Crime Control Policies Research Articles

Social Disorganization and Strain: Macro and Micro Implications for Youth Violence

Objectives: Explanations of community violence traditionally reflect a social disorganization perspective, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics affect crime via the intervening mechanism of informal social control. Drawing on Agnew’s Macro Strain Theory [MST], we argue that neighborhood characteristics 1) also affect macro-level crime for reasons related to aggregated strain and 2) condition the relationship between micro-level strains and individual violent offending. Methods: Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we conduct a series of multilevel models examining both the macro- and multi-level relationship between neighborhood characteristics, strain and youth violence. Findings: Results generally support our arguments, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics like concentrated disadvantage 1) remain associated with community violence even after adjusting for multiple measures of informal social control and 2) condition the association between micro-level strain and violent offending. Conclusions: Strain processes, at both the macro and micro-level, play a critical role in the well-established empirical relationship between structural disadvantage and violence. In light of results, community crime control policies should address the ways in which structural disadvantage increases motivation, rather than focusing exclusively on the ways in which it weakens informal social control.

Post-Release Source of Income and Convictions of Formerly Incarcerated Adults

This study examines the relationship between post-release source of income and convictions for different types of crime. Longitudinal data from a sample of formerly incarcerated adults ( n = 10,879) released from Dutch prisons were used. Fixed effects models show that, compared with receiving social benefits, post-release employment is associated with a lower probability of convictions for crime in general, and for property crime. Persons who are not employed and do not receive benefits have a higher likelihood of conviction for any crime, property crime, and violent crime compared with those receiving social benefits. The magnitude of this positive relationship is stronger for those living alone, for women, and for persons older than 25. Results have implications for crime control policies.

Violent Crime and Firm Performance: Evidence from the Caribbean

Crime and growing the private sector are pertinent development challenges. Despite their importance there is a paucity of research on crime and business performance, particularly in developing countries, partly because of limited firm level data. This study used cross sectional firm data from the Productivity Technology Innovation survey (PROTEqIN) gathered in 2014 across 13 Caribbean countries to investigate violent crimes and company performance using Ordinary Least Squares regression, and several robustness checks including Instrumental Variables and Propensity Score Matching. The Caribbean provides an apt study given that a key characteristic of the business environment is high exposure to crime. The study found that firm sales and violent crime are negatively associated, even after firm characteristics, other factors which influence sales, and country and sector fixed effects were taken into account. The findings of this study underscore the importance for crime prevention, control and reduction policies to grow the private sector.

FINANCING THE WAR ON DRUGS: THE IMPACT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT GRANTS ON RACIAL DISPARITIES IN DRUG ARRESTS

AbstractThis study estimates the impact of the discretionary Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (EBMGP) on drug arrests and crime. The 1986 and 1988 Anti‐Drug Abuse Act allocated federal funds to state and local municipalities to combat illicit drug use and violent crime associated with drug sales and trafficking. The results show that the implementation of the EBMGP resulted in an increase in police hiring, an increase in drug sales arrest rates for Blacks and Whites, and a decrease in total crime. Nonetheless, Black‐White racial disparity in the drug sales arrest rate still significantly increases by approximately 1 for every 1,000 Black residents. Our findings highlight the role of federal crime control policies in state and local policing. Although, the EBMGP was a color‐blind policy initiative, it was not race neutral in its implementation.

Follow the money: Racial crime stereotypes and willingness to fund crime control policies.

Follow the money: Racial crime stereotypes and willingness to fund crime control policies.

The Origins of Mass Incarceration: The Racial Politics of Crime and Punishment in the Post–Civil Rights Era

This article examines the origins of US mass incarceration. Although it is clear that changes in policy and practice are the proximate drivers of the prison boom, researchers continue to explore—and disagree about—why crime control policy and practice changed in ways that fueled the growth of incarceration in all 50 states. One well-known account emphasizes the centrality of racial and electoral politics. This article more fully explicates the racial politics perspective, describes several friendly amendments to it, and explores a range of arguments that challenge it in more fundamental ways. In the end, we maintain that although mass incarceration has many drivers, it cannot be explained without reference to the centrality of racial politics; the importance of the crime issue to the GOP electoral strategy that emerged in the wake of the civil rights movement; and the nature of the decentralized, two-party electoral system in the United States.

The Two Subalterns: Perceived Status and Violent Punitiveness

From the mid-twentieth century, state and public conceptions of deviance and crime control have turned increasingly punitive (Hallett 115; Hutchinson 138). In a Western context, criminal justice has long been retributive, prioritising punishment over rehabilitation (Wenzel et al. 26). Within that context, there has been an increase in punitiveness—understood here as a measure of a punishment’s severity—the intention of which has been to help restore the moral imbalance created by offending while also deterring future crime (Wenzel et al. 26). Entangled with the global spread of neoliberal capitalism, punitiveness has become internationally pervasive to a near-hegemonic degree (Sparks qtd. in Jennings et al. 463; Unnever and Cullen 100). The punitive turn has troubling characteristics. Punitive policies can be expensive, and increased incarceration stresses the criminal justice system and leads to prison overcrowding (Hutchinson 135). Further, punitiveness is not only applied unequally across categories such as class, race, and age (Unnever and Cullen 105-06; Wacquant 212) but the effectiveness of punitive policy relative to its costs is contested (Bouffard et al. 466, 477; Hutchinson 139). Despite this, evidence suggests public demand is driving punitive policymaking, but that demand is only weakly related to crime rates (Jennings et al. 463). While discussion of punitiveness in the public sphere often focuses on measures such as boot camps for young offenders, increased incarceration, and longer prison sentences, punitiveness also has a darker side. Our research analysing discussion taking place on a large, regional, crime-focused online forum reveals a startling degree and intensity of violence directed at offenders and related groups. Members of the discussion forum do propose unsurprising measures such as incarceration and boot camps, but also an array of violent alternatives, including beating, shooting, dismemberment, and conversion into animal food. This article draws on our research to explore why discussion of punitiveness can be so intensely violent.

A Problem of Crime Control Policy in South Korea: A Challenge of Asymmetric Information

The asymmetric information is originally economic theory explaining why the market works imperfectly. However, asymmetric information is a common phenomenon that can be found easily in governments as well as in markets. A problem of crime control policy in South Korea stems from the asymmetric information. The problem is that the Korean National Police (KNP) have all information about crime but the KNP usually do not publicize it. As a result, the community knows little about crime activity and this imbalance of crime information has made it very difficult for the KNP and the community to work effectively to fight against crimes. Furthermore, the lack of communication has created the detrimental public relations for the KNP. For the problem of the crime control policy in Korea, increasing the channels of communication between the KNP and the public should be suggested as a remedy. However, before founding various communication channels with the public, it should be achieved as premises that the KNP firstly build more accurate crime report system and establish reliable crime statistics. The problem of asymmetric information of the KNP can only be resolved if the KNP establish the transparent crime statistics and increase communication channels to service essential crime information to the public. With this vital crime information, the community is expected to make a better decision about their safety issues. By the same token, the ameliorated public relations of the KNP are anticipated. This study is to analyze relevant information on asymmetric information and suggest recommendations for the KNP to solve this problem.

Group Threat, Racial/Ethnic Animus, and Punitiveness in Latin America: A Multilevel Analysis

The group threat perspective has been tested with regard to a variety of social control outcomes, including public support for punitive crime control policies. However, little work has explored possible interactive effects between macro-level racial/ethnic contexts, individual-level racial/ethnic animus, and race/ethnicity on punitive attitudes, and none of this research has been conducted outside the United States. The current study is the first to examine these interrelationships in Latin America, which is characterized by notable racial/ethnic stratification and recent movements toward authoritarian criminal justice strategies. Analyses of data from the AmericasBarometer survey collected in 633 municipalities within 10 countries ( N = 16,782) reveal that (1) racial/ethnic animus is consistently predictive of support for harsher punishments, (2) the effect of being White on punitiveness is conditioned by Indigenous population size at the municipal level, and (3) the interactive effects of being White and holding anti-Black animus are further moderated by municipal-level percent Black/Mulatto.

Cyber Sextortion: An Exploratory Analysis of Different Perpetrators Engaging in a Similar Crime.

Sextortion, a portmanteau of "sexual" and "extortion," is the threat to distribute intimate, sexual materials unless a victim complies with certain demands. Cyber sextortion is part of a larger continuum of image-based sexual offending in which images are used for harm. Despite the serious nature of this crime, there exists a dearth of empirical knowledge of sextortion. This article employed a qualitative content analysis of media articles and court documents to explore the crimes of 152 cyber sextortion offenders. Characteristics of offenders, victims, demands, and methodology were identified and synthesized to generate a qualitative understanding of offenders who employed cyber sextortion. The results revealed four different themes of offenders based on crime characteristics: minor-focused cyber sextortion offenders, cybercrime cyber sextortion offenders, intimately violent cyber sextortion offenders, and transnational criminal cyber sextortion offenders. The diverse nature of cyber sextortion has implications for crime control policies. Certain offenders are more likely to be apprehended and prosecuted depending on the crime victim and methodology. In addition, there has been a lack of legislative action targeting cyber sextortion, which limits legal recourse available for victims. We discuss the contribution of this work to the broader literature on cyber sextortion and address some of the challenges that this crime presents to the criminal justice system.

The Dark Figure and the Cyber Fraud Rise in Europe: Evidence from Spain

A reduction in property crime has been a central feature of criminological discussion in the last 25 years, and numerous studies have used police statistics to identify a drop throughout the Western world. However, fraud, which is included in a broad definition of property crime, has typically not been considered in the analysis. This study examines fraud in the Spanish and European context to further understanding of its nature, prevalence, evolution and role in the overall panorama of property crime. Furthermore, the present study explores the extent to which we are experiencing widespread fraud underreporting to police and the implications of this for crime control policy. To this end, the present paper analyses secondary data provided by the Spanish Ministry of Interior, Spanish and European central banking authorities as well as large-scale victimization surveys from a number of European countries. In contrast to other property crimes, the findings indicate that cyber fraud is rising and that reporting is considerably lower. Some of the main reasons for reporting or not reporting fraud victimization are also identified. The dark figure of fraud suggests the design and evaluation of policing and crime prevention policies based solely on police statistics may be inadequate.

Exercising positive legal responsibility

The subject of this research is the problem of understanding and content of exercising positive legal responsibility in the context of prevention of unlawful acts and stimulation of law-abiding behavior. The author aims to determine the role and functional purpose of law enforcement policy (within the framework of national security), its key trends and vectors, as well as the factors and conditions for implementation of legal responsibility for unlawful behavior and concomitant risks of its excessive application. Legal responsibility is viewed in accordance of its manifestations on the level of objective and subjective law, as well as systemic legal institution that incorporates normative, procedural and organizational subsystems. As a result of the conducted research, the author substantiates the need for prevention of offenses at the stage of emergence of social conflicts. Analysis is conducted on the positive experience of crime prevention in certain Asian countries and the factors of ineffective crime control policies in Russia and other countries. An original perspective on legal responsibility in legal right and law is presented. The author explicates the conceptual ideas of the preventive effect of responsibility at different stages of its materialization with regards to actual and potential offenders. The article takes into account peculiarities of the methods and means of external and internal influence of legal responsibility upon the behavior and consciousness of the subjects of law; outlines merits and flaws of the policy of preventing legal violations from the standpoints of its official objectives and tools; describes the structure of the system of legal responsibility and the advantage of its implementation in preventive activity of the law enforcement agencies and penal system of the Russian Federation.

Fear Factor: The Role of Media in Covering and Shaping the Death Penalty

Substantial work has been done on media's coverage of crime, and particularly violent crime. However, very little work has been done on media's relationship to the death penalty, a topic that presents its own set of complex challenges. This article examines the feedback loop between law and media in the capital punishment context. It first discusses the ways in which the perceived requisites of the media, particularly television, shape coverage of capital punishment. These requisites include the need for immediate, discrete and filmic occurrences, the demand for official sources, and the influence of dramatic conventions like stars and villains, a clear moral, and definitive closure. The paper argues that media coverage governed by these requisites gives short shrift to problems of justice and fairness in individual capital cases, and pays even less attention to broader, systemic problems plaguing the American system of capital punishment. The paper then argues that the administration of the death penalty is, in turn, strongly influenced by the media at a number of crucial pressure points. The feedback loop is especially visible at the legislative juncture, when crime control policies are made; at the prosecutorial juncture, when discretion about capital charging is at work; and at the adjudicative juncture, when both judge and jury must make difficult decisions about sentencing.

Valuing the public’s demand for crime prevention programs: a discrete choice experiment

The objectives of the study were (a) to utilize a state-of-the-art survey methodology previously employed in the environmental, health, and safety economics literatures to estimate the cost of violent crime and homicide in Buenos Aires and (b) to demonstrate the feasibility of this method for crime cost estimation and for using these surveys in developing countries. The study used a random sample of households from an online panel in Buenos Aires. Respondents were asked to choose among three options with factorial design varying homicide rate, violent crime rate, policy measures to reduce crime, and tax impact (with one option being status quo). Discrete choice modeling was utilized to estimate willingness-to-pay for reduction in risk of homicide and violent crime as well as independent values for two policy options. The cost of homicide in Buenos Aires is estimated to be approximately $1.5 million, whereas the cost of other violent crimes (including rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) is estimated to average $2000. In addition to extending intangible crime cost estimates to Latin America, we simultaneously estimate the value of two comprehensive crime control policies, with values ranging from $600 to $700 million/year, about $12 per household per month each. Discrete choice experiments can be credibly adopted to estimate the cost of crime. We implement this method in a Latin American country, where the estimated costs in Buenos Ares are consistent with those found in developing countries once controlling for income differences. These subjective crime cost valuations are significantly higher than tangible crime costs and, thus, provide a significant improvement in the ability of policy makers to conduct social benefit–cost analysis.

Researching cross-national policy mobilities in crime control

The empirical study of ‘policy transfer’ and related topics remains a relatively rare enterprise in criminology. Comparative studies of crime control policy tend to focus on broader structural explanations on the one hand, or more specific socio-cultural analyses on the other. By contrast, scholars from other disciplinary traditions – including political science, public administration, comparative social policy and human geography – have developed a vibrant body of empirical research into the dynamics and impacts of cross-jurisdictional flows of policy ideas, programmes and practices. This research provides helpful methodological pointers to criminologists interested in carrying out such work within the field of crime control. This article argues that the relative lack of empirical research on cross-national crime policy movement arises from two main factors: first, a generalised sense that the topic is of rather minor importance and second, a lack of methodological clarity about how such research might proceed. Such methodological barriers have arguably been further strengthened by major critiques of the political science frameworks of ‘policy transfer’ that have been influential in the field. We view cross-national policy movement as an important subject for empirical criminological inquiry, and consider extant methodological approaches and potential future directions, drawing in particular on wider work within political science and human geography. There is significant potential for criminologists to learn from, and contribute to, the methodological approaches deployed by researchers from other disciplines and thus enhance knowledge about the concept of policy mobilities.

Freedom of Action, Freedom of Choice, and Desistance from Crime: Pitfalls and Opportunities in the Study of Human Agency

In a recent issue of JDLCC, readers were presented with two opposing views of human agency and its value to life-course criminology. Paternoster (J Dev Life Course Criminol 3(4):350–372, 2017) proposes that agency be embraced as a key organizing concept in criminology, arguing that it is central to offender decision making and desistance from crime. In response, Cullen (J Dev Life Course Criminol 3(4):373–379, 2017) downplays the role of agency. He further argues that an emphasis on agency is antithetical to positivism, would undermine the search for the developmental and life-course causes of crime, and would legitimize punitive crime control policies. In this paper, I highlight the existence of a theoretical middle ground in the form of an alternative conceptualization of agency. In particular, I highlight the value of Albert Bandura’s sociocognitive approach to agency. Instead of asking whether agency plays a role in behavior, this approach leads us to ask the following: when, and under what conditions, is the meaningful exercise of agency likely to occur? I argue that a sociocognitive approach largely avoids the potential pitfalls identified by Cullen and can readily be adapted to the contemporary study of desistance. It also draws attention to issues in need of further examination and can inspire new lines of desistance research.

Fearing the “Nicas”: Perceptions of Immigrants and Policy Choices in Costa Rica

AbstractDo attitudes toward immigrants shape public policy preferences? To answer this question, this article analyzes a prominent example of South-South migration: the Nicaraguan immigrant community in Costa Rica. Over the past two decades, Costa Rica has experienced extensive socioeconomic changes, and Nicaraguans have been frequent scapegoats for the fears and worries generated by these changes. Relying on the 2014 AmericasBarometer survey, this analysis finds that respondents who perceive immigrants as an economic threat are significantly more supportive of punitive crime control policies. Attitudes toward immigrants were also significantly linked to support for government policies to reduce income inequality. However, given the historically strong support for the Costa Rican social welfare state, attitudes toward immigrants did not significantly affect support for government services.

Community Policing Goes South: Policy Mobilities and New Geographies of Criminological Theory

Policymakers seeking to design more effective crime control strategies increasingly reference ‘best practices’ developed in other contexts, enabling the translocal mobility of ‘zero tolerance’ or ‘hotspot policing’. Recent work on policy mobilities shows that such policies, and the conceptual models underlying them, are often contested and modified as they travel. Connecting emergent scholarship on crime control policy mobilities to recent calls to extend criminological theorization outside the global North, this article seeks to understand what happens when community policing travels. Specifically, it unpacks the often-implicit models of urban governance underlying community policing, examining the mobilities and mutations of these conceptual models as community policing is exported from cities in the United States to inner-city neighbourhoods in Kingston, Jamaica.

Cultural Studies and Criminology for Indonesia: An Analysis of the Structure of Crime Control Policy

.

Contagious Criminal Career Models Showing Backward Bifurcations: Implications for Crime Control Policies

We provide a theoretical framework to study how criminal behaviors can be treated as an infectious phenomenon. There are two infectious diseases like models that mimic the role of convicted criminals in contaminating individuals not yet engaged in the criminal career. Equilibrium analyses of each model are studied in detail. The models proposed in this work include the social, economic, personal, and pressure from peers aspects that can, theoretically, determine the probability with which a susceptible individual with criminal propensity engages in a criminal career. These crime-inducing parameters are treated mathematically and their inclusion in the model aims to help policy-makers design crime control strategies. We propose, to the best of our knowledge by the first time in quantitative criminology, the existence of thresholds for the stability of crime-endemic equilibrium which are the equivalent to the “basic reproduction number” widely used in the mathematical epidemiology literature. Both models presented the phenomena of backward bifurcation and breaking-point when the contact rates are chosen as bifurcation parameters. The finding of backward bifurcation in both models implies that there is an endemic equilibrium of criminality even when the threshold parameter for contagion is below unit, which, in turn, implies that control strategies are more difficult to achieve considerable impact on crime control.