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Can civil society bring governments to curb transnational crime? The article answers this question by analyzing a most-likely case for civil-society influence: organ trafficking. Physicians' efforts to eliminate this practice are examined in Pakistan and Israel: two major participants in the global organ trade. In both countries, the physicians' pressure resulted in the enactment of organ-trade prohibitions. These, however, were not fully enforced. The analysis suggests that, even under favorable conditions, civil society's impact on transnational-crime policies is limited, yet not inconsequential: Pakistan's involvement in organ trafficking, and even more so Israel's, has declined. Beyond its contribution to understanding civil society's role in the criminalization process, the article sheds light on the hitherto little-studied politics of the organ trade.

Fuelled by contemporary concerns of risk and majoritarian calls to adhere to ‘the values the majority hold dear’ there can be said to be a ‘crisis of criminalization’ in liberal democracies. Whilst criminalization is clearly an important theme in criminology there has been little attention on the value judgments behind processes of criminalization. By drawing on elements of moral philosophy and by applying these ideas to everyday criminalization in Toronto, this article takes a first step towards addressing this omission. The article adopts a pluralist and social constructivist perspective where differential interpretations lead to the same behaviour being celebrated, tolerated or censured, depending on context and power. A model of value judgment and criminalization is offered that includes consideration of moral, prudential, economic and aesthetic judgments. Value consensus is questioned and the political capital required to dictate values is considered.

This article looks at pre-crime in the context of counter-terrorism. Pre-crime links coercive state actions to suspicion without the need for charge, prosecution or conviction. It also includes measures that expand the remit of the criminal law to include activities or associations that are deemed to precede the substantive offence targeted for prevention. The trend towards anticipating risks as a driving principle in criminal justice was identified well before 2001. However, risk and threat anticipation have substantially expanded in the context of contemporary counter-terrorism frameworks. Although pre-crime counter-terrorism measures are rationalized on the grounds of preventing terrorism, these measures do not fit in the frame of conventional crime prevention. The article argues that the shift to pre-crime embodies a trend towards integrating national security into criminal justice along with a temporal and geographic shift that encompasses a blurring of the borders between the states' internal and external coercive capacities. The counter-terrorism framework incorporates and combines elements of criminal justice and national security, giving rise to a number of tensions. One key tension is between the ideal of impartial criminal justice and the politically charged concept of national security. Pre-crime counter-terrorism measures can be traced through a number of interlinking historical trajectories including the wars on crime and drugs, criminalization and, more fundamentally, in colonial strategies of domination, control and repression. The article concludes by identifying a number of challenges and opportunities for criminology in the shift from post-crime criminal justice to pre-crime national security.

This research stems from ethnographic observations in 2005 and 2006 of the women's sections of police stations in Bahrain. It uncovered details of a larger social and economic problem in the Arabian Gulf countries involving the unique legal status of the female expatriate guest workers. Housemaids or former housemaids formed the majority of female defendants who were ethnographically observed at Bahrain's local police stations. Observations revealed that this reflected an overall trend of criminalization of domestic worker-related labour disputes. This research presents the types of cases observed and discusses the women police as agents of social control whose job involves handling a larger socio-economic problem at the backend, through policing.

Recent British drug policy has increasingly focused on ‘problem drug users’, namely users of heroin and/or crack-cocaine who are involved in acquisitive offending. The overarching objective of the new drug policy agenda is to develop and enhance the pathways between the criminal justice system and drug treatment services, with the aim of reducing this ‘drug-related’ crime. The emphasis on crime reduction, and on drug treatment in the criminal justice system, has led some to term this development the ‘criminalization’ of drug policy. In this paper, this new policy direction will be examined. An explanatory account for this ‘criminalizing’ turn will be set out, drawing on theoretical debates about the politics of risk and security in late modernity.

A novel longitudinal profile of Maori crime' from 1853 to 1919 is presented. It constitutes an additional step towards understanding how the indigenous Maori have come to be over-represented in New Zealand's post-colonial criminal justice system. The profile is explained in terms of culture conflict, literal normlessness and pursuit of the illusion of state control. The British colonial government also criminalized Maori whenever they rebelled'. In the statistics presented here, gross violations of human rights and the criminalization of Maori independence are reflected in four distinct episodes: around the mid-1860s, 1881, 1897 and 1911. The analysis points to conflict and critical criminology as the principal paradigms through which the crimes' of the powerful colonial state converted Maori into criminals.

Among the many challenges of the post-Cold War is transnational crime, which has become an integral part of the private accumulation strategies of some public officials, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens, in addition to professional criminals. This article examines the institutional foundations of contemporary criminality. Its chief contention is that the so-called failed or collapsed state is the principal actor in the criminalization of the world economy, while globalization itself is an unwitting but pre-eminent member of the supporting cast. Among the proposed remedies is a call for a greater role for international institutions, such as the United Nations and Interpol, in the fight against global criminality and a reconsideration of the notion of sovereignty.

This paper deals with crime and criminalization of the Israeli Arab population during the military government (1948-66). It is argued that the instrumental use of criminal law-both in terms of content and methods of enforcement-played a major role in 'creating' crime and delinquency among Arabs. Contrary to previous researches that have ignored the unique political and legal status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, this study examines the relationship between crime, law and politics, and focuses on those offences that increased in number as a result of the military rule. Most of these offences were violations of the restrictions imposed on Arabs throughout the period of the military government, based on the Defence (Emergency) Regulations 1945, and offences against laws which defined as illegal the very presence of many Arabs within the boundaries of the state. It is shown that these offences constituted a major part of crime among the Arab population in the 1950s and 1960s, and 'contributed' largely to its high crime rates.