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THE INTERNET JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY^©

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Ex-offenders, Social Ties and the Routes Into Employment
By Dr James Rhodes, Research Associate, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

Although the role that employment plays in reducing re-offending has been widely acknowledged, less work has been done to explain why this should be the case. To begin to address this knowledge gap, this article focuses upon the various ways that ex-offenders benefit from employment opportunities, some of the specific difficulties they face in finding employment and how some manage to overcome them legitimately or else employ other adaptive strategies. Based on in-depth research with a sample of 12 ex-offenders, the research reveals the precise importance of the role of social relationships in securing and maintaining employment for ex-offenders. Importantly, the key role of social ties in the labour market – for those who have them – highlights the extent to which those leaving prison lack both the relevant vocational training and experience of the application process to compete effectively within a labour market that is already set heavily against them.
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Ethnic Minority Representation on Juries – A Missed Opportunity
By Fernne Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Essex, UK

People from ethnic minority groups (non-white) generally do not have confidence in the jury system. This is because they are not, or do not consider that they are, reasonably represented. Their lack of participation in this part of the criminal justice system means that such groups do not perceive that justice is done as far as they are concerned. This has implications for the belief that the right to a fair trial under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights is maintained in the courts. The question of lack of representation of ethnic minority groups in individual jury trials is one that has been raised in a number of common law jurisdictions the USA and in cases before the European Court of Human Rights. But there is also a persistent failure to address the question of institutional racism as a process by which people from ethnic minority groups are excluded from the jury system in general. This is of great importance in the current context of racial discrimination, its link with the Trans Atlantic slave trade and the issue of reparations. The refusal to deal with institutional racism as a process of exclusion indicates a lack of understanding of how discrimination permeates justice systems. This is compounded by the fact that - in aiming to attain justice in individual cases of racial bias in juries - English courts, the government and its commissions have paid scant attention to the inclusion of ethnic minority peoples as jurors as a matter of course. Rather, the focus on inclusion issues has often been construed as a matter of race. This lacuna indicates that there is little grasp of the extent to which institutional racism plays a role in the process of excluding ethnic minorities from participating in the jury per se. This matter arises not only in the UK but in other jurisdictions where the question of racial bias, representation and white juries is raised. It is argued that positive measures should be used to redress this problem that would also demonstrate a commitment to dealing with slave trade reparations claims. Three propositions will be discussed: a) the exercise of judicial discretion; b) a firm rule requiring a number of people from ethnic minority groups on jury panels where race is an issue and; c) the presence of people from ethnic minority groups on any jury panel. The latter would occur, regardless of the issue in the case, in areas where there is a substantial number in the population and where this would not create practical difficulties. This paper strongly supports proposition C. It is submitted that such a measure would help to instil confidence in the jury system as regards people from ethnic minority groups..
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The Geography of Bus Shelter Damage: The Influence of Crime, Neighbourhood Characteristics and Land-Use
By Andrew Newton, University of Huddersfield & Kate Bowers, University College London, UK

This paper offers unique insights into the distribution of damage to bus shelters, in a single case study area, Merseyside (UK). The geography of bus shelter damage is examined in relation to the criminogenic and socio-economic characteristics of its neighbourhood, and the local land use context. The findings suggest that shelter damage is related in a known and predictable way to known characteristics of its neighbourhood, and that shelters in areas with high levels of anti social behaviour and violence against the person are more susceptible to bus shelter damage. Two key factors in the occurrence of bus shelter damage appear to be lack of capable guardianships and the presence of youths. In relation to the influence of land use, the presence of parks, children’s play areas and schools (particularly those whose unauthorised truancy levels were above the national average) were positively correlated with shelter damage. By contrast, negative relationships were found between shelter damage and the presence of pubs, clubs, and off-licenses. The implications of these findings for crime prevention are then discussed, alongside some potential avenues for future research.
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A Spatial Analysis of Neighbourhood Crime in Omaha, Nebraska Using Alternative Measures of Crime Rates
By Haifeng Zhang, University of Louisville & Michael P. Peterson, University of Nebraska, USA

This paper analyzed the spatial patterns of four types of crime (assault, robbery, autotheft, and burglary) and their relationship with neighbourhood characteristics in the City of Omaha, Nebraska by using geographic information systems procedures and ordinary least square regression methods. Location quotients of crime and crime density were employed as two alternative measures of crime rates. This article has three important findings: First, the rationale of the employment of official crime rates for neighbourhood crime study is questionable; Second, while location quotients can be used to highlight the prevalent types of crime across urban neighbourhoods, they have limited use for the statistical analysis; and third, crime density focuses on the spatial intensity of crime and is more appropriate as the indicator of neighbourhood level crime than population-standardized crime rates and location quotients. This article not only presents important insights into the enhanced interpretation of the geography of neighbourhood crime, but also can be considered as testing the social disorganization theory and routine activity theory by using different measures instead of crime rates. Policy implications pertaining to neighbourhood crime mapping and law enforcement intervention are discussed at the end.
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Any Number You Want? The Impact of Data Cleaning on Internal Validity
By Aidan Wilcox, University of Huddersfeld, UK.

Concerns about the internal validity of reconviction studies tend to focus on factors such as initial comparability of groups. Often overlooked is the impact that data preparation can have. Data preparation refers to the decisions taken by researchers regarding which offenders to retain in the sample for analysis. Using data relating to a sample of offenders in two police forces, it is shown that these decisions, even when applied equally to both groups, can impact differentially on reconviction rates, weakening a study’s internal validity. Implications of the findings are considered and recommendations made to improve the transparency of the process.
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Culture of Crime Control: Through a Post-Foucauldian Lens
By Tim Owen, University of Central Lancashire, UK.

The paper identifies the broad organising ideas relating to David Garland’s (2001) ‘Culture of Control’ thesis. The critique respectfully identifies some theoretical deficits within Garland’s use of Foucauldian concepts pertaining to power, discourse, the conflation of agency and structure etcetera. Several post-Foucauldian ‘modifications’ are recommended including the use of some insights from Owen’s (2006a) Genetic-Social approach and Layder’s (1997) notion of Psychobiography. The findings of this conceptual and theoretical approach illustrate that Garland’s thesis would be enhanced by a post-Foucauldian, metatheoretical emphasis upon the dialectical relationship between the systemic and relational aspects of power; dualism; Psychobiography; and an anti-reductionist critique of agency-structure, micro-macro and time-space of the kind associated with the work of Owen (ibid) and Sibeon (1996, 2004).
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Alley-Gating Revisited: The Sustainability of Resident’s Satisfaction?
By Rachel Armitage & Hannah Smithson, University of Huddersfield, UK.

Alleys (snickets, ginnels, backways) are particularly common in British industrial cities and were originally designed to allow access to the rear of properties by coalmen and refuse collectors. Although alleys are still useful to allow residents access to the rear of their property without walking through the house, they also provide a means of entry and escape for offenders. Alley-gating is a crime reduction measure that involves the installation of a lockable gate across an alley, preventing access for anyone who does not have a key. This paper presents the findings of a study undertaken to examine the sustainability of Liverpoool’s Alley-gating scheme (a robust evaluation of Liverpool’s scheme was undertaken in 2002 see Young et al, 2003; Bowers et al, 2004). It specifically reports on the results of a residents’ survey undertaken in gated and non-gated areas. The findings are compared with those from 2002. The results suggest that the positive impacts on perceptions of crime and anti-social behaviour, and experience of crime and anti-social behaviour have been maintained over a four year period in Liverpool.
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Risk, Respectability and Responsibilisation: Unintended driver responses to speed limit enforcement
by Helen Wells, Centre for Criminological Research, Institute of Law, Politics and Justice, Keele University, UK.

A preoccupation with risk as a rationale for enforcement has led to significant changes in both the practice of control and the experience of being controlled. A concern with risk, howsoever caused, has led to whole new populations being drawn within the state's regulatory gaze and prosecuted under strict liability laws. The use of speed cameras to enforce speed limits has been one such development which has been the subject of intense public debate. This paper situates this controversy within a risk framework and explores the way in which drivers who describe themselves, in various ways, as 'respectable' have responded to this new role as a ‘risky’, rather than ‘at risk’, population. The negative consequences associated with being identified as a source of risk have, it is suggested, allowed drivers to re-conceptualise themselves as the victim, rather than cause, of risk on the roads. They have then been able to reject responsibility for risk while enthusiastically pursuing methods of responsibilisation which protect them from it.
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Old Age and Victims: A Critical Exegesis and an Agenda for Change
by Jason Powell, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, and Azrini Wahidin, Centre for Criminal Justice at University of Central England, UK.

The elderly population merits more sustained sociological and criminological investigation because in western societies and globally the general population is both ageing and growing in size. This article critically analyses issues of old age and crime, focusing upon old age and victimisation, fear of crime and ageing offenders. The article sets out a proposed agenda for change in the focus of the criminal justice system, with a call for research to better inform policy and practice in this strangely neglected but increasingly important area of ageing and crime.
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Dynamic Strategies to Legitimise Deviant Behaviour of Street Culture Youth By Dr Steffen Zdun, academic member of staff, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

This article focuses upon street-level violence, particularly upon issues of guilt neutralization and offending legitimization. Primarily, the paper is a synthesis of findings from the author’s empirical research in the field of youth violence and his in-depth critical examination of the published literature in this area. The paper asks some telling questions about what is currently known about offender guilt-neutralization and legitimization at various points before, during and after violent crimes. Ultimately, the author argues for the need to develop criminological theory and undertake more research to better understand the dynamic strategies that offenders employ to legitimize their violent offending.
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Postmodern Policies? The Erratic Interventions of Constitutive Criminolgy By Mark Cowling, Reader in Criminology, School of Social Sciences and Law, University of Teesside, UK.

The constitutive criminology of Henry and Milovanovic and associated writers is the most positive and systematic attempt to develop a postmodern criminology. One way in which to judge a new departure of the sort is in terms of its results: what interventions, what ideas about policy or politics, does it offer in contrast to its antecedents? This article starts by very briefly outlining the theoretical foundations of constitutive criminology, which it identifies as a particular interpretation of Lacan, matched with chaos theory. It then reviews some of the main interventions proposed by constitutive criminologists. It argues that these add little to existing radical ideas, except for a potentially disastrous fascination with far-from-equilibrium conditions.
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SELF-HELP AS AN EXPLANATION FOR VIOLENCE AMONG FEMALE INMATES: A Preliminary Assesment. By M. Dyan McGuire, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Saint Louis University, USA.

Data were gathered from 52 female inmates residing in two women’s prisons located in Missouri, USA, through semi-structured interviews in order to document the existence of violence among female inmates and to evaluate causes of such violence. Donald Black’s self help theory was used as a paradigm for evaluating causes of violence among female inmates. The results of this study suggest that violence among female inmates is more common than typically assumed. The results also suggest that Black’s theory may account for the large amount of violence associated with homosexual relationships but is unable to explain the existence of predatory violence aimed at forcibly acquiring property or accomplishing sexual assault. Prison policies including those prohibiting homosexual conduct and the apparent de facto policy of punishing everyone involved in a fight may be unwittingly contributing to the problem of violence among female inmates. Possible reforms that might be helpful are discussed and analyzed.
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SURVEILLANCE THROUGH CARE AND CONTROL: The Case of the Mentally Ill in Madison and Britain. By Mike Stephens, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at Loughborough University.

Increasing moral panic in Britain, fuelled by newspaper reports of ‘innocent’ victims being murdered by persons with serious mental illness failed by the system of community care, has led the government to consider the introduction of greater powers of compulsory treatment and detention for such individuals. Government plans have encountered much opposition in Britain, in particular from mental health professionals and those concerned with civil liberties. The government insists that the community care of the most seriously and potentially dangerous mental health consumers has failed. Its draft powers of compulsion are one further example of a gradual drift in Britain towards mounting surveillance of difficult groups not on an inclusive and caring basis but on an approach dependent on exclusionary and compulsory means, many of which have implications for civil liberties. However, in contrast to the government’s position, there is at least one place, Madison, Wisconsin, where a most successful system of community care for persons with mental illness can be found. There, even the most seriously ill individuals are frequently treated in the community so that they can exercise their civil rights to enjoy as normal and independent a life as possible.
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Behaviour on London Buses and Tubes: Three Cases of Incivility By Simon Mackenzie, Lecturer in Criminology, School of Criminology, Education, Sociology and Social Work, Keele University

This paper reports observational data recorded on three journeys on London’s public transport network in 2004. The data is reported as experience in an approach that attempts, in the phenomenological vein, to bring the incidents to life for the reader. The strong subjectivity in this approach to the write up of data is then tempered by a more objective analysis of the three events. In this, the paper explores a link between the highly subjective, micro-level data, and the structuring propensities of the market. The ‘marketisation’ of emotion is argued to have structuring effects on morality as it is constructed and manipulated at an individual level.
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A Deadly Faith in Fakes: Trademark Theft and the Global Trade in Counterfeit Automotive Components By Dr Majid Yar, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SPSSR), University of Kent at Canterbury

Intellectual property (IP) crime remains as yet a marginal topic in sociological and criminological investigation. This neglect is due in part to the perception that such offences are ‘non-serious’ and/or ‘victimless’. This paper sets out to challenge such assumptions by examining a particular instance of IP crime, namely the counterfeiting of dangerous goods, and in particular the counterfeiting of automotive components. It is argued that such activities, now globally widespread, carry both significant economic costs, and that they pose substantial risks to public health and safety. Some of the key drivers of this trade are analysed, along with recent developments in law, policing, crime control and technological innovation that aim to curtail the counterfeiting of these and other dangerous counterfeit products. It is argued that IP crime comprises a socially significant and sociologically challenging phenomenon, one that deserves concerted attention from those working in the sociology of crime, law, health, risk, technology and political economy.
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Bulldog Whistling: Criminalization of Young Lebanese-Australian Rugby League Fans
by Scott Poynting, School of Humanities, University of Sydney, Australia.

This article traces the course of a series of moral panics over the banding together, group identification and collective action of certain groups of young people - mainly young men - in and around some mass sporting events in New South Wales, Australia, in 2001-4. It could be a story of ‘football hooliganism’, except that the sport is not football (or ‘soccer’, as it is known in Australia), but rugby league. That such ‘collective behaviour’ had been relatively unknown in this sporting milieu in Australia provided the opportunity for the racialized ‘othering’ of those labelled as deviant, in the context of the construction of the ‘Arab Other’ (and later the Muslim Other) as the pre-eminent folk demon of contemporary Australia.
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Restorative Justice and Three Individual Theories of Crime
by Greg Mantle (Anglia Polytechnic University, UK), Darrell Fox (Youth Offending Team Practitioner) and Mandeep K. Dhami (Assistant Professor of Legal Psychology, University of Victoria, Canada.).

This paper first reviews the concept of restorative justice, and then examines the affinities and tensions between restorative justice and three ‘individual’ criminological theories: classicism, individual positivism, and ‘law and order’ conservatism. These theories have been selected because of their significance in the development of present criminal justice policies.
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Of Targets and Supertargets: A Routine Activity Theory of High Crime Rates
by Ken Pease & Graham Farrell (Loughborough University), Ken Clark (University of Manchester) and Dan Ellingworth (Manchester Metropolitan University).

The notion of supertargets is introduced for the first time in this paper to refer to the 3 or 4 percent of chronically victimised targets that account for around 40 percent of crime victimisation. The esteemed authors demonstrate that theory-testing relating to crime requires the inclusion of the crime concentration rate to incorporate repeat victimisation and they indicate how mathematical modelling may, in turn, illuminate the crime concentration predictions of routine activity theory.
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'Race', Ethnicity and the Courts by Tahir Abbas, University of Birmingham

This paper discusses findings that have emerged from the Department for Constitutional Affairs (formerly the Lord Chancellor’s Department) Courts and Diversity Research Programme. During 1999-2003 four projects were commissioned, completed by academic researchers and published by the department. This paper explores the background issues to the research programme, the specific area of ethnicity within the criminal justice system, and addresses the implications of findings for socio-legal research evidenced-based policy.
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Rebels with a Cause, Folk Devils without a Panic: Press jingoism, policing tactics and anti-capitalist protest in London and Prague by Fiona Donson (Cardiff University), Graeme Chesters (Edge Hill College), Ian Welsh (Cardiff University) and Andrew Tickle (CPRE)

This paper examines whether anti-capitalist political activists are (mis)constructed as ‘folk devils’, through an examination of media coverage in the UK and Czech Republic. The construction, of such protestors, as violent criminals and dangerous ‘anarchists’ has, it is argued, influenced their treatment at protests by public authorities in London and Prague. The paper also offers, in juxtaposition to this representation of the current anti-capitalism movement, a discussion of the accounts of activists themselves. In particular it examines the activists’ own perceptions of their engagement in the global social movement against capitalism. The paper is based on evidence drawn from the preliminary findings of interdisciplinary research into global social movements, and in particular the protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Prague in September 2000.
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Where Do We Go From Here? Researching Hate Crime by Barbara Perry, Northern Arizona University.

This paper identifies several strangely neglected areas of hate crime scholarship, including the lack of critical reflection on the usefulness of the term “hate crime” as a descriptor of bias motivated behavior. Concerning measurement issues, concepts and causes, hate groups, responses to hate crimes and comparative scholarship, there are many gaps in our knowledge that are avenues for further enquiry. In particular, we have failed to examine the specificity of the bias crime experiences of diverse victim groups.
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A Tale of Two Anomies by Roger Hopkins Burke and Edward Pollock, both at Nottingham Trent University

“Hate crime scholars have largely avoided thinking about the phenomenon from a sociologically and theoretically informed perspective. What this paper does is state explicitly what many authors have merely implied: that bias motivated crime is in fact a normative response to one’s culturally, socially and economically situated experience. In short, this work seeks to explicate the utility of variants of strain theory as accounts of hate crime … In short, this is one of the most exciting papers on hate crime that I have read in some time. It adds something new and vital to the literature. I fully hope that it opens up a dialogue on the application of theory to understanding this persistent problem.”

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Interactive Race and Gender Differences: Models of Bias by Dr Dyan McGuire, St Louis University, USA

Dyan McGuire's paper is based on a sample of 64,466 young people referred to the juvenile court of Missouri USA in 1997. This important paper uncovers the complex nature of racial and gender bias in the court's decision making. Perhaps the most important finding is that, controlling for other important variables such as offence and offending history, Black males and Black and White females are disadvantaged by the courts decision making regarding detention and are treated less favourably than White males.
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Understanding King Punisher and His Order: Vandalism in an Online Community - Motives, Meanings and Possible Solutions by Matthew Williams, Cardiff University.

This article makes one of the most significant contributions to undertanding motivation for vandalism, and the characteristics of its group dynamics, since Stan Cohen's (1973) "Property Destruction: Motives and Meanings". Dr Mathew William's work shows how much things have changed in the last 30 years since Professor Cohen wrote that vandalism requires little technical know-how.
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Women Inside and Out by Helen Codd.
Although a substantial body of research has been published in the UK documenting the challenges faced by the female partners of male prisoners, little of this research has been feminist in its aims or methods. This article argues that, from a feminist perspective, there are certain commonalities between these two aspects of women’s interactions with imprisonment. Through an analysis of one issue, that is, the struggle for identity, the author argues that women in prison and the female partners of imprisoned men have more in common than has previously been explored in the published literature.

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Anti-Semitism and the Christian Right in post-Miloševic Serbia by Jovan Byford.

This paper proposes that understanding the causes of anti-Semitic hate crime requires the recognition of the cultural specificity of anti-Semitism, reflected in its unique mythical and conspiratorial nature. By neglecting to consider the idiosyncrasies of anti-Semitic rhetoric, general theories of hate crime often fail to provide an adequate explanation for the persistence of anti-Jewish violence, especially in cultures where Jews do not constitute a conspicuous minority, or where there is no noticeable tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment.
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The Evolution of Hate by David Mann, Mike Sutton and Rachel Tuffin.

This article examines the activities of white racists and racialists and how these activities have expanded since the invention of the World Wide Web and Internet newsgroups. The paper provides useful insights into the social dynamics of white racist and anti-racist activists in Internet newsgroups.
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