International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory (IJCST - York University)
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Policing as Myth: Narrative and Integral Approaches to Police Identity and Culture
Full text linkThe role of police in US society remains a topic of ongoing controversy and discussion in both field literature and popular media. The multiple roles of police officers span from coercive instruments of social control (backed by state-sanctioned powers to use force), to suppressors of crime and disorder, to agents of social service and community assistance. Police culture and identity is discussed here as functions of persistent myths and archetypes as filtered through Graves, Beck and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics theory of development. In addition, Wilber’s Integral meta-theory and elements of narrative psychology serve as appropriate theoretical mechanisms to organize and examine the roots and characteristics of police identity and culture
The Agony of Injustice: The Adversarial Trial, Wrongful Convictions and the Agon of Law
Full text linkThis study examines the relationship between the adversarial legal system and wrongful convictions. Understanding the shortcomings of legal procedure as a contest, (especially in cases involving marginalized defendants), can be illuminated through a critical agonal analysis that reveals power imbalances and rule breaking. The paper addresses the trial of William Mullins-Johnson, a Canadian aboriginal man who spent 12 years incarcerated for a crime that never took place. The court is examined as an agonal space of contestation where victory in the adversarial trial is equated with factual, actionable truth. The analysis invokes the critical theory of agonism prefigured in Foucault’s under-explored theory of power as a ‘clash between forces.’ Although the adversarial system is premised on the value of fair play, the winner-loser structure can invite rule-breaking and violations of due-process to the gross disadvantage of the accused thereby reproducing forms of systemic discrimination and horrific miscarriages of justice. The aim of the study is not to provide a full synopsis of the Mullins-Johnson case but to suggest that agonistic theory can make critical contributions to understanding of the relation between adversarial legal contests and wrongful convictions
Socio-economic costs of Security Services Outsourcing in Selected Institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria
Full text linkThe transition of campus security services to outsourced services, occasioned by 2005 Nigeria’s national policy on public service reform, created problems about its form, content and context. Previous studies on Security Services Outsourcing (SSO) concentrated more on the Information Communications Technology aspect without commensurate attention on the socio-economic costs of human security services. This study examined the socio-economic costs of SSO in the Federal Tertiary Educational Institutions (FTEIs) in Ogun State, Nigeria. The conflict perspective was adopted as the framework while the design was survey. Multistage sampling method, which consisted of purposive, stratified and random sampling techniques, was used. The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta; Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro and; Federal College of Education, Abeokuta were utilised for the study. Questionnaires were administered on 783 respondents selected through stratified and random sampling methods. Eight Key Informant Interviews and eight In-Depth Interviews were conducted with the management and stakeholders in each of the FTEIs. The socio-economic costs of SSO included engagement of police personnel during examinations, recruitment of non-professional security personnel and divided loyalty. The security services of the FTEIs were constrained by the manifest and latent socio-economic costs. The study recommended that the outsourcing policy be comprehensively reviewed
Inequities in Social Determinants of Health Factors and Criminal Behavior: A Case Study of Immigrant Ex-Offenders
Full text linkWhen immigrants arrive in a new country, they often discover that being an immigrant does not allow them to integrate easily into the new society. Immigrant offenders are more likely to engage in criminal behaviors due to inequities in social determinants of health factors as a source of strain. This study was focused on utilizing the personal experiences of immigrant offenders to discover the various circumstances that contributed to their criminal behavior. General Strain Theory has been shown to be a useable theoretical model in explaining the relationship between race/ethnicity and criminal behavior. The participants in this study were adult immigrant ex-offenders in the province of Alberta, Canada. The results of the study indicated a consensus among ex-offenders that there are social determinants of health factors such as stress, income problem, education issues, employment issue, and health risk behaviors that have led them to commit crime. The recommendations presented below are divided into three groups. Recommendations include: (a) future research in federal, provincial and territorial correctional systems, (b) identification of multiple risk factors that lead an individual to commit crime, (c) crime prevention strategies that help prevent criminal behavior for immigrants.
Cyber Violence: Towards a Predictive Model Drawing Upon Genetics, Psychology and Neuroscience
Full text linkThe following paper outlines the latest incarnation of Owen’s (2014) evolving, meta-theoretical, Genetic-Social framework, and the intention is to illustrate the explanatory potential of the sensitizing device, in particular meta-constructs such as the biological variable (the evidence from behavioural genetics for an, at least in part, biological influence upon human behaviour), psychobiography (the unique, asocial, inherited aspects of the person such as disposition), and neuro-agency (a new term which acknowledges the influence of neurons upon human ‘free-will’), in the task of conceptualising cyber violence. In what follows, cyber violence is reconceptualised, moving the definition beyond the usual notion of gendered online violence towards a broader conception which incorporates hate trolling, cyber-terrorism, predatory online sexual ‘grooming’ and so on. It is the contention here that the synthesis ‘applied’ to cyber violence via flexible causal prediction may be of use to criminological theorists, social policy-makers and practitioners working in the field of the criminal justice in the task of constructing predictive models of cyber violence
Towards a more Profound Understanding of the Problem of Criminality and Recidivism in Terms of Consumption and Fashion
Full text linkThe overarching aim of this article is to explore the recidivism sequence as one of the largest problems for correctional ambitions in Western countries. Criminals are identified by a qualitative method called ‘thick description’, which is a deep and detailed description of those criminals. This is also a method in the identification of unaffected fashion, which is generally based on change, group identification and art. The results show that the effects of perceived threats to identity and self-esteem are associated with group membership and fashion statements. The recidivism frequency and its reality are due to an authenticity and the true self, which is not subject to ambivalence in the case of criminals and their role in the society as such. The conclusion is that we cannot, as paradoxical as it may seem, cure the recidivism problem in the world of criminals. This is because an authenticity based on the true self (a self-concept), anchored in the definition of fashion and the wider society as such, cannot easily be changed.
Crime by Youth: Easy Money Spurs to Chain Snatchers
Full text linkYouth offenders are finding chain snatching lucrative them ever before because of quick returns. Now even the time of the day does not matter to offenders, when it comes to chain snatching. A single stolen gold chain could fetch anywhere between Rs. 5,000 to 50,000. Chain snatchers have fixed ‘agents’ in the market who buy the stolen gold from them for a good sum. This paper addresses the different techniques and reasons for chain snatching. The study involved 325 cases of chain snatching which were reported in print media in five years. The data was analysed by using content analysis method. The result shows that the mainly motorbike riders youth were the offenders of chain snatching. Preventive measures and effective solutions to social problems are easy to find where the root causes of such problems are established.
A “Criminal Immigrant” Mindset and Punitiveness: The Canadian Case
Full text linkUnnever and Cullen (2010) argue that there is a “culturally universal” relationship between racial/ethnic/immigrant animus and general punitiveness. Because this thesis seems ill-fitting to Canada’s multicultural society, we re-examine the connection in Canada between punitiveness and intolerance associated with new immigrants. We do this by expanding their multivariate analyses of the Canadian case to consider additional data sources spanning the first decade of this century, and by testing directly their thesis that the relationship is mediated by citizens imputing criminal activity to negatively-viewed outgroups. We show that the relationship between immigrant intolerance and punitiveness reported in their original research for the year 2000 remains strong in 2004, 2008 and 2011 and resists explanation in terms of potentially relevant third variables. Our supplementary study examining the capacity of a criminal immigrant mindset variable to mediate this association shows that mediation is partial only. We conclude (1) that outgroup animus and general punitiveness are indeed related in the Canadian case, (2) that there is modest support for the Unnever/Cullen account of that relationship, but (3) that most of the original relationship remains unexplained
A Geo-Statistical Approach for Crime hot spot Prediction
Full text linkCrime hot spot prediction is a challenging task in present time. Effective models are needed which are capable of dealing with large amount of crime dataset and prediction of future crime location. Spatio-temporal data mining are very much useful for dealing with the geographical crime data. In this paper sparse matrix analysis based spatial clustering technique for serial crime prediction model is used. Firstly, crime data are preprocessed through various distribution techniques and then sparse matrix analysis based spatial clustering technique are applied on a four years time series data from 2010 to 2014 for the major cities of India like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai to find out the hotspot location for next year, after that three clustering techniques are used to grouping similar crime incident, at last cluster results obtained by original and proposed dataset are compared. The main objective of this research is applying crime prediction technique, forecast and detect the future crime location and its probability
A Qualitative Exploration of the Coping Strategies of Female Offenders in Nigerian Prisons
Full text linkDeprivation and importation theories propose that the experience and adjustment of inmates to prison life is dependent on the restrictive prison milieu and their pre-prison experiences and orientation. This implies that prison’s sub-culture mediate the relationship between demographic characteristics and adjustment to prison life. Although this core assumption underlies both theories, few researchers have attempted to test its validity, while those that does have largely focused on male offenders. Guided by an integration of the two theories, this current study explored the specific gender-related challenges that female inmates of Nigerian prisons are confronted with and the adjustment measures adopted by female prisoners. Qualitative, in-depth oral interviews were employed to gather information from 32 purposively selected female inmates and six prison officials of Ijebu-Ode and Old Abeokuta prisons. There are evidential supports for the integrative/alliance theory as key findings of this study confirm determinants of adjustability of the inmates to prison life as including age, level of religious commitment, years of incarceration, prison history, and pre-prison experience like socioeconomic, marital (especially those with children) and educational status. Various strategies used to adjust to prison life by the inmates included self-withdrawal, indulgence and some level of social reclusion (asceticism); forging cordial relationships with fellow inmates and staff; and participating very actively in the religious programmes within the prisons. The study suggests that both government and nongovernmental organisations should intervene and develop social supports that recognise the biogenic peculiarities of female inmates in order for the prisons to meet the two objectives of rehabilitating and reforming the female offenders.