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This article contributes to our existing knowledge through a crime script analysis of contract killings, based on six extensively analyzed police investigations in the Netherlands. Starting from a universal crime script, a more specific crime script for contract killings is elaborated. To provide a clear picture of the whole process, the description of the scenes focuses on requirements, facilitators, modi operandi, and preparatory actions. A comparison of liquidation investigations is made through a crime script analysis, which results in three types of requirements: vehicles, automatic weapons, and technical equipment, including PGP-telephones and beacons. In addition, spy shops turn out to play a major role in liquidations as facilitators. Due to a lack of licensing and regulations, the owners of spy shops can decide to a large extent on their own procedures. This leads to the possibility of buying and selling equipment anonymously and with large amounts of cash, which facilitates the preparation of liquidations and crime in general. Hitmen are the second type of important facilitators. The analysis reveals that all liquidation investigations contain indications of a principal to whom account has to be held. Two investigations clearly demonstrate financial rewards for contract killings.

The article was submitted on 20.09.2022. Статья посвящена описанию культурного сценария русского застолья. Материалом исследования послужили тексты-разговоры, записанные методом включенного наблюдения и отражающие коммуникативно-речевое взаимодействие носителей уральского городского просторечия. Пример сценарного анализа позволяет рассмотреть застолье как коммуникативное событие, структурировать его, представив в виде последовательности эпизодов, и открывает возможность его целостного описания. Гостеприимство считается отличительной чертой русского национального характера, базовой ценностью русской культуры. Застолье как встреча людей по какомулибо праздничному поводу, сопровождаемая приемом пищи и алкоголя, отражает не только типовые действия, но и типовые ценностные представления, нормы и установки носителей национально-культурного сообщества, выявляемые в процессе застольного общения. В статье последовательно рассматриваются опорные звенья культурного сценария: предварительная подготовка к застолью, прием и чествование гостей, угощение, застольный разговор. Описаны ролевые права и обязанности хозяев и гостей, выделен ряд ситуативных и поведенческих установок, подтверждающих ценности радушия, хлебосольства, коммуникативного гедонизма, социоцентричности. Особый интерес представляет лингвокультурологический анализ застольных разговоров и тостов носителей уральского просторечия. Он выявляет значимость таких культурных констант, как семья, дом, труд, «свои». Культурная специфика просторечной коммуникации проявляется в детабуизации тем, связанных с физиологическими потребностями человека, в открытости своего и чужого личностного пространства, неотъемлемом праве на эмоционально-оценочную интерпретацию речеповеденческих реакций членов «своего круга». Органичность культурного сценария обеспечивается шутками, общими смеховыми реакциями, балагурством, карнавализацией речевого поведения. Интегративная функция выявленных установок обеспечивает гармонизацию речевого поведения участников застолья. This article describes the cultural script of the Russian feast. The author refers to texts of conversations recorded using the participant observation method and reflecting the communicative-speech interaction of the speakers of the Ural urban vernacular. The method of script analysis makes it possible to consider a feast as a communicative event, structure it, present it as a sequence of episodes, and open up the possibility for its holistic description. Hospitality is considered a distinctive feature of the Russian national character, the basic value of Russian culture. A feast as a meeting of people on a festive occasion, accompanied by a meal and alcohol, reflects not only typical actions but also typical value ideas, norms, and attitudes of the carriers of the national-cultural community revealed in the process of feast communication. The article consistently examines the supporting links of the cultural script: preliminary preparation for a feast, receiving and honouring guests, refreshments, and conversations at the table. The author describes the role rights and obligations of the hosts and guests, identifying some situational and behavioral attitudes confirming the values of cordiality, hospitality, communicative hedonism, and socio-centricity. Of particular interest is the linguoculturological analysis of table conversations and toasts of the speakers of the Ural vernacular. It reveals the significance of such cultural constants as family, home, work, and “one’s own”. The cultural peculiarities of colloquial communication are manifested in the detabooing of topics related to the physiological needs of a person, in the openness of one’s own and others’ personal space, the inalienable right to an emotional and evaluative interpretation of speech-behavioural reactions of members of “one’s circle”. The organic nature of the cultural script rests on jokes, general laughter reactions, and carnivalisation of speech behavior. The integrative function of the identified attitudes ensures the harmonisation of the participants’ speech behaviour in the feast.

Crime script analysis is becoming an increasingly used approach for examining organized crime. Crime scripts can use data from multiple sources, including open sources of intelligence (OSINT). Limited guidance exists, however, on how to populate the content of a crime script with data, and validate these data. This results in crime scripts being generated intuitively, restricts them from being scrutinised for their quality, and limits the opportunity to combine or compare crime scripts. We introduce a practical process for populating the content of a crime script that involves simple coding procedures and uses document analysis to quality assure data that are extracted from open sources. We illustrate the process with the example of theft of oil from pipelines in Mexico committed by organized crime groups. The structured methodical process we introduce produces a crime script of high quality, helps to improve the systematic analysis of decision-making performed by members of organized crime groups, and can improve the identification of opportunities for crime control.

E-commerce is the practice of purchasing, selling, transferring, and exchanging goods, services, or information through the Internet, a computer, and/or other devices. With the development of e-commerce markets, fraud is increasingly reported. This study uses a crime script analysis to examine how customer-to-customer (C2C) fraud occurs on China’s online platforms with a particular focus on the online marketplace Baidu Tieba and Tencent QQ, a tool that allows customers to make contact and negotiate deals and payment methods. The findings demonstrate that C2C fraud develops through pre-operation, operation, finalization, and exit stages, sharing commonalities with other online identity fraud processes. Implications for policy and interventions are also discussed in regard to e-commerce fraud in China and elsewhere.

Extremists and the behaviors performed by extremists are a growing concern. There is a growing body of research showing the differences between violent and nonviolent extremists in terms of developmental pathways and actions. The current research used a temporal approach, crime script analysis, to map the pathways of violent and nonviolent extremists. Results showed differences between the groups in terms of Internet use, social networks and methods of enacting their beliefs. This research provides a new approach to understanding extremism and highlights the role of temporal methods in showing key differences that require different intervention strategies.

This article presents a study of the design history of the snowsuit as a product type and explores the constitutive factors in its development. To shed light on the snowsuit as a designed object, the study draws on Actor Network Theory (ANT), particularly work linking ANT to design. In order to do this, the study focuses on the Finnish company Reima, which has been a leading producer of children’s wear in the Nordic region since the 1960s. The article traces the development of the one-piece snowsuit from a marginal product type, whose use was advised against because it was seen as hindering children’s freedom of movement, to the ubiquitous position it holds in Nordic pre-school children’s wardrobe today. Innovations in textile technology play a prominent role in this development, as does the emergence of a new configuration of use, characterized by working mothers and institutionalized children, which has increased the demand for garments that are practical, robust and easy-care. The article argues that the snowsuit is essentially a technique for making children more ‘suitable’ for institutions and links the snowsuit to a broader movement towards the rationalisation of family life in the welfare state.

This study aims to better understand transnational computer fraud in Vietnam utilizing crime script analysis. Data from criminal profiles and in-depth interviews with investigators were combined, and the results showed that Vietnam could become an operational base for both domestic and foreign criminals to implement transnational computer fraud. This type of fraud, which includes crimes with only minor technological elements and those involving almost entirely technological factors, represents the intersection of fraud, transnationality, and technology. Technology can support criminals in defrauding victims transnationally without the need for direct interaction. Moreover, the study clarified the different roles of Vietnamese and foreign offenders in the two types of transnational computer fraud: bank card data fraud and phone scams. As the first study of this nature implemented in Vietnam, this research contributes to the knowledge of computer fraud, especially in Asia, providing a foundation for future investigations related to this kind of cybercrime.

The theft of refined oil products provides criminal groups with significant financial resources that threaten the environment and socio-economic stability of countries where it occurs. Violence is also associated with this criminal activity. Using crime script analysis, a detailed interpretation of the theft of oil via the illegal tapping of pipelines in Mexico was constructed. The analysis revealed the roles performed by members of criminal groups, the recruitment of individuals outside of the criminal group to provide information about the pipelines and perform technical activities, and the supporting role of citizens and businesses from local communities. The analysis also revealed the decision-making necessary for the successful commission of oil theft via the illegal tapping of pipelines. The use of situational crime prevention measures and improvements in the use of deterrence are identified as offering opportunities for preventing this criminal activity.

Script recognition is the mechanism of automatic script analysis and recognition whereby intensive study has been carried out and a significant amount of papers on this problem have been released over the past. But there are still a few issues to be solved, particularly in Indian historical manuscripts. This literature examines the Script recognition with reference to multi-script document and different historical scripts such as Kurdish-Latin, Devanagari, Grantha, Arabic handwritten characters, Bangladesh, Devanagari and Gurumukhi, ancient Chinese, Arabic, Nam Character, Greek, Nastalique Urdu, Georgian handwritten, Nandinagari, and Hebrew, which provide the course of study that focuses on the framework for script recognition. This review concentrates on scope of prediction, dataset type, the methods used for data preprocessing, and measures of performance used for analysis. On the basis of this survey, Current research constraints have been recognized and future study specifications are emphasized in the area of modeling historical manuscripts. CCS Concepts

The current study examines failed mass shootings in the United States between 2003 and 2018. This exploratory research provides a summary of failed mass shooting perpetrator and incident characteristics, drawing from crime script analysis to examine the preparation, attack, and conclusion stages, as well as points of failure. Findings indicate suicidal ideation, attack realities, and weapon preparedness may play a role in attack failures. Furthermore, situational crime prevention (SCP) techniques including target hardening and access control contributed to harm mitigation when individuals without legitimate access conducted attacks. Internal SCP measures, including lockdowns, place managers, and armed security, helped prevent victimization in open access or semi-protected locations once the perpetrator entered the building. A discussion of findings highlights implications for public safety and policy.

Over the last two decades, researchers explored various aspects of the operational practices of online illicit market operations through the Open and Dark Web for various physical and digital goods...

The theoretical basis of Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) posits that to reduce crime it is first necessary to understand the interaction between the physical environment and criminal decision ma...

The overall aim of the thesis was to enhance and revive the practical understanding of the active ingredients in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy (TA) and to define and lay down elements of TA that make it a distinct and replicable method of treatment. The thesis includes three empirical studies of a videotaped one-year long TA Group Therapy with 10 clients. Three different key areas of Transactional Analysis have been investigated with support of three different approaches. The first study (Johnsson, 2011 a) was a diagnostic client assessment with TA Script Analysis made as a reliability study. The second study (Johnsson, 2011 b) dealt with identification of different components in TA psychotherapy method with the use of Discourse Analysis and the third study (Johnsson & Stenlund, 2010) investigated the Therapeutic Alliance with a psychodynamic approach, using the CCRT method (the CORE Conflictual Relationship method) by Luborsky & Crits-Christoph (1990, 1998) and the Plan – Diagnosis method by Weiss & Sampson (1986). Study I: A script questionnaire and associated checklist developed by Ohlsson, Johnsson & Björk (1992) was used by the author and two professional colleagues to independently assess ten clients of a year-long transactional analysis therapy group conducted by the author. Ratings based on written responses at start of therapy were compared to ratings based on videotape interviews conducted by the author six years after termination of therapy. Moderately high inter-assessor reliability was found but intra-assessor reliability was low for the independent assessors; agreement increased for script components ‘primary injunction from father,’ ‘racket feeling’, ‘escape hatch’, ‘driver from father’ and ‘driver from mother’. Study II: Operational definitions of categorisations by McNeel (1975) were developed and applied by the author and an independent assessor to complete discourse analysis of 72 hours of transactional analysis group therapy in the style of Goulding & Goulding (1976, 1979) conducted during 1984/85. Results showed that the therapist used an average of 42% of the discourse space and that the therapy did indeed contain TA components, with the two main categories being ‘Feeling Contact’ and ‘Contracts’, and with particular use of TA techniques of ‘talking to Parent projections’, ‘make feeling statement’, ‘mutual negotiation’ and ‘specificity/clarity’. Inter-rater reliability was 46.2% (Araujo & Born 1985), Cohen’s (1960) kappa coefficient shows a spread from slight to moderate agreement, and the Odds Ratio (Viera, 2008) is above 1.0 for most categories. One intervention, "mutual negotiation", with moderate reliability could be identified as “TA typical". Study III: The study describes an investigation of the significance of the affective dimension of the therapeutic alliance (Bordin 1979), in a psychodynamic form of transactional analysis therapy after the style of “Redecision therapy” (Goulding & Goulding, 1979). We explored the client’s pattern of affective relationships by use of CCRT by Luborsky & Crits-Christoph (1990, 1998) and examined how the therapist responds to the client’s affective messages (“tests”) by use of the Plan-Diagnosis method (Weiss & Sampson, 1986). We found that “emotional” aspects play a more decisive role than has been envisioned in the TA redecision method and similar approaches of TA psychotherapy that emphasise contracts, tasks of therapy and a rational approach.

Imported to adorn tanks of marine aquarium hobbyists, the trade in live corals poses a significant risk to species that concurrently face threats from rising global temperatures, pollution, and destructive fishing practices. To better understand the live coral trade, we employed a crime script framework to analyze the process by which corals are harvested in two of the world’s major exporting countries—Indonesia and Fiji. We demonstrate that coral harvesting and export are complex activities that require a specific set of skills and tools. As such, various intervention strategies are proposed to address illegal coral harvesting at different stages of the crime script.

The study aims to better understand transnational identity fraud utilizing crime script analysis. Drawing upon the author’s ethnographic data from transnational identity fraud cases, analysis reveals how voice phishing crimes are planned and executed by Chinese criminals. The details and procedures of each crime are documented in a “crime script.” Using routine activity theory, as well as a migration-crime nexus, this research frames voice phishing (“vishing”) as a form of transnational identity fraud anchored at the intersection of technology and migration. Furthermore, crime script analysis offers a look into not only the processes and details of these crimes, as well as each phase of the offenders’ actions, but also provides insight into crime prevention strategies.

Despite the growing interest in illicit waste trafficking (IWT), studies that empirically address the issue are still few. Mostly, they fail to present in-depth analysis of the different stages of ...

How are instructions mediated by technical artifacts? What role does technology play? From a Latourian perspective, these questions have to do with composition. The purpose of this article is to review Latour’s approach to Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, more specifically, to review and assess his visualization practices. According to Latour, science and technology are not two separated domains. Scientific facts are obtained through cascades of mediation of heterogenous components, and the manufacture and use of technical artifacts is a co-action by humans and non-humans. Latour’s STS approach contributed toward the development of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), which seeks to provide performative narratives of things by tracking their traces and transformations. These analyses reveal a key concern of the composition of things. For Latour, everything that occurs in the world is a hybrid assembly composed by humans and non-humans; we therefore need proper methods to map out the associations clearly and gain a better understanding. Along with attempts to develop theoretical analyses, Latour has also conducted visualization practices to perform the interwoven nature of things. I argue that visualization practices, which are endowed with performative power, can be treated as a supplement to STS research, functioning as a practical method of ANT to show how things are composed and, conversely, providing more cases for theoretical analysis.

Package theft is an emerging crime type due to the tremendous growth in online shopping and the delivery of goods directly to a home. Unattended delivery creates an opportunity for thieves to steal...