Criminology Journals Research Articles

The Ultimate Difference: Interpreting and Using “Culture” in Comparisons of Crime and Justice

Abstract This article examines culture, an ambiguous yet prevalent concept in comparisons of crime and justice. It investigates the extent to which culture’s application and meaning across research reflects Western-centric bias in criminological knowledge-production despite it being a concept meant to advance understanding on different groups and places beyond the “Western” worldview. The article extends the discussion on Western-centric bias but also on culture in criminology by tracing the use of this concept on East Asian populations and by identifying patterns of application and meaning in international and comparative research through a scoping review of 230 journal publications. The findings address patterns of culture’s appearance in criminology journals in the past two decades and its meaning. Similar to previous scholarship on Western-centrism in criminology, the article finds that this bias does, too, exist in uses of culture but also shows how culture’s conceptual ambiguity is conducive to this bias, in that some groups and places are given one meaning of culture while others receive another.

Who are the heavy hitters? A citation analysis of the most impactful research in the Journal of Experimental Criminology over the past two decades

Who are the heavy hitters? A citation analysis of the most impactful research in the Journal of Experimental Criminology over the past two decades

Changing norms of older men’s sexuality in the sexological discourse during Czechoslovak socialism: Dementia as an interpretative lens to make sense of sexual expressions in later life

This article examines the development of medical (primarily sexological) knowledge about older men’s sexuality during Czechoslovak socialism. Analysing medical and criminological journals, sexological textbooks and popular-science publications, and inspired by Ian Hacking’s theory of making up people (1995), we track how Czechoslovak experts created new kinds of older people. We show that the founder of Czechoslovak sexology, Josef Hynie, implemented the kind of older men with dementia with pathological sexuality into sexological discourse in 1940. In the following decades, medical experts omitted older men’s sexuality or debated it solely in the context of paedophilic delinquency, thus perpetuating Hynie’s ideas about the pathological sexuality of men with dementia until the second half of the 1970s. We explain how the classification was subsequently replaced by a new kind of healthy older men with active sexuality, which the sexologists made up hand in hand with incorporating new knowledge about sexual delinquents and changing ideas about active ageing. We argue that dementia served for the experts as a tool for defining what could be seen as normal or pathological ageing as well as normal or pathological ageing male sexuality. Finally, we highlight that the liberalisation of ageing male sexuality occurred in socialist Czechoslovakia at approximately the same time as in Western capitalist countries.

What Is Informal Social Control? A Concept Consensus Review of Recent Criminological Literature

Is there consensus among criminologists about the meaning of informal social control? Some prominent criminologists say no. We conduct a concept consensus review of all articles using the term in the top 10 journals in criminology from 2010 to 2020 to test their dissensus assertion. We found 597 articles that mention informal social control. Of the 228 articles where the term was important to the study, only 41 attempt to define the concept. We assessed each conceptual definition using four definitional elements: subject, action, object, and reason. One or more elements were missing from most conceptual definitions. Combining the mode of the most specified elements, informal social control may mean “residents intervening with youth/children to reduce crime.” But dissensus is more common than consensus; authors differ on who applied controls, what those controls were, who was controlled, or the reasons for the control. This raises questions about how to proceed with the study of informal social control.

Neo-Colonial Criminology 10 Years On: The Silence Continues

Decolonial academic discourse has gained substantial momentum since 2010, prompting the question of whether research on hyperincarcerated Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial societies has increased. Earlier research found a lack of engagement with this social problem in high-ranked criminology journals in the decade preceding 2010. This study focuses on the subsequent decade (2011–2020) to ascertain any discernible shifts. The discursive mass on hyperincarcerated populations (Indigenous, African American, Hispanic American) is determined, finding that it still fails to reach the critical mass required to mainstream the idea that most discussions of criminality cannot afford to remain colourblind considering lived realities. Publication-to-incarceration-rate ratios for hyperincarcerated populations are compared, finding that the relative silence regarding Indigenous peoples also continues. The study concludes that the surging decolonial debate had little effect on the quantity of topical research published in high-ranked mainstream criminology journals, calling for future research to investigate why and to address any qualitative changes.

Racial Profiling, Australian Criminology and the Creation of Statistical ‘Facts’: A Response to Shepherd and Spivak

Stephane Shepherd and Benjamin Spivak in their article ‘Estimating the extent and nature of offending by Sudanese-born individuals in Victoria’, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, suggest that recent patterns of alleged offending among South Sudanese young people “may be more reflective of an increased involvement in crime for a small number of young men, rather than systemic policing bias or the natural consequence of a group’s demographics” (Shepherd & Spivak, 2020, p. 364). In this article, we interrogate the research methodology and findings of Shepherd and Spivak’s (2020) study. We argue that among the crucial flaws of the article is the substantive lack of interrogation of crime statistics on alleged offending and the article’s failure to triangulate this data with the diverse perspectives and voices of South Sudanese people themselves.

The Radzinowicz Memorial Prize

Journal Article The Radzinowicz Memorial Prize Get access The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 63, Issue 3, May 2023, Page 809, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azad016 Published: 04 May 2023

A Social Network Analysis of Publishing Networks in the “Big 5” Journals in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Prior research has frequently employed various methods for investigating issues surrounding publication productivity and authorship, including examinations of the number of co-authors in peer-reviewed journal articles and the order of authorship. Relying on 5 years of data from publications from the “Big 5” journals in criminology and criminal justice (i.e., Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Crime & Delinquency, and Justice Quarterly), the current study extends this extant research by providing a social network analysis of publishing networks. Results are consistent with previous findings, suggesting that publishing networks are largely decentralized, although key networks and definitive leaders in these networks exist as well. In addition, several authors were identified that have significant leverage over the publishing networks. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

‘Filming Is Our Only Weapon Against the Police’: Ethnic Minorities and Police Encounters in the New Visibility Era

Abstract Based on Goldsmith’s (2010, ‘Policing’s New Visibility’, British Journal of Criminology, 50: 914–34) assertion that police work has acquired a ‘new visibility’ with the ubiquity of cell phone cameras, recent studies have explored how ‘video activists’ often film the police as means of protecting marginalised ethno-racial communities. However, limited research exists on how non-activist ethno-racial minority young people use cell phone cameras in encounters with the police. Based on 37 interviews conducted in Denmark, this paper explores the multifaceted nature of marginalised ethnic minority young people’s use of cell phone cameras in police encounters. We demonstrate how the filming of officers is interwoven with the young people’s street culture, and how the use of cameras holds the potential to counter traditional power imbalances, while nevertheless, potentially exacerbating their antagonism towards the police.

Contributors

Previous article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJingyang Huang (黄靖洋) is a PhD candidate in the Division of Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include comparative political economy, Chinese politics, especially local development and government-business relations in China. His dissertation is about China’s security-industrial complex.Enshen Li (李恩深) is senior lecturer at the School of Law, The University of Queensland. His research interests lie primarily in the fields of criminal justice, criminology and sociolegal studies, with a special focus on criminal law and punishment in China. He is the author of Punishment in Contemporary China: Its Evolution, Development and Change (2018) and has published in British Journal of Criminology, Law & Social Inquiry, Social & Legal Studies, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Columbia Journal of Asian Law, among others.Susan McCarthy is professor of political science and program director of Asian & Asian American studies at Providence College in Rhode Island. Her research focuses on the politics of religion and ethnicity in contemporary China.Yuan Teng (滕媛) is assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, Central China Normal University. Her research focuses on sociology of education, rural education, and rural community development in China.Kellee S. Tsai (蔡欣怡) is dean of humanities and social science and chair professor of social science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Her research interests include the political economy of contemporary China, subnational development, informal institutions, and reverse migration in China and India. Recent publications include a coedited volume, Evolutionary Governance in China: State-Society Relations under Authoritarianism (2021), and articles in China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Politics & Society, Studies in Comparative and International Development, and World Development.Dan Wang (王丹) is associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. She has expertise in the sociology of education. Her current research focuses on issues of education and community development in rural China.Yinxian Zhang (张尹霰) is assistant professor of sociology at Queens College in the City University of New York (CUNY). Her research focuses on political opinion, ideology, and the online public sphere in both authoritarian and non-authoritarian settings. Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 88July 2022 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/721029 Views: 243Total views on this site © 2022 The Australian National University. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Policemen, COVID-19, and police culture: navigating the pandemic with colleagues, the public, and family

ABSTRACT Scholars have long identified the culture of policing as resisting change and impeding reform (Campeau, 2019. Institutional myths and generational boundaries: cultural inertia in the police organisation. Policing and society, 29 (1), 69–84. doi:10.1080/10439463.2017.1371718; Chan, 1996. Changing police culture. British journal of criminology, 36 (1), 109–134. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a014061), and the advent of COVID-19 has been optimal for studying this culture. Early research on the pandemic identified some temporary cultural shifts within policing or at least the potential for these (e.g. Alcadipani, 2020. Pandemic and macho organizations: wake-up call or business as usual? Gender, work and organization, 27 (5), 734–746). Our research analyzes data from 18 qualitative interviews with Canadian police officers who identified as men about their experiences at work and home, approximately five months into the pandemic. Drawing on Campeau's (2015. “Police culture” at work: making sense of police oversight. British journal of criminology, 55, 669–687. doi:10.1093/bjc/azu093) theorising of police culture as a resource, we illustrate how officers drew on the macho police culture ‘toolkit’ differently depending on the social context. With colleagues, they normalised risks posed by the pandemic; when interacting with the public, they highlighted the risks around policing during the pandemic; and with family, officers both downplayed risks at work to reassure their children of their safety and highlighted pandemic-related risks at home with their families. Our research points to the importance of recognising that culture is not homogenous; rather it is taken up differently depending on the organisation, the social context, and the moment in time.

Reclaiming Our Stories: Centering the Voices, Experiences, and Expertise of Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC) on the Carceral State

This special issue of the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology pays critical attention to systemic forces that impact Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC). It honors, respects, and reinforces the visibility of BIWOC not only as targets, survivors, activists, and community advocates relative to carceral systems, but showcases our presence as scholars with expertise across its components. In both instances, there continues to be erasure and invisibility that we hope to transform through this series. Reclaiming Our Stories takes on this challenge. This special issue highlights intersectional qualitative work, which includes articles written by BIWOC criminologists and social scientists that critically examine BIWOC experiences within carceral systems.

The makings of an exclusive community: students' perceptions of dangerous others.

Contemporarily, universities are perceived as neoliberal entities, self-absorbed, driven by corporate interests, markets and economic goals, rather than perceived as providing a public good, concerned for the wider world (del Cerro Santamaria in Review of European Studies, 12(1), 22–38, 2020). This perception of universities as individualised communities rather than collective communities (Rousseau in Social Currents, 7(5), 395–401, 2020) accentuates the responsibilisation of individuals who are viewed as responsible for solving their own problems (Martinez and Garcia in What is neoliberalism, 2000), including ensuring their own safety (Garland in The British Journal of Criminology, 36(4), 445–471, 1996). Set against this social-political backdrop, this paper, using data from an online survey about students’ perceptions of on-campus safety at a university in the north of England, shows how some students, particularly women students, view others as dangerous, rather than view them as vulnerable groups who are residing on the margins of an inequitable society. The porous borders of the university campuses amplify some students’ perceptions of dangerous others and students’ suggestions for campus security to keep out such others arguably serve to aggravate rather than relieve their perceptions of unsafety. Yet the porous borders of the campuses should be seen as advantageous because an ecological university can connect its students to the wider world to help facilitate care for the other (Barnett in The ecological university, 2018). In doing so, this may enhance students’ own sense of well-being and safety in the urban environment. This is a timely argument amidst a global pandemic, where the university restricts access to unauthorised others and, in doing so, facilitates the makings of an exclusive community.

Inside the Criminology of Carlo Morselli

Carlo Morselli’s research inspired numerous scholars around the world to integrate criminal achievement indicators and social network data into their research programs. As a professor of criminology for over 20 years at the Université de Montréal, Morselli was part of a generation of scholars who acted as brokers between Canada’s two official languages. This volume of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice brings together research inspired by his legacy. Morselli’s interests were diverse; we selected manuscripts revolving around two major themes in his career: the development of criminal achievement as a conceptual and empirical framework, and the innovative use of social network data in new contexts of criminological interest, such as the role of social networks in individuals’ relative optimism towards desistance, or in future victimization.

A List of Criminology Journals With Information on Open Access to Them

Information on whether journals are diamond OA, gold OA, or hybrid OA, and, if the last of those, whether they have zero embargo, a partial embargo, or total embargo. The journals' OA versions of record are auto-added to CrimRxiv.

R/ProtectandServe: an exploration of the virtual canteen culture regarding police misconduct

ABSTRACT This study examined a specific online community of verified law enforcement personnel to uncover how police officers frame issues of police misconduct among other law enforcement on the social media website, Reddit. This study engaged in three stages of grounded theory analysis on 223 posts from the subreddit, r/ProtectandServe. This study found four major themes that emerged from conversations within this subreddit of verified law enforcement personnel and their perceptions of police misconduct: (1) negativity towards the media and politicians, (2) trust in their police administrators and organisations, (3) solidarity with fellow police officers, and (4) scepticism (at minimum) towards civilians. How officers use the Reddit platform and what they gain is consistent with the characteristics of police culture found within the existing literature, including solidarity with colleagues, the ‘us versus them’ mindset, the code of silence, and ‘canteen culture’ at the police station but in an online format [Waddington (1999). Police (canteen) sub-culture. British journal of criminology, 39 (2), 287–309, Skolnick (2011). Justice without trial: law enforcement in democratic society. New Orleans, LA: Quid Pro Books, Van Hulst (2013). Storytelling at the police station. British journal of criminology, 53, 624–642, Alpert, Noble, and Rojek (2015). Solidarity and the code of silence. In: R.G. Dunham, and G.P. Alpert, eds. Critical issues in policing: contemporary readings. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc, 106–121, Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert (2015). Breeding deviant conformity: police ideology and culture. In: R.G. Dunham, and G.P. Alpert, eds. Critical issues in policing: contemporary readings. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc, 79–105] – with some notable nuances. Likewise, these officers apply an aggressive scepticism toward the civilians with whom they interact online and within the stories they tell. In conclusion, police officers are using informal, online spaces to take control of certain police narratives different from official departmental pages while simultaneously cultivating a space where they can offer topical commentary on policing issues and build virtual solidarity. More research is needed in these informal, online spaces where law enforcement personnel are the focus.

Khan M.J. (2018). Role of Peer Pressure towards Tendency of Juvenile Delinquency among Male and Female Adolescents. “Pakistan Journal of Criminology”, 10(4): 1–14

Khan M.J. (2018). Role of Peer Pressure towards Tendency of Juvenile Delinquency among Male and Female Adolescents. “Pakistan Journal of Criminology”, 10(4): 1–14

Teaching Strategy in Early Childhood Education: Child-Friendly Classroom Management to Anticipate Bullying Behaviours

Bullying behaviour can have a negative impact on a child's physical and psychological health. Bullying in the classroom is a challenge for early-childhood educators. Preschool is the first place outside the home where children face social challenges when interacting with their classmates. Child-Friendly Class is the first step and part of the Children Friendly School (CSF) as a UNICEF program and an important Indonesian government policy to prevent the emergence of child bullying behaviour. This study aims to identify needs in the process of developing a Child-Friendly Classroom Management model to anticipate bullying behaviour. This research and development method uses an adaptation of the Rowntree model which includes three stages of the process and data collection techniques using interviews, questionnaires, and observation. The results of this study indicate that the preparation of an effective classroom management guidebook to create child-friendly classes needs to be followed up immediately. Several findings related to teachers' perceptions of classroom management, and child-friendly classes prove that child-friendly classes have not been implemented properly in PAUD institutions, with bullying behaviour still appearing in early childhood in PAUD institutions. PAUD teachers understand that it is important to implement classroom management but so far there has been no manual on how to manage effective classrooms as well as training related to the implementation of effective classroom management. The creation of child-friendly classes is believed to be able to help teachers suppress the emergence of bullying behaviour in early childhood.
 Keywords: Child-Friendly Classroom Management, Bullying Prevention, Early Childhood Education

Publisher’s Note

Publisher’s Note Get access The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 62, Issue 3, May 2022, Pages 801–803, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab113 Published: 24 November 2021

Presence of Women on the Editorial Boards of Criminology Journals

This paper analyzes the presence of women on the editorial boards of journals indexed in the Journal Citation Report (JCR), in the category of Criminology and Penology. For this purpose, a comparative study of the representation of women in editorial positions has been carried out, based on the following indicators: responsibility on the board, individually for each of the publications, quartile of the journals, publisher responsible for the publication and country of publication. The results obtained show the existing gender inequality in the editorial committees of the main journals in Criminology, where there is still a male predominance, and how female representation decreases the higher the position of responsibility in the journal and the lower the quartile where it is located in the ranking. If we take the publisher or the country of publication as a reference, the data confirm the low presence of women in editorial decision-making positions. The study concluded that, although there is a trend towards reversal, in the committees of scientific journals specialized in Criminology, the female presence is still scarce and the existing gender inequality in these positions is verified.