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A death that occurs inside a prison cell initiates a distinct set of procedures from those around a death on the outside. When a confined space within a penal institution of total surveillance and control becomes a crime scene, it may reflect the prevailing institutional cultures and the ways in which they react and adapt. This paper analyses the case of Marcos, who was found dead in a Portuguese prison cell which he shared with another individual. From the discovery of the body to the crime scene inspection by the police, and from the autopsy to the trial, the qualitative analysis of the inscriptions produced in this case reveals and highlight the epistemic cultures involved. As each culture is developed from the professional practices and modes of acquiring and using knowledge, the analysis of their logic contributes to an understanding of how forensic evidence is co-produced and appropriated in the Portuguese legal context. We identify five epistemic cultures: institutional defence, hunch, office, bubble, and 'rubber stamp'. We argue that the apparent neutrality of an inquisitorial criminal justice system enables the development of particular ways of producing, understanding and using scientific knowledge and forensic evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a methodological framework to understand criminal laws as cultural artefacts—as manifestations of structures, processes and struggles which are part of the broader social (re)production of meanings, values and affects. The first section sets out the groundwork for a cultural examination of criminal law, deploying insights from cultural theory to understand criminal law's function in securing civil order. The paper then maps and critically analyses the cultural structure of the law of joint enterprise, which it argues is conditioned by a danger formation centred on the racialised and hostile construction of the image of the urban gang. The third section investigates the implications of this danger formation to the possibility of legal change through a cultural reading of the UK Supreme Court decision in R v Jogee. The paper concludes by reflecting on the value of a cultural understanding of criminal law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More precisely, it uses that lens to reflect on the political economy of punishment (hereinafter, PEofP). Finally, Stefania Crocitti's contribution addresses the relation between economic crises and a segment of punishment practices that is garnering increasing traction within criminology conversations, that of bordered penality ([9]). Back at the turn of the century, various influential works warned against criminology scholars' inclination to easily identify epochal changes in the field of crime and penality ([10]; [17]; [28]; [29]; [35]). 2 José A. Brandariz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7512-1315 Máximo Sozzo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8999-6021 3 We wholeheartedly thank the authors contributing to this special issue for their efforts in refining their papers and engaging political economy of punishment debates, as well as the sixteen anonymous reviewers, whose unselfish help was vital in ensuring the quality of the whole manuscript. [Extracted from the article]

Online Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are transforming the epistemological foundations of justice systems and influencing knowledge production concerning criminal justice and its impact. This article focuses on a dimension of criminal justice which is the impact of imprisonment on families and seeks to unravel how knowledge about this problem is produced on SNSs. To this end, it draws on a study that explored conversational networks of key stakeholders on the SNS, Twitter. Building on insights from the study, the paper unravels interdependent sociotechnical dynamics that reproduce the offline marginality of affected families and operate as barriers to equitable knowledge production. Through its analysis of the dynamics, the paper provides new insights and advances the sparse criminological scholarship on the intersections of AI systems and the delivery of justice. It specifically highlights exclusionary epistemic processes that are fomented by the infrastructure of AI systems and the social contexts in which they are deployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the factors that influence domestic violence and abuse (DVA) victims to withdraw from the Criminal Justice System globally continues to be a key focus for professionals and academics working within this area. There is a dearth of extant literature examining the motivations behind victim withdrawal, particularly retraction occurring post provision of an initial statement. This paper examines the phenomenon of retraction, by thematically analysing N = 60 police retraction statements (PRS) collected by police officers in a large suburban police force in the North West of England. In examining these statements, insight can also be garnered from those victims still in an active relationship with their abusers. Findings highlight female victims' motivations for retraction and are framed around victim problem solving including: a) accepting the relationship which resulted in a discordance in proceeding with the prosecution of the abuser b) rejecting the relationship thereby rendering the prosecution as redundant c) engaging in procedural problem solving where alternative measures such as civil actions were sought to substitute a CJS prosecution and d) the effect of children where motivations were split between retracting to return to the complete family unit including the victim as the mother and retracting due to recognising the importance of the father's role without involvement from the mother. Notwithstanding limitations, this paper demonstrates that there is significant value in conducting an analysis of PRSs in furthering the understanding of why victims choose to retract at this point in their prosecution journey. The extracts from this dataset add insight and understanding into DVA female victim motivations to retract post-initial statement provision and highlight the differences within victim populations who retract their original statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper explores the theoretical and empirical capacity of developmental and life-course criminology (DLC) to further our understanding of non-lethal intimate partner violence (IPV) and femicide. Drawing on Sampson and Laub's age-graded theory and Moffitt's dual taxonomy, the paper delves into empirical research that has identified and examined the overlap between general offending and IPV, highlighting how these DLC theoretical frameworks could provide insight into non-lethal IPV and femicide. We also outline the ways in which these DLC perspectives are challenged to fully address the gendered nature of IPV and less able to provide an empirical and theoretical understanding of the role of power and control by men over their women partners. We then place these frameworks within the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender-based violence, including femicide. While the COVID-19 lockdowns increased vulnerability to IPV and increased homicide in the United States, the expected rise in femicide did not materialize—at least within the United States, prompting questions about the extent to which existing criminological theories are able to provide a framework for these types of crime trends during unprecedented events. We examine the way non-lethal and lethal IPV are shaped by different factors as outlined in Moffitt's dual taxonomy. The pandemic for example did not create increased psychopathy (i.e., affective and personality disorders) associated with the risk for femicide, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns did create increased economic and family stressors, which placed many at-risk women and children in further social isolation, and reduced access to victim services. We conclude a need for further theoretical development surrounding femicide, integrating developmental and life-course perspectives, thereby emphasizing the need for refined frameworks to address the intricate dynamics of violence against women globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Structured observation can be valuable to complement self or parent reports used for diagnostic information or risk assessment, although this method is hardly used and understudied in residential forensic settings. To fill this void an observation checklist for residential social workers working in juvenile justice institutions was developed, along with an instruction manual and a training program. Findings: In the first two sections, this paper describes how an intensive collaboration between residential social workers, clinicians, researchers, and educators resulted in the development (1) and implementation (2) of an observation checklist for residential social workers. The observation checklist captures six concepts: Proactive and Reactive aggression, Hyperactivity, Impulsivity, Signs of depressed mood, and Lack of reciprocity. In a third, final section, this paper provides a preliminary evaluation of the inter-rater reliability of the six observation checklist concepts (3). Acceptable completion rates of the observation checklist by residential social workers were obtained and the training program resulted in reported improved professional expertise of residential social workers. Moreover, preliminary psychometric evaluation demonstrated acceptable to excellent inter-rater reliability, when expressed as percentage of agreement. Applications: In conclusion, this novel observation checklist offers a promising opportunity to collect information that can be used for diagnostic purposes. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2022 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. Fourteen of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has rapidly emerged as an important area of research that has implications for those who work in youth justice settings. This paper identifies a series of considerations facing those who work in jurisdictions where Indigenous or First Nations peoples have much higher levels of contact with both child protection and criminal justice systems than other population groups. It presents some reflections from members of a non-Indigenous research team about their efforts to engage with cultural perspectives on ACEs research in a way that facilitates further discussion within the research community about the methodological decisions that are made when investigating issues that are of importance to members of minority culture communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the effectiveness of the Brazilian "Maria da Penha" Law—a law that imposed criminal sanctions on and promoted rehabilitation programs for known perpetrators of acts of domestic violence exclusively against women, issued restraining orders against perpetrators, required perpetrators to surrender firearms, and established police units uniquely trained to address violence against women. Using difference-in-difference analyses estimated with data on Brazilian monthly assault-related hospitalizations and with gender as treatment variable, we find that the law contributed to a 22% reduction in assault-related hospitalizations among women as compared with men. Our data is collected from the Brazilian public healthcare system named Sistema Único de Saúde, which provides public information on detailed records of hospitalizations in Brazil. We provide robustness checks of our analyses and examine heterogeneous effects of the law. With respect to the latter, we deduce that the effectiveness of the law in reducing assault-related hospitalizations among women was especially pronounced in municipalities where women are most vulnerable to domestic violence. We conclude with a discussion of our results, with an eye to policy implications and areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of judges in authorising the extension of placements in solitary confinement in Israeli prisons for lengthy periods of time. It qualitatively examines, through content analysis of 354 Israeli court decisions, how judges negotiate and rationalise the harmful effects of solitary confinement when balanced against the prison authorities' reasoning for subjecting prisoners to it. Finding an overall tendency to defer to the expertise of prison authorities, we examine what Sykes & Matza termed 'techniques of neutralisation' used by judges to distance themselves from the responsibility for solitary confinement placements and the hardship they inflict. The paper further discusses the socio-legal and organisational structures and contexts which incentivise the prioritisation of prison security/discipline over the protection of prisoners from the 'pains of solitary confinement'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most cases, researchers assume that control of corruption, rule of law, accountability, and government expenditure tend to have a positive impact on government effectiveness. Nonetheless, recent theoretical and empirical evidence supports a mixed relationship between these variables. The paper, therefore, seeks to answer the extent to which corruption, the rule of law, accountability, and government expenditure affect government effectiveness. We employed Johansen method of cointegration and vector error correction model to examine the long-run and short-run relationship between the variables under study. By using Sri Lankan data covering the period from 1996 to 2020, we find a significant and positive relationship only between the control of corruption and government effectiveness both in the long run and in the short run. Yet, rule of law has a positive and significant impact on government effectiveness only in the long run. Voice and accountability, and government expenditure affect the government's effectiveness negatively in the long run and positively in the short run. The article demonstrates that weak anti-corruption mechanisms and weak legal and criminal justice systems seem to have a detrimental impact on government effectiveness in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings stipulates a 'non-punishment principle' which provides for the possibility of not imposing penalties on victims for crimes they were compelled to commit. This paper investigates the UK's iteration of this principle: the statutory defence provided by section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act. Drawing on extant literature and relevant case law, this paper investigates current understandings of the statutory defence and the insights these provide into broader understandings of criminal exploitation. It demonstrates that while practitioners understand the processes of the legislation surrounding the defence, they are less knowledgeable about the nuances of modern slavery which therefore impacts the use and effectiveness of the defence. This paper challenges the basis upon which criminal law is applied, and its analysis makes an original contribution to recognising how misunderstandings of criminal exploitation can affect fairness in the criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project on which this paper is grounded is the first in-depth empirical study of the impacts of COVID-19 on each stage of the English and Welsh Youth Justice System. We take the notion of a child's right to a fair trial as the lens by which we detail the findings from our research. The paper documents the experiences of professionals working in the courts and children who had contact with the courts during the pandemic. While we concentrate on processes in England and Wales as an exemplar of the impact of COVID-19, recognising that globally, courts were experiencing similar challenges, initiates a discourse about how to re-envision their role in wider criminal justice systems in a COVID-19 world. Our research demonstrates an urgent need for renewed consideration of what support children need to effectively participate in court, and where and how children's cases should be heard. The pandemic demonstrated that creativity is possible and creates a timely opportunity to review the evidence and think more radically about a welfare-based, trauma-informed court process for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is known that businesses report cybercrime to public authorities at a low rate, and this hinders prevention strategies, there is a lack of research on companies' decisions to report cyber victimisation. This paper analyses the UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey to explore factors associated with cybercrime reporting by businesses. Results indicate that the type of cybercrime is relevant to the reporting decision, and that the likelihood of reporting increases when cybersecurity incidents generate negative impacts and when the company places high priority on cybersecurity. However, we find no association between having cybersecurity insurance and reporting. Finally, while having outsourced cybersecurity management is associated with reporting to anyone outside the organisation but not to public authorities, in-house cybersecurity teams seem more inclined to report to public authorities. Findings are discussed in relation to the role of the private cybersecurity sector and the criminal justice system in combatting cybercrime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Kailemia observes, "environmental crimes are an area of increasing concern, not only because of [their] globalized nature" but because these crimes have "impacts beyond the capacity of criminal justice systems of most states to comprehend or address." How then can criminal justice agencies, particularly in the global south, respond to national and transnational environmental challenges? This paper takes the case of Bangladesh and outlines examples of anthropogenic activities that are destroying biodiversity and polluting the environment in this country. It then situates these crimes and harms in the context of environmental law, and the work of police and environment agencies, in Bangladesh. The paper concludes with a consideration of future options for environmental law enforcement in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green criminology allows for the study of environmental and criminal laws, environmental criminality which includes widespread environmental harm, and the abuse and exploitation of nonhuman animals. Yet many environmental crimes are not the core focus of criminal justice systems or public concern about crime and safety despite having the potential to cause far wider social harm and a large number of deaths. Instead much environmental enforcement is regulatory or administrative in nature, particularly in respect of corporate environmental wrongdoing, which is often categorized as accidental wrongdoing, largely considered to be the fault of "rogue" employees or the unintended consequences of governance failures. Unlike traditional street and property crimes, environmental crimes (and environmental harms) frequently have long-lasting and irreversible effects. This raises questions about the effectiveness of justice systems in dealing with environmental offenders and the damage they cause. This paper explores the effectiveness of contemporary environmental enforcement mechanisms. In particular, the paper explores the extent to which they such mechanism are equipped to deal with corporate environmental offending which in many cases is a consequence of the operation of neoliberal markets. This paper examines whether the drive for profits and anthropocentric attitudes toward the environment and exploitation of natural resources create a situation where corporate environmental crime is a foreseeable and even natural/inevitable consequence. Where that is the case and where corporations have the resources to continue paying fines and the expertise to navigate regulatory justice systems, an alternative to the law enforcement "detection apprehension and punishment" approach might be required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the law of confessions in England and the United States of America Supreme Court's Fourteenth amendment cases, with a focus on suspects who are vulnerable. The question that is asked in the piece of work is whether the English statutory provisions and the decisions of the US Supreme Court provide sufficient protection to vulnerable suspects who falsely confess to crimes. A novel approach is adopted with this comparative analysis as it extends the knowledge base by examining vulnerability and the law of confessions within two jurisdictional parameters. A further contribution to knowledge can be seen as the paper provides a bespoke piece of legislation that affords protection to such individuals, and thereby adds to the current debate on vulnerability in the criminal justice system. Firstly, the work critically examine why vulnerable suspects will falsely confess to criminal acts. It will be established that vulnerable suspects may confess even if they have not been coerced, and this will be the foundational basis for the suggested reform: a vulnerable suspects confession should be excluded as a result of their characteristics or that such individuals should be provided with mandatory legal advice. The focus will then turn to the extant position in England, where it will be revealed that confessions will be excluded if they have been obtained by unfair practices or through inhumane or degrading treatment. It will also be recognised that the English jurisdiction affords limited protection to vulnerable suspects even though they are entitled to legal advice and an appropriate adult being present. The US Supreme Court's position will then be evaluated by chronologically critiquing the use of the due process clause in cases of confessions. It will be identified that the vulnerability of the individual can be considered in determining whether a confession should be excluded but cannot be utilised in isolation of other factors. The two jurisdictions will then be critically compared and the positive and negative aspects of the law in the jurisdictions will be evaluated. It will be established that neither England nor the US Supreme provides sufficient protection to vulnerable suspects and the law requires further refinement, by placing priority on mandatory legal advice and/or an opportunity to exclude the confession. A de novo remedial statutory provision for England is provided as an effective solution to the issue of vulnerability and false confessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Youth violence and knife crime is increasing dramatically, so much so it has been described as a global epidemic. The social, economic and political forces fuelling this rise mean that minority groups are particularly affected. Aim: This paper reviews the literature primarily from a UK perspective, and illustrates the disparate factors that are influencing the rise in youth violence and knife crime and illustrates the complexities of integrating the perspectives of different disciplines into coherent intervention strategies. Method: We conducted a systematic review of the literature that explores both the causes of increasing youth violence and knife crime as well as some of the interventions that have attempted to deal with the problem. Results: A complex interplay of social, economic, mental health and political factors underpin the increase in youth violence and knife crime. An uneasy tension exists between a traditional criminal justice system-based approach based upon deterrence and punishment, and a more liberal preventative model focusing on adolescent mental health. None of the interventions thus far have been particularly effective. Conclusion: Youth violence and knife crime is a global social issue that causes untold suffering to individuals, families and communities as well as fear that reverberates through society. Interventions have often been devised through the lens of particular disciplines or ideologies. Integrating these perspectives into a coherent approach that is actually effective demands greater co-operation, dialogue and mutual understanding between disciplines and agencies, as well as a robust framework for the evidence-based assessment of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an empirical study of femicide and intimate partner violence (IPV) in Israel during 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years. Studies worldwide found elevated IPV during 2020 and a mixed picture of femicide, as both increases and decreases were reported, depending on the country. In Israel, the media reported a growth in IPV and femicide. However, no comprehensive empirical comparison of femicide and IPV during the lockdown months in 2020 in comparison to previous years was conducted. The current study fills this gap, comparing the 2014–2020 period in terms of IPV and femicide to determine whether the first pandemic year was unusual in terms of femicide and IPV. Data were collected from news websites, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) report, and annual public police reports to break down case-by-case femicide reports. The findings show a growth in femicide and IPV in the pandemic's first year, compared to 2019. However, compared to previous years, 2020 was not unusually high in terms of femicide. However, IPV was higher in 2020 than that in previous years. Hence, the media claims about the pandemic's elevated risk of femicide and IPV are only partially true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home restrictions significantly changed people's daily lives around the world. Opportunity and strain theories predict this would lead to an increase in intimate partner abuse (IPA), including intimate partner homicide (IPH). This paper applies an alternative theoretical framework—situational action theory (SAT)—to explain mixed findings regarding changes in IPA and unexpected findings regarding (a lack of) changes in IPH. It is argued that SAT may contribute to explaining the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on IPA and IPH in three important ways: 1. by addressing the fact that motivation is necessary but not sufficient for explaining action and better specifying how motivation translates into IPA and IPH; 2. by addressing the fact that people perceive different alternatives for action and better specifying why some people come to see IPA and IPH as acceptable action alternatives; 3. by addressing the fact that exposure affects people differently and better specifying how stay-at-home restrictions shaped people's activity fields and, in turn, their perceptions and action choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2021 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. 18 of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Second Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the study of penal changes throughout history is central to punishment studies, the field has taken little from historical institutionalists' theories of institutional change. One of the most relevant such theories is path dependence. This article outlines path dependence frameworks' most fruitful elements for studying penal change. Drawing on foundational political science and historical sociology texts, as well as several punishment scholars' works, this article highlights the advantages of thinking through stasis and change, mechanisms of inertia such as feedback effects, and exogenous shocks. While path dependence offers a powerful framework, it can also be an unsatisfying explanation at times, particularly when path dependence is itself a seemingly uphill battle, when apparent stasis hides ongoing change, or when institutions survive hypothesized mechanisms of change. This paper closes by discussing some ways in which punishment scholars can strengthen the path dependence framework by blending it with recent theoretical developments in the punishment studies field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction presents a collection of papers by Alan Norrie, Craig Reeves, Susanne Karstedt, Tiffany Bergin, Michael Koch, Mary Bosworth, Anastasia Chamberlen, Henrique Carvalho and Anita Dockley. It briefly discusses the origins of this collaborative research project, and outlines the theme, aims and format of the special issue, which calls for an interdisciplinary, theoretically informed and conceptually and practically critical examination of punishment today. It then provides a summary of the approach and argument of each of the contributions to the issue and offers a few reflections on ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death penalty has been the subject of controversy for a long time. South Asian countries have found themselves with this controversy by acquiring an ambivalent approach towards the death penalty. Out of eight South Asian countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan retain the death penalty law, and firmly believe that the death penalty can deter people from committing future crimes, whereas Sri Lanka and Maldives have chosen to retain the death penalty law but have abolished it in practice. Conversely, Nepal and Bhutan are the only two countries that have abolished death penalty both in law and practice. In this context, this comparative study of death penalty trials explores the approach taken by the judiciary of two South Asian jurisdictions, Bangladesh and India, towards the death penalty. This paper utilizes the findings of two original empirical research projects that explored judges' opinions on the retention and administration of the death penalty in both jurisdictions. Amnesty International death penalty reports along with the case judgements are used, which helped to portray the true approach and flaws in the death penalty trials in both the jurisdictions. The paper will assess the death penalty trials and approach of the different stakeholders in the trial to highlight the distinct approaches taken by the two jurisdictions towards the death penalty. The paper argues that in both countries there is inconsistency in sentencing, the social cry for justice is prioritized over convicts' rights and, from judges to legal representatives, all the stakeholders involved in a criminal trial hold a convictive approach, making a criminal justice system which presumes justice is served by awarding the death penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a substantial policy reform aiming to radically transform the design and delivery of disability services. Choice and control are key tenets of the scheme, however challenges and limitations exist with respect to inequities and difficulties posed by boundaries between the NDIS and mainstream services. People with disability who have been incarcerated are particularly at risk of experiencing these limitations. However there has been little academic exploration of these issues for this group. This paper explores whether NDIS services are readily accessible for people with disability who were formerly incarcerated, outlining some of the challenges this group encounters. The research is based on interviews with 28 stakeholders from government and non-government organisations that interact with and provide support or services to people with disability within the criminal justice system. Our findings confirm the importance of a functioning NDIS plan to help prevent some individuals encountering the criminal justice system, outlining several challenges that formerly incarcerated people with disability experience with the scheme. We conclude that ideas of choice and control are inhibited for some formerly incarcerated people with disability and highlight actions that can be taken regarding specialist support coordination, advocacy services and market stewardship to address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sought to understand public attitudes and behavior toward criminal justice institutions in Brazil. Using a cross-sectional data from a sample of Brazilians, we made very important and intriguing observations about Brazilians' attitudes. Among these observations is the finding that the presence of crime results in favorable attitudes toward the Brazilian judiciary. Also, sense of security, corruption (bribe solicitation), and citizens' trust in the media predicted attitudes toward criminal justice institutions and officials. Given that this study is one of the few studies that have examined this issue in the Brazilian context, the findings serve as a starting point for discussion about improving the relationship between citizens and the system. Specific implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the concept of "Smart Decarceration" and introduces the special issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior entitled "Research to Advance Smart Decarceration Policies, Programs, and Interventions." The concept of Smart Decarceration originated nearly a decade ago as the United States reached a tipping point in mass incarceration, and it focuses on three interrelated outcomes: substantially reducing the use of incarceration and other forms of punishment; reversing racial disparities and other inequities in the criminal justice system; and promoting safety and well-being, particularly for communities that have been most impacted by mass incarceration. Ultimately, Smart Decarceration efforts should prioritize reducing the overall footprint of the criminal justice system, while building capacity outside of the system to support safety, health, and well-being. Research plays a critical role in advancing Smart Decarceration, as new forms of knowledge and evidence must be developed to replace ineffective and unjust policies and practices associated with mass incarceration. The paper discusses approaches to research that move beyond typical criminal justice outcomes and focus on the multifaceted goals of Smart Decarceration. The six articles in this special issue are introduced, highlighting their foci across ecological levels and the breadth of the criminal justice continuum, centering populations most impacted by incarceration, and identifying practice and policy innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using decolonial perspective, this paper critically examines how certain child protection interventions in Kenya might increase childhood vulnerabilities among children from poor social backgrounds who are disproportionately represented in the justice system. Findings point to ambivalent child protection practices as a result of entrenched colonial legacies which criminalises juvenile 'delinquents', relying heavily on judicialisation while limiting social welfare investments. The study suggests alternative approaches to better child protection services that take into account southern-centric childcare practices and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberal austerity measures and welfare state retrenchment have meant that voluntary organizations around the globe are increasingly called upon to perform statutory social services. Despite a large and rising presence in criminal justice service delivery, volunteers and voluntary organizations have scarcely received scholarly analysis. This paper uses interviews, ethnography, and document analysis to explore the penal voluntary sector in Canada. Specifically, how individuals in the penal voluntary sector understand their roles in helping criminalized women and how these perspectives vary across different positions. This paper illuminates how agents occupying different helper positions cultivate divergent understandings of (and justifications for) the help they provide. Bourdieu's field theory is mobilized to demonstrate how variegated discourses of helping co-exist, conflict, and impact the relational dynamics of the penal voluntary sector and its engagement with criminalized women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a distinct lack of a normative theory for diversion of justice-involved individuals with mental illness at the intersection of the criminal justice and health care systems. The nexus where the criminal justice and health care systems are supposed to connect during diversion is not conceptually framed in a measurable way. The paper proposes a potential systems theory of diversion that explicates the overlapping boundaries within and between the criminal justice and health care systems. From a systems perspective, diversion is operationalized differently depending on the entry of an individual with justice involvement and mental illness into one of the systems. The criminal justice and health care systems have multiple levels (micro-, meso-, and macro-), but individuals enter both systems at the respective systems intersection of the micro- and meso-levels. The theoretical disconnect may fail to consider the impact of criminal justice diversion on the health care system. We propose a unified systems theory of diversion to improve evaluation, comparability, sustainability, resource allocation, and outcomes of diversion programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussion on legitimacy has highlighted its dialogic nature. The diversity of stakeholders in the penal system implies that penal policies and practices should be justifiable both internally (to offenders) and externally (to society at large). While most studies have focused on the internal aspect of penal legitimacy – the justification of authority through offenders’ perspectives – this paper calls for attention to the external stakeholders’ demands. Consequently, it becomes relevant to envisage ways of balancing between the conflicting standpoints of offenders and society at large regarding the justifications of penal power. For this purpose, this paper builds on Sen’s justice framework, whereby the best way to enhance justice is to avoid debating utopian ideals, and aims to apply its logic to the debate on penal legitimacy. It argues that it is not feasible to envisage a ‘legitimate prison’, and therefore it is better to focus on existing or possible alternatives of penal policies and practices. Since there are better and worse uses and justifications of penal power, legitimacy becomes a matter of degree. The reconciliation of conflicting views between preferable or less preferable uses and justifications of penal authority is suggested to be possible through exploring the potential of public debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilises the concept of 'hate relationships' in conversation with the literature on geographies of encounter to explore experiences of racism for those entrapped by racist encounters with those who are familiar. In so doing, we attend to the uneven and harmful risks involved in some forms of everyday urban encounter. We draw upon case notes collated by a hate advocacy service in North East England, UK, to illustrate the cumulative damaging force of enduring hate relationships. By drawing parallels with work on domestic violence, we suggest hate relationships evident in our data exhibit distinct temporalities of routinisation, whereby harmful 'low level' violence, often under the radar of the criminal justice system, gains force through repeated neighbourhood-based encounters. In so doing, we also highlight both the situated and relational spatialities at work; localised encounters marked by familiarity, racialised territoriality and experiences of fear and immobility, but also relations of entrenched disadvantage and institutional failures that sustain harm. Concerted acts of resistance look to confront and/or escape these relationships, but as forms of resolution, where additional burdens are placed on victim/survivors, these are constrained by the same violent conditions through which such relationships are allowed to take shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of change over time in crime rates is as old as criminology itself. A fundamental question about crime rates is whether they are moving up or down. This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice brings together recent research on trends in crime and related issues, such as arrests, imprisonment, terrorism, and reporting crimes to the police. These papers show that the study of crime trends is alive and well in criminology and point to innovative data sources, methods, and topics that deepen our understanding of how and why crime rates move up and down over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market rationality suffuses many areas of modern criminal justice. Prison privatization is one area in which market rationality is particularly salient. This paper presents a case study of how market rationality was deployed in public discourse on prison privatization. It answers four questions: (1) Who shaped public discourse on prison privatization? (2) How frequently were market-rational themes invoked in the public discourse?, (3) Who employed (and who avoided) market-rational themes in the discourse?, and (4) Why did rates of market-rational discourse change over time? To answer these questions, the paper analyzes public discourse in four major American newspapers from 1985 to 2008. It employs a series of descriptive statistics and regression analyses, as well as an underutilized method—formal decomposition analysis. The research contributes to historical knowledge of the development of prison privatization, methodological techniques for analyzing textual data, and theoretical understanding of how public actors engage in discursive struggles over the meaning of criminal justice policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing criminological interest in the many ex-service personnel mired within the UK’s criminal justice system, there remains a paucity of qualitative research studies examining the (violent) veteran offender. In response, this paper mobilizes the voices of veterans to explore the key life events that can shape their offending behaviour. Countering reductionist explanations of violent crime committed by ex-service personnel, we contend that veterans’ violence may be rooted within personal biographies and psyches, conditioned by military experiences and represent the psychosocial consequences of the socioeconomic transformations of advanced capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of an estimated $4.5 billion in 2020 by Nigeria to petroleum pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft has necessitated a critical assessment of the legal frameworks for the prevention of petroleum pipeline vandalism in Nigeria. This paper utilizes source materials relating to the title by examining the impacts of existing legal frameworks for the prevention of petroleum pipeline vandalization in Nigeria. It x-rays amongst others the provisions of sections 2 and 7 of the Petroleum Production and Distribution (Anti-Sabotage) Act and Miscellaneous Offences Act which imposes the death penalty and life imprisonment with the aim of deterring offenders without creating a court to try offenders. It reveals that in the face of such stringent sanctions, the activities of petroleum pipeline vandalism have continued unabated albeit a thriving business that is likely to arm the Nigerian economy in COVID-19 pandemic era. In addition, with an already perceived "compromised" criminal justice system, the paper concludes by advocating for change in policy strategy that will include the creation of a special court by amending existing legal frameworks to try offenders of the activities of petroleum pipeline vandalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of recent influential papers, Anthony Bottoms and Justice Tankebe make the case for a 'dialogic model' of police legitimacy, wherein legitimacy is envisaged as emergent in a process through which the police, as power-holders, make claims to authority which are, in turn, responded to by audiences. Our aim in this article is to analyse this model. We argue that while it has the potential to direct legitimacy research along paths hitherto poorly explored, there is a need for conceptual refinement and development in three key respects. First, through recognition of micro- and meso-levels of legitimation. Second, acknowledgement that police claims-making is contingent on the authorization and endorsement of other actors. Third, a fuller consideration of the qualified role of dialogue—i.e. communication between police and policed—in public audiences' legitimacy assessments. In the spirit of critical engagement and conceptual exploration, this article develops these three insights to propose a modified version of the dialogic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By blurring the agency of intercept interpreters, criminal justice agents whitewash actual unsolved questions of accountability between police and intercept interpreters regarding the selection and the editing of intercepted conversations. Although intercept interpreters substantially help criminal justice agents in constructing a criminal case, thereby shaping their understanding of the events and actively contributing to the employment, criminal justice agents still adhere to the fictional idea that intercept interpreters solely produce literal translations. In the French film I La Daronne i (2020), directed by Jean-Paul Salomé, the impressive actress Isabelle Huppert plays an intercept interpreter: she works for the drug squad in Paris and interprets the secretly surveilled phone calls of drug dealers from Arabic to French. From the point of view of the socio-legal insight regarding performative writing ([62]: 56), the fact that criminal justice authorities render the interpreter's co-authorship invisible is disturbing: when creating TWRs, intercept interpreters exercise performative writing, which is a fact-producing act. [Extracted from the article]

New penal technologies, however innovative, rarely emerge fully formed, but we currently lack a theoretical appreciation of the lengthy, messy process by which penal innovations develop. Indeed, most studies of penal change focus on the conditions surrounding the emergence of a particularly successful innovation, a model of punishment whose widespread diffusion is indicative of significant change. This paper extends our analytical focus by examining the legacy of an innovation’s prehistory, the ideational period in which an idea is created at the margins of criminal justice before manifesting on a wider scale. This paper traces the history, and influence, of American uses of penal incarceration before Pennsylvania’s famous Walnut Street Prison, often referred to as the country’s first prison. This prehistory complicates the notion of innovation by identifying significant precursors. Ultimately, recognizing penal innovations’ prehistory challenges macro-level theories of penal change, which largely overlook those causes that significantly predate the “moment” of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is well established that First Nations Peoples in Australia are overrepresented within the criminal justice system. However, First Nations Peoples appear to be comparatively underrepresented in the forensic mental health system, and little is known about their outcomes once released from secure care. Objective: To compare the characteristics and rates of repeat criminal justice contact for a criminal charge of First Nations and non-First Nations forensic patients in New South Wales. Methods: Data on the sample were extracted from the New South Wales Mental Health Review Tribunal paper and electronic files matched to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Reoffending Database. Characteristics of First Nations and non-First Nations patients were compared using univariate logistic regression analysis. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression was used to determine predictors of post-release criminal charges. Results: Key differences in the sociodemographic, clinical and forensic characteristics of First Nations compared with non-First Nations forensic patients were identified. The time to first criminal justice contact following release was significantly shorter for First Nations forensic patients (p < 0.01). Conclusion: The findings of this study confirm that First Nations forensic patients have distinct and complex needs that are apparent at entry to the forensic mental health system and that their poorer criminal justice contact rates following release from secure care indicate that these needs are not being adequately met either during treatment or once in the community. Responses to these study findings must consider the complex and continuing impact of colonisation on First Nations Peoples, as well as the need for solutions to be culturally safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue B I Contemporary Issues in Crime, Criminal justice and Criminology in Greater China i b , was commissioned specifically as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of the I Association of Chinese Criminology and Criminal Justice in the United States i (ACCCJ). A Brief History of ACCCJ and Its Accomplishments The field of criminology and criminal justice studies has grown exponentially since the 1980s, while at the same time interest in the study of crime, justice and criminology in Chinese societies also increased rapidly. The mission of the ACCCJ is to promote research and studies in criminology and criminal justice on Chinese societies, and to mentor young scholars who are interested in comparative criminology/criminal justice. The School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University - one of the prime sociology programs in China, has organized a month long summer camp on criminology for junior scholars in China in 2017, 2018 and 2019. [Extracted from the article]

Existing models of financial extraction in the criminal justice system are applied to the case of profitable telephone contracts in the Los Angeles County jails during the mid-1990s. The case exemplifies instances of a "punishment" model of monetary sanctions, in which profits are derived for crime control purposes, and a "predation" model, in which inmates are seen as potential resources to absolve fiscal crisis and create market opportunities. However, the case contains an additional element: legal demand concerning inmates' mental health care treatment. It is shown that telephone profits in jails could not have been used for predation or punishment purposes without the exploitation of legal ambiguity around inmate's healthcare. Broader implications for the study of financial extraction as a constitutive theory – one that is both historical causal explanation and generalizable description – are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminal justice system fines and fees are a source of revenue for courts, district attorneys, probation departments, and other actors both inside and outside of the justice system. Because these departments rely on fine and fee revenue to partially fund their budgets, they may be incentivized to oppose reforms that would reduce fine and fee collections. Using budget documents from counties and a sample of municipalities in Florida and New York, the authors find that budget reports provide more detailed data on fines and fees than are available from other data sources, including information on which types of fines and fees are collected and how much revenue criminal justice fines and fees provide, both on a per-capita basis and as a share of the total jurisdiction budget. This paper presents a replicable methodology for future research in how to use local government budget documents to evaluate fine and fee collections. A larger, forthcoming study will use this methodology to examine fine and fee collections in five states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue invites authors engaged in cutting-edge research on crime and criminal justice in the Republic of Ireland to demonstrate Ireland's global significance in these fields. Irish criminology is a burgeoning, diverse and outward-looking discipline, with a rising number of scholars making novel contributions to international debates on the theoretical and empirical study of crime and criminal justice. Its relatively unique position as both a Western European democracy and a post-colonial territory means that Ireland is of equal significance to the Global North and Global South. Moreover, this growth in local scholarship coincides with changes to criminal justice that should be of interest to advocates and analysts around the world. With articles on gendered historical abuses, public attitudes to policing, countering violent extremism, penal decision-making, penal politics, youth justice and organised crime, the issue brings this research to a global audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review examined the evidence on factors influencing the flow of homicide, from suspicious death to imprisonment. Bibliographic databases and thesis portals were searched. The total number of hits was 15,986, of which 15,830 were irrelevant, 35 did not include a quantitative sample, 26 did not focus on homicide, 18 did not present flow data, and for seven there was no full text available. The remaining 70 papers were analyzed. With the exception of one, no study presented a complete longitudinal flow. Results indicated that both legal and extralegal characteristics influence the likelihood of cases to drop out. Aside from a first mapping of homicide case flows, future research should explore false positives and false negatives, to come to a first understanding of funnel selectivity in homicide cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversations around criminal legal reform often center around prosecutorial discretion. Yet, we know little about how the demographic characteristics of prosecutors influence case outcomes and race- and sex-based carceral disparities. I investigate this question using an original dataset of all county prosecutors in the US in 2001 and 2007 and find some differences between non-white and female prosecutors and white and male prosecutors. Black prosecutors are associated with fewer felony closures and convictions, Latinx prosecutors are associated with lower Latinx jail populations, and female prosecutors are associated with lower female and Black jail populations, lower Black prison admissions, and lower jail admissions rates. These findings suggest prosecutorial discretion is an important plank of criminal legal reform, and increasing the diversity of those offices may act as an important and initial step to limit the negative effects of the carceral state on particular communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prison homicide, or homicides that occur between individuals who are incarcerated, has received a dearth of attention in scholarly literature. These homicides have increased over the past several decades with devastating consequences for those housed within prison walls, correctional and administrative staff, the families of those incarcerated, and the communities from which they are removed. Perpetrators of prison homicides often continue to engage in violence despite incapacitation, calling into question the ability of the state to house individuals safely. When fatal violence occurs, victims of these homicides are constructed as deserving of violence. Drawing from critical criminological perspectives of state-sanctioned violence, I argue that treatment of these victims affects the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and public safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited studies have considered the experiences of Latinx intimate partner homicide (IPH) survivors. A federally designated, culturally specific gender-based violence resource center partnered with nine community-based organizations to enhance culturally specific knowledge on IPH prevention by conducting listening sessions and key informant interviews with Latinx survivors, advocates, and community practitioners. The current study analyzed data from the larger project to explore help-seeking barriers encountered by Latinx IPH survivors, specifically cisgender and transgender women. Results identified six themes impacting help-seeking: an inaccessible criminal justice system, inequitable resources, immigrant identity, gender role beliefs and expectations, a lack of culturally sensitive services, and family concerns. Policy implications and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]