Criminal Justice Issues Research Articles

Race, Political Ideology, and Support for Defunding the Police in the United States

ABSTRACT This study investigates public attitudes toward “Defund the Police” proposals amid U.S. protests against racism and police brutality. Analysis of 2021 General Social Survey data reveals that racial identity and political ideology significantly shape these attitudes. Black Americans demonstrate the highest support for defunding, followed by Hispanic Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities, reflecting diverse historical and cultural experiences with the government. Political ideology further polarizes opinions, with liberals more supportive and conservatives more opposed. These findings highlight the complexities of addressing systemic issues in criminal justice and the importance of social identities in shaping attitudes toward police reform.

Violence Against Women as a Global Public Health Issue.

Violence against women, especially intimate partner violence, is recognized as a global public health issue due to its prevalence and global reach. This article outlines the scope of the issue, with respect to its prevalence, health outcomes, and risk factors, and identifies key milestones that led to its global recognition: methodological and data advances, acknowledgment as a criminal justice and health issue, support by the global women's movement, and the robust evidence demonstrating that intimate partner violence is preventable. Key issues for the future include recognition and consideration of intersectionality in research, improvements in the measurement of other forms of violence against women, and the need to scale up prevention efforts that have documented success. Violence against women is an urgent priority as it affects individuals, their families and surroundings, and the entire global health community.

The proposed Regulation to fight online child sexual abuse: an appraisal of privacy, data protection and criminal justice issues

ABSTRACT Protecting children online is a priority for the EU legislator. Since July 2021, an interim regulation allows service providers to derogate from confidentiality safeguards in the e-privacy Directive to fight child sexual abuse online. The European Commission aims to repeal this legislation with a proposal of May 2022. This Regulation will require providers to monitor users’ content communication for online child sexual abuse, among other things. Privacy experts worry that confidentiality standards (i.e. end-to-end encryption) will be weakened and that the Regulation will serve as a basis for indiscriminate interception of content communications. However, the implications of the proposal go beyond privacy and data protection and will impact criminal justice rights too. Therefore, this contribution presents a comprehensive analysis of the proposal from a privacy, data protection and criminal justice perspective. It examines the proportionality of the measure and its implications within the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ). Specifically, it looks at purpose limitation issues in data exchanges and the admissibility of such evidence in criminal proceedings. The aim is to show that the EU, while aiming at increasing data circulation in the AFSJ, might not be ready for this challenge from an infrastructural and fundamental rights standpoint.

Unpacking LGBT+ hate crimes discourse in Italy: between symbolic recognition and claims for sexual citizenship

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a critical account of the hate crime (HC) paradigm by exploring its historical legal definition and the limitations in addressing the multiple and structural discriminations faced by minority groups. Specifically, the article focuses on the case of Italy, where in recent years a fierce debate over a proposed law on HC against LGBT+ and disabled people ended in its rejection due to neoconservative and Catholic opposition.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on critical socio-criminological literature on HC, the paper analyses the Italian debates and socio-legal context over the past two decades regarding discrimination against LGBT+ groups and its (lack of) criminalization. It also provides a secondary analysis of recent data on violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people, collected by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).FindingsThe analysis of the debate and the data collected shows that the criminal definition of HC is insufficient to capture the wider range of social and cultural violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people. Indeed, data analysis shows the effect of the low level of recognition of rights on the propensity of people to denounce and of social practitioners to recognize, discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people. It is therefore argued that the discussion on HC should move beyond the criminalization of individual violence to be entrenched in a broader reflection over the lack of recognition of sexual citizenship rights which perpetuates the vulnerability of LGBT+ people.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the international socio-criminological debate on HC. It argues for a comprehensive framework that recognizes the structural nature of discrimination and violence against vulnerable groups by framing discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people as a citizenship right rather than a criminal justice issue.

Driving under the influence of cannabis and alcohol: Evidence from a national sample of young drivers

ObjectiveDriving under the influence (DUI) of psychoactive substances is an important public health and criminal justice issue, impacting the lives of millions of Americans. Although recent research provides up-to-date information regarding DUI among adults, there is a pressing need for research that focuses specifically on younger/underage drivers. We draw from a large, nationally-representative sample to provide up-to-date evidence as to the prevalence and key criminal justice, substance use, and behavioral health correlates of DUI of cannabis and alcohol among drivers ages 16 to 20 in the United States. MethodsWe used data from the 2020 and 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (young drivers ages 16–20; N=12,863). All analyses—survey adjusted prevalence estimates, logistic regression—were conducted using Stata SE 17.0 and weighted to account for the study’s stratified cluster sampling design. ResultsThe prevalence of DUI-cannabis for the full sample—including those not endorsing past-year use—was 6.3%. Among youth endorsing past-year cannabis use, 24.5% reported DUI of cannabis. In the full sample and among cannabis users, DUI-cannabis risk was elevated among older and male youth. The prevalence of DUI-alcohol was 2.6% among all youth and 6.1% among youth reporting past-year alcohol consumption. ConclusionsEstimates indicate that more than one million young drivers each year are placing their lives and those of others at risk by operating motor vehicles after consuming cannabis and/or alcohol. Findings underscore the importance of prevention efforts targeting underaged cannabis and alcohol-impaired driving.

Sport for Development and Decolonization in a Settler Colonial State: Physical Culture in the Lives of Indigenous Peoples Incarcerated in Canadian Prisons

This article considers if sport, broadly defined, can be constructed as a decolonizing practice for Indigenous Peoples incarcerated in Canadian prisons. Situating our analysis within transformative and decolonizing approaches to sport for development, we bring together disparate literatures—on settler colonialism and Indigenous incarceration, decolonization and Indigenous resurgence, and sport and incarceration—to critically analyze possibilities and limitations of sport as a vehicle for decolonization in an inherently colonial institution. Recognizing the structural constraints to such a process, we also critique the settler colonial state and criminal justice system in which many Indigenous Peoples are enmeshed. The article contributes to sport for development’s ongoing engagement with issues of decolonization and criminal justice.

The Latina Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence in the Rio Grande Valley

<i>Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a severe public health and criminal justice issue that disproportionately affects women more than men. This sought to explore Latina experiences of IPV in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Twelve Latina IPV survivors from the RGV, ages 24 to 40 years old, were interviewed using purposive and snowball sampling methods. Several primary themes were discovered: </i><i>types of abuse; perceived reasons for the abuse; education and economic insecurity; why stay or leave an abusive relationship; the criminal justice system’s role; and self-blaming. All participants (n = 12) were college educated and endured IPV victimization at the hands of their male significant others. This study should be replicated on a larger scale to determine if the results are representative of all RGV IPV victims. These findings have implications for positively affecting IPV prevention, services, and interventions to reduce Latina IPV victimizations in the RGV. </i>

Utilizing SBIRT as a Framework for Transforming How We Think About Prevention and Early Intervention for Youth and Young Adults

Utilizing SBIRT as a Framework for Transforming How We Think About Prevention and Early Intervention for Youth and Young Adults

“These Girls Never Give Statements”: Anti-Trafficking Interventions and “Victim-Witness Testimony” in India

Framing sex trafficking as primarily a law enforcement and criminal justice issue, the U.S. State Department funds global South NGOs to work with the Indian legal system to strengthen prosecutions of sex trafficking cases. Though rescuing sex workers and training them to testify against alleged traffickers is key to these interventions, and though rescued sex workers do sometimes testify, my ethnographic research and interviews with NGOs, legal actors, and sex workers in India revealed that this is a rare occurrence. This article explores the reasons behind this reported pattern, as well as the challenges faced by those who do testify. Through these findings, it critically examines the possibilities and limitations of the prosecutorial focus of U.S.-driven, NGO-mediated anti-trafficking interventions. It situates anti-trafficking interventions centered on “victim-witness testimony” in the Indian socio-legal context, demonstrating how prosecution is shaped by a range of factors, circumstances, and contingencies involving foreign-funded NGOs, the procedures, political economy and culture of the Indian legal system, individual legal actors’ motivations, and rescued sex workers’ complex subjectivities, experiences, choices, and perceptions of justice. It draws upon and contextualizes these findings to challenge prevalent assumptions about the victimhood of global South sex workers, about global South legal systems necessarily lacking resources and commitment, and about anti-trafficking solutions rooted in criminal justice incontrovertibly benefiting survivors of sex trafficking.

Trajectories of income offending: examining PTSD as a predictor of development

ABSTRACT Income offending presents a major criminal justice issue associated with generating financial gain through illicit means. Such crimes may cause financial harm on an individual level and lead to additional strain on our criminal justice system when criminals who engage in such offending are caught and prosecuted. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may present one mental health risk factor associated with differential development of income offending patterns across the life-course. This is because issues like low impulse control and potentially substance use habits that are often observed in PTSD may result in an increased risk for income offending among individuals with the disorder. This study sought to identify heterogeneity in income offending patterns and determine the relevance of PTSD as a risk factor. The Pathways to Desistance data were used in analyses. Group-based trajectory modeling was utilized to identify heterogeneity in developmental patterns of income offending. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the relevance of PTSD as predictor of development. Results indicated that a six-group trajectory model best fit the data. Meeting criteria for a lifetime diagnosis of PTSD predicted increased risk of assignment to the High Chronic income offending group. Implications are discussed.

Examining Student Exposure to and Attitudes toward #MeToo-Related Content in Criminal Justice Classrooms

The “MeToo” movement has presented criminal justice and criminology instructors with an opportunity to discuss the sensitive topic of sexual violence in a manner that is contemporary and immediately relevant to students. Introducing #MeToo-related content keeps course material grounded in current justice. Yet, at the heart of many sensitive topics in criminal justice is victimization. As such, the “MeToo” movement and many criminal justice issues can be both complex and triggering for students. This topic has inherent risks for students (e.g. re-victimization) but, provide valuable tools for future criminal justice practitioners and thus is a beneficial component to criminal justice courses. Given the challenge that such a topic presents, the current study examines college students’ exposure and attitudes toward #MeToo content. Using original survey research, the current study finds that exposure to #MeToo-related content in the classroom significantly correlated with student views and attitudes toward the #MeToo movement.

Intersectoral violence prevention: the potential of public health-criminal justice partnerships.

Building successful intersectoral partnerships to address health is critical to reaching health promotion goals. With the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the increase in violence during the pandemic and the heightened demand for racial justice resulting from police killings of people of color, particularly young, black males, intersectoral public health–criminal justice partnerships must be more thoroughly examined. Violence prevention is both a public health and criminal justice issue, with public health systems emphasizing primary prevention and criminal justice systems addressing violence prevention at secondary and tertiary levels. Public health–criminal justice collaborations can provide an opportunity to seize upon unrealized violence reduction goals across the spectrum of prevention. At the same time, issues remain that are at odds across field boundaries as exemplified through community violence prevention. While there have been successful examples of such collaborations, past public health–criminal justice partnerships also demonstrate the challenges of working together. These challenges have yet to be systematically described and rooted in the larger literature on partnerships. In this paper, collaborative challenges are enumerated and evidence-informed strategies to overcome those barriers to achieve violence reduction goals are identified as a way to ground further intersectoral partnership work between public health and criminal justice.

Enrico Ferri on the criminal process

The article examines the views of the outstanding Italian criminologist Enrico Ferri on various issues of criminal justice, expressed in “Criminal Sociology”. It analyzes his arguments concerning the goals of justice, stability of the criminal code, the need for unity of civil and military justice. The article offers counterarguments against Enrico Ferri’s list of exceptions to the principle of the presumption of innocence. At the same time the views of the thinker concerning the expediency of abandoning the principle of collegiality and the jury trial are of certain interest. His ideas on three types of sentences (acquittal, indictment and under suspicion) and on the need to reason the final act of justice have been considered. Enrico Ferri’s thoughts on the amnesty and pardon, rehabilitation, revision of acquittals, possibility of stricter sentence in verification proceedings, etc. are obviously enriching the science of the criminal process. This article may be of interest to anyone who is engaged in the issues of criminal procedure, criminal law, and criminology, as well as the history of these legal sciences.

Translating research into policy and action.

Translating research into policy and action.

Long-Term Memories from Visiting a Prison Museum

This study sought to determine the long-term memories from a visit to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA. Unstructured phone interviews were conducted with participants two years after their visit. Results suggest that participants could recall both episodic and semantic memories. They recalled a visceral, emotional, and memorable experience. Furthermore, they learned about, reflected upon, and shared knowledge they gained of contemporary and controversial criminal justice issues. The implication of these results is that other prison museums can likely engage visitors in meaningful discussion of contemporary issues.

“Guided by Ghosts of the Post-Civil War Era”: Felon Disenfranchisement and the Limits of Race Liberal Advocacy

Abstract This essay analyzes arguments regarding race and U.S. felon disenfranchisement laws. In response to the denial of the vote to 6.1 million Americans in 2016, voting rights advocacy has helped spur a range of liberalizing reforms in states across the country. The essay attributes such policy victories to activists’ success in redefining felon disenfranchisement as a racial justice rather than criminal justice issue. It argues, however, that U.S. public discourse still does not reflect a clear or coherent understanding of how and why race matters in the context of felon disenfranchisement. Through a rhetorical frame analysis of media coverage in four newspapers over a twenty-year period, the essay identifies and evaluates the three most common racial frames, arguing that each adheres to prevailing logics of racial liberalism. While this adherence lends the frames some degree of persuasive power, this essay argues that it also causes dominant publics to misunderstand the racial character of felon disenfranchisement. The essay concludes that more substantial reform hinges on the ability of activists to transform public meanings to reflect their preferred understanding of the causes and consequences of racial inequality.

Police Violence Against Black Protesters: A Public Health Issue

With the increased number of documented cases of violence perpetrated by police against protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement, public health officials are starting to list police violence as a health risk or a public health issue for black Americans. Using several timely theoretical explanations, we explore reasons why law enforcement officers routinely inflict violence against black protesters and avoid criminal stigma. Although police use of excessive force and untimely killings of blacks have always been criminal justice issues, the number of negative health consequences that are emerging after violent police confrontations implicates public health concerns. We argue that several strategies can be used to reduce police violence in the future.

Theorising human trafficking through slow violence

Human trafficking is predominantly framed as a criminal justice issue with sensationalised, highly visible violence. Stereotypical figures of young women in danger, passively poised to be rescued by figures of the state or vigilante justice, animate public discourse and policy. Yet the reality of trafficking is often far more complex than the linear narratives presented in the mainstream. In this article, I argue that human trafficking is more readily accessible as slow violence, the accumulation and accretion of the consequences of systematic oppression over time. I use Nixon's Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor to articulate a stance against the flash of trafficking's ‘master narratives’. Slow violence offers three key elements for theorising human trafficking, i.e. that the harms are so gradual or delayed they: become imperceptible; compound over protracted durations of time; and may be so mundane and unspectacular to not even register as ‘violence’ in our vernacular. Aligned with a critical trafficking studies approach that draws attention to power dynamics and imbalances, slow violence focuses on the forms of exploitation and precarity that are taken for granted or assumed to be static. I use a collection of artifacts and examples from dominant anti-trafficking organisations and media to demonstrate the urgency required to both rethink trafficking against these flattening overgeneralisations and recommit to a transformative practice that makes more lives liveable. In the tradition of feminist anti-violence scholarship, I conclude by shifting from the micro-level examples of trafficking that fuel misinformation campaigns to the systems that perpetuate violence, exploitation and extraction – and must be eradicated if we are committed to ending human trafficking locally and globally.

Gender and Racial Gaps in Support for Policing and Correctional Reforms: Are the Gaps a Consequence of Political Partisanship?

Divisive criminal justice issues are typically framed through gender and racial lenses, with little empirical work considering the increasing role of political partisanship. Using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study ( N = 55,000), we estimate multivariate models of support for four policing and correctional reforms. The models initially point to gender gaps and racial gaps. However, as with many public policy issues, support for criminal justice reforms are largely a product of political partisanship—the gender and racial gaps are largely a consequence of gender and racial gaps in partisanship and appear to be driven by white Republican men. As legislative bodies continue to be overrepresented with individuals with the same demographic profile, criminal justice reform prospects are limited.

Uses of Drugs by Pregnant Women During Pregnancy: A Short Communication

If anyone is pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant and wants a healthy baby, then it is very important to avoid the use of drugs during pregnancy. Illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine, commonly used over-the-counter medicines, along with substances such as caffeine and alcohol, are not the only drugs that are harmful to fetal development; can have lasting effects on an unborn child [1]. Pregnant women who misuse substances i.e. alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs are positioned at the nexus of public health and criminal justice intervention. The impact of their substance use on their personal health as well as on the health of their fetus, is a public health concern, as professionals in this field are dedicated to improving maternal and infant health. In addition, the prenatal substance use becomes a criminal justice issue since the past three decades [2].