Crime In Europe Research Articles

Importance and Reliability of Ear Print Analysis as Evidence

Ear print analysis has emerged as a significant forensic tool for criminal identification, offering a unique alternative to traditional fingerprint and DNA evidence. Unlike fingerprints, ear prints are difficult to manipulate, making them more resistant to falsification. This paper explores the reliability, techniques, and legal considerations of ear print analysis in forensic investigations. While ear prints have been successfully used to convict criminals in landmark cases such as R v Mark Dallagher (2002) and R v Kempster (2008), concerns about their reliability persist. Variability in ear prints due to pressure, surface texture, and secretion levels raises questions about their admissibility as sole evidence in courts. Additionally, the forensic community lacks standardized methodologies, as seen in cases like State v Kunze (1999), where ear print evidence was deemed inadmissible. Despite these challenges, European crime scene investigations have shown high detection rates for ear prints, particularly in burglary cases. This study highlights the need for improved forensic techniques, expert training, and the establishment of an ear print database to enhance the credibility of ear print analysis. The paper also examines Malaysia's position on ear print evidence, noting a lack of awareness and expertise in the field. While current forensic science debates its reliability, ear print analysis holds potential as a supplementary identification method if further research and standardization efforts are undertaken.

The Shadow of the Financial Crisis: Socio-Economic and Welfare Policy Development and Fear of Crime in Europe. A Random Effects Within-Between Model Analysis of the European Social Survey, 2002–2018

Previous cross-sectional research has found large cross-country differences in crime-related feelings of insecurity associated not with crime rates but with welfare state policies reflecting that fear of crime serves as an expression of generalized social insecurities. The financial crisis plunged European societies into a period of severe socio-economic insecurities. Against this backdrop, I use hybrid multilevel models to test hypotheses if changes in socio-economic conditions and social policies – in particular following the 2008 financial crisis – have affected feelings of insecurity in 27 European countries, using nine rounds of the European Social Survey. Most indicators except the homicide rate did not show significant effects on fear of crime in the longitudinal dimension. The consequences of the financial crisis for people’s well-being did not extend to fear of crime. Social expenditures in-kind for families and children showed the strongest association with fear of crime cross-sectionally but may lack the necessary country-level variation over time to produce significant effects. Mirroring research on generalized trust, fear of crime seems relatively stable over time and deeply associated with welfare state institutions.

How immigration, level of unemployment, and income inequality affect crime in Europe

How immigration, level of unemployment, and income inequality affect crime in Europe

Organised vehicle crime in Europe: Six country case studies on organised vehicle crime and potential barriers to prevent the facilitation of online distribution of stolen vehicles and vehicle parts

Organised vehicle crime in Europe: Six country case studies on organised vehicle crime and potential barriers to prevent the facilitation of online distribution of stolen vehicles and vehicle parts 2

L'importance du Comité d'experts sur l'évaluation des mesures de lutte contre le blanchiment des capitaux et le financement du terrorisme et de la Division de la coopération contre la criminalité économique dans la lutte contre le blanchiment d'argent

The fight against money laundering and against the financing of terrorism is one of the most important elements of criminal policies in all legal systems. With the same purpose, at the international level there are many organizations and different entities that provide assistance and support for the domestic legal systems. Even though the fight against money laundering is not of the essence of the Council of Europe’s activity, its complex system of committees, groups and other similar entities also covers this issue. The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism and the European Crime and Cooperation Division are the main actors to this end. This article aims to briefly present the history and the current activity of each of the two mechanisms previously mentioned. Also, the author aims to find potential improvements of their activity.

A Dynamic Analysis of Economic Crime in Europe: The Role of the European Institutions in the Prevention of Economic Crimes in the COVID-19 Pandemic

A Dynamic Analysis of Economic Crime in Europe: The Role of the European Institutions in the Prevention of Economic Crimes in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Intersecting Inequalities in Romanian Crime Series Shadows (HBO). Expressions of Identity between Authenticity, Stereotypes and “Eastploitation”

"The representations of gender, ethnicity and class play a particularly significant part in structuring the way in which East European crime fiction makes sense of its cultural identity. Issues of social inequality and discrimination are addressed by the European institutions through the promotion of inter- and multi-cultural values that are meant to foster awareness about social stereotypes and prejudices and promote the artistic expression of more balanced representations (i.e. the EIGE policies). Yet sometimes the gap between the inclusive aims pursued by the European policies and the realities represented in crime films, TV dramas and novels is more than noticeable. This article aims to discuss this fluctuation between disparity, stereotypization, realism and exploitation in the HBO production Shadows (Umbre, 2014-2019)."

Audiences of popular European television crime drama: A nine-country study on consumption patterns, attitudes and drivers of transcultural connection

This article presents findings of a mixed-methods audience study on consumption patterns and attitudes towards European television crime narratives among European viewers. Based on semi-structured interviews in Denmark, Germany and Italy, and a nine-country online survey (n1321), we asked how, when, where and why European audiences watch crime series, and whether watching non-domestic European crime narratives influences perceptions of the European ‘Other’. Our findings reveal preferences for Anglo-American content, combined with a criticality towards domestic content often perceived as stereotyped. While stereotypes and personal and previous non-mediated encounters draw viewers to European content, they do not necessarily challenge viewers’ perceptions of the European ‘Other’. It does, however, enable critical reflection on viewers’ domestic societies and TV cultures, leading to a process of banal cosmopolitanism.

Book Review: European White-collar Crime. Exploring the Nature of European Realities

Book Review: European White-collar Crime. Exploring the Nature of European Realities

Anti-mafia Cross-border: Conceptual and Procedural Asymmetries in the Fight against Italian Mafias in Europe

Abstract This article explores some of the challenges to fighting against Italian mafias and mafia-type organized crime in Europe, specifically in eight countries—Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Romania, the UK, and Italy. Data have been collected and analysed in two phases: first, from open sources (including media and official reports) and judicial files; secondly, from 40 individual or collective interviews. European institutions still struggle to counter the mobility of Italian mafias because of conceptual asymmetries in policing mafia-type crimes/groups and procedural challenges. We present two analytical foci: first, the existence of a conceptual tension in the definition of mafia and mafia mobility between Italy and European countries and institutions; second, emerging procedural asymmetries in countering mafias across borders, which relate more broadly to cross-border countering of organized crime. This article wishes to screenshot the state of the art and advance some reflections, without pushing any specific theoretical framework. After exploring the two main analytical foci emerging in this research, we advance recommendations.

Capturing European crime

As “shop windows” for newly produced but not-yet-released films, the study of festivals is one measure by which it is possible to assess the nature, presence and relative quantity of European crime films made in any given year. This article explores the presence of European crime films at European film festivals by examining the complete festival programmes from Cannes, Berlin and Venice. These three festivals are widely regarded as the most prestigious and largest in Europe (forming part of the global “Big 5” alongside Sundance and Toronto) and as such are premier destination for films of all types, particularly European productions. The prestige and visibility afforded by them means that they are key sites of exhibition, marketing and potential distribution to any film that is programmed there. The aim is to begin substantiating the numerical, national and transnational make-up of European crime cinema by using its presence on the European festival circuit as means to highlight its contemporary production status. A systematic analysis of all films programmed at Cannes, Venice and Berlin in order to identify the European crime films present identified a total 289 films (8.05% of the total films programmed at these festivals) out of 3587 films surveyed across a five-year period (2016–2020).

On the cultural circulation of contemporary European crime cinema

Considering the transnational prominence of European cinema, European crime films present an interesting case. As a genre, crime “is clearly the most popular genre across Europe for novels, television series and films”, and crime fiction productions are abundant on a national level in most European countries (Bondebjerg et al. 223). Crime fiction, therefore, appears as the genre most able to facilitate transborder cultural exchange and communicate “Europeanness” at local, national, regional, and transnational levels. This is surely the case of television productions where “crime drama seems to be a powerful, cross-cultural phenomenon with the noteworthy possibility of travelling internationally” (Hansen et al. 3). However, while crime novels and television series have been receiving much critical attention—especially within the context of Nordic Noir—crime films are absent from most of the scholarly discussions and struggle to gain cross-border popularity. It can be argued that crime drama on television has profited from a changed transnational production and distribution culture which has not benefited European crime films in the same way.

The Troubles crime thriller and the future of films about Northern Ireland

Troubles-based crime thrillers were once a staple of Hollywood cinema in the 1990s. However, these types of films have become something of a subgenre of European crime films in the last few decades given that films produced over the period have all been produced and financed by either the United Kingdom, Ireland, France or Germany. Owing to both the financial and critical success of these films, relative to other types of films about Northern Ireland, and the more market-driven approach adopted by policymakers, the crime thriller genre has also become the primary way that audiences engage with cinema about Northern Ireland. Although some encouraging developments have come with this transition away from, at times, exploitative Hollywood-produced films, continued reliance on genre in this new dispensation—specifically the crime thriller—is still a development that is not without problems. The type of films about the conflict produced today also contrasts significantly with those produced during the “first wave” of Irish cinema in the 1980s.

DETECting the “noirification” of European popular narratives across film, fiction and television

The article explores the transcultural dimension of European crime narratives by looking at the specific role of cinema in this context. Building on the research conducted by DETECt scholars in different areas of contemporary popular culture—especially literature and television—it first discusses the link between the more and more widespread use of the “noir” label and the increasing cultural legitimation of the crime genre. The article then argues that this phenomenon echoes the emergence of a new “European quality crime film” in recent years. While stressing the potential contribution of the genre to the circulation of European cinema, the evident limits of its impact in this field are also examined. Finally, it looks more closely at the transnational circulation of contemporary Italian crime films to assess to what extent they have been able to find a transnational audience on a continental level. In this context, the importance to look beyond theatrical distribution and the centrality of intermedial exchanges are highlighted, indicating new directions for research.

Shadows from the past: Unstable memories and collective trauma in Black Earth Rising1

Among the many important issues addressed by contemporary European crime drama production, one can find the construction of collective and individual memory, oftentimes linked to major traumatic events of the twentieth century. This article focuses on Black Earth Rising, a UK production created by Hugo Blick. The series’ protagonist, Kate Ashby (Michaela Coel), is a legal investigator, orphaned during the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and later adopted by a renowned British prosecutor in international criminal law. Black Earth Rising revolves around Kate’s investigations, which in turn lead her back to Rwanda, where she faces not only trauma and shadows of her childhood in Rwanda, but also the tragic violence that shaped the history of her country. Considering the relationship between memory, processing trauma and the crime genre, this article examines different aspects of Blick’s TV series. More precisely, the article explores the crime drama’s utilization of investigation as a narrative tool that guides the viewer through the history of the Rwandan genocide, the role of its female protagonist and the function of reoccurring black-and-white animated sequences. In this analysis, crime drama, in part due to its widespread popularity, is framed as an important tool that allows for the construction of shared space, in which mediated cultural encounters and collective memory can take place.

A game of mirrors: Western/Eastern European crime series and the struggle for recognition

Our article focuses on a corpus of crime television series reflecting upon differences between western and eastern Europe – a phenomenon that we will address as the ‘West–East slope’. The series figure as instances of the struggle for recognition at the level of the social imaginary, between western and eastern Europe. Addressing the double logic of the western narrative on eastern Europe and the eastern narrative of western Europe, one of our main findings is that the recognition aesthetics of eastern Europe produced a multi-layered representation of the West varying from country to country. On the other hand in western productions, there is still a bias towards a more politically correct image of easternness, a state of affairs that is questioned by eastern European attempts to produce their original contents.

Book review: Environmental Crime in Europe., edited by Andrew Farmer, Michael Faure and Grazia Maria Vagliasindi. (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)

Book review: <i>Environmental Crime in Europe.</i>, edited by Andrew Farmer, Michael Faure and Grazia Maria Vagliasindi. (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)

Glocality and Cosmopolitanism in European Crime Narratives

Glocality and Cosmopolitanism in European Crime Narratives

‘Free In, Free Out’: Exploring Dutch Firewall Protections for Irregular Migrant Victims of Crime

Abstract Real and perceived risks of deportation may compromise the effective right of irregular migrants to report to the police if they have been a victim of crime. Some localities have therefore introduced so-called ‘firewall protection’, providing a clear separation between the provision of public services and immigration enforcement. This article explores one such policy in the Netherlands: ‘free in, free out’. While the policy began as a local pilot project, in 2015 it was introduced at the national-level alongside implementation of EU Victim’s Rights Directive, and currently represents the only national-level example of ‘firewall protection’ for victims of crime in Europe. This article is based on a socio-legal study that included interviews with informants from governmental and non-governmental organisations. It documents the legal and social reasons for instituting the policy, while critically assessing the challenges in implementation. Finally, it discusses the lessons and opportunities for expanding firewall protection more broadly in a European context.

European Crime Cinema and the Auteur

This article will offer an overview of the ever-changing relationship between the crime genre – understood as a global, transnational phenomenon – and European art cinema, with its national specificities. After a historical contextualization, this contribution focuses on the mode of production and circulation of contemporary European crime cinema by looking at two case studies of the contemporary national productions of Spain and Northern Ireland. The goal is to grasp the shifts occurring in this relationship, so understanding both the role played by the ‘auteur’ label in the distribution, commercialization, and appreciation of European crime cinema and how easily-marketable crime storylines promote the creation of new modes of authorship.