1,721,172 research outputs found
The'dream'of multi-agency crime prevention : pitfalls in policy and practice
No full textDuring the 1980s, terms such as interagency or multi-agency cooperation, collaboration, coordination, and interaction have became permanent features of both crime prevention rhetoric and government crime policy. The concept of having the government, local authorities, and the community working in partnership has characterized both left and right politics for over a decade. The U.S. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals in the U.S.. Circulars 8/84 and 44/90 released by the U.K. Home Office, and the British Morgan Report-coupled with the launch of government strategies in France, the Netherlands, England and Wales, Australia, and, more recently, in Belgium, New Zealand, and Canada-have all emphasized the importance of agencies working together to prevent or reduce crime. This paper draws upon recent Australian research and critically analyzes multi-agency crime prevention. It suggests that agency conflicts and power struggles may be exacerbated by neo-liberal economic theory, by the politics of crime prevention management, and by policies that aim to combine situational and social prevention endeavors. Furthermore, it concludes that indigenous peoples are excluded by crime prevention strategies that fail to define and interpret crime and its prevention in culturally appropriate ways
Global Lessons from Fitzgerald: From State and National to Global Integrity Systems
No full textNo Full Tex
The Prevention of Police Corruption and Misconduct: A Criminological Analysis of Complaints Against Police
No full textThe reform measures recommended by the Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (referred to as the "Fitzgerald Inquiry") radically transformed the face of policing in Queensland. The most significant of these recommendations was the establishment of an external oversight body, the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), which has independence from executive government and holds the power to investigate not only police but any public servant or politician. Other recommendations included "Whistleblower" legislation, increasing sanctions for serious misconduct, lateral recruitment and promotion by merit rather than seniority. The first main research question tested in this thesis is whether these reform measures have produced improvements in the following areas: the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes for dealing with complaints against police; public confidence in those processes and the public standing of the Queensland Police Service (QPS) generally; standards of police behaviour; the incidence of corrupt conduct; and police attitudes towards reporting misconduct by their fellow officers. These Fitzgerald Inquiry reforms were strategies primarily derived from two schools of thought describing the nature and cause of police corruption: deterrence based theory (including "individual" or "rotten apple" theory) and cultural (also labeled "cultural" or "socialisation") based theory. To date most strategies used to combat police corruption have been underpinned by these theories. A third theory - situational based theory (sometimes titled "environmental" or "opportunity" theory) - which has had success in crime prevention, has been scarcely used in the area of police corruption. However, an extensive body of research has affirmed the effects of situational factors on police behaviour, suggesting the potential for the application of situational crime prevention initiatives in combatting police corruption. The second research question proposed in this thesis is whether situational based theory could also be beneficial in the prevention of police corruption. Data drawn upon to test the first research question were interviews and surveys with police officers, public attitude surveys and statistics from the processing of complaints against police. Although each source has limitations, collectively the data are sufficiently comprehensive - and robust - to defend conclusions about the general direction of the changes which have occurred. These data indicate that the Fitzgerald Inquiry reforms have, at least to some degree, had their intended impact on the QPS. These reforms have contributed to an apparent improvement in public confidence in the complaints system and the QPS generally. Moreover, the available evidence suggests that the Fitzgerald Inquiry reforms have resulted in a weakening of the police code of silence. As far as the specific issue of corruption in the QPS is concerned, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from existing data sources. However, the weight of the available evidence is that such conduct is less pervasive and occurs at lower levels than was the case in the pre-Fitzgerald Inquiry QPS. It is very difficult to ascertain which reform components were the most effective and which were not helpful at all, as these reform measures were initiated simultaneously. For example, the negative elements of the police culture may have been eliminated or reduced but whether it was the cultural strategies or one of the deterrence based strategies influencing officer behaviour remains unknown. The second main research question the thesis poses is that the use of situational crime prevention techniques has potential for contributing to the prevention of police corruption. A situational analysis of complaints against police data, including the development of a typology for classifying types of police corruption and misconduct, was used as an example of how this may be accomplished in Queensland. The study provides some, albeit limited, support for the hypothesis that situational crime prevention methods are applicable to police corruption. Based upon three years of complaints data, enough homogenous cases were gathered to enable the analysis of four categories of police corruption - Opportunistic Thefts, Driving under the Influence, Assault (while off-duty), and Theft from Employer. Given that this study only used three years of complaints data held by the CJC and more than nine years of data exist, productive situational analyses of many other categories of corruption is probable. This study also illustrated that complaints against police data are being under utilised by the QPS and the CJC. For future research in the situational analysis of complaints data, I recommend improving the gathering of data from complaints files for storage in electronic form to enable situational prevention analysis to be conducted more readily. A geographical example was used to illustrate further how complaints against police data could be more extensively utilised as a prevention tool. This analysis was conducted at an organisation unit level determined primarily by geographical factors. The complaint patterns of units of similar "task environments", as measured by unit size and type of duties performed, were compared in an attempt to identify those units experiencing the presence or absence of "bad apples" or a "negative culture". This study led to the conclusion that a divisional analysis of complaints data can provide information valuable in combatting police corruption. When task environment was held constant, it was possible to identify units experiencing the effects of possible "bad apples" and/or "negative cultures". Once these particular units were identified, intervention strategies to address the units' particular problem could be constructed. Future research in this area would involve ongoing divisional data analysis followed-up by individual assessment of officers identified as "bad apples", or a "compare-and-contrast" procedure to distinguish features requiring correction in units identified as having a "negative culture". The research findings presented in this thesis are that progress has occurred in a number of areas in addressing the problems identified by the Fitzgerald Inquiry, but that there is undoubtedly scope for more to be achieved. Despite the very significant increase in the resources and powers available to investigators post-Fitzgerald, it is still difficult to prove that a police officer engaged in misconduct, or that other officers were aware of this fact and had failed to take action, because of the constraints imposed by evidentiary and legal requirements. Thus, while it is vital to maintain an effective and credible independent complaints investigation system and ensure that there is a proper internal discipline process in place, the scope for increasing the "deterrent power" of the present system is limited. Putting more resources into complaints investigations might make a difference at the margins, but is unlikely to lead to a significant increase in the probability of a complaint being substantiated and a sanction imposed. Investing more resources in investigations has an additional cost in that such resources are then lost to other efforts to combat corruption that may provide more fruitful results in the long term. The value of an occasional substantiation is placed above the ability to engage in a large amount of prevention work. Inevitably then, three clear messages are apparent. First, continued effort must be made to modify the organisational climate of the QPS in terms of commitment to integrity. Recommended strategies to accomplish this end are to continue the recruitment of more educated, female and older officers to reduce police-citizen conflict and the negative elements of the police culture, and also to develop a comprehensive, integrated approach to ethics education for QPS officers at all ranks and positions. Second, other forms of deterrence against misconduct are needed such as the use of covert strategies like integrity testing which could be conducted in conjunction with the CJC. Third, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on developing and implementing preventive strategies. This thesis has shown that valuable prevention strategies can be gained from situational and divisional analysis of complaints data, and a range of proactive management options based upon situational crime prevention theory are recommended. These strategies have application in any police service.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeArts, Education and LawFull Tex
Solving the problem of graffiti through crime prevention strategies
Full text linkThe Graffiti Alert Project is the first graffiti prevention program of its kind in Australia. It involves establishing contact with graffiti crews, utilising the services of community members in graffiti removal, the appointment of area supervisors to monitor incidence and repeat attacks, and the provision of legal venues for graffiti artists. A newsletter is distributed every t0 weeks and the Project is active in community education in schools and in the production of information packages. The Project is affiliated with the Gold Coast City Council (who supplies the removal materials) and with the local Police Community Liaison section. This practical, community-based Project utilises the strategies of situational crime prevention, demonstrates the success of removing 'broken windows', has avoided an escalation of violence by pre-empting the formation of vigilante groups and has provided young people in the area with employment and venues for their artwork. Evaluation of the Graffiti Alert Project has shown that there has been little displacement, that there has been an increase in community activity and participation, that young people have been employed to work on legal · venues, and that the re-offence rate has dropped in targeted areas. This paper describes the history of the Graffiti Alert Project, details the results of the evaluation studies to date, and analyses the Project in light of situational and community crime prevention theory and methods
From Policy To Practice: A Study of the Queensland Youth Justice Service: Policy, Implementation and Outcomes for Young Offenders
No full textThis thesis employs a broad evaluative framework to examine the impact of the Youth Justice Service (YJS) on the post-intervention offending behaviour of young people on community-based court orders. The YJS is a Queensland government policy initiative that aims to monitor compliance with community-based court orders, and identify and address causes of criminal behaviour. The evaluative framework views policy, implementation and impact as distinct but related dimensions of intervention. Reflecting this framework, three primary research questions are addressed: (1) Does the YJS concept represent a goal-directed, theoretically-informed, executable and assessable juvenile crime prevention policy?, (2) Is the YJS concept realised through service delivery?, and (3) What is the effect of the YJS on future offending behaviour? Three studies, employing qualitative and quantitative methods, examined these questions. Study one examined the YJS concept, drawing on some key themes from literature on policy development and implementation, developmental and life-course criminology and developmental crime prevention. This study synthesised key policy and procedure documents around six themes, including (1) rationale, (2) goals, (3) theory, (4) service delivery model, (5) method of operation, and (6) key performance indicators. Findings indicated that the YJS concept represents only marginal adjustments from the traditional Area Office (AO) model of service delivery, and integrates few new preventative mechanisms that would foreseeably lead to change at the operational level. Moreover, it suffers from goal ambiguity, fails to incorporate some key components of best-practice crime prevention that have proven successful when working with at-risk young people, lacks sufficient process-level specificity to ensure treatment fidelity, and places heightened importance on measuring impacts that have political value rather than benefits for the clients. In the second study, an in-depth case study of the Logan Area Youth Justice Service (LAYJS) was conducted to explore how the YJS operated in reality, and as compared with the policy directive. Information was drawn from a variety of sources including interviews with staff and clients, policy and procedure documents, direct observation, case management files and staff-researcher interaction. Evidence suggested that the LAYJS was focused primarily on ensuring compliance with court orders. Several organisational factors, such as staff workloads, the statutory basis for monitoring compliance, and the capacities of staff, have meant that comparatively little attention has been directed at addressing offending behaviour. For the most part, the LAYJS employs an individualised case management process, as distinct from the collaborative, team-based model that is prescribed in the YJS concept. Caseworkers have little faith in their ability to bring about positive behavioural change in their clients, and subsequently transferred the responsibility for intervention outcomes to the client. While acknowledging the importance of families in preventing offending, caseworkers emphasised that a number of organisational tensions have prevented them from engaging families in the case management process. The final study examined the impact of the YJS on post-intervention offending, controlling for developmental risk factors and key features of the intervention process. A random sample (N=190) of clients from three YJS offices and three AOs was drawn from the population of clients who had active community-based court orders between June 1999 and December 2002. Information from Department of Communities' case management files and rearrest data from the Queensland Police Service were entered into a purpose-designed database, and analysed using bivariate and multivariate methods including logistic regression and survival analysis. High proportions of missing data on non-statutory variables suggested poor record management practices, or alternatively that operational staff do not understand the role of developmental risk and/or protective factors and social contexts in preventing offending behaviour. Results indicated that the YJS was no better than the AO at preventing recidivism, as measured at 18-months post-intervention, even after controlling for risk factors that were significantly related to recidivism. The analyses found that some unmeasured variation in service delivery, even within service types, did impact upon recidivism, supporting the hypotheses of the first study and the contention that variation in intervention practice can influence offending behaviour. The likelihood of recidivism was increased if the client was using drugs or was influenced by delinquent peers, and decreased if he stayed in school until years 11 or 12, or where caseworkers addressed familial problems. This provides some sense of programs that may be appropriate for young offenders in the context of a community-based program. It also highlights the critical importance of incorporating families into case management, not only for the purpose of providing information, but also as viable targets of intervention. Survival analyses indicated that the YJS might have had some temporary deterrent effect, although this effect had dissipated by 18-months post-intervention. This result may reflect the increased focus on ensuring compliance with court orders as found in the LAYJS case study. However, given the hypothesis that the lack of process direction will result in variable practices across offices, it cannot be assumed that all YJSs place equal importance on compliance. Overall, findings suggest that the promise that the YJS would provide an innovative model of service delivery and generate improved outcomes for young offenders has not been realised. This research has added further weight to the perspective that examines both the individual and combined impact of theory, policy and implementation for measuring client outcomes. Deficits in any of these components ultimately have a ripple effect, making it difficult to achieve the predetermined goals of the policy at the operational level.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex
Defining and Measuring Persistent Offending
No full textBACKGROUND
Persistent offending has been a topic of interest in the criminal justice literature for some time. Despite its popularity, the concept remains without a consistent or agreed upon definition. For example, persistent offending has been variably defined as offending before and during adulthood (e.g., Bergman & Andershed, 2009), frequent offending (e.g., McGloin & Stickle, 2011), or an early age of first offence (e.g. Hay & Forrest, 2009). In turn, inconsistent methods have been used to operationalise and identify persistent offenders, such as offending before and after the age of 21 (Farrington, Ttofi, & Coid, 2009), the five percent most frequent offenders (Piquero & Lawton, 2002), and multiple offences committed before the age of 14 (Hagell & Newburn, 1994). The definitional inconsistency surrounding the concept of persistent offending poses a significant threat to the generalisability of research, accuracy of theory, and efficacy of policy and interventions. Although previous authors have highlighted their concerns regarding the methodological inconsistencies pertaining to research on persistent offending (Hagell & Newburn, 1994; Piquero, 2009), these concerns seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
AIMS
This dissertation argues that the use of inconsistent definitions and operationalisations of persistent offending are contributing to the inconsistent findings and competing explanations on the phenomenon. Therefore, more conceptual discussions and empirical observations drawing attention to the ramifications of this issue, as well as methods for rectifying the problem, are needed. Through a series of published and unpublished papers, this dissertation attempts to meet this need by: (1) Highlighting the prevalence of inconsistent definitions, operationalisations, and measures of persistent offending in the literature, and the consequent need for consistency; (2) Empirically demonstrating the flaws associated with these inconsistencies, and; (3) Proposing how to best define, operationalise, and measure persistent offending. The underlying position of this dissertation is that conceptually, persistent offending is best defined and measured by the duration of the criminal career. The arguments and empirical findings in this dissertation support this premise.
DATA AND ANALYSES
This dissertation uses data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD). The CSDD is a longitudinal, population-based study that, to date, has observed the development of offending behaviours in 411 South London males from the age of eight to 56. Boys were interviewed in school at ages eight, ten, and 14 years. Conviction data was recorded annually from the age of 10 to 56. All offences leading to a conviction, excluding minor offences such as traffic infractions and public intoxication, were included in the analyses. The vast majority of men (91 percent) were at risk of conviction at 56 years of age. Chi-square, multiple, and logistic regression analyses were used to examine the association between childhood risk factors and conviction frequency, criminal career duration, and different offending pathways. Descriptive statistics and odds ratios were conducted in order to examine the overlap in the number of offenders identified by different operationalisations of persistent offending. Finally, Pearson’s and partial correlation were used to examine the relationship between criminal career duration, conviction frequency, and age of first conviction.
RESULTS
Five key findings are reported in this dissertation. First, reviews of the published literature indicated that many of competing empirical findings can be attributed to the use of different definitions and operationalisations of persistent offending. Second, competing measures of persistent offending (i.e., criminal career duration and conviction frequency) are associated with different types and numbers of childhood risk factors. Indeed, not only did offenders with the longest criminal careers have fewer childhood risk factors than offenders with the most convictions, but the childhood risk factors associated with these offenders did not differ to those experienced by one-time offenders. Third, depending on the key measure used, different operationalisations of persistent offending generally identify vastly different offenders as persistent. Fourth, when controlling for offence frequency, onset age is not associated with criminal career duration. Finally, persistent offenders identified by the duration of the criminal career tend to have the longest criminal careers, a more normative age of onset, and vary in their conviction rates.
CONCLUSION
The collective results of this dissertation support the idea that persistent offending should logically and consistently be defined and measured by the duration of the criminal career. More so, it is proposed that persistent offending should be defined as a criminal career that exceeds the average duration for a criminal career in a population or offender based sample. Nonetheless, a fundamental limitation of proposing a specific definition of persistent offending is that, due to the concepts ambiguity, there are no clear right answers. It may therefore be some time before there is accord on how to define and identify this phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is hoped that, if nothing else, the arguments and findings in this dissertation will spur more scholarly discussions, and help pave the way towards establishing a consistently used definition of persistent offending.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Crim & Crim JusticeArts, Education and LawFull Tex
State Police in a State of Change: Remaking the Entrepreneurial Officer
No full textWe are currently at a point in time in Australia where questions concerning how to govern police have never been more pressing or more fluid. Systemic corruption has been identified in several states; a range of new accountability mechanisms have been established internal and external to police and in Victoria police corruption has been linked with a violent 'gangland war'. This thesis locates these contemporary developments within a broader analysis of the historical circumstances shaping the changing techniques for governing state police. More specifically, this thesis engages in a detailed comparative study of the changing techniques of governing police in Queensland and Victoria. The theoretical tools to conduct this analysis are drawn from 'governmentality studies'. This refers to a broad grouping of theoretical scholarship concerned with the changing ideas - or 'political rationalities' - on how to govern some thing or some activity, and the underlying reasoning, justifications and ambitions contained within the practical tools or 'techniques' used to govern. Central to the thesis is an argument that a new politics of policing has emerged recently, one that extends the dyad of the old accountability - 'police powers' and 'external accountability' - to a pluralisation of accountability processes and structures. The thesis argues that governmentality studies offer new insights into ways of analysing the techniques for governing state police, increasingly shaped by the managerialisation of governing and embodying efforts to make police innovative, risk-taking problems-solvers. This is what I refer to as an open-ended normative project for re-making the entrepreneurial officer. However, a detailed examination of the development of governmental techniques for 'making up' the entrepreneurial officer indicates that such a governmental project is not implemented unproblematically. Nonetheless, the thesis concludes that the attempts to remake the entrepreneurial officer through the managerialisation of governing presents distinct possibilities for a new 'politics of policing' that fosters deliberative, reflective police practice within a new framework of police accountabilities.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Arts, Media and CultureFull Tex
Moving Science to Practice in Preventing Delinquency and Youth Risk Taking Behavior at the Population Level
No full textThis thesis synthesizes a body of published research spanning fifteen years. It investigates the challenges and necessary supports for moving the ever-evolving body of prevention science to application in policy and practice, in order to prevent delinquency and youth risk-taking behavior. Through the publications and the summary chapter and overview, the thesis offers a coherent narrative of the development of this body of research: from the identification of preventive interventions with demonstrated evidence of effectiveness; to enumerating the barriers to taking evidence-based prevention programs (EBPs) to scale; to understanding the challenges of implementation fidelity, quality, and adaptation as major barriers to practice at scale; to identifying the predictors of sustainment and translating this knowledge into practice; to the development of system capacity and a state- level infrastructure (the EPISCenter) to address these challenges and to sustain EBPs effectively at a whole-of-population level.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy by Publication (PhD)School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeArts, Education and LawFull Tex
Relationship Between Parent Involvement and the Academic Achievement of Disadvantaged Children: What Matters? For Whom Does it Matter? How Does it Work?
No full textStudents growing up in socially disadvantaged environments typically experience poorer educational outcomes than students living in more advantaged circumstances. Strengthening parents’ involvement in their children’s learning is widely regarded as an important way of helping to reduce the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers, but unfortunately policy interest in parent involvement has outpaced evidence of its effectiveness as an intervention strategy. A fundamental problem is the conceptual inconsistency, ambiguity and confusion in the literature on parent involvement. This confusion is exacerbated by the inherent complexity of the processes through which various forms of parent involvement are likely to have their effects on different aspects of children’s learning. In addition, factors such as family socio-economic status and ethnic background are expected to act as moderators of these already complex relationships. Hence, it is impossible to synthesise existing results and draw firm conclusions as to which aspects of parent involvement might be effective targets for intervention in disadvantaged communities. In other words, we still need to know, “What matters? And for whom does it matter?”Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and GovernanceArts, Education and LawFull Tex
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