State Criminal Justice Research Articles

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

The development of crime in light of Finnish and Swedish criminal justice statistics, circa 1750–2010

This paper analyses four historical time series on homicide, assault, robbery and theft from Finnish and Swedish vital and conviction (judicial) statistics. It is suggested that long-term criminal justice statistics – at least in Finland and Sweden – are highly usable and that they add relevant basic knowledge to important current criminological and crime policy issues. It is concluded that law reforms are greatly influential in terms of changes in the sanctioning system (strong evidence of policy impact); but law reforms do not contribute to lasting changes in the development of crime as measured by conviction statistics (no substantiated evidence of crime impact). In the long run, crime seems to persistently evade the manifold legislative efforts to ‘combat’ it.

Teenagers’ High Arrest Rates

The association of more crime with youthful age is widely accepted in social science. However, a literature search revealed no studies of the age-crime relationship that controlled for young ages’ economic disadvantage. This research gap is addressed using the California Criminal Justice Statistics Center’s arrest detail and Census poverty statistics for 2010. When poverty rates were controlled, younger and older ages’ violence disparities largely disappeared. Where teenagers and emerging adults display typical middle-aged demographics (two thirds non-Latino, White, or Asian, poverty levels under 10%), they display “middle-aged” violent crime rates; where ages 40 to 69 have typical teenage demographics (54% Black or Latino, 17% in poverty), they display “teenaged” violent crime levels. These findings challenge conventional theories associating violence with young age.

Reducing California's Overcrowded Prison Population

This paper evaluates how “tough on crime” sentencing policies have influenced California's prison population. Several laws which make up the state's strict criminal justice practices were passed over the course of forty years without consideration for their impact on the state's budget and safety. Beginning with the Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976, the state has created an unsustainable prison system that will dissolve without increased public funding. However, California’s depleted economic condition has forced policymakers to reevaluate the state's criminal justice agenda, while complying with the threejudge court order to reduce its incarcerated population to 137.5 percent of design capacity by June 2013.

Criminal Mediation in Mainland China: A Leap from Judicial Endeavor to Legal Norm

The use of mediation in the public prosecution of criminal matters has had a nation-wide impact since being introduced by China’s Judiciary. After almost 10 years, mediation in criminal prosecution cases has, in 2012, now been adopted by the newly revised Criminal Procedure Law 2012 (NPC 2012). This paper examines the characteristics of Chinese criminal mediation, and its introduction and development, by analyzing the empirical data collected from the practice. The ineffectiveness of collateral civil proceedings to criminal procedure to compensate victims, the resulting complaints and petitions argued by them, and the need to resolve the disputes in a way that promotes social harmony, were seen as important reasons to bring criminal mediation practices to China. Varying from ‘western’ restorative justice practices, China’s criminal mediation is closely associated with China’s powerful state criminal justice apparatus, which itself is restricted by the rigidity of the law.

A Review of the 2010 Domestic Violence Law in Timor-Leste

In July 2010 the Timor-Leste Government promulgated the Law Against Domestic Violence. This is part of a constitutional promise to improve women and child security. Inherent in this development is the shift from traditional dispute resolution system to a state criminal justice system. This shift identifies domestic violence as a public crime and relies on greater participation from the stakeholders of domestic violence, i.e., the police, prosecution, legal services, health care services, social care services and community leaders. This paper examines the legal framework of the new domestic violence law and the impact on the stakeholders in delivering the legal obligation to promote women and child security in Timor-Leste. Inherent in this discussion is the question of whether the new law can reform the traditional justice system, change community behaviour and meet the competing challenges of cultural relativism in each district of Timor-Leste.

A Review of the 2010 Domestic Violence Law in Timor-Leste

AbstractIn July 2010 the Timor-Leste Government promulgated the Law Against Domestic Violence. This is part of a constitutional promise to improve women and child security. Inherent in this development is the shift from traditional dispute resolution system to a state criminal justice system. This shift identifies domestic violence as a public crime and relies on greater participation from the stakeholders of domestic violence, i.e., the police, prosecution, legal services, health care services, social care services and community leaders. This paper examines the legal framework of the new domestic violence law and the impact on the stakeholders in delivering the legal obligation to promote women and child security in Timor-Leste. Inherent in this discussion is the question of whether the new law can reform the traditional justice system, change community behaviour and meet the competing challenges of cultural relativism in each district of Timor-Leste.

Use of risk assessment instruments to predict violence and antisocial behaviour in 73 samples involving 24 827 people: systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To investigate the predictive validity of tools commonly used to assess the risk of violence, sexual, and criminal behaviour.Design Systematic review and tabular meta-analysis of replication studies following PRISMA...

The Effect of Agency Scandal on Public Views Toward the Correctional System

Evidence of a corrections agency scandal involving corruption can be expected to diminish public perceptions of agency effectiveness, especially in an era in which government accountability has featured prominently in national and state criminal justice policy discourse. However, relatively little scholarly attention has studied this idea. Using 2006 public opinion survey data collected prior to and after the highly publicized resignation of a corrections department director who was investigated for and subsequently convicted of graft and mismanagement, this study examines whether a prominent corrections agency scandal exerted an appreciable effect on how the public viewed the agency’s performance. Study findings suggest that the scandal had no effect on the public’s perception of the department’s performance. Implications of the study for research and policy are discussed.

You Have to Hit Some People! Endorsing Violent Sentiments and the Experience of Grievance Escalation in Australia

Criminal justice statistics show that Australia is the fourth highest nation for non-sexual violent assault and that most assaults are not random events. We investigated how grievances escalate into violence in a series of in-depth interviews with male maximum security prisoners who had a record of violent offences. Our analyses focused on the experience of grievance escalation and the justifications offered for the use of violence. We found that grievances were often triggered by psychological harm (broken promises, insults, inconsiderate behaviour) and that, although most of the men thought about the grievances only in terms of themselves and one other person, significant others, such as girlfriends or friends, on occasions provided weapons or encouraged violence. The involvement of significant others in escalating grievances suggests that violence prevention programs should include training in impression management and in skills to counter the insistence of girlfriends, family, and others for an aggressive response.

Punishment and Welfare: Paternal Incarceration and Families' Receipt of Public Assistance

The United States criminal justice and welfare systems are two important government institutions in the lives of the poor. Despite many theoretical discussions about their relationship, their operation at the level of offenders and families remains poorly understood. This paper utilizes Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data to examine how recent paternal incarceration is associated with families' receipt of TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid/SCHIP. Results robust to multiple tests find that incarceration is not related to subsequent TANF receipt but is significantly associated with increased receipt of food stamps and Medicaid/SCHIP. The findings suggest that greater government involvement among poor families is an unexpected consequence of mass imprisonment; however, increased participation does not include TANF-the cash assistance program of most concern to theorists.

Women's Experiences in the United States Criminal Justice Aftercare System

Recent changes in political policy have shifted the profile of the average inmate incarcerated in American prisons. In the future, more women will be serving probation, and current aftercare programs are not designed to accommodate their specific needs as they transition to society. This qualitative study was undertaken so that clinicians working with women on probation or families in the criminal justice system would have empirically supported data to support their treatment methods. A discussion of the results from a feminist perspective assimilates the findings in clinically useful ways.

New Zealand Youth That Sexually Offend

Māori youth are overrepresented in criminal justice statistics and youth forensic services. Māori youth that engage in sexual offending behaviors have a higher risk of dropping out of treatment than Pākehā(1) youth. Research into Māori mental health is important to inform ongoing service development and is essential to strive for equity in mental health outcomes and offending rates among Māori. In this study, the researchers investigated the coexisting emotional and behavioral problems and victimization histories of an age-matched sample of Māori (n = 75) and Pākehā (n = 75) youth who were referred to a community treatment program for sexual offending in Auckland between 1996 and 2008. The Child Behavior Checklist was used to investigate ethnic differences. After controlling for socioeconomic deprivation, Māori youth scored significantly higher than Pākehā youth on the Delinquent Behaviors syndrome scale. Māori youth were also more likely than Pākehā youth to have a background of physical abuse. Implications of these findings are discussed, with regard to the unique needs of Māori youth and appropriate interventions.

Compelled to Render Oneself Evil: American Plea-Bargaining from a Jewish Law Perspective

This article proposes a solution to the United States criminal justice system’s overuse of plea-bargaining to achieve high conviction rates at the expense of individual liberties. It provides a fresh look at the issue from the framework of Jewish law, a legal system that has been cited by the Supreme Court numerous times for its ancient wisdom. The article first outlines the sources and interpretations of Jewish law’s ban on confessions, and applies this law to plea-bargains. Second, it discusses the history and legal implications of plea-bargaining in the United States. Third, it proposes that the United States look to Jewish law’s exception to the ban on confessions for times of necessity, such as situations where there is widespread disregard for the law. Jewish law dictates that such exceptions be only temporary, which can be interpreted to reflect an understanding that such necessity indicates a deeper problem. Jewish law thus directs society to use the temporary exception as an opportunity to uncover the deeper problem and solve it, whereupon the safeguards must be reinstated. The article suggests that the War on Drugs may be the deeper problem that has led to widespread disregard of the law and has thus necessitated over-reliance on plea bargains. Finally, the article offers a potential solution to Jewish defendants subject to criminal proceedings in the United States.

Familial identification: population structure and relationship distinguishability.

With the expansion of offender/arrestee DNA profile databases, genetic forensic identification has become commonplace in the United States criminal justice system. Implementation of familial searching has been proposed to extend forensic identification to family members of individuals with profiles in offender/arrestee DNA databases. In familial searching, a partial genetic profile match between a database entrant and a crime scene sample is used to implicate genetic relatives of the database entrant as potential sources of the crime scene sample. In addition to concerns regarding civil liberties, familial searching poses unanswered statistical questions. In this study, we define confidence intervals on estimated likelihood ratios for familial identification. Using these confidence intervals, we consider familial searching in a structured population. We show that relatives and unrelated individuals from population samples with lower gene diversity over the loci considered are less distinguishable. We also consider cases where the most appropriate population sample for individuals considered is unknown. We find that as a less appropriate population sample, and thus allele frequency distribution, is assumed, relatives and unrelated individuals become more difficult to distinguish. In addition, we show that relationship distinguishability increases with the number of markers considered, but decreases for more distant genetic familial relationships. All of these results indicate that caution is warranted in the application of familial searching in structured populations, such as in the United States.

Offence Definitions in the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics and Their Influence on Data Quality and Comparability

Reaching a high conformity of reported data for different offence groups with the standard definitions provided for these offences is a crucial issue in order to improve comparability of crime and criminal justice data from official sources between countries. Based on data and metadata collected for the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics (ESB), this article takes a close look at the offence definitions used in the 4th edition Sourcebook. After an overview on ESB methodology, namely on questionnaire design and data validation procedures, the general structure of offence definitions in the ESB context is shown and changes compared to earlier editions are explained. Afterwards, ESB data and definition metadata are used to check the quality of the definitions used. Overall and item conformity rates for each offence definition are calculated and assessed. Missing data rates as another indicator for quality problems of definitions are also evaluated. Then, variation coefficients for the different offence groups are compared and critically assessed. The final part of the article contains a view on the distribution of conformity with definitions across Europe. Altogether, offence definitions in the ESB turn out to work very well. Conformity rates tend to be high and variation coefficients are mostly quite uniform for the different offence categories. However, some problematic offence definitions can be identified. As a result of regional analysis it can be shown that conformity rates across Europe do not vary randomly, but follow a certain pattern.

Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms: A Strategy for Better Outcomes and Saving Money

Across the nation, state governments are mired in economic crisis. Over 40 states had billions in budget shortfalls last year. With this grave reality in mind, this report, Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms, details how a change to the way states perform cost evaluations of legislation could help alleviate the strain. It explains how enacting certain criminal justice reforms will significantly reduce states’ runaway spending on prisons. This problem can be somewhat alleviated if states have in place adequate procedures to accurately research and draft the “fiscal notes” legislatures require to accompany such proposals. These fiscal notes contain official state estimates of the costs and savings to state treasuries of proposed laws under consideration by the legislature. This report finds that the vast majority of states do not accurately perform these fiscal notes in a way that is useful to legislators. It recommends a series of best practices for states to provide accurate fiscal information to state legislators. By following these best practices, states can calculate both short- and long-term costs and cost savings for criminal justice bills and easily provide that information to legislators, who can then know the true fiscal implications of reform proposals before voting on them. States can use these best practices to reform their fiscal note process. Advocates and the public can also use these best practices to better understand the accuracy of fiscal notes currently produced by states and the reach of their usefulness.

Attrition and Conviction Rates of Sexual Offences in Europe: Definitions and Criminal Justice Responses

The “loss” of cases within the criminal justice chain, especially from police to conviction level is known as attrition – a phenomenon that can be observed in every criminal justice system and for every offence type. But is this attrition particularly strong for sexual offences as theories based on the so-called “rape myths” suppose? This question is dealt with by this paper; it studies the different conviction ratios of sexual offences in Europe and tries to evaluate the resulting findings. The data presented are based upon the work done by the expert group for the European Sourcebook (ESB) of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics and a special EU-funded project on "Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures, Standards for a European Comparison". In order to gain a basis for comparison, the differences between the national legal concepts and definitions are discussed. Then attrition and conviction rates (understood as the ratio of suspected to convicted persons) are examined, firstly for different crime types in order to show the relative importance of attrition in the field of sexual offences, secondly with a special focus on rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse of minors in some European countries. Beyond these mere statistical data the question whether there are particular reasons for the selection process in cases of sexual offences is raised.

Conviction Statistics as an Indicator of Crime Trends in Europe from 1990 to 2006

Convictions statistics were the first criminal statistics available in Europe during the nineteenth century. Their main weaknesses as crime measures and for comparative purposes were identified by Alphonse de Candolle in the 1830s. Currently, they are seldom used by comparative criminologists, although they provide a less valid but more reliable measure of crime and formal social control than police statistics. This article uses conviction statistics, compiled from the four editions of the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, to study the evolution of persons convicted in European countries from 1990 to 2006. Trends in persons convicted for six offences –intentional homicide, assault, rape, robbery, theft, and drug offences– and up to 26 European countries are analysed. These trends are established for the whole of Europe as well as for a cluster of Western European countries and a cluster of Central and Eastern European countries. The analyses show similarities between both regions of Europe at the beginning and at the end of the period under study. After a general increase of the rate of persons convicted in the early 1990s in the whole of Europe, trends followed different directions in Western and in Central and Eastern Europe. However, during the 2000s, it can be observed, throughout Europe, a certain stability of the rates of persons convicted for intentional homicides, accompanied by a general decrease of the rate of persons convicted for property offences, and an increase of the rate of those convicted for drug offences. The latter goes together with an increase of the rate of persons convicted for non lethal violent offences, which only reached some stability at the end of the time series. These trends show that there is no general crime drop in Europe. After a discussion of possible theoretical explanations, a multifactor model, inspired by opportunity-based theories, is proposed to explain the trends observed.

Trends in the Reaction on Crime in Criminal Justice Systems in Europe in 1990–2007: A Comparison of Four European Regions

Recorded crime and prison populations seem to be increasing in Europe. Some explanations for this situation can be related to changes in the reaction on crime by the Criminal Justice Systems. The information collected in the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics (ESB) provides a good opportunity to look in more detail at the changes in the various stages of the Criminal Justice Systems in more than 40 European countries over the period 1990 to 2007. In this study we look mainly at the changes over time of recorded crimes, the offender ratio, the conviction ratio and punitivity in Europe where the countries are clustered into four regions: North/West, South, Central and East Europe. It was found that the increase in the number of recorded drug crimes and a possible higher priority for violent crimes could help explain the increase in recorded crimes during the last two decades. The Criminal Justice Systems in Europe, with some differences between regions within Europe and despite not having more police resources, succeed in finding more offenders. The conviction ratio appeared to be increasing as well, mainly in Central Europe. While punitivity for Europe as a whole is stable, there are vast differences in the levels and trends between the regions.