Understanding Of Crime Research Articles

Uncovering dynamic textual topics that explain crime.

Crime analysis/mapping techniques have been developed and applied for crime detection and prevention to predict where and when crime occurs, leveraging historical crime records over a spatial area and covariates for the spatial domain. Some of these techniques may provide insights for understanding crime and disorder, especially, via interpreting the weights for the spatial covariates based on regression modelling. However, to date, the use of temporal covariates for the time domain has not played a significant role in the analysis. In this work, we collect time-stamped crime-related news articles, infer crime topics or themes based on the collection and associate the topics with the historical numeric crime counts. We provide a proof-of-concept study, where instead of adopting spatial covariates, we focus on temporal (or dynamic) covariates and assess their utility. We present a novel joint model tailored for the crime articles and counts such that the temporal covariates (latent variables, more generally) are inferred based on the data sources. We apply the model for violent crime in London.

Policing with a public health lens – Moving towards an understanding of crime as a public health issue

Policing organizations are currently experiencing more pressure than ever to address systemic racism and police brutality. Advocates and academics have suggested a range of changes, such as defunding the police, moving towards more body-worn cameras, ensuring higher educational levels of new recruits, implicit bias training, and so on. Our article draws attention and advocates for a different avenue: moving our understanding of crime towards a public health issue. By drawing on some data from the University of Alberta Prison Project, we argue that looking at justice clients with a public health lens would significantly change the way police are trained and respond to incidents. We believe this would have monumental consequences for both justice clients and policing organizations: justice clients will benefit from a police service that is trauma informed, compassionate, and understands their client base, while policing organizations will arguably increase their trust relationship with the public, therefore building legitimacy in the community.

Towards understanding crime dynamics in a heterogeneous environment: A mathematical approach

Crime data provides information on the nature and location of the crime but, in general, does not include information on the number of criminals operating in a region. By contrast, many approaches to crime reduction necessarily involve working with criminals or individuals at risk of engaging in criminal activity and so the dynamics of the criminal population is important. With this in mind, we develop a mechanistic, mathematical model which combines the number of crimes and number of criminals to create a dynamical system. Analysis of the model highlights a threshold for criminal efficiency, below which criminal numbers will settle to an equilibrium level that can be exploited to reduce crime through prevention. This efficiency measure arises from the initiation of new criminals in response to observation of criminal activity; other initiation routes - via opportunism or peer pressure - do not exhibit such thresholds although they do impact on the level of criminal activity observed. We used data from Cape Town, South Africa, to obtain parameter estimates and predicted that the number of criminals in the region is tending towards an equilibrium point but in a heterogeneous manner - a drop in the number of criminals from low crime neighbourhoods is being offset by an increase from high crime neighbourhoods.

Exploring the Availability and Potential of International Data for Criminological Study

Despite advances in recent decades to internationalize criminology, one major roadblock that is often mentioned is the difficulty in collecting and obtaining high-quality international and cross-cultural data. More than ever, there is a growing amount of international data covering a wide variety of topics relevant to understanding crime. Visible and accessible international data can open up channels for dialogue and collaboration between cultures and regions, as well as opportunities to test, refine, and develop theoretical and empirical knowledge. This paper therefore aims to make the ‘world of data’ out there more visible not only to shed light on the potential for international research and collaboration, but to highlight the growing, rich body of international knowledge that already exists.

Razoável quantidade de violência:

Busca-se no presente trabalho uma outra compreensão acerca da problemática do delito e da resposta a mesma, a partir da mesma premissa produzida desde a teoria do etiquetamento de que o crime é uma definição atribuída a determinado ato ou pessoa, assim como a reação social resultante de uma definição/escolha política. Diferentemente da explicação materialista do condicionamento econômico da ordem sociopenal, traz-se nesse trabalho a compreensão culturalista acerca do delito e da reação social – desde a razoável quantidade de crime de Christie, até a ideia de tolerância a violência de Garland. O objetivo desse trabalho é problematizar o encarceramento em massa desde a compreensão social da violência em uma perspectiva cultural e aportar elementos para a compreensão uma mais alargada a partir de outro marco teórico além do marxismo.

PENEGAKAN HUKUM DALAM PENANGANAN TINDAK PIDANA PENGGELAPAN

Embezzlement in the Criminal Code is classified as a crime. The embezzlement is contained in Article 372 of the Criminal Code. The focus of this research is law enforcement in dealing with criminal acts of embezzlement and the inhibiting factors of law enforcement in handling embezzlement. Based on the results of research and discussion, it shows that law enforcement in handling embezzlement is carried out using non-penal and penal methods. The non-penal approach is carried out by providing counseling and socialization in the context of fostering social responsibility for citizens of the crime of embezzlement. Legal counseling is particularly carried out in areas prone to criminal acts. The criminal approach is carried out through legal measures so that the perpetrators of the criminal act of embezzlement are processed legally in order to obtain criminal sanctions and guarantee legal certainty. Inhibiting factors for law enforcement in handling criminal acts of embezzlement include: criminal sanctions in Article 372 of the Criminal Code have not provided a deterrent effect, limitations on law enforcement agencies, limited state special budget for law enforcement, lack of public awareness of the importance of understanding crime, society becomes a criminal act.
 Keywords : Law Enforcement, Crime, Embezzlement.

Enhancing Informal Social Controls to Reduce Crime: Evidence from a Study of Crime Hot Spots.

There is growing evidence that crime is strongly concentrated in micro-geographic hot spots, a fact that has led to the wide-scale use of hot spots policing programs. Such programs are ordinarily focused on deterrence due to police presence, or other law enforcement interventions at hot spots. However, preliminary basic research studies suggest that informal social controls may also be an important mechanism for crime reduction on high crime streets. Such research has been hindered by a lack of data on social and attitudinal characteristics of residents, and the fact that census information is not available at the micro-geographic level. Our study, conducted in Baltimore, MD, on a sample of 449 residential street segments, overcame these limitations by collecting an average of eight surveys (N = 3738), as well as physical observations, on segments studied. This unique primary data collection allowed us to develop the first direct indicators of collective efficacy at the micro-geographic level, as well as a wide array of indicators of other possible risk and protective factors for crime. Using multilevel negative binomial regression models, we also take into account community-level influences, and oversample crime hot spots to allow for robust comparisons across streets. Our study confirms the importance of opportunity features of streets such as population size and business activity in understanding crime, but also shows that informal social controls, as reflected by collective efficacy, are key for understanding crime on high crime streets. We argue that it is time for police, other city agencies, and NGOs to begin to work together to consider how informal social controls can be used to reduce crime at residential crime hot spots.

Die transformasie van die Suid-Afrikaanse gevangeniswese tot 'n openbare instelling met positiewe vrede as waardestelsel* Transforming the prison system in South Africa into a public institution with positive peace underlying its values

Die transformasie van die Suid-Afrikaanse gevangeniswese tot 'n openbare instelling met positiewe vrede as waardestelsel* Transforming the prison system in South Africa into a public institution with positive peace underlying its values

Both Sides of the Street: Introducing Measures of Physical and Social Boundaries Based on Differences Across Sides of the Street, and Consequences for Crime

Although previous studies have theorized the importance of physical and social boundaries (edges) in understanding crime in place, the relationship between edges and the level of crime has been less studied empirically. The current study examines the effects of physical and social boundaries on crime in street segments. To empirically measure boundaries, we introduce an approach of looking at the differences of land use (physical boundary), socioeconomic status, or racial composition (social boundaries) on both sides of a street segment. We estimated a series of negative binomial regression models in which measures of the physical and social boundaries are included while controlling for the effects of structural characteristic and the conventional physical boundary measures of highways, parks, and rivers. We observed that there are positive relationships between all three of these boundary measures and violent and property crimes. The results indicated that physical and social boundaries are important to consider in understanding the spatial patterns of crime. Moreover, the current study confirmed the moderating effects between social and physical boundaries. Our results indicate that although much empirical research focuses solely on physical boundaries, our measures of social and physical boundaries have important consequences for the spatial location of crime, and therefore are worthy of further research.

WITHDRAWN: Battery sustainability algorithm based on shrink iteration and detection for women tracking system

Profuse crime against women is the most imperative problems for our country; it would affect people safety, women development and socio economic position. Leading the factors that cause’s high crime rate scenario is on cruelty against women, in the basis of critical scenario. To overcome the issue against women government put their efforts to reduce crime and increase citizen’s life quality. By developing applications and other sort of providing contact numbers but still crime against women is in increasing point on ratio. This problem is taken a considerable base problem in our current times: crime rate inference at the stranger level is eventually increased. Conventional influences to estimate crime rates in a particular area. With the prompt improvement of positioning knowledge and occurrence of mobile devices, a huge amount of modern urban data have been composed and such big data can provide new perspectives for understanding crime. The women tracking system using battery Sustainability algorithm have modulated with reduced power consumption and battery power management. The proposed system significantly reduces power consumption overhead and improves message passing among source and destination compared to existing DSR protocol agent.

The Tenuous Link between Crime and Incarceration: Bosasa’s Public-private Partnership

Bosasa’s role in facilitating the fact that South Africa has one of the highest crime rates as well as one of the highest rates of recidivism in the world, is interrogated in this contribution. The article sets out—through the lens of a Marxist reading of crime in a capitalist society—to explain the phenomenon in terms of the existence of a Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). This was exposed in recent months by evidence at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, which revealed alarming levels of corruption at the Department of Correctional Services, as well as fraudulent collusion with its corporate partners. This strongly suggests the existence of a PIC; part of an avaricious “shadow state” referenced by recent literature on state capture in South Africa. It is contended that even though the Zondo Commission has not completed its hearings, sufficient evidence is available to argue the case that Bosasa, as part of a PIC, has aggravated our recidivism rates and distorted our understanding of crime. The article, drawing on comparative examples, suggests that the high recidivism rate in South Africa can at least partially be explained by a PIC which inclines the Department of Correctional Services—within the context of a stigmatising shaming culture based on incarceration as our dominant sentencing regime—to recycle prisoners for profit rather than to see them rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.

Crimes Against Women in India: A District-Level Analysis (1991-2011).

Crimes against women (CAW) in India have been rising despite faster economic growth, higher education attainment, and increasing numbers of women in the economic sphere. This article explores the reasons for the incidence of reported CAW in India. We study five CAW (rape, kidnapping, cruelty, dowry deaths, and molestation), across 35 states and union territories, 594 districts, over three decades (1991-2011). We use panel fixed-effects regression models to explain crime. Our results confirm the importance of female literacy rates, female paid workforce participation, and female-male ratio in understanding crime. We find that these commonly-used socioeconomic variables have nonlinear effects on CAW. Our findings improve upon earlier results that have not explored either spatial distribution or nonlinearity in India. These findings could have significant implications for the policies aiming to reduce CAW.

Life Domains and Dating Violence Among Latino Youth: A Partial Test of Agnew’s Integrated General Theory

In 2005, Agnew presented a new theoretical framework for understanding crime and delinquency. To date, this theory has not been thoroughly tested among various populations and types of crime. To address this gap in the research, the present study analyzes data gathered from the Dating Violence Among Latino Adolescents Study, providing a partial test of Agnew’s integrated general theory to determine its applicability to dating violence perpetration among Latino youth. Results from 669 Latino respondents showed that the theory’s constructs are modestly associated with perpetrating dating violence among this study population. Concepts depicting self (anger) and peer (peer bullying) domains are associated with the dependent variable, while school (school performance) and family (family support) domains were found to be nonsignificant. Among control and demographic variables, age, sex, depression, anxiety, and past dating victimization were also significant, while enculturation was nonsignificant. Overall, results are indicative of partial support for the theory. Prevention and intervention strategies based on the study’s findings targeted at reducing dating violence perpetration, such as recognizing signs of anger and reducing peer bullying victimization, are discussed.

“Taking a Walk on the Wild Side”: Exploring Residence-to-Crime in Juveniles

Although evidence regarding the journey-to-crime in juvenile offenders is available for some areas of the world, little is known about their mobility patterns in Southern Europe. Variables such as prosocial facilities, transport stations, or socioeconomic backdrop have been proved to influence the traveled distance. Therefore, we aimed to confirm previous findings in the journey-to-crime literature using data provided by the Juvenile Justice Department of the Basque Country (Spain). Although some results are in line with those of previous studies, emphasizing the relevance of environmental factors for better understanding crime patterns in the juvenile population, other specific patterns also emerged that suggest the need to replicate research across countries and to consider specific behavior patterns and styles of spatial design in each study setting.

The Personality of a Criminal in Criminological Studies of the Soviet Period

The paper describes the evolution of the views of Soviet criminologists on such element of its object as the personality of a criminal. As the anthropological approach to the personality of a criminal was dominant in the criminology of the pre-Soviet period, the first Soviet criminological studies of criminal personality were based on viewing a criminal as a person with metal deviations which should be corrected therapeutically. It is noted that the social character of the Marxist doctrine, its understanding of crime as a legacy of the exploitative society, as well as the fallacy of substituting the personality of a criminal by a that of a person who committed publically dangerous acts due to mental deviations in the early Soviet criminological studies led to the termination of such research. After the renaissance of criminological studies in mid-1960s, the personality of a criminal was not immediately included in the object of criminology as an independent element. The author singles out three approaches to researching the personality of a criminal in Soviet criminology: the psychological approach that identifies certain psychological features in the personality of a criminal (defects of legal consciousness, distortions of the value system, etc) or defines a criminal as a person alienated from society; the bio-social approach that characterizes a criminal as person who is genetically or psycho-pathologically predisposed to crime and who acts on this predisposition in an unfavorable social environment. It is concluded that, in the modern period, these approaches have created a basis for a complex study of the personality of a criminal, according to which it is viewed as an aggregate of social, biological and psychological features.

Charting the place of islands in criminology: On isolation, integration and insularity

In this article, we seek to chart the place of islands in criminology with respect to both their place- and space-based attributes. We explore the possibilities of island criminology through the case of Pitcairn Island, which in 2004 formed the backdrop for a series of sensational sexual assault trials. The trials thrust the Island, its people, history and customs into the international spotlight, acting as a counter-narrative to the popular mythology of islands as idyllic paradises. This case study provides us with an opportunity to re-examine how fundamental concepts for understanding crime and regulation, such as social integration, community and belonging, and exclusion are practised in the often closed and bounded networks of island ecologies.

Does Collective Efficacy Matter at the Micro Geographic Level?: Findings from a Study Of Street Segments.

Many scholars argue that collective efficacy is not relevant to understanding crime at the microgeographic level. We examine variation in collective efficacy across streets with different levels of crime in Baltimore City, MD, and, then, employ multilevel modelling to assess this relationship. We find that people who live in crime hot spots have much lower levels of collective efficacy than people who live in non-hot spot streets and that this relationship persists when controlling for a large number of potential confounders both at the street and community levels. These findings suggest the importance of collective efficacy both in understanding and controlling crime at microgeographic units.

Traditional communal understanding of crime and the role of social therapy: ideas from African philosophy

In this essay, I challenge the contemporary social practice of conceptualizing crime as solely an individual’s fault and one’s responsibility. The individuation of the person is highly impersonal, causes fragmentation, marginalisation of the individual, and the destruction of the traditional practice of considering an individual as an integral part of the society. In contrast to this perspective, I make a case for a communal correctional system that is based on a traditional African social therapeutic system. This is a system that considers crime as causing ontological disorder or disharmony especially in communities that are communitarian in nature, and which considers all crimes as disrupting communal harmony. Furthermore, I argue that correcting wrongdoing is also an opportunity for communities to introspect themselves, i.e. reconsider existing practices and views for the community’s benefit and that of a faltering individual. My focus in this essay is on revealing African understanding of crime and correcting it as a plausible alternative to the existing western correcting system.Keywords: Community, individual, crime, reconciliation, restorative justice, social therapy, harmony

Michael Hviid Jacobsen (ed) (2014) The Poetics of Crime Understanding and Researching Crime and Deviance Through Creative Sources

Neoliberalism, market policies, and competition have created challenges to security governance after 9/11 (Ferguson, 2017). The proliferating scientific republic and increasing securitisation have bolstered new knowledge claims over the idea of crime, and have given rise to different orientations and methods to craft an understanding of crime. ‘The Poetics of Crime’ can be seen as a rigorous attempt that departs from the notion of thoughtfully ‘cultivated beliefs’ and carefully ‘nurtured debated attempts’ being the outcome of postmodernity’s claims of safety, security and surveillance. Proliferating security fetishism thus promoting ‘criminological society’ produces different sets of knowledge on crime. Methodological cynicism and beliefs have whirled the existing preconditions of defining crime through logical positivism and syllogism, opening up new avenues to develop knowledge to define contemporaneous of crime. The book under review attempts to transcend and criticise conventional methods of understanding crime and find creative ways to define crime. With shifting approaches to theorising crime, and significant shifts in policing practices, there is a pressing need to adopt a more egalitarian approach to understand crime through public criminology (Loader, 2000; Loader and Sparks, 2011). The book is divided into four sections. It offers a rich critique of existing methodological issues and the influences of bureaucratic practices on criminology, while attempting to study the antecedents of crime through new approaches to understanding art forms. In their criminological perspectives, scholars highlight the significance of ‘fact in fiction’ for building an understanding of crime.

Geographical Juxtaposition: A New Direction in CPTED

This paper explores Oscar Newman’s Defensible Space (1972) concept of geographical juxtaposition (GJ) highlighting a significant lack of research within the criminological literature over the last 50 years. We argue the concept is a key foundation in understanding crime and crime prevention theories and in developing crime prevention strategies. Findings from a systematic review of the literature are presented to illustrate the paucity of research into geographical juxtaposition. We develop and extend the concept of geographical juxtaposition beyond that originally coined by Newman to include all immediate, local, distant, and remote environmental (physical) factors. Additionally, we demonstrate, by reference to practical criminological situations, the significant and extensive role of our revised concept of geographical juxtaposition. In particular, we point to the way that focusing on geographical juxtaposition identifies serious problems in many taken-for-granted assumptions in planning theory and practice. In exploring the concept of geographical juxtaposition, we highlight ten ways it can affect crime risks and six ways using geographical juxtaposition can benefit efforts to apply crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) more successfully when conducting a crime risk assessment. Finally, this paper briefly discusses four new CPTED principles, which emerge from our exploration of geographical juxtaposition. We identify new classes of CPTED methods and new ways of analyzing crime and offer the basis for new criminological theories.