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According to crime pattern theory, offenders likely commit crimes in areas where their awareness space overlaps with criminal opportunity. If both are necessary conditions for crime to take place somewhere, their influence on crime location choice likely depends upon one another. Interactions between two activity nodes—residential area of (1) offenders, (2) offenders’ family—and two criminal opportunity indicators—number of bars/restaurants/hotels, collective efficacy—were tested and found (N = 13,088 any-crime-type offences committed by 5377 offenders): both residential area types were more often targeted than areas where offenders/family did not live, with no/lesser difference between low versus high criminal opportunity. Areas where offenders/family did not live were statistically significantly least often targeted when criminal opportunity there was low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a random sample of 1,435 Ukrainian and Russian respondents, this study integrates the predictions of Agnew's macro-level strain theory (MST) and general strain theory (GST). Specifically, it seeks to identify possible interactive effects of context--community-level strain, negative affect and religiosity--and individual strain-related variables on personal criminal involvement and depressive symptoms. Findings provide evidence of individual-level processes described by GST, revealing a relationship between personal strain and both criminal involvement and depression. However, community-level strains, anger and religiosity appear unrelated to individual behaviour, whether as direct predictors of crime or as moderators of the strain-crime relationship. The only statistically significant contextual effect uncovered by the study is the association between community disorder and depression. These findings highlight areas in need for further refinement in GST and MST, and they offer several insights into the cultural limitations of a different theoretical framework, the concentrated disadvantage paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socializing power of the prison is routinely discussed as a prisonization process in which inmates learn to conform to life in the correctional facility. However, the impact that identities socialized in the prison may have outside of the institution itself remains an under-researched aspect of mass incarceration's collateral consequences. In this article, I use ethnographic data collected over IS months in two juvenile justice facilities and interviews with 24 probation youth to examine how the identities socialized among Latino prison inmates spill over into high-incarceration Latina/o neighborhoods. Strict segregation practices in California's prison system categorize and separate Latino inmates as coming from either Northern, Southern, or Central California, respectively institutionalizing Norteno, Sureno, and Bulldog collective identities in the process. I argue that these identities have come to frame how criminalized Latina/o youth understand the prison's influence on their community. As youth enter the juvenile justice system, they encounter facilities that have appropriated the prison's sorting practices by categorizing youth and policing the boundaries between them. Carceral group identities become instrumental in young people's daily lives in this context, mirroring what they have heard from the experiences of incarcerated loved ones and confirming where they would fit in the prison's social order. This process not only labels youth as gang members but instills in them identities and worldviews that rationalize their own incarceration, extending the prison's ability to categorize people as carceral subjects far beyond the penitentiary gates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to better understand the online black market economy, specifically relating to stolen data, using crime script analysis. Content analysis of 13 English- and Russian-speaking stolen data forums found that the different products and services offered enabled the commodification of stolen data. The marketplace offers a range of complementary products, from the supply of hardware and software to steal data, the sale of the stolen data itself, to the provision of services to turn data into money, such as drops, cashiers and money laundering. The crime script analysis provides some insight into how the actors in these forums interact, and the actions they perform, from setting up software to finalizing transactions and exiting the marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical clustering of criminal events can be used by crime analysts to create lists of potential suspects for an unsolved crime, to identify groups of crimes that may have been committed by the same individuals or group of individuals, for offender profiling and for predicting future events. We propose a Bayesian model-based clustering approach for criminal events. Our approach is semisupervised, because the offender is known for a subset of the events, and utilizes spatiotemporal crime locations as well as crime features describing the offender's modus operandi. The hierarchical model naturally handles complex features that are often seen in crime data, including missing data, interval-censored event times and a mix of discrete and continuous variables. In addition, our Bayesian model produces posterior clustering probabilities which allow analysts to act on model output only as warranted. We illustrate the approach by using a large data set of burglaries in 2009-2010 in Baltimore County, Maryland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminalizing the harms of the powerful has considerable appeal for those who desire a more tractable, ethical and sustainable business sector. Yet, attempts to both establish criminal offences and to enforce them once they are enacted often face perennial challenges. These challenges are a product of the ambiguities—economic, moral and legal—associated with the conduct sought to be criminalized, in this case cartels, and with the character of the criminal law itself. Following Aubert, we argue that exploring these ambiguities reveals critical social and economic shifts in society. Further, these shifts pose significant challenges to the legitimacy of incumbent governments. The paper makes these arguments drawing on the recent reform criminalizing cartel conduct in Australia, teasing apart the multiple ambiguities involved and, in particular, how they map the shift in the Australian Labor Party’s policies away from welfare providing security to citizens to an embrace of market competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines operational developments in geographic profiling in the last decade, focusing on police use and training and the exploration of new applications. A brief summary of environmental criminology, the theoretical foundation of geographic profiling, is first provided. The establishment of the geographic profiling analysis training program for property crime is then discussed. This is followed by a review of new applications of the methodology in border security, military counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and geo-historical analysis. Research on the use of geographic profiling in biology, zoology, and epidemiology is next discussed. Finally, potential future developments are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article evaluates the success of early 20th-century residential re-education programs for male juvenile delinquents and other boys deemed to be at risk in the Netherlands. Particular focus is given to the lifetime societal adaptation of men placed in the Harreveld reform school in Harreveld, the Netherlands, as children. According to the authors, the school's focus was on prevention rather than correction, and most students were placed in the school as a result of their parents' behavior rather than their own. It is suggested that while the students were more likely to obtain gainful employment than would otherwise be expected, they had high rates of delinquency and family instability. Topics discussed include professional training, divorce, and risk factors for delinquency.

The economic theory of crime views criminals as rational decision makers, implying elastic response to law enforcement. Group-dependent elasticities can be exploited for efficient allocation of enforcement resources. However, profiling can augment both number of arrests and total crime since non-profiled groups will increase their criminality. Elasticities are highly uncertain, so prediction is difficult and uncertainty must be accounted for in designing a profiling strategy. We use info-gap theory for satisficing (not minimizing) total crime rate. Using an empirical example, based on running red lights, we demonstrate the trade-off between robustness to uncertainty and total crime rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Criminal profiling is a tool to reduce the uncertainty when identifying an offender in difficult to solve crimes. There are, however, unresolved questions as to whether criminal profiling is an appropriate tool for evidence-based policing. Potential offender characteristics tend to be expressed in criminal profiles through vague verbal expressions of uncertainty which may lead to investigators misinterpreting the claims and investigations being misled. This vagueness of expression also makes it difficult to empirically verify the effectiveness of criminal profiles. This article discusses alternative approaches to profiling based on analyses of police data and of criminological and forensic psychological studies that allow claims to be expressed in terms that are less open to subjective interpretation and which allow the accuracy of the profile to be assessed. Also discussed are the implications and limitations of a more evidence-based approach to criminal profiling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors discuss their research into the influence of self-control in the formation of social bonds commonly thought to prevent criminal activity: education, employment and marriage. The role of self-control and social bonds as predictive of arrest in young adulthood is discussed. The authors' findings emphasize school failure as a key consequence of poor self-control and predictor of arrest as well as high school graduation as a factor in the possibility of commission of future crimes during young adulthood.

This paper analyzes the influence that juvenile offenders serving time in the same correctional facility have on each other's subsequent criminal behavior. The analysis is based on data on over 8,000 individuals serving time in 169 juvenile correctional facilities during a two-year period in Florida. These data provide a complete record of past crimes, facility assignments, and arrests and adjudications in the year following release for each individual. To control for the nonrandom assignment to facilities, we include facility and facility-by-prior-offense fixed effects, thereby estimating peer effects using only within-facility variation over time. We find strong evidence of peer effects for burglary, petty larceny, felony and misdemeanor drug offenses, aggravated assault, and felony sex offenses. The influence of peers primarily affects individuals who already have some experience in a particular crime category. We also find evidence that the predominant types of peer effects differ in residential versus nonresidential facilities; effects in the latter are consistent with network formation among youth serving time close to home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the problem of determining patterns of criminal behaviour from official criminal histories, concentrating on the variety and type of offending convictions. The analysis is carried out on the basis of a multivariate latent Markov model which allows for discrete covariates affecting the initial and the transition probabilities of the latent process. We also show some simplifications which reduce the number of parameters substantially; we include a Rasch-like parameterization of the conditional distribution of the response variables given the latent process and a constraint of partial homogeneity of the latent Markov chain. For the maximum likelihood estimation of the model we outline an EM algorithm based on recursions known in the hidden Markov literature, which make the estimation feasible also when the number of time occasions is large. Through this model, we analyse the conviction histories of a cohort of offenders who were born in England and Wales in 1953. The final model identifies five latent classes and specifies common transition probabilities for males and females between 5-year age periods, but with different initial probabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime surveys typically ask respondents how likely they think it is that they will be a crime victim in the year after questioning. A three-wave longitudinal panel survey conducted in Trinidad was no exception. This design permits an examination of both the degree to which predictions are based on past experience and of the accuracy or otherwise of such predictions when compared to subsequent events. Analysis revealed that respondents typically do not base predictions on experience, are typically pessimistic and that this is not warranted by their subsequent experience. It is cautiously suggested that rather than be involved in probabilistic mathematical calculations, respondents are more likely to consult lay heuristics which may be utterly fallacious from the perspective of probability theory, but convenient and available, if rather gloomy, nevertheless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines whether age at the onset of official delinquency is associated in time with school and problem behavior generally by using a longitudinal sample of Swedish boys. Subject's first offense as a major factor in understanding his subsequent criminal career; Relationship of age at onset of offending to school maladjustment and externalizing problems; Peer relations at different ages.

Although prediction is usually considered an integral part of science, there appears to be at least one situation in which prediction is as much guesswork as science. This is the prediction of a patient's potential dangerousness by psychiatrists. Our paper reports the findings of a three year longitudinal study of specific psychiatric predictions of dangerousness. We report data on the impact of non-psychiatric factors in these decisions, the justifications offered by psychiatrists for a finding of dangerousness, the extent to which the psychiatric recommendations are accepted by the court, and the level of accuracy of the psychiatric predictions Our data suggest that the confidence placed in psychiatry's ability to predict the potential of dangerous behavior is unjustified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on some of the principles of criminal typology. In past, criminals were classified into following five classes: the born criminal, the insane criminal, the criminal by passion, the habitual criminal, and the occasional criminal. Besides, they have also been classified as murderers, violent criminals, criminals lacking in probity and lascivious criminals These attempts may be taken as representative of other efforts to develop some adequate system for classifying criminals. The chief difficulty with these classifications is the absence of any principle guiding them and usually there is no analysis of the classification in terms of the theoretical base upon which it is supposed to depend. As a matter of fact, these schemes are largely either empirical in character or based upon conventional legal categories. Sometimes, categories are established upon the basis of theories which have been discarded. The principle implicit in these schemes is that, since crime is a social phenomenon, criminals must be classified in accordance with their social orientation and in accordance with the values and cultural definitions in the social world in which they live.

This paper examines hypotheses derived from "differential identification." Specifically, the degree of delinquency involvement of an individual is compared with that of those individuals with whom he identifies-whether positively or negatively. The degree of delinquency involvement was measured by a self-reported delinquency scale. Results suggest similar delinquency involvement among close friends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of past efforts to predict parole outcome indicates that, although there have been some recent improvements in the methodology, there has been no appreciable increase in predictive power. Two related reasons for this are evident. First, the prevalent use of prison files as a data source limits the kind of research question which can be asked. Second, the non-theoretical nature of this research has prevented a systematic accumulation of knowledge relative to this problem. The success of future efforts depends on whether parole prediction research conforms to the basic requirements of scientific investigation which include utilizing theoretical guidelines and selecting variables on the basis of their theoretical relevance instead of on their availability in prison files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the Committee on Crime and Delinquency, within the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), in the U.S. After a discussion of its members, it was concluded that the committee should give primary attention during 1957-58 to improving the theoretical basis and research methodology for studies in criminal typology as well as for studies of the correctional community. In April, during the Pacific Sociological Society annual meeting, several members of the committee met and it was suggested that the committee focus attention on two rough groupings of offenders against property: those guilty of fraudulent behavior like forgery, grand larceny by check, or obtaining money under false pretenses and thieves. The committee seems to be in agreement that they should invite sociologists whose major interest is criminology and who are not members of the SSSP to help with these projects. The committee also agreed that pilot studies should be encouraged in these two fields of criminal typology and correctional communities.