Criminology Research Articles

Dever e poder agir do especialista: um estudo a partir da atuação da equipe técnica matricial da Vale nos termos da Denúncia

The present paper investigates the main categories of criminal omissions of an expert, which has unique knowledge. Many authors have already explored this theme in criminal law studies, from many perspectives, but it still lacks better justifications regarding its legitimacy, particularly in an increasingly complex scenario of shared responsibilities within companies. The analysis uses a case study, supported by the topical method, observing the narrative presented by the State Prosecution’s Office of Minas Gerais against the technical team of the Vale company, which led to the rupture of the dam of the Feijão’s brook. This paper is divided into the following three parts: a) the analysis of the specialist's duty to act; b) the analysis of the capacity to act within business structures; c) the corporate environment of decision-making and its illegitimacy in face of public concernments. In the end, the paper presents critical contributions to the general theory of crime, from a normative perspective, to rethink the mechanisms of liability, as well as the insufficiency of criminal law in the face of the current public regulatory model.

Power Relation and White-Collar Crime: Case Study of Coastal Reclamation in Indonesia

This research aims to understand the power relation and white-collar crime on managing the coastal reclamation and its implication in Indonesia that is very significant at the ontological and sociological level. The problem is very interesting to be analyzed by conducting a qualitative research method based on power theory and crime theory. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation related to coastal reclamation and its implication in Indonesia. Data were analyzed by using interactive models are data reduction, data display, data verification, and supported by triangulation. The results were based on ontological and sociological levels using criminology perspective for understanding the coastal reclamation and its implication in Indonesia that are needed for providing information to stakeholders related to the regulations and sanctions. This result provides inputs for making better regulation on coastal reclamation policy in Indonesia for state agencies as public officials and practitioners.

The Role of Psychology Prevention in Controlling Student Victimization in Terms of Accounting Method (A Case Study of Sari)

With its negative psychological, economic, and social effects, student delinquency is one of Iran's most critical social issues; Iran has a young population in terms of population structure. The purpose of this article is not to search for the causes of studentdelinquency, in cases such as theft, vandalism and violence, in the whole of Iran, but to focus on the city of Sari to conduct such studies in other major cities, to comment on the community or Provide thighs. This study used a combined theoretical framework (general theory of crime) consisting of social connection and self-control theories. The findings of this study show that adolescents with poor self-control have poor social bonds and commit more crimes.

Exploring Risk and Protective Factors for Cyberbullying and Their Interplay: Evidence from a Sample of South Korean College Students

This study explored risk and protective factors for cyberbullying perpetration and examined whether they independently and interactively predicted cyberbullying perpetration. Based on key propositions of micro-level theories of crime and delinquency, we adopted two risk factors, cyberbullying victimization and association with cyberbullying peers, and two protective factors, morality and self-control. Using a sample of South Korean college students (N = 244; 112 women (45.9%), 132 men (54.1%); Mean (age) = 22), we found that the two risk factors were positively associated with cyberbullying perpetration, while only one of the two protective factors, which is morality, had a negative relationship with cyberbullying perpetration. In addition, the two protective factors partially buffered the effects of both risk factors on cyberbullying perpetration. The implications and limitations of these findings were also discussed.

O zjawisku przestępczości kobiet z perspektywy teorii zintegrowanych

The aim of this study is to analyse selected theories of crime of an integrated nature (biosocial), functioning in criminology, from the perspective of explaining the conditions of the phenomenon of female crime. It was pointed out that single-factor theories older than integrated theories (anthropological, biological, sociological, psychological), assuming in their assumptions only one category of variables, occurring in the analysis of the course of female criminal activities, did not contribute sufficiently to the explication of the studied, negative phenomenon, giving the inducement to search and develop a different category of theory. Therefore, the article attempts to determine whether the integrated (multi-factorial) theories, presented on the example of the considerations of two criminologists: A. Walsh and D.W. Denno, taking into account the findings of the former single-factor concepts, allow to find a comprehensive solution to the doubts, concentrating around the issue of conditions and specificity of the development of the phenomenon of female crime, which for several decades has occupied the activity of criminologists in Poland and worldwide.

Understanding phenomena of criminality: from dogmatic views to scientific theories

Criminality accompanies humanity for millennia. Despite the fact that this phenomenon has received much attention from researchers of different times and countries, its joint understanding is still missing. Taking into account the previous experience of cognition of this phenomenon, of course, should be the key to effective preventive action in current conditions. The purpose of the paper is to explore the main approaches in understanding criminality from prehistoric times to the present. It is claimed that historically the first awareness of mankind of socially dangerous behavior occurred during the reign of the primary tribal communities. People’s knowledge of the world around them was minimal at that time, and explanation of incomprehensible and undesirable was based only on the authority of tribal leaders and respect for social traditions. Given the actual lack of scientific and methodological basis as such, this format of views on violations of social norms can be described as a dogmatic approach. Religions have in their arsenal views on unacceptable behavior based on the authority of the Creator. At the same time, in the theological approach there is a variety of interpretations of the causes and essence of forbidden behavior – from purely fatalistic views to the recognition of human free will in the commission of encroachments. Examples in this regard are the Laws of Manu, the Old Testament. Genesis”, Books by J. Sprenger and G. Institoris “The Hammer of Witches”, “The Sum of Theology” by Thomas Aquinas,“Confession” by Augustine Aurelius and others. The scientific approach is characterized by the use of scientific methods of cognition in substantiating theories of criminality. The variety of views here includes theories of social causes, anthropological theories, theories of multiplicity of factors, and others. According to the anthropological direction, the essence of criminality was associated with the manifestation of biological (anthropological) properties of a human (genetic features, endocrine system, mental state, etc.). Sociological direction asserts the influence of social factors as factors in the formation of criminality (internal contradictions, class conflict, social exclusion, stigmatization, etc.). In this regard, there are theories that, along with the circumstances of social content as factors of crime outline also biological (anthropological). It is concluded that in the future understanding of the phenomenon of crime should take place on the basis of a scientific approach

The General Theory of Crime Revisited: Comparing the Relative Effects of Parental Responsiveness and Parental Behavioral Control on Aggressive and Nonaggressive Antisocial Behavior in Adolescence

ABSTRACT Using data collected from middle schools in China in 2018, we extend the general theory of crime beyond its focus on low self-control as the leading cause of all crimes and compare the relative impact of parental behavioral control and parental responsiveness on adolescent antisocial behavior. We highlight the etiological distinctions between aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behavior and find that maternal responsiveness reduces adolescents’ aggressive antisocial behavior through fostering students’ self-control and reduces nonaggressive antisocial behavior through boosting students’ self-esteem.

Piracy and Maritime Security in the North-Western Indian Ocean: From the Gulf of Oman to the Waters off the Somali Coast

There are a daunting number of maritime security threats and challenges in the north-western Indian Ocean region, both extant and potential. Indeed, the mere fact that the Indian Ocean constitutes the world’s largest swath of maritime space that is prone to the major menace of piracy (in the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and in the waters off the north-east African coastline), as well as the sporadic threat of terrorism (by Islamic militias of Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen), signifies that the region will arguably remain the maritime area with the greatest array of security challenges. However, while anti-piracy measures ought to have shaped regional policymaking, and the resources that a large and diverse group of states has devoted to addressing these maritime challenges have never been adequate to the task, largely successful coalition-building exercises and joint naval task-force operations have been encouraging. The transformation of Somali piracy from a haphazard activity into a highly organised, professionalised criminal enterprise is briefly elucidated by greed-grievance theory and supplemented by the theory of crime, also known as routine-activity theory.

A spatial Analysis of Crime and Neighborhood Characteristics in Detroit Census Block Groups

Abstract. Crime has an inherent geographical quality and when a crime occurs, it happens within a particular space making spatiality essential component in crime studies. To prevent and respond to crimes, it is first essential to identify the factors that trigger crimes and then design policy and strategy based on each factor. This project investigates the spatial dimension of violent crime rates in the city of Detroit for 2019. Crime data were obtained from the City of Detroit Data Portal and demographic data relating to social disorganization theory were obtained from the Census Bureau. In the presence of spatial spill over and spatial dependence, the assumptions of classical statistics are violated, and Ordinary Least Squares estimations are inefficient in explaining spatial dimensions of crime. This paper uses explanatory variables relating to the social disorganization theory of crime and spatial autoregressive models to determine the predictors of violent crime in the City for the period. Using GeoDa 1.18 and ArcGIS Desktop 10.7.1 software package, Spatial Lag Models (SLM) and Spatial Error Models were carried out to determine which model has high performance in identifying predictors of violent crime. SLM outperformed SEM in terms of efficiency with (AIC:5268.52; Breusch-Pagan test: 9.8402; R2: 16% & Log Likelihood: −2627.26) > SEM (AIC: 5275.24; Breusch-Pagan test: 9.7601; R2: 15% & Log Likelihood: −2630.6194). Strong support is found for the spatial disorganization theory of crime. High percent ethnic heterogeneity (% black) and high college graduates are the strongest predictors of violent crime in the study area.

Jak nie działać słowami, czyli o penalizowanych aktach mownych w ujęciu prawnym i językoznawczym

The aim of the article is to analyse criminalised speech acts from the perspective of two research methodologies: criminal law and pragmatic. Acts of this kind have not yet been subjected to thorough, collective research, although they are relatively frequent both in the basic acts of Polish criminal law – the Penal Code and the Misdemeanour Code – and in specific acts. The article focuses on code examples and the considerations undertaken in it are part of jurisprudence – an interdisciplinary science combining aspects of legal sciences and linguistics. The speech acts penalised on the grounds of criminal law, i.e. offences, have been analysed from the point of view of three fundamental research problems: their criminal law status, the conditions of their fortuity and the communicative intentions of their perpetrators. The explanatory procedure was based on an attempt to reconcile legal and linguistic elements in order to explain the essence of criminalised speech acts and to indicate their characteristic features. The juxtaposition of the theories of locution, illicitation and perlocution with the corresponding elements of the theory of crime was of particular importance in this respect. The author has also attempted to determine the social rank of criminalised speech acts as one of the ways of human action in the world – an action which, due to the threatening, often very severe criminal law consequences, is worth refraining from.

In the heat of the moment: Economic and non-economic drivers of the weather-crime relationship

Using daily data on the universe of crimes from 600 police stations in Karnataka, India between 2011 and 2016, and daily weather data from a dense network of monitoring stations, we study the daily and seasonal weather-crime relationship. We analyze a wide variety of crime types, and find that violent crimes respond to both daily and seasonal variation in temperatures and rainfall, whereas property crimes only respond to seasonal variation. The results provide novel evidence for the economic theory of crime, but also for the importance of non-economic drivers of violent crime, including violence against women and ethnically marginalized groups, and inter-group conflict.

Leaders in juvenile crime

This paper presents a new theory of crime where leaders transmit a crime technology and act as a role model for other criminals. We show that, in equilibrium, an individual’s crime effort and criminal decisions depend on the geodesic distance to the leader in his or her network of social contacts. By using data on friendship networks among U.S. high-school students, we structurally estimate the model and find evidence supporting its predictions. In particular, by using a definition of a criminal leader that is exogenous to the network formation of friendship links, we find that the longer is the distance to the leader, the lower is the criminal activity of the delinquents and the less likely they are to become criminals. We finally perform a counterfactual experiment that reveals that a policy that removes all criminal leaders from a school can, on average, reduce criminal activity by about 20% and the individual probability of becoming a criminal by 10%.

Measuring the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on crime in a medium-sized city in China.

ObjectivesThe study examines the variation in the daily incidence of eight acquisitive crimes: automobile theft, electromobile theft, motorcycle theft, bicycle theft, theft from automobiles, pickpocketing, residential burglary, and cyber-fraud before the lockdown and the duration of the lockdown for a medium-sized city in China.MethodsRegression discontinuity in time (RDiT) models are used to test the effect of the lockdown measures on crime by examining the daily variation of raw counts and rate.ResultsIt is indicated that in contrast to numerous violent crime categories such as domestic violence where findings have repeatedly found increases during the COVID-19 pandemic, acquisitive crimes in this city were reduced during the lockdown period for all categories, while “cyber-fraud” was found more resilient in the sense that its decrease was not as salient as for most other crime types, possibly due to people’s use of the internet during the lockdown period.ConclusionsThe findings provide further support to opportunity theories of crime that are contingent upon the need for a motivated offender to identify a suitable target in physical space.

Won’t You be My Neighbor? Neighborhood Characteristics Associated with Mass Shootings in the USA

We measure the association between neighborhood characteristics and mass shootings building on existing research on neighborhoods and social and economic composition and crime. Using publicly available national data from the Gun Violence Archive (2014–2019), we geocoded and merged mass shooting incidents with US Census American Community Survey data. Our bivariate results suggest that census tracts with a mass shooting are more economically disadvantaged and have greater concentrations of black and Hispanic residents. In multivariate models, the association with concentrated disadvantage is no longer significant and the likelihood of a mass shooting increases until the proportion of black residents reaches 80%, at which point the likelihood decreases, controlling for other community characteristics. Further, as the proportion of black residents and the level of disadvantage increase together, the odds of a mass shooting incident in that tract are reduced. To address and prevent mass shootings, an expanded theory of neighborhood crime that incorporates the unique nature of mass shootings needs to consider structural racism, racial dynamics, and protective factors in relationship to economic conditions.

Kant on Punishment and Criminal Law – nine Theses

Kant is generally regarded as a representative of the theory of retaliation. This position is accused as scientific untenable. Supposedly, the idea of retaliation disregards all social purposes and demands punishment even where it was not necessary for the protection of legal interests. Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals of 1797 contains an already quite sophisticated criminal theory of timeless quality. In order to elaborate on them, however, one must not, as is customary, pick out a few passages, but one must take note of the “whole” doctrine of law, in particular Kant’s statements on subjective law, on the abandonment of the law and on the rule of law. The basic features of Kant’s theory of crime will be presented in the following nine theses, backed up by relevant textual evidence.

Public attitude as a determinant of petty corruption in Egypt: a survey study

PurposeThe aim of the study is to examine the effect of public attitude on petty corruption.Design/methodology/approachThis is a survey study on customers of a licenses providing authority (N = 390) in Cairo, Egypt. The authors use Akers social learning theory of crime and deviance and take into consideration criticisms of it. The authors control for individual and organizational level determinants that are identified by scholars as influencing people's attitudes toward corruption and which could be known through the authority customers' experiences. Because the dependent variable is binary, whether a person paid a bribe during last transaction with this authority or not, the authors use binary logistic regression.FindingsThe findings indicate that people are more likely to engage in petty corruption when they see it as acceptable, have previous petty corruption experience and when they use a mediator. Also, of those who dealt with that civil service authority during and directly after the 25th of January Revolution (N = 161) 31% reported that they did not engage in petty corruption in comparison to previous years. They referred this to a change in attitude at the time.Originality/valueThe policy implications of the research are important. Social science theories could generate cultural and policy relevant solutions for petty corruption; however, they have not been taken full advantage of. Also, experience-based country-specific corruption survey studies are important input for an effective anti-corruption policy.

Legal Nature and Features a Continuing Crime

The author singles out constituent features of a continuing crime: 1) a continuing crime, although legally completed, is happening continuously until its actual completion; 2) a continuing action has a complex two-element structure: the first element of the objective side of a continuing crime is the action or inaction of the guilty person that legally constitutes a crime, and the second element is the subsequent continuous behavior that «stretches» the objective side of the continuing crime in time; 3) a continuing crime is producing a non-stop destructive effect on the object of criminal law protection, and the long-term deformation of this object happens because of the action itself, not the consequences caused by it; 4) by committing a continuing crime, the person preserves conscious control over the action after its legal completion, regulates his behavior, controls the process of inflicting harm on the object of criminal law protection, which makes it possible to recognize the person as active (non-active) in the criminal law sense; 5) only a crime with a formal construct of corpus delicti can be continuing. The abovementioned features together could act as reliable criteria for determining the chronological boundaries of specific criminal actions, as a key to resolving theoretical disputes and law enforcement problems connected with classifying a certain action as continuing. The article stresses that the permanent character of a continuing crime cannot be explained through the prism of the theory of a continuing criminal condition. Such an interpretation of a continuing crime, common in Russian and foreign research, contradicts the established tenets of the classical theory of crime. Only an act in the form of action or inaction can be recognized as a continuing crime, but not a state, situation, or status. Based on this, the author gives a critical assessment of Art. 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation that provides for the liability for holding the highest position in a criminal hierarchy. The objective side of a continuing crime has the following manifestations: 1) continuing criminal inaction; 2) a crime legally completed by an action, and continuing through inaction; 3) continuing action. Based on this, the author states that the description of a continuing crime contained in the Decree of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of the USSR of March 4, 1929 No. 23 (edition of the Decree of the Plenary Session of March 14, 1963, No. 1) should be specified.

A Commentary on “The Rorschach and Violent Crime” (de Ruiter, 2021)

A Commentary on “The Rorschach and Violent Crime” (de Ruiter, 2021)

Criminological Security as the Ideological Basis of the Theory and Practice of Counteracting Crime

This work aims mainly at presenting the basic concepts of criminological security in the note form, which is reasonably evaluated as a complex scientific category and a real social phenomenon in criminology. Criminological security is considered to be the ideological basis and concept of the modern Russian criminal policy, made to set a new and truly humanistic vector for the development of the theory and practice of counteracting crime. The author believes that the development of the theoretical concepts of the criminological security has led to the emergence of a separate direction within the framework of national security — criminological security, which is structurally a part of the state and public security. The article defines criminological security and characterizes its functions, analyzes internal and external threats to criminological security. The idea that criminological security has formed into a private criminological theory and is an important component of the national security is proved. The indicators and trends of crime for the period from 1991 to 2020 are given.

Familial Spin: A Criminal Spin Theory Perspective on the Experiences of Parents and Siblings of Incarcerated Men

ABSTRACT The Criminal Spin theory focuses on a process, through which an individual experiences decreased feelings of self-control and empathy, along with increased criminal activity and self-centeredness. The different types of criminal spins (acute, chronic) and their levels (individual, group) are discussed in a familial context. This article focuses on the chronic group spin and its conceptual contribution to understanding the experiences of prisoners’ family members. A study of 27 members of prisoners’ nuclear families in Israel (i.e., parents and siblings) revealed that the imprisonment of a son or brother generates unique experiences that are similar to a group spin. An innovative angle to the theory referred to as the “familial spin” and its potential theoretical, social, and practical ramifications are discussed. Finally, positive criminology is suggested as a balanced approach that allows social acceptance and assists in preventing spin escalations and maintaining family members’ engagement with society and its values.