Criminal Justice System Responses Research Articles

Black Mist and White Collars: Economic Crime in the United States and Japan

Comparative studies of crime have persistently challenged and daunted criminology scholars. For criminologists studying Japan, interest has traditionally been focused on the country’s much-heralded low crime rate. The current study examines white-collar lawbreaking in both the United States and Japan, focusing on similarities and differences in culture, law, criminal justice system response, corporate governance, and regulation. The study concludes that if Japan’s low crime rate is an enigma to criminologists, then its ample amounts of white-collar and corporate crime appear that much more puzzling. Given that the depth of the problem of white-collar crime goes far beyond adjudicated cases, Japan’s remarkably low rate of common crime is likely eclipsed by its rate of white-collar and corporate crime. The study concludes that the different legal and cultural contexts of the “law in inaction” go far in explaining the official nonrecognition of white-collar and corporate crime in both the United States and Japan.

Abused Women's Perspectives on the Criminal Justice System's Response to Domestic Violence

This study used Q methodology to better understand battered women's views about the criminal justice system (CJS). Fifty-eight abused and formerly abused women, representing a broad range of experiences, were involved in the study. Participants sorted 72 statements about domestic violence and the CJS according to how strongly they agreed with each one in relation to the other statements. A small subset of women was interviewed to help illuminate the emerging perspectives. Five perspectives that are new in both their complexity and in their substance were identified: (1) The CJS can be trusted; (2) The CJS has potential, but is ultimately disappointing to victims; (3) Victims should have input into the CJS and be sure they want to use it; (4) The CJS cannot protect women and can make matters worse; and (5) The CJS should be used for her safety, for his rehabilitation, and for justice despite its problems.

Understanding the Impact of Prior Abuse and Prior Victimization on the Decision to Forego Criminal Justice Assistance in Domestic Violence Incidents: A Life-Course Perspective

While there has been much attention focused on offenders, crime, and desistance from crime through the life course, researchers have largely ignored victimization and desistance from victimization through the life course. Focusing specifically on domestic violence among a cohort of offenders and victims in a single court setting (Quincy, Massachusetts), the authors explore the factors (including both offender and victim characteristics) related to revictimization and then examine the difference between those victims who do not report revictimization to the police and those victims who do report .The research reported here demonstrates that a childhood history of abuse may increase the probability that revictimization--if/when it occurs--will not be reported to police. The implications of this finding for criminal justice system's response to victims of domestic violence are discussed, focusing on (a) the development of new strategies for the identification and control of revictimization that are proactive and police- and/or probation-driven as well as (b) new approaches to treatment and crisis intervention that recognize the importance of understanding victimization--both at the individual and family level--throughout the life course. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

New Police Responses to Domestic Violence: The Go-Order in Germany

In recent years, several policy reforms have been instituted encouraging tougher criminal justice system responses to domestic violence. In Germany, go-orders were implemented: Police can insist on the abuser leaving the home for a couple of days. The present study discusses the rate of go-orders, influence factors on police decisions and problems with this intervention. Data sources were a police database of 7098 incidents of domestic violence and a questionnaire survey of 374 patrol officers in Lower Saxony. Findings revealed that the rate of go-orders (36%) was within the range of other German federal states. Factors indicating danger of repeated violence, e.g., intoxication of perpetrator, exerted an influence on police decisions for go-orders. Moreover, the presence of children and the offender’s gender had an influence. The paper concludes that prevention can still be improved with respect to danger prognosis and control of go-orders.

Theoretical consideration of female sexual predator serial killers in the United States

Sexual predators represent the embodiment of the cultural definition of serial killing. In considering the female sexual predator serial killer, a review of the limited literature found a clear distinction between women acting alone versus in partnership. Several theories offered to explain the behavior of women in teams include shared psychotic disorder, Stockholm syndrome, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), battered woman syndrome, and gender role socialization. Analysis of each with specific case examples found that gender role socialization appeared to be the most inclusive, explaining the participation of women in teams, as well as providing insight into both the criminal justice system and overall societal responses to female serial killers, as well as violent women more generally. The analysis concludes by describing the implications of the above speculations within the realms of prevention, treatment, and research, specifically concluding that women can commit willful violence and that low base rates should not impede attempts to understand and prevent such violence.

Victims of attempted murder in India: An analysis of impact of victimization and responses of criminal justice system

The problem of murder is not new phenomenon in India. Today large number of murders, attempt to murder are occurring for financial gain, besides stranger killing is also increasing. An attempt in the present study has been made to understand the nature and extent of victimization of attempted murder from the Indian Context. The aim of this study is to fill the gap in the literature on victims of attempted murder; however, this study is not to make all encompassing empirical generalizations, but to understand the physical, financial, and psychological impact of victimization. Also the responses of the criminal justice system and the public are analyzed. The results show an extensive pattern of attempted murder victimization, though a sweeping generalization is not made due to certain limitations.

Du côté des victimes, une autre perspective sur le vol à main armée

Armed robbery has long been regarded as a crime against property. But from the victim's point of view, it is a violent crime which endangers their lives and constitutes a traumatic experience. Nine years of research are briefly summarized with special attention to a recent survey of victims of commercial robbery in Montreal in which 440 persons were interviewed. It is difficult to describe a victim unless researchers agree on some basic definition of who should be defined as a victim. This is the first subject of discussion. After a short description of the way victimizations occur, the consequences of the robbery are discussed, and the responses of the mental health and justice systems are presented. Most victims do not resist and those who do so seem to be reacting to past victimizations or to an excess of violence on the part of the robber. Nearly 90 % of victims suffer some kind of emotional trauma and far from being helped in this regard, this trauma is often aggravated by the criminal justice system's response. It seems to affect the victim much more than the financial, physical and social consequences of the crime, which had little effect on their attitudes and needs. The main problem with armed robbery is that it creates and perpetuates a climate of suspicion, fear and anger very damaging to social relationships. These negative effects can be reduced, however, and the study points out some of the means by which this can be accomplished.

Crime and Punishment in Canada, 1981-1999

The average Canadian enjoys a high standard of living bolstered by a social safety network that includes universal health care coverage, generous benefits for unemployed workers and families in need, and year-long maternity leave. While crime ranks among the public's top concerns nationally, Canada is viewed as a safe and peaceful country in which to live and visit. But how safe is Canada? Police records indicate that Canada experienced a substantial fall in rates of serious crimes in the 1990s. Reasons include an aging population and an improved economy. There is mixed evidence on whether the Canadian criminal justice system's response to serious crime influenced crime trends during the 1990s. There is a need for increased public investment in many facets of basic research on crime and punishment in Canada. Such an investment may go some way to bring about more informed and efficacious crime policy.

Expanding a Community’s Justice Response to Sex Crimes Through Advocacy, Prosecutorial, and Public Health Collaboration

Problems in criminal justice system response to date-acquaintance rape and nonpenetration sexual offenses include (a) they are markers of a sexual offending career, yet are viewed as minor; (b) perpetrators are not held accountable in ways that reduce reoffense; and (c) criminal justice response disappoints and traumatizes victims. To address these problems, a collaboration of victim services, prosecutors, legal scholars, and public health professionals are implementing and evaluating RESTORE, a victim-driven, community-based restorative justice program for selected sex crimes. RESTORE prepares survivors, responsible persons (offenders), and both parties' families and friends for face-to-face dialogue to identify the harm and develop a redress plan. The program then monitors the offender's compliance for 12 months. The article summarizes empirical data on problems in criminal justice response, defines restorative justice models, and examines outcome. Then the RESTORE program processes and goals are described. The article highlights community collaboration in building and sustaining this program.

Restorative Justice for Sexual Violence

Problems in criminal justice system response to date and acquaintance rape, and the nonpenetration sexual offenses are identified: (1) these crimes are often markers of a career of sexual offense, yet they are widely viewed as minor; (2) perpetrators of these crimes are now held accountable in ways that reduce their future threat of sex offending; and (3) current criminal justice response to these crimes disappoints and traumatizes victims and families. In response to these identified problems, we are implementing and evaluating RESTORE, an innovative victim-driven, community-based restorative justice program. Restorative justice views crime as harm for which the person responsible must be held accountable in meaningful ways. RESTORE uses a community conference to involve the victim, offender, and both parties' family and friends in a face-to-face dialogue directed at identifying the harm, and developing a plan for repair, rehabilitation, and reintegration into the community.

The Columbine High School Massacre and criminal justice system response: an exploratory case study

Framed in the situational criminological perspective, this case study examines the effect of the Columbine High School Massacre on a pretrial services unit. The massacre decreased intakes into the jail, increased the proportion of persons detained for violent crimes, and made bond commissioners less willing to facilitate the release of persons arrested for violent crimes. Pretrial release rates for domestic and other violence-related cases were not affected. Implications for situational criminological theory and criminal justice system policy are discussed.

`Cry Wolf', Cried the Wolf: Constructing the Issue of False Rape Allegations in New Zealand Media Texts

In this article we analyse New Zealand media texts about so-called false rape allegations from 1995 to 1999, in relation to legislative and social change towards rape. In particular, we focus on a critical reading of a magazine article that stands out as being (the only) relatively balanced investigation into false rape'. We argue that despite the surface neutrality of this text, it privileges an interpretation of the issue in which it is taken for granted that reports of rape claimed to be false by police really are false (that is, women's lies). We show how this happens through the framing of the article, the tacit construction of `the issue' and the denial of the broader social and historical context of rape. In these ways, we argue that it perpetuates contemporary rape myths. Widespread circulation and adherence to such myths, we suggest, hinder the criminal justice system and broader cultural responses to rape that are sympathetic to women who are raped. We further suggest that this construction of the `new issue' of false rape allegations can be read as an expression of `backlash anxiety' about the emergent gains made by feminists in challenging rape-supportive discourses and practices in society.

Substance use, health and social problems of service users at 54 drug treatment agencies. Intake data from the National Treatment Outcome Research Study.

The National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) is the first large-scale, prospective, multi-site treatment outcome study of drug users in the UK. Substance use, health and social problems of 1075 service users were assessed at intake to 54 agencies chosen to be representative of the main national drug treatment modalities. Heroin dependence was the most frequently reported problem often with poly-drug and alcohol problems. Most service users injected drugs and a quarter of the injectors shared injecting equipment. Poly-drug use and heavy drinking were more common among service users admitted to residential treatments. High criminality rates were reported. Psychological and physical health problems were common and many service users had prior contact with psychiatric and medical services. The range and severity of problems adversely affect individual users, their families, and present a challenge to addiction treatment services. These problems create costs for the health care, social service and criminal justice system responses.

Battered Women and the Criminal Justice System: The Service Providers' Perspective

This article reports on a study of the service providers' perspective on what battered women face when entering the criminal justice system. Victim non-co-operation with the system can manifest itself in various ways and at several points in the process. The article begins with a review of the available literature on the criminal justice system's responses to women battering. Then the experiences and perceptions of service providers in Ohio concerning these responses are described, and, consequently, the findings according to factors which may affect service providers responses are analyzed. The article concludes with an assessment of the policy implications of the system's response to women battering.

Crack and the evolution of anti-drug policy

Preface Introduction The Emergence of Crack and the Public Response Media Coverage of the Crack Era Physiological and Psychological Effects of Crack Profiles of Crack Users and Sellers Crack and Criminal Behavior Crack in the Streets: Marketing and Distribution The Criminal Justice System Response Crack and the Future of Anti-Drug Policy Bibliography Index

An Agenda for Teaching News Coverage of Rape

One of the most powerful consequences of the feminist movement these last two decades is a redefinition of rape and the about-face this has brought in social institutions' treatment of rape victims. The media also have increased their attention to rape issues and victims, but the quality of the reporting has been uneven. This suggests the need for academic journalism programs to refine the ways they prepare journalism students to cover sexual assault.The purpose of this essay is to explore the issues and problems that have emerged in reporting of rape and to propose an approach to improving journalism training on rape-related issues. I will also evaluate the adequacy of journalism texts and other materials in relationship to the teaching of these issues.Personal dimensionsTeachers, like reporters, do not arrive at their daily work desks unaffected by who they are and what they know. My own views of sexual assault and how it is reported are greatly shaped by my association with the feminist anti-rape movement beginning in 1977, when I took time out of a career in journalism and public relations to manage first a community rape-crisis center and then a combined women's shelter and rape-crisis service in Washington state. A major aspect of these services was to raise public awareness and understanding of sexual assault. Toward these ends, our center made routine efforts to generate informed stories by the local radios station and newspapers. Like other social movements (Kielbowicz and Scherer 1986), we needed the mainstream media to communicate new messages about sexual assault, as well as to tell the stories of victims (i.e., the recently harmed) and survivors (i.e., those who had lived through and come to an analysis of their experience).Events, such as an annual Awareness Week, and Take Back the Night marches, and press releases on the number of clients we served, police arrests and prosecution rates formed the basis for regular media contact. We also put the local criminal justice system's poor response to sexual-assault crimes on public display for the first time, thus giving reporters a new story line. From time to time, our staff facilitated reporter-client interviews, and we responded to press requests for comment on particular criminal cases.These important news interventions laid the foundation for increasingly regular and better-informed stories on sexual assault. Movement leaders believed that better reporting was largely responsible for a positive shift in public support for rape victims' rights being lobbied by rape-crisis centers. The Washington state legislature passed new laws establishing a statewide office for sexual. assault services in 1979, extended the statute on child sexual abuse reporting in 1981, and, after several years f failed attempts, removed the marital exclusion from the state rape law in 1982. Public support for this last effort surged dramatically after one savvy female reporter from a major Seattle television station included in her evening newscast footage of a veteran state senator standing on the Senate floor asking: Well, if you can't rape your own wife, who can you rape?In the editorial journalism and media-theory classes that I presently teach, I emphasize the importance of being well versed in the issues raised by contemporary social movements. A reporter's personal and professional knowledge plays an important role in the development of (Hall 1980); With regard to sexual assault, this means that journalism educators should understand why:[T]he press must stop being afraid of feminism. At the moment, the mainstream press is so unwilling to consult feminist sources that it has effectively crippled its chance of covering sex crimes properly, for it is in the fields of feminist sociology, medicine, and anthropology that an understanding of these crimes lies ... Rape cannot be understood without mentioning the role of women and the way men are trained to see them as objects of prey . …

Emerging images of severely battered women and the criminal justice system

AbstractThe research literature of the 1970s and 1980s created a rather singular image of the battered woman. This image functioned as a standard to be met by battered women who attributed their own acts of violence or their failures to protect their children to the violence they endured. Three severely battered women, Hedda Nussbaum, Frances McMillian and Damian Pizarro illustrate the real diversity that exists. Each woman coped differently with her fear of her abuser's violence and domination. Nonetheless, the experiences of all three were unified by the intensity of their fear and by the fact that their acts (or failures to act) were so serious that they led to these women's involvement with the criminal justice system.The psychological consequences of extraordinary violence and the criminal justice system responses are discussed specifically, in relation to each case. The woman's social class and race are emphasized as important mediators of the criminal justice system response. In the final, general section, questions are addressed about society's role in idealizing the f d y and in silencing, ignoring, acknowledging, and/or solving the problems of severely battered women in desperately violent families.

EVALUATION RESEARCH AND THE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL SERVICES:

When social policymakers are allowed to set agendas, “evaluation research” can become synonymous with quickly done quantitative examinations of social programs' “impact” or final outcomes. In this article I argue that social policy would benefit from enlarging this framework to include qualitative data from the perspectives of frontline service workers who actually put policy into practice. Using an example of a program attempting to change criminal justice system response to incidents of wife abuse, this study illustrates some positive but often ignored practical benefits of qualitatively informed evaluation research.

Criminal Careers of Female Offenders

This article examines the subsequent lives of a sample of females who were committed to the California Youth Authority during the 1960s. The criminal careers of these women were analyzed in terms of the persistence and duration of offense behavior, crime specialization, and escalation of seriousness over sequential career periods (prior to youth authority commitment, the commitment period including time on parole, and post-release). In addition, the article focuses on the adult period in somewhat more detail to identify the nature and extent of offense patterns and the Criminal Justice System's response to these patterns.

Sex Differences in the Jail Population: Competing Explanations

Data from the 1978 National Survey of Jail Inmates were used to examine sex differences in local jail populations. In particular, the study focused on the patterns of sex differences in the data which might be expected, depending upon whether the criminal justice system's response to female offenders is based on (a) preferential treatment, (b) paternalism, or (c) equal treatment. It was found that while some sex differences supported preferential treatment arguments and others supported the idea of paternalism, there was no consistent pattern of sex differences and the widest support was provided for the idea that males and females are afforded equal treatment.