International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory (IJCST - York University)
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Armed Robbery and Armed Robbers in Contemporary Nigeria: The social learning and model visited
Full text linkThis present study aligns with the age-long calls for the study of criminal behaviour in different societies as both distinct and the consequence of rapid socio-culture, political, and economic changes blowing over these societies (Clifford 1965; Bennett 1980; Brown, Esbensen and Geis 1991). It succinctly highlights, the ubiquity of armed robbery in contemporary Nigeria, and noting some of its unique characteristics in contemporary Nigeria, the paper holds that both the offence and offenders combine characteristic elements of the western archetype and local (Nigerian) traits. Drawing 86 samples of armed robbers from three selected prisons in the southeastern states of Nigeria, the paper developed a model referred to as “emulation” which offers a far reaching explanation of current robbery in Nigeria. Using the Chi-square statistical test, sources of learning about robbery (independent variable) were weighted against some salient features of the offence such as planning operation, role played by gang members, and reasons for involvement (dependent variables). Analyses of data provide findings which corroborate our constructed model. For instance, results suggest that offenders who learnt about robbery through reading and watching from the screens are more likely to carry weapons, plan operation, share roles, and have unemployment as their major reason for involvement in robbery
A Comparison of the Personality Characteristics of Delinquent and Non-Delinquent Juveniles of Tehran, Iran
Full text linkThe current paper aims to compare the personality characteristics of delinquent and non-delinquent juveniles of Tehran. For this purpose, a sample volume of 100 individuals from which 50 ones were selected by available sampling method from the delinquent juvenile population of Tehran correctional center and the other 50 individuals were selected by random sampling method from non-delinquent juvenile population of Tehran high schools. Research materials include NEO-FFI Personality Questionnaire that after being administered to both groups, the statistical parametric independent t test method was applied to confirm or reject the research hypotheses. The research findings suggest significant differences between the delinquent and non-delinquent juveniles from the aspects of neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. But there were no meaningful differences between the two groups related to extroversion and four hypotheses out of five were confirmed. Consequently the delinquent juveniles possess more neuroticism and less openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness compared to the non-delinquent juveniles
A Study of Human Rights Violation by Police in India
Full text linkIn India, an attempt has been made since 1999 to gather information on details of cases where human rights were violated due to Police excesses such as `Illegal Detentions’, `Fake Encounters’, `Extortion’, `Torture’, etc. by National Crime Record Bureau, New Delhi and National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi, Under Home Ministry, Government of India. The details are presented by NCRB’s Crime in India Report 2008, that as per the report 253 cases of Human Rights Violation by Police were reported throughout the country during 2008. Only 14 Policemen were charge-sheeted and only 08 of them were convicted for these Human Rights Violations during the year. Chhattisgarh has reported the maximum 233 cases (92.1% of such cases). 59 out of 253 cases were reported under crime head ‘Torture’. 39 and 33 cases were reported underthe head of ‘Extortion’ and ‘Failure in taking action’ respectively. 25 cases reported under the head of ‘False implication’. On the other hand, also Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its latest report Torture in India 2009 states that in the last eight years (from April 2001 to March 2009), an estimated 1,184 persons were killed in police custody in India. Most of the victims were killed as a result of torture within the first 48 hours after being taken into custody. The official data available with (TwoCircles.net) says every second police encounter that takes place in the country is fake. Colonial-era police laws enable state and local politicians to interfere routinely in police operations, sometimes directing police officers to drop investigations against people with political connections, including known criminals, and to harass or file false charges against political opponents. These practices corrode public confidence
Choice-Makers and Risk-Takers in Neo-Liberal Liquid Modernity: The Contradiction of the “Entrepreneurial” Sex Worker
Full text linkThe transformation from a welfare-based to a neo-liberal society, from a solid to liquid (post) modernity, has reconfigured the social category of the individual into one that is highly individualized, fragmented, commercialized and entangled in consumer culture. In this society individuals are conceptualized as being rational choice-makers and entrepreneurs – sifting through the multiple options available in order to appropriate the identity(ies)/role that will maximize benefits and minimize harms. Some identities, however, are still solid, unable to escape stigmatization and exclusion. Using the image of ‘the sex worker’, this paper aims to deconstruct this contradiction questioning why, under a socio-political system that values individuals who become entrepreneurs and take advantage of consumerism in a manner which maximizes financial benefits and minimizes risks, have sex workers not been redefined in this context? Rather, extending from Bauman’s (2007a) characterization of consumerism’s collateral casualties, they have come to be seen as ‘inconspicuous’ non-consumers
Teaching Reading with a Critical Attitude: Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to Raise EFL University Students’ Critical Language Awareness (CLA)
Full text linkThis study was planned to investigate the importance of raising students’ critical thinking through explicit teaching of some techniques of critical discourse analysis (CDA). This study aimed to detect any change in the English BA students’ abilities in revealing the hidden layers of meaning implied in the texts. There was an attempt in this study to investigate any change both in students’ views toward learning English language and in their critical language awareness (CLA) before and after teaching critical reading (CR) through CDA techniques. To this end, three paired news articles were provided from different online news sources. Each pair of the first two pairs of news articles dealt with the same subject. Two articles of each pair were selected from two different news sources; online editions of Press TV and BBC. These news sources usually have different perspectives on different issues. The third pair of news reports which had similar subjects was selected from the English newspaper of New York Times. The participants were 60 BA English students studying in University of Kashan. They studied in the fifth and seventh terms. Before teaching CDA techniques, students were asked to analyze these articles critically. After teaching these techniques, they analyzed the same texts for the second time. Then they responded to a questionnaire to reveal any change in their attitudes toward English language learning or any increase in their motivation to learn it. After the examination of students’ analyses and the investigation of their answers given to the questionnaire, it was revealed that CLA of about 90٪ of students increased. Their motivation also increased in learning English language after becoming familiar with the field of CDA
Interpreting Honor Crimes: The Institutional Disregard Towards Female Victims of Family Violence in the Middle East
Full text linkDespite international efforts to combat violence against women, women in some parts of the Middle East continue to suffer the most extreme form of degradation – honor crimes. These women are also victims of systematic discrimination due to the institutional failure to protect them against violence. This paper explores how the institutional disregard toward perpetrators of honor crimes are rooted in conventional values and policies that are justified by social norms and existing penal codes. Last, the paper will offers areas of further inquiry which could help to understand this phenomenon in terms of gender threat and social control towards women
Police-public relations: Perceptions of the police among university students in a western Canadian city
Full text linkUsing data collected from a survey of 501 university students in a western Canadian city, this article examines the perceptions of the police among young adults and factors that contributed to the variation in their evaluations of the police. Results demonstrated that respondents held moderately positive attitudes toward the police. Multiple ordinary least-squares regression analysis demonstrated that religious affiliation, personal safety, property crime victimization, violent crime victimization, contact with the police, and police harassment or mistreatment experience were found to be significantly associated with perceptions of police performance, whereas age, religious affiliation, violent crime victimization, contact with the police, and police harassment or mistreatment experience were found to be significantly related to perceptions of police treatment of minorities.
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Interracial Unions with White Partners and Racial Profiling: Experiences and perspectives
Full text linkOver the past decade racial profiling has received much scholarly and public attention. Our study explores the awareness, perspectives and experiences of the individuals in interracial unions with White partners. We found most White partners’ awareness and objection to racial profiling arose from vicarious experiences with racialized partners who are subjected to everyday racism including racial profiling. White women, in general, exhibited a fairly high degree of anxiety about their partners being racially profiled. Women ‘of colour’ exhibited varied levels of awareness and experience with racial profiling. Most men ‘of colour’ in our study experienced racial profiling, but two provisionally accommodated themselves to the practice. Our study indicates few couples felt they were racially profiled because of their mixed union though couples with young Black men and White women were the exception. All couples experienced overt and covert forms of discrimination and some felt their hypervisibility as interracial couples opened them to consistent regulatory surveillance. We describe the latter as a process of ‘repressive tolerance’ and offer thoughts on future study. This research suggests racial profiling and repressive tolerance have points of convergence in how interracial couples make sense of law enforcement and their place in Canadian society
Full Moon Days and Crime: Is there any association?
Full text linkIt is been reported that full moon is associated with increase in crimes. Aim of this study was to see whether there is any connection between full moon and crimes reported in medico legal register of tertiary health care centre? All the crime related events were noted from central medico-legal register from the record section of hospital in a predesigned proforma. Crime events were compared between full moon days and non full moon days. Crimes were also compared after stratification on the basis of days of week. Events reported as frequencies. Frequencies of full moon days and non full moon days were compared by Chi-Square test. There was no significant difference of crimes events on full moon days and non full moon days (p = 0.07). On stratification there was no difference between full moon day of week and same non full moon day of week except on Wednesday. It was concluded that crimes events are not related with full moon days.
A new approach to identify crimes in Iranian society: Forensic Linguistics
Full text linkForensic linguistics is a discipline coordinated with legal goals in the judicial system, focusing on all branches of linguistics including phonetics, semantics, discourse and etc. This science is not so known in Iran; where as, it can have a lot of applications in judicial system. The authors aim to show how linguistic tools can help the jury and judges especially when there are no clear and typical available proof and documents. Having observed more than 50 live cases in courts and police stations, the authors draw this conclusion that linguistic parameters like semantic tools (meaning of verb), syntactic tools (mood of verb), discoursal tools (power relation)… can be effective to identify and analyze crimes