to socially oriented anti-crime policies (relative to punitive policies) than respondents in the control group, and they reduced their support for “ iron fist” policing. Our findings suggest that providing information to citizens might change the policy equilibrium in the Americas.

Juvenile anti-criminal policy: concepts and tasks

Introduction. Signifi cant prevalence of juvenile delinquency, primarily violent and selfi sh, is due to many factors: the destruction of the school education system, including lack of patriotic upbringing of adolescents, uncontrolled demonstrations of violence in the media and the Internet, defects in family upbringing, neglect youth and other shortcomings of public policy in this area. The primary need of any state is to ensure the comprehensive development and self-realization of every child, so the support of young people should be one of the main priorities of social policy. Insuffi cient attention of the state to the problem of juvenile delinquency determines the deepening of delinquent manifestations in society, disregard for socio-cultural norms, increasing recidivism and violence. The aim of the article. Development of the concept of juvenile anti-crime policy and establishment of its tasks at the present stage. Results. Juvenile anti-crime policy is proposed to be understood as the strategy and tactics of the state in the fi eld of combating juvenile delinquency, which determine the directions, goals and means of infl uencing juvenile delinquency, legal regulation of criminal liability of such persons and its implementation by criminal justice, juvenile justice system. juvenile delinquency. Conclusions. All components of juvenile anti-crime policy, namely the legislation on criminal liability of minors, the practice of its application, juvenile justice and prevention, are in functional dependence and interaction. The mechanism of this interaction is such that changes in one element necessarily lead to corresponding changes in other elements of such a policy. At the present stage, Ukraine’s juvenile anti-criminal policy has the main tasks of forming a juvenile justice system capable of guaranteeing restorative, rehabilitation, protective and educational justice, as well as ensuring eff ective juvenile prevention, social adaptation and resocialization of juvenile off enders. Key words: juvenile delinquency, child, juvenile policy, anti-criminal policy, juvenile justice.

Fear and Loathing or Strategic Priming? Unveiling the Audience in Duterte's Crime Rhetoric

AbstractThis paper examines speechmaking on a contentious policy by arguably one of the most controversial figures to have assumed the Philippine presidency. Drawing on quantitative textual approaches on a corpus of 845 presidential speeches delivered between June 2016 and July 2020, we provide evidence that Rodrigo Duterte's evocative utterances against drug lords and criminals are not just deliberate illocutionary acts intended to court public support, but also priming tactics aimed towards a politically and economically significant audience whose acquiescence gives symbolic legitimacy to a controversial anti-crime policy. Using quantitative textual approaches and econometric analysis, we find that violent-crime rhetoric is more likely to accompany public pronouncements made before a political audience consisting of law enforcement authorities and government officials, as well as an economic audience made up of business chambers, overseas Filipino workers, and labor groups. Overall, the findings nuance an image of Duterte beyond that of a penal populist.

A heavy hand or a helping hand? Information provision and citizen preferences for anti-crime policies

AbstractAnti-crime policy is often unresponsive to reductions in crime. To address why, we provide a model and empirical test of how citizens’ anti-crime policy preferences respond to information. Our model shows that preferences for anti-crime policy hinge on expectations about the crime rate: punitive policies are preferred in high crime contexts, whereas social policies are preferred in low crime contexts. We evaluate these expectations through an information experiment embedded in the 2017 Latin American Public Opinion Project survey conducted in Panama. As expected by our theory, a high crime message induced stronger preferences in favour of punitive policies. Unanticipated by our theory, but in line with cursory evidence and survey results, we find that a low crime message did not induce stronger preferences in favour of social policies. These findings are consistent with policy ratcheting: punitive policies increase during periods of high crime and remain in place during periods of low crime.

Anti-crime policy and its criminological groundlessness

Anti-crime policy and its criminological groundlessness

Legal Problems In The Field Of Combating Crimes Of International Nature Committed By Organized Criminal Groups

The article considers the problem of combating international crime as one of the most negative social phenomena of our time. Today, the world is facing the fact that international crime has become a reality and a global problem. A powerful, comprehensive and diverse system of measures is used to combat international crimes committed by organized crime groups. The purpose of our study is to identify the problems of legal regulation in the fight against crimes of an international nature committed by organized criminal groups and to identify ways to solve this problem. The results of this work are that the growth of international crime has become an obvious problem today. It is impossible to overestimate the damage caused by transnational organized crime groups, which occupy not only one specific state, but entire regions and continents. Practice shows that it is impossible to effectively combat this type of crime within one state, hence the need for international cooperation to address this global problem. We believe that the desired result in the fight against transnational organized crime in Ukraine can be obtained only due to the complex nature of the activity, and the existing methods should undergo significant changes and expand both nationally and internationally. In these circumstances, the further development of international cooperation between states in the fight against crime, in accordance with current realities, is one of the priorities of the world community. The issue of developing a unified international anti-crime policy, which includes not only international legal mechanisms, but also a wide range of measures aimed at preventing international crime, is relevant. Obviously, the adoption of a new UN Convention against Transnational Crime is a new stage in shaping such a policy at the global level.

National Security, Anti-Corruption, and Anti-Crime Policies in the Duterte Administration

President Duterte’s top three campaign promises, to be completed within the first seven months of his term, on ending crime, corruption and illegal drugs and human trafficking. The failure to deliver on these promises, critical to the country’s development prospects, stemmed from approaching complex issues as mainly law enforcement problems. Their resolution thus became overly reliant on the capacity of police and security personnel the president could trust. The strategy did not take advantage of lessons learned around the world and from its own experience in addressing impunity and engaging citizen support in controlling corruption, a tendency also reflected in the government’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Systematization Of Functions Of Criminal Law Policy

The author argues that the policy in the field of combating crime as a component of state legal policy ensures the implementation of certain functions on the basis of the relevant principles. Anti-crime policy performs a number of functions inherent in politics in general. In particular, the integrative function ensures the unity, integrity and stability of society.
 The managerial and regulatory function is that the policy expresses the socially significant interests of all segments of society by defining specific goals and objectives of the relevant bodies. The function of rationalization forms the tactical and strategic goals of society, determines effective methods of their implementation. The function of innovation is to respond to anti-crime policies to new forms of social life using appropriate dynamic methods and techniques. The function of resource mobilization ensures the use of appropriate efforts to address the tasks assigned to the studied policy area (and, accordingly, the effectiveness of policy implementation in the field of combating crime in general).
 The human rights function is aimed at criminal law protection of human rights and freedoms. The function of political socialization «includes» people, public organizations in the world of criminal law regulation and protection, giving them various opportunities to influence the implementation of criminal law policy.
 The author points to the survival of the following formative (incoming) functions of criminal law policy: 1) the function of forming a request; 2) the function of determining resources. Among the implementation («initial») functions of criminal law policy should be noted: 1) rule-making function, 2) rule-making function, 3) control function.
 Service functions are: 1) interpretive function; 2) information and communication function.

Неэффективность противодействия коррупционной преступности в современной России

The article presents a detailed analysis of corruption as a socially negative phenomenon that has acquired significant proportions and currently poses a threat to the national security of Russia. It is proved that the statistical indicators of the revealed and solved crimes of officials do not fully reflect the actual number of committed socially dangerous acts of a corruption nature. In addition the authors critically evaluate the methods used by the anti-crime policy and believe that moral education of representatives of Russian society and the cult of the law-abiding person can be the real means of combating crime among officials.

Deterrence effects, socio-economic development, police revenge and homicides in Rio de Janeiro

PurposeDue to the high levels of crime in Rio de Janeiro, the purpose of this paper is twofold. The first one is to analyze the effects of deterrence variables (such as the adoption of Pacifying Police Units (UPPs) and incarcerations) on violence in the municipalities of the State of Rio de Janeiro, as well as to verify the existence of “revenge effect.” The second is to analyze the effects of socio-economic development on violence, using development indicators.Design/methodology/approachBesides usual OLS method for panel data analysis, the study makes use of dynamic panel data framework through D-GMM and S-GMM. The estimates are based on a sample of 82 municipalities of Rio de Janeiro, and the period runs from 2003 to 2013. As dependent variables, the estimates use violent deaths (i.e. aggregation of intentional homicides and armed robberies followed by death) and homicides resulting from opposition to police intervention (i.e. civilians killed as a result of police actions against criminals – “opposition deaths”).FindingsThe estimates indicate that incarceration presents marginal capacity to reduce violence. Regarding the findings for the adoption of UPPs, the evidence suggests that this project increased violence and, therefore, the possibility of displacement of violence to other regions of the State. With respect to the effect of police deaths over violence, the results are unprecedented and suggest the existence of a “revenge effect.” Besides, the study points to the importance of socio-economic development to reduce violence.Originality/valueOnce the study analyzes the effects of incarceration and UPPs, it contributes to the literature by providing new evidence on the ability of anti-crime policies of reducing (or not) violence. In addition, when considering the death of policemen in the estimates, the study shows an unprecedented way, the effect that these deaths cause over violence (the so-called “revenge effect”). Moreover, the study considers the impacts of the development of employment and income, health and education on violence. When analyzing these development indicators, the study contributes with the literature that looks for non-police alternatives to control crime.

Histéresis y asimetría en delitos: un análisis de los robos a nivel colonia en la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara

Una de las características de la delincuencia que ha sido subestimada en estudios empíricos es su persistencia temporal y, por consiguiente, su respuesta asimétrica a cambios en sus variables explicativas. La importancia del efecto histéresis ha sido notada en diferentes estudios, en los que se argumenta que éste puede reducir de manera significativa la efectividad de las políticas de lucha contra el crimen. Utilizando las denuncias de diferentes tipos de robos a nivel colonia en la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara (ZMG), encontramos que dichos delitos presentan un fuerte componente de histéresis, y muestran un comportamiento asimétrico ante cambios en las condiciones económicas.

Regulatory Foresight

Illicit markets capitalize on the vulnerabilities of trade systems. When these weaknesses involve mechanisms common to several aspects of transnational commerce, the effect of illicit behavior, and conversely of anti-crime policy, can be magnified. This study introduces a script-network method to estimate the impact of targeting illicit behavior within the context of an entire market system. Using the high-value art and antiquities market as a case study, we anticipate the effects of two anti-crime policy directives—movement control and monitoring financial transactions. In addition to advancing a new method, two original metrics are presented—one measures the complexity of sectors in a trade system ( complexity) and the other anticipates the incentive to work around crime control efforts ( transformity). In consideration of these system characteristics, our results suggest that maximum decoupling of illicit\legal trade is more likely with the introduction of safeguards targeting central trade functions that are associated with valuing and gifting objects. Network-oriented research could help the prevailing market reduction approach (MRA) to be more effective in reducing transnational illicit trade because network analytics are specially crafted for dealing with the statistical challenges that are inherent to studying transnational illicit market systems.

Racial Discrimination, Fear of Crime, and Variability in Blacks’ Preferences for Punitive and Preventative Anti-crime Policies

A growing body of research recognizes that people’s policy opinions are not simply positive or negative, but instead derive from a variety of positive and negative beliefs related to a political issue. This research expands this insight by explaining the variability in support for punitive anti-crime policies among black Americans. Data from a nationally representative survey of black Americans (n = 515) are used to show that a majority of blacks are conflicted between a strong desire to reduce crime and perceptions of widespread racial discrimination within the criminal justice system. Using a heteroskedastic item response theory model, I demonstrate that conflict between these beliefs results in far greater variability around their support for punitive, but not preventative policies. Both the conflict and variability of many black Americans’ preferences on punitive anti-crime policies complicates their ability to clearly voice their support for or opposition toward punitive policies and likely limits the ability of elected officials to represent members of this community.