1,720,998 research outputs found
Psychology and crime
No full textThis book explores the links between psychology and crime, evaluating psychological explanations of crime and the use of psychology within the criminal justice system. It provides a comprehensive overview that highlights the consequences of crime for victims, offenders and wider society.
The book combines classic theory with new developments in eyewitness testimony, offender profiling and forensic psychology. The resulting text offers an engaging and challenging route to a full understanding of key topics, including:
* the theoretical history of criminal psychology* interpersonal violence, sexual violence and deviancy* the psychology of crime in groups* mass murder and war crimes* psychology and the criminal justice syste
Rediscovering the relative deprivation and crime debate: tracking its fortunes from left realism to the precariat
No full textThis article revisits the concept of relative deprivation and asks whether it is still useful for criminology. The article traces the way relative deprivation has been used in the past to understand crime and how it has connections to other, more recent, additions to debates on social justice. I argue that relative deprivation has disappeared even in the place that it had become the key explanation for crime—left realism. In so doing, I explore the resurrection of left realism in criminology—what I refer to as “post-millennial left realism”—first, by those who were associated with it originally, and then with Hall and Winlow’s (2015, 2017) shift in emphasis to what they term “ultra-realism.” I maintain that relative deprivation is still a powerful concept for bridging several related areas that should still be central to the concerns of criminology—in part, because it is still a major concern in popular social science and social psychology. Why has it disappeared in criminology? I present an argument that suggests that the absence of certain research methods, such as ethnographic and qualitative or small-scale survey methods, has impoverished our understanding of the lived reality of people experiencing the social transformations of a networked, precarious society. The massive polarization and disruption in politics and social discourse, as well as the worldwide economic, public health, and social transformations (ranging from the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter protests to the COVID-19 global pandemic) have demonstrated the continued relevance and analytical power that relative deprivation, in its elaborated form, brings to questions of crime and justice.</p
Revaluating relative deprivation theory
No full textThis article reassesses the concept of relative deprivation and restates its relevance and potential to extend the theoretical boundaries of criminology. Rather than search for causes or attempting to determine the genesis of the problem in either individuals or social structures, relative deprivation can sensitise us to the process and emotion of crime, the fluidity of deviant activity and, as such, connects to the contemporary concerns of cultural and psychosocial criminology. The article is also intended to reacquaint criminologists with the work of W.G. Runciman, a leading theorist of relative deprivation. Runciman’s work can be seen as an elaboration of Mertonian strain tradition
Hacktivism: a theoretical and empirical exploration of China’s cyber warriors
No full textChina is frequently reported as the source of many politically motivated cyber-attacks. Yet, there have been very few studies on the people behind such attacks, also known as hacktivists. In this paper, we have taken a step back and studied some of the reasons behind the rise of freelance hacktivism emanating from China. Using various criminological theories, as well as political and sociological approaches, we propose a novel theoretical framework behind Chinese hacktivism. Furthermore, we present an empirical analysis on the membership growth patterns of online Chinese hacktivist forums and use the observed patterns to support our proposed framework
From Techniques of Neutralisation to Techniques of Normalisation: Reflections on the role of criminology in a post-truth and never-forgotten world.
No full textTaking theory from a predictable past and applying it to a precarious present allows us to reflect on the state of criminology in the current era. Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralisation is one of the foundational ideas of criminology and employed in different contexts beyond its original application. What we wish to propose is that there are techniques of normalising objectively illegal or immoral behaviour that have occurred in the last 30 years or so that have become increasingly blatant the more they can be demonstrated tohave happened and that excusing them away becomes pointless. This is a shift to shamelessness and of ‘alternative facts’. This normalisation reverses the original intention of Sykes and Matza, to take a criminal act and explain it away. It was built upon the idea that the offender still held values that could be compared to those who, theoretically, did not commit crime, they were just distorted, so-called subterranean values. The act is seen by both parties aswrong and the guilty conscience that arises needs to be justified. In this adaptation, it is proposed that there are those who would wish to take the deviant act and make it normal, everyday or transformed into something else completely. The values are no longer subterranean, but in the open, even celebrated. This paper discusses this idea and reflects on what it mightmean for criminology in a post-truth and never-forgotten world
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