Criminology Journals Research Articles

How to Determine Copyright at Criminology Journals

How to Determine Copyright at Criminology Journals

How to Determine Copyright at Criminology Journals

How to Determine Copyright at Criminology Journals

Determining Copyright at Criminology Journals

Determining Copyright at Criminology Journals

Experimental criminology: looking back and forward on the 20th anniversary of the Academy of Experimental Criminology

This article summarizes key points made in a panel at the American Society of Criminology (ASC) meeting in Atlanta in November 2018, entitled “20th Anniversary of the Academy of Experimental Criminology (AEC): Looking Back and Forward,” organized by Friedrich Losel as the AEC president. Seven (current and former) presidents of AEC contribute short papers about the past and future of experimental criminology, focusing on different and emerging areas of criminological experimentation, as well as identifying topics that require more attention in future, including field experiments and experimental neurocriminology. This article informs readers about the history of AEC, its links with the Journal of Experimental Criminology, current issues, and potential future developments in experimental criminology. It also briefly deals with arguments that question whether experiments are the “gold standard,” which were addressed by Daniel Nagin and Robert Sampson in another ASC session at Atlanta. Experimental panel members did not view randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as a ritualized and general “gold standard” for criminological research, because many important topics cannot be investigated in this type of design. This article is not intended to be a missionary statement for RCTs, but it does argue that experiments should be used whenever feasible, because they are most robust in ensuring internal validity as the basis for external validity and for generalizations that are necessary for effective practice and policy making.

Het Tijdschrift voor Criminologie in de eerste twee decennia van de 21e eeuw: een kwantitatieve (netwerk)analyse

Building on prior quantitative analyses by Rovers (1999) and Rovers and Boers (2009), the present article provides a quantitative overview of 60 years Dutch Journal of Criminology, with an emphasis on the period 1999-2018. Dutch criminology is beginning to lose sight of its first generation of researchers. Males still dominate the top 25 most published authors. A social network analysis of the co-author network on the one hand reveals a significant proportion of singletons. Many of the remaining authors on the other hand, are included in one giant component that links authors directly or indirectly by co-authorship.

Cyrille Fijnaut: a pioneer from the low countries

ABSTRACT Inspired by American pioneers in the field of police research like Jerome Skolnick, Cyrille Fijnaut resigned in 1969 as a police lieutenant from the police force in the city of Tilburg, the Netherlands in order to create the opportunity to study criminology and philosophy at the KU Leuven in Belgium. At the same university, he wrote in the years 1974–1978 his Ph.D. dissertation on the political history of policing in Europe since the Napoleonic Era. This thesis became the starting point of a rich career as a professor of criminology and criminal law at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the KU Leuven, Tilburg University and NYU Law School (Global Law School Programme). Over the years, he became an internationally renowned expert in the fields of police and judicial cooperation, organized crime and terrorism, and the transatlantic history of criminology and the criminal justice system. In these and other fields he wrote some 50 books and edited some 50 volumes, and published more than 400 articles in academic and professional journals. In addition, he was one of the founding fathers of the Belgian journal of criminology and criminal law Panopticon and the European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. He also served as an expert in some of Dutch and Belgian committees of inquiry, e.g. the committee that investigated the safety and security problems of Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician who was killed in May 2002. The Dutch government rewarded him with a Knighthood in the Order of the Dutch Lion, and the Belgian government appointed him Commandeur in the Crown Order.

The Measurement of Legitimacy: A Rush to Judgment?

In an important article on the methodological issues surrounding measuring of police legitimacy, Jackson and Bradford (Asian Journal of Criminology,https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-019-09289-w, 2019) adequately warn against the use of confirmatory factor analysis as an adjudication tool for differentiating the possible sources and constituent components of police legitimacy. However, in the process of arguing against the Sun et al.’s (Asian Journal of Criminology, 13, 275–291, 2018) measure of legitimacy, they inadvertently bring attention to a more foundational issue—How should scientists conduct research and test theories in various cultures? Furthermore, their argument against the alternative measuring of police legitimacy elucidates an extensive problem facing criminology—they have brought attention paid to the interrogation of operationalizing key constructs within criminology. We argue that Jackson and Bradford’s (2019) critiques of Sun et al.’s (2018) modeling and subsequent testing of police legitimacy in China are a bit overstated. Additionally, we contend that testing theories, such as police legitimacy, across cultures should be conducted both top-down and bottom-up—neither are necessarily contradictory. We urge readers to be the ultimate amicus curiae because this issue is not a concretely right-or-wrong type issue.

Silencing Prisoner Protests: Criminology, Black Women and State-sanctioned Violence

Protests and resistance from those locked away in jails, prisons and detention centers occur but receive limited, if any, mainstream attention. In the United States and Canada, 61 instances of prisoner unrest occurred in 2018 alone. In August of the same year, incarcerated men and women in the United States planned nineteen days of peaceful protest to improve prison conditions. Complex links of institutionalized power, white supremacy and Black resistance is receiving renewed attention; however, state-condoned violence against women in correctional institutions (e.g., physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and medical neglect by prison staff) is understudied. This qualitative case study examines 10 top-tier Criminology journals from 2008-2018 for the presence of prisoner unrest/protest. Findings reveal a paucity of attention devoted to prisoner unrest or state-sanctioned violence. This paper argues that the invisibility of prisoner unrest conceals the breadth and depth of state-inflicted violence against prisoners, especially marginalized peoples. This paper concludes with a discussion of the historical legacy and contemporary invisibility of Black women’s resistance against state-inflicted violence. This paper argues that in order to make sense of and tackle state-condoned violence we must turn to incarcerated individuals, activists, and Black and Indigenous thinkers and grassroots actors.

Do Individual Differences Matter in the Way People View Police Legitimacy? A Partial Replication and Extension of Invariance Thesis

Abstract The invariance thesis of police legitimacy argues that, regardless of individual differences, the more citizens perceive police as procedurally just and effective, the more they will see the police as a legitimate authority. Research primarily undertaken in the USA shows support for the invariance thesis with some nuanced findings for victims and those with prior police contact. This study conducts a partial replication and extension of the Wolfe et al.’s study (Wolfe, S., Nix, J., Kaminski, R., and Rojek, J. (2016). ‘Is the Effect of Procedural Justice on Police Legitimacy Invariant? Testing the Generality of Procedural Justice and Competing Antecedents of Legitimacy.’ Journal of Quantitative Criminology 32(2): 253–282) testing the invariance thesis, comparing the effects of citizen perceptions of procedural justice (PJ) and police effectiveness (PE) on perceptions of police legitimacy across individual characteristics in Australia. Using a survey of 4,167 residents across 148 communities, we find the effects of PJ perceptions on police legitimacy are largely invariant across individual differences. Yet contrary to previous research, our study finds that the impact of PE perceptions is not invariant and particularly matter for people with visible minority status.

Hospitality training for prisoners

Noting rising statistics relating to incarceration and reoffending, there has been increased attention given to analysing the delivery, effectiveness and challenges of hospitality training and employment programmes for rehabilitating prisoners. The stigma of having a criminal record and being unreliable and untrustworthy remains a significant barrier for prisoners in gaining employment. This stigma may be compounded by a prisoner’s lack of skills, education, social problems and poor (physical and mental) health. However, there are now an increasing number of prisons around the world offering qualifications in catering, or a hospitality social enterprise such as a jailhouse café; for example, the Verne café and The Clink restaurants in the U.K. Our research sought to fill a gap in understanding about how the public feel about such initiatives, which aim to give prisoners a second chance.
 Using the case study of the very successful annual ‘Gate to Plate’ event in Wellington, our research gained various perspectives on the use of this prison event as a social model of rehabilitation through hospitality training. Specifically, we used thematic analysis [1] to analyse public information sources about the event. Sources included newspaper articles, trade magazines, social media, information taken from the New Zealand Department of Corrections website, independent reviews of the event, and a radio interview with one of the inmates.
 Since 2012, local industry chefs and minimum-security prisoner-cooks from Rimutaka prison have teamed together to produce fine dining cuisine for the annual ‘Wellington on a Plate’ festival – a festival designed to showcase the region’s food and beverages. The inmates are usually experienced in cooking and working towards a cooking qualification. During the ‘Gate to Plate’ event as part of the Wellington festival, Rimutaka prison hosts 160 paying members of the public and more than 60 stakeholders over three nights. After clearing security and a briefing, guests experience a glimpse of ‘life inside’ and are served a three-course dinner in the Staff Training College followed by a question and answer session with the prisoner-cooks. The event is an innovative way to show the public the work happening to rehabilitate prisoners, and an opportunity to break down the negative stereotypes of offenders.
 Our research revealed three common themes in the content of the public information sources we analysed. The themes were: ‘breaking the stereotypes’; ‘pride and passion to make a difference’; and ‘training for rehabilitation’. The first theme emerged from comments by chefs, journalists and other guests on their change in attitude toward a more positive perception of prisoners as a result of attending the event, suggesting that this type of initiative may enable transformation in terms of social identity. The second theme saw inmates commonly discussing their passion and desire to ‘make a difference’ for themselves; a fresh start. Thus, the passion of volunteering in such an event can provide a sense of new meaning for a new future. The third theme related to common positive reports of the importance of in-prison training and qualifications for rehabilitation.
 While this paper makes no claim about the effectiveness of the ‘Gate to Plate’ event as a reforming rehabilitation practice for prisoners, there is mounting evidence worldwide to suggest that in-prison training and post-release employment programmes can successfully assist prisoners to remain custody free post-release (e.g. [2]). As such, we encourage further research to examine how hospitality training and employment may provide a positive opportunity to change lives through enabling a second chance.
 This research was presented at the CHME (Council of Hospitality Management Education) conference in May 2019 at the University of Greenwich in England.
 Corresponding author
 Tracy Harkison can be contacted at: tracy.harkison@aut.ac.nz
 References
 (1) Braun, V.; Clarke, V. Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 2006, 3 (2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
 (2) Cale, J.; Day, A.; Casey, S.; Bright, D.; Wodak, J.; Giles, M.; Baldry, E. Australian Prison Vocational Education and Training and Returns to Custody among Male and Female Ex-prisoners: A Cross-jurisdictional Study. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 2019, 52 (10), 129–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004865818779418

Trends in Top Journals in Criminology and Criminal Justice

How has publishing in the field of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) changed over the last thirty years? Using a dataset combining information on all articles published in the “Big 5” CCJ journals from 1985 to 2017 with their Google Scholar Citations, we identify several key trends. There was an observable positive trend in the number of articles published per year since 1985. Similarly, the average page length and the total number of co-authors has increased over time. Older articles were cited more often than newer articles. This is expected, though notable peaks were observed for articles in Criminology (CRIM) and the Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency (JRCD). Poisson regression results indicate page length, the number of co-authors, and journal affiliation were significant predictors of the number of Google Scholar Citations. The five articles with the largest number of citations for each journal are featured.

Thirty Years of Scholarly Influence in International Journals and Its Relation to the Most-Cited Scholars in Asian Criminology

Citation analysis provides a quantitative means of tracking the most influential scholars and works within a field. Despite this advantage, there is a dearth of research that provides more than a snapshot of influence over a relatively short time period. One exception is the citation analysis body of research conducted by Cohn and Farrington (1990, 2012), which has recently been expanded to include European (Cohn and Iratzoqui 2016) and Asian (Farrington et al. 2019) criminologies. The current paper presents a thirty-year analysis (1986–2015) of scholarly influence within four international journals (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, British Journal of Criminology, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Criminology), as well as an analysis of the Asian Journal of Criminology (AJC) over its first 10-year period (2006–2015). The main conclusions are that, while rankings over time are not generally consistent within journals, the most-cited scholars tend to remain highly ranked over time across the four main international journals. Furthermore, the most highly cited scholars in the four international journals were also highly cited in AJC. The most-cited works of the top scholars across all of the international journals, including AJC, covered four major areas, including developmental and life-course criminology, theoretical issues, statistics, and policy issues.

Corrigendum to: Conservation Criminology: Modelling Offender Target Selection for Illegal Fishing in Marine Protected Areas

This is a correction to: The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 59, Issue 6, November 2019, Pages 1455–1477, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azz020 Corrections were made to this article to expand and clarify the acronym for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA).

Special Issue on Desistance Across the Life-Course, Volume 2: Editorial Introduction

As we stated in the previous special issue on desistance across the life-course, research on this topic has come of age. The sheer volume of responses to our call for papers on this topic is testament to this, and we are pleased to present our readers with the second special issue of the Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology on this topic. As the previous special issue demonstrated, current research on desistance demonstrates theoretical richness, methodological sophistication and analytical breadth. The current collection of manuscripts further illustrates the importance of this area of scholarship for advancing knowledge and understanding of desistance across the life-course and the associated implications for theory, method and practise. Indeed, the included manuscripts illustrate the implications for understanding desistance when considering the time window under examination. Furthermore, the papers illustrate the importance of empirically testing leading theoretical understandings of desistance as well as in examining the associations and mechanisms linking the leading precursors of desistance. We could not be more thrilled by the response to this call for papers on desistance. It is anticipated that this growing collection of manuscripts will continue to spurn further theoretical and empirical interest on this topic over time. Indeed, by advancing the boundaries of extant theories and research on desistance, the current collections illuminate areas of confirmation and disconfirmation in respect of current knowledge and understanding of desistance across the life-course. Indeed, the seeds for asking new questions and advancing new insights may well spring from the expanding range of manuscripts on desistance that have been presented in the Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology. It is without doubt a fruitful time for research and theory on this important component of offending across the life-course and we are especially thankful to the many authors who are pursuing this area of scholarship.

Self-control, Emerging Adulthood, and Desistance from Crime: a Partial Test of Pratt’s Integrated Self-control/Life-Course Theory of Offending

Although self-control and life-course perspectives are often viewed as competing, if not incompatible, theoretical traditions, Pratt (European Journal of Criminology, 13, 129–146, 2016) argues that the two perspectives are in many ways complementary. In his new integrated theory, self-control is viewed as a dynamic factor that is subject to change and that influences behavior over the life course, including the decreases in crime that typically come with age. Further, it is argued that increases in self-control reduce the likelihood of offending, in part, because they influence the social environments that individuals find themselves in, the activities they pursue, and their cognitive mindsets. In this study, we conduct a partial test of the integrated self-control/life-course theory, with a special focus on the theory’s relevance to desistance during emerging adulthood. Longitudinal data from a large study of serious young offenders are used to examine within-person changes in self-control and other variables related to desistance from crime. Although certain variables fail to behave as predicted, the overall pattern of results is consistent with the general thrust of the integrated theory, highlighting the role of self-control in the desistance process. We find that absolute increases in self-control exert both direct and indirect inhibiting effects on offending, with the indirect effects operating through various life-course variables. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

Gender Composition of Editors and Editorial Boards in Seven Top Criminal Justice and Criminology Journals from 1985 to 2017

This paper examines the gender composition of editors and editorial board members of seven top criminal justice and criminology (CCJ) journals from 1985 through 2017. The findings indicate that women have historically been, and continue to be, underrepresented in these positions. From 1985 through 2017, women comprised 14% of all Editors-in-Chief, 27% of all Associate Editors, and 22% of all Editorial Board members. While there was a period during the early 2000s when Justice Quarterly and Criminology achieved gender parity in representation across all of the editorial roles, this equality was short lived. The other journals have never achieved gender parity, and, on average, women have comprised 3.8% to 35.2% of the editorial positions at each of the journals. The implications of this imbalance for women’s scholarship and professional success are discussed, and recommendations for changes to CCJ journal policies and practices to ensure more equity are provided.

Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset of Influence of Articles Published in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly – what we term the “early onset” of impact. In doing so, we identified 221 of the most highly cited peer-reviewed articles, authored by 480 scholars, which were published in criminology and criminal justice journals between 2010 and 2015. Analyses reveal wide variation in substantive topics and methodological approaches, as well as a substantial gender gap with respect to authorship. Additional analyses provide insight into both journal and institutional/program prestige. We conclude with directions for future research and stress the importance of tracking over time articles that appear to be off to an early start with respect to scholarly impact.

The Penal Voluntary Sector: A Hybrid Sociology

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in British Journal of Criminology following peer review. The version of record Tomczak, P. & Buck, G. (2019). The Penal Voluntary Sector: A Hybrid Sociology. The British Journal of Criminology, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azy070

\u2018Victim-Offenders\u2019: a Third Category in Police Targeting of Harm Reduction

Research QuestionTo what extent do people classified by police as ‘offenders’ and those they classify as ‘victims’ overlap, thus creating a third category of individual targets for crime and harm reduction called ‘victim-offenders’?DataLeicestershire police records in the 3-year period 2014–2016 were compiled on all 117,766 individuals who were identified as either victims or offenders in all 159,702 crimes in which one or more individual victims were named. A 730-day-at-risk tracking period after individuals’ initial appearance in the data set was examined for the tracked cohort of 42,916 individuals who entered the data set in 2014 only and were ultimately identified in 62,336 individual-victim crimes.MethodsEach individual who entered the data set from 2014 to 2016 was classified as (only) a victim, (only) an offender, or (both) victim and offender in separate events. We designate the latter category as victim-offenders. The total count of criminal events and total recommended days of imprisonment value of the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CHI) were calculated for each individual, both for crimes committed and victimizations experienced. Individuals who entered the data set in 2014 were tracked for 730 days from their first recorded offence or victimization. All individuals were ranked, by both crime counts and CHI values, from highest to lowest.FindingsFrom 2014 to 2016, victims comprised 89.9% of the 117,766 individuals ever appearing as victims or offenders, offenders comprised 7.9% and victim-offenders were 3.2%. In 2014, all 38,318 individual victims and 4598 offenders were placed into the 730-day tracking period in which 1825 individuals became victim-offenders, or 4.2%. Initial offenders were seven times as likely to become victims (17.9%) as initial victims were to become offenders (2.6%). Victim-offenders had 74.5% higher average harm scores and 68% higher average crime counts than the overall 2014 entry cohort, with 65% of victim-offenders’ harm a result of their victimisation. Only 417 ‘high harm-high volume’ individuals experience or cause the most crime harm as well as the most crime, of whom 49.9% (208/417) are victim-offenders, 33.3% (139/417) victims and 16.7% (70/417) offenders.ConclusionOpportunities to reduce crime and harm through targeting police and partnership resources on the ‘power few’ (Sherman, Journal of Experimental Criminology, 3(4), 299–321, 2007) can be enhanced by identification of victim-offenders and testing prevention strategies appropriate to this third category of people.

Who Are the Most-Cited Scholars in Asian Criminology Compared with Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Europe?

Asian criminology is a fast-growing area of criminological research, but its influence on the international criminological landscape is largely unknown. The current article examines scholarly influence by studying citations in four international criminology journals (AJC—Asian Journal of Criminology, ANZ—Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, CRIM—Criminology, and EJC—European Journal of Criminology) over a 10-year period from 2006 to 2015. Generally, the most-cited scholars in AJC overlapped with the most-cited scholars in the other three journals. The most-cited scholars in AJC tended to be based in the USA, working in the area of developmental and life-course criminology, and highly cited in the other three journals. Overall, Robert J. Sampson was the most-cited scholar in these four journals. Few scholars based in Asia were highly cited in ANZ, CRIM, or EJC, at least partly because few Asian scholars authored articles in these journals. We conclude that Asian scholars should be encouraged to carry out research that would interest international scholars and to submit their work for publication not only in AJC but also in other international journals.