Authors:Spencer Piston Abstract: How has the academy contributed to the horrors of policing in the United States' While many scholars study policing, few do so from a self-reflective position, which would examine how the production of knowledge has often legitimized policing’s harms. As part of a larger effort to encourage researchers to come to terms with the role we have played in facilitating contemporary atrocities, here I reconsider political scientist James Q. Wilson and criminologist George L. Kelling’s 1982 “Broken Windows” essay, as well as its intellectual legacy. Their essay is best known for speculating that police foot-patrols, by cracking down on low-level offenses, will reduce serious crime. While this speculation has become the subject of much public and academic debate, the relationship between policing and crime is only a secondary point in the article. Unfortunately, focusing on this secondary point has led scholarly and public discourse to distort the essay’s arguments. I correct this distortion through a close reading of the essay. Wilson and Kelling argue that the primary objective of the police should be to maintain order rather than to prevent crime or even to enforce the law. As such, police should discourage behavior inconsistent with neighborhood standards (even if it is not criminal) and should also remove “disorderly” people from public life (even if they are not breaking the law). Indeed, Wilson and Kelling actually endorse illegal actions in certain instances: when these actions are committed by either police or vigilantes to fashion and maintain the authoritarian, classist, ableist, and racist order that the authors envision. After discussing how an accurate understanding of the original “Broken Windows” article has the potential to reorient contemporary studies policing, I conclude by locating broken windows theory as an important member of a family of harmful ideas, generated by academics, that have underwritten a wide range of authoritarian policing practices. PubDate: Sun, 17 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Sherah L. Basham; Christopher Acuff, Gale Iles, Samuel L. Brown, Jennah Hyppolite Abstract: Democracy is fundamentally grounded in the people's right to vote, but what happens when the same mechanisms meant to protect the electoral process become barriers' This study examined the relationship between perceptions of voter suppression and voter fraud and support for voter restrictions, such as requiring identification to vote. The study utilized data from the American National Election Studies 2020 Times Series Study, examining a sample of 5,264 voters. Results revealed that voter support for voter ID laws depends on their perceptions of voter integrity and suppression. The more confidence voters have in the integrity of elections and the more they believe in voter suppression, the less likely they are to support voter identification requirements. Other demographic factors are considered. PubDate: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Sriram Chintakrindi Abstract: This research study examines the impact of a guest speaker intervention on college students enrolled in criminal justice courses at a mid-sized university in California. Students in the study attended guest speaker presentations ranging from probation officers, correctional officers, academics, and public defenders. Students in the study were required to complete a pre-and post-survey throughout the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters that examined the students’ agreeableness, confidence, and knowledge with regard to their experiences with attending guest speaker opportunities and their knowledge about career pathways and academic concepts while pursuing a college degree. The results from this study indicate that many students find guest speaker opportunities to be both beneficial for advancing their knowledge of the criminal justice system and confidence in pursuing a career in criminal justice. PubDate: Tue, 08 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Chima Agazue Abstract: Academic reports on the “evil women” hypothesis have focused mainly on the actions of criminal justice authorities (CJA). However, actions based on this hypothesis equally extend to ordinary members of the public. Vigilante justice on suspected criminals by mobs is a regular occurrence in Nigeria. Thus, the current article drew on vigilante justice on robbers to examine the notion of the evil women hypothesis from the perspective of mobs. Three robbery incidents in three different Nigerian cities involving robbers impersonating taxi operators known as “one-chance” robbers, were analyzed. In all the three incidents, the one-chance robbers comprising both men and women were caught by mobs. In all of them, the mobs stripped the female robbers naked in public whilst their male gang members were allowed to wear their clothes. The actions of the mob conformed to those of CJA with respect to the evil women hypothesis whereby female offenders are punished more severely than their male counterparts due to the idea that the former have crossed the morality boundary to commit a serious offense that goes against the gender-role expectations. PubDate: Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Marco Castro; Paulo Fraga Abstract: The use of psychoactive drugs is a social practice commonly observed in all societies. This article aims to present the moral grammar of actors who grow marijuana for their own use in Brazil. This study employed a qualitative methodology based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews. Regarding research ethics, all institutional principles were considered, like obtaining informed consent and guaranteeing the privacy of participants and the confidentiality of information. We found that these actors establish a sui generis morality through their practices. From this perspective, it can be conjectured that this network of actors who grow their own marijuana configures a specific moral grammar through the language devices they mobilize in response to the judgments, criticisms and moral accusations they face, whether formal or informal. Moreover, through the interviews, it was possible to verify how the relations of mutual assistance in this moral network of actors who grow their own marijuana are shaped by the actions, interactions, associations and moral aggregations among them. In this way, the relations of reciprocity and cooperation among these moral actors configure a kind of solidarity specific to this network. Therefore, the home cultivation of marijuana is analyzed as a legitimate moral feeling of liberation in relation to the formal and informal repressions faced by these actors. PubDate: Wed, 03 May 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Ifigenia Stylianou; Panayiotis Stavrinides, Alexia Panayiotou, Kostas Fanti Abstract: Purpose: The main scope of the survey was to examine how school bullying and victimization experiences affect workplace bullying and victimization, as also the role of the personality traits and workplace environment to this relation. It also aimed to investigate the consequences on mental health of employees who are targets of workplace victimization, as well as the reaction mechanisms of employees against bullying. Method: 302 employees from four private companies in Cyprus completed the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument, Five Factor Personality Inventory Questionnaire, Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire, Post-traumatic Embitterment Disorder Self-Rating, Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised, and a list of coping skills, in one-time phase. Results: Based on the results, school victimization experiences and neuroticism, influenced the occurrence of workplace victimization, as also workplace climate affected the above relationship. Workplace climate, workplace victimization and neuroticism, found to be related with the development of Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. In addition, neuroticism and workplace victimization mediated by employees’ coping skills. PubDate: Tue, 02 May 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Sriram Chintakrindi; Suditi Gupta, Andrew Gilmore Abstract: In this study, we use a retrospective case–control study design, to compare our outcomes of interest among inmates who have self-reported suicidal ideations (cases) with inmates who do not report suicidal ideations (controls). The sample group included participants admitted into prison treatment programs who have a co-occurring substance abuse and mental disorders. In our multivariate model analyses, we will introduce control variables to understand the magnitude of effect and directionality that control variables, such as demographic and criminal history variables, have in association with our outcome of interest, suicidal ideations. Our results indicate that individuals with stable housing have significantly lower odds of demonstrating suicidal ideations. Finally, we found that individuals with prior weapons offenses and psychiatric hospitalization have higher odds of demonstrating suicidal ideations. We believe these results have implications for the development of research and theory. PubDate: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Derek Avila; Huan Gao, Blake Randol, Sriram Chintakrindi Abstract: This study focuses on how a global pandemic like COVID-19 affects violent crimes in the city of Stockton, California. The violent crimes that we will be examining are homicide, robbery, rape, simple assault, and aggravated assault. We obtained crime data from the LexisNexis Community Crime Map and obtained COVID-19 data from the San Joaquin County Health Department regarding the city of Stockton. We developed the results of this research by using time-series plots and interrupted time-series analysis. Our results demonstrate that COVID-19 caused a statistically significant change in the slope for rape, robbery, and simple assault violent crimes. Finally, we discuss in our policy implications section that the Stockton Police Department should establish more community outreach programs that could help prevent these types of violent crimes. PubDate: Wed, 26 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Charanjit Singh Abstract: Terrorism presents one the biggest criminal justice postmodern challenges worldwide. The way criminal justice systems proact and react to mitigate and prevent such criminality raises a plethora of legal, socio-political, and strategic hurdles relating to how terror crime is defined, the human rights of the accused, protecting due process when using secret courts, the use of special advocates, the use of national security courts, civil rights i.e., freedom of association, cross-jurisdictional information sharing, and the requirement or right to prosecute etc. In this article, which is influenced by criminological theory, the definition of terror crime in the United Kingdom and at an International level is examined to ascertain whether common definitional elements exist, and the complex and competing local and International interests that are being balanced in preventing and/or prosecuting such crime. PubDate: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Alexei Anisin Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has been observed to have increased aggressive behavior and violence in the United States. This study tests whether political instability events propelled gun purchasing behavior through a temporally sensitive analysis based on data drawn from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and monthly data from the FBI’s NICS National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It utilizes a multi-methodological framework featuring both regression modeling and qualitative comparative analysis. While results from statistical inquiry do not lend support to significant associations of any single variable on the outcome, the comparative configurational inquiry does identify three salient pathways that brought about background check increases during COVID-19. All three solutions feature the conditions of political instability and presidential election events. Alongside these factors, mass shooting occurrences are present in two of the identified solutions. These findings reveal that COVID-19 fostered a set of conditions and the formation of a “Perfect Storm” which resulted in the greatest number of annual gun purchases in recorded history. PubDate: Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Bryan Tzu Wei Luk Abstract: Recent studies suggest that the pandemic has impacted criminal activities and organized crime groups. This article provides a qualitative review of changes in crime rates, patterns, and activities of organized crime groups (specifically, Triads) in Hong Kong. Three specific types of organized crimes with high Triad involvement were selected: serious violent crimes, serious drug-related crimes, and smuggling. After analyzing both official and non-official sources, the results showed that despite the government's stringent control measures that significantly suppressed socio-economic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the figures for these selected crimes rose tremendously. Triads' organized criminal activities became more frequent, dangerous, and aggressive, posing a severe threat to Hong Kong's law and order. PubDate: Sat, 25 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +000
Open Access journal
