Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are small devices that police officers can affix to their person—in a head-, shoulder-, or chest-mounted position—that can audio and video record their interactions with community members. BWCs have received strong support from the public and, in recent years, widespread buy-in from police leadership and officers because of their ability to improve accountability and transparency and enhance the collection of evidence. Implementation guidelines recommend that officers activate their BWCs during each officer–citizen interaction and inform the people they encounter that they are being recorded. Early research on this technology found that officers equipped with body cameras were significantly less likely to engage in force and receive citizen complaints. However, more recent studies with larger samples have had mixed findings about the impact of body cameras on use of force, citizen complaints, and other police activities and behaviors.
Numerous legal and ethical considerations are associated with BWCs, including their implications for privacy concerns and public disclosure. However, police officials, policymakers, civil rights groups, and the public must continue to weigh these privacy concerns against the potential for BWCs to enhance police accountability and transparency. Future scholarship should focus on the degree to which BWCs can improve police–community relations and yield valuable evidence for both criminal cases and internal investigations.
Article
Body Cameras and Policing
Bryce Elling Peterson and Daniel S. Lawrence
Article
Corporate Fraud, Corruption, and Financial Malfeasance
Harland Prechel
Corporate failures and financial crisis in the early 21st century generated an increased awareness of the pervasiveness of corporate corruption, fraud, and financial malfeasance. In addition to the tremendous financial costs to society and the loss of public confidence in corporations and social institutions, corporate wrongdoing adversely effects corporations by undermining profits, morale, and trust.
Understanding contemporary corporate corruption, fraud, and financial malfeasance requires an examination of the extent to which historical variation in organizational, political-legal, and ideology arrangements affect opportunities for managers to engage in these behaviors. These components of the social structure are not mutually exclusive but are part of a dynamic system that consists of many interconnected component parts. As a whole, the literature examined here suggests that the components of the formal and informal structure create incentives, motivations, and opportunities to engage in corruption, fraud, and malfeasance.
The emphasis on social structure is critical to advance our understanding of how corporate political embeddedness, the social organization of markets, and corporate characteristics all affect wrongdoing. The main findings include the following.
1.Contemporary research confirms and extends Sutherland’s initial insight that differential social structure creates variation in opportunities to engage in corporate crime. Corporate characteristics, including structure, size, vertical integration, prestige, cognitive assumptions, corporate norms, dependence on institutional investors, bounded rationality, opportunities, and political embeddedness, are associated with corporate corruption, fraud, and financial malfeasance.
2.Corporations in the United States engaged in political behavior to re-regulate multiple spheres of corporations’ political embeddedness that permitted management to enter existing markets, create new markets, and engage in high-risk behaviors in them.
3.Corporate culture and ethics interact with markets and other dimensions of the social structure to create normative conditions conducive to corporate corruption and fraud.
4.Individual characteristics, including chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) age and the networks among top management and corporate boards, affect corporate corruption, fraud, and malfeasance.
5.Given that few policy changes were implement in the 2008 post-crisis era, the political embeddedness and characteristics of corporations continue to provide opportunities for corporations and their agents to engage in corruption, fraud, and malfeasance.
Article
Crime Analysis in Policing
Eric L. Piza and Rachael A. Arietti
Crime analysis involves the use of data to study crime-related problems. This includes identifying spatial and temporal patterns of crime events, understanding the characteristics of crime scenes, and identifying high-risk victims and offenders. Work products of crime analysts provide police the ability to understand the nature of crime problems in their jurisdiction. This information is then used to develop crime prevention interventions. Crime analysis is a requirement of the types of proactive, focused, problem-solving activities that work best in policing. Crime analysis can be categorized into four broad types: crime intelligence analysis, tactical crime analysis, strategic crime analysis, and administrative crime analysis. Crime mapping has become an important skill that cuts across the different crime analysis types and informs many activities of modern police agencies. The crime analysis profession has increased in size and scope over the early 21st century. However, some core components of crime analysis have existed in policing as far back as the mid-1800s in Great Britain and the early 1900s in the United States. The evidence-based policing movement—which advocates for policy solutions to be based on scientific evidence about what works best in preventing crime—presents opportunities for further advancement of the crime analysis profession. Barriers to maximizing the benefits of crime analysis relate to inconsistent training standards, reliance on outdated models of policing, and a lack of clarity regarding roles and agency standing for crime analysts. An increased commitment to applied research efforts may help navigate these barriers in the future.
Article
Crime Hot Spots
David Weisburd and Sean Wire
Hot spots of crime, and the criminology of place more generally, deviate from the traditional paradigm of criminology, in which the primary assumption and goal is to explain who is likely to commit crime and their motivations, and to explore interventions aimed at reducing individual criminality. Alternatively, crime hot spots account for the “where” of crime, specifically referring to the concentration of crime in small geographic areas. The criminology of place demands a rethinking in regard to how we understand the crime problem and offers alternate ways to predict, explain, and prevent crime. While place, as large geographic units, has been important since the inception of criminology as a discipline, research examining crime concentrations at a micro-geographic level has only recently begun to be developed. This approach has been facilitated by improvements to data availability, technology, and the understanding of crime as a function of the environment. The new crime and place paradigm is rooted in the past three decades of criminological research centered on routine activity theory, crime concentrations, and hot spots policing.
The focus on crime hot spots has led to several core empirical findings. First, crime is meaningfully concentrated, such that a large proportion of crime events occur at relatively few places within larger geographies like cities. This may be termed the law of crime concentration at places (see Weisburd, 2015). Additionally, most hot spots of crime are stable over time, and thus present promising opportunities for crime prevention. Crime hot spots vary within higher geographic units, suggesting both that there is a loss of information at higher levels of aggregation and that there are clear “micro communities” within the larger conceptualization of a neighborhood. Finally, crime at place is predictable, which is important for being able to understand why crime is concentrated in one place and not another, as well as to develop crime prevention strategies. These empirical characteristics of crime hot spots have led to the development of successful police interventions to reduce crime. These interventions are generally termed hot spots policing.
Article
Crime Mapping and Policing
Lisa Tompson
The empirical truism that crime clusters geographically has increasingly informed police practice in the first two decades of the 21st century. This has been greatly aided by crime mapping, which can be thought of as a summary term for the geographic analysis of data related to crime and disorder. Crime analysts use a range of mapping techniques to describe and explain patterns in data, being mindful of the unique qualities of geographically referenced data. These include point pattern maps, thematic maps, kernel density estimation, and GI* statistic maps. Rate maps are also used when the aim is to understand the risk of victimization. Crime maps can be used to identify hot spots for targeted action, identify recently committed crimes that might form part of a linked series, monitor the impact of police initiatives, and aid understanding of crime problems. Environmental criminology theory is often used for the latter of these purposes, as this can explain spatiotemporal patterns revealed through crime mapping and assists in understanding the mechanisms driving the patterns. The logic for organizing police efforts around geographical crime concentration is instinctive: by focusing on a small number of locations with high crime volumes, police can be more focused and hence effective. Thus, “hot spots policing” has become business as usual in many jurisdictions, focusing attention at small units of geography. Hot spot policing has, in many countries in the early 21st century, evolved into “predictive policing,” which is a data-driven crime forecasting approach. However, this approach has attracted strong criticism for further entrenching bias in the criminal justice system. Critics argue that the data sets on which the predictive policing algorithms are founded are racially biased and perpetuate police attention on communities of color. This serves to highlight the systematic biases that can be present in crime-related data, and professional crime analysts use a range of approaches to mitigate such biases, such as triangulating data sources.
Article
Crime Mapping and Spatial Analysis
Matthew Valasik
Crime mapping and the spatial analysis of crime includes a variety of techniques and topics. The most rudimentary form of crime mapping is the use of geographic information systems to visualize spatial patterns and organize geographical data for more traditional statistical analysis, i.e., multivariate regression. Spatial analyses may be used in an exploratory way to help ascertain how certain environmental or ecological factors of a neighborhood may affect the geographic distribution of crime. Of particular interest is an understanding of the spatial patterns of crime and responses to them. Topics related to understanding such patterns include crime displacement and diffusion, the mobility patterns of criminal participants, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of geographically targeted crime reduction strategies.
There is a robust relationship between crime and space. Within the field of criminology, crime mapping remains an innovative domain with new techniques and visualizations, which assist researchers and practitioners in better understanding how the social and physical environments affect criminal behavior. Combining new approaches like spatialized network analysis or risk terrain modeling with more conventional crime mapping and spatial analysis techniques allows for a more holistic strategy that could inform neighborhood public safety and aid in directing the allocation of resources, e.g., specialized law enforcement and directed patrol, in a more efficient manner.
Article
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
Rachel Armitage
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is an approach to crime reduction that seeks to reduce perceived opportunities for crime through the design and management of the built or, less often, the natural environment. It is based on a set of principles, which can be applied as a guide to the design and construction of buildings, as well as the organization of spaces around them. Because CPTED provides a guide rather than a rigid specification, with a range of possible realizations, design compliance with its principles is often recognized through an award scheme, such as Secured by Design (SBD) in the United Kingdom and the Police Label Secured Housing in the Netherlands. Research has consistently demonstrated that CPTED is an effective crime reduction approach—reducing crime, alleviating the fear of crime, and enhancing feelings of safety. Its increasing recognition within planning policy reflects a growing acknowledgment of efficacy.
Article
Crime Science
Ella Cockbain and Gloria Laycock
Crime science (or more accurately crime and security science) has three core tenets:
• the application of scientific methods
• the study of crime and security problems
• the aim of reducing harm.
Beyond the unifying principles of scientific research (including a clear problem definition, transparency, rigor, and reliability), tools and techniques vary between studies. Rather than following a prescriptive approach, researchers are guided in their selection of data and methods by their research question and context. In this respect, crime scientists take an inclusive view of “evidence.”
“Crime and security” is a broad construct, covering problems associated with diverse illicit goods and acts, offenders, victims/targets, places, technologies, and formal and informal agents of crime control.
Its pragmatic approach distinguishes crime science from “pure research” (i.e., the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake). Contributions to harm reduction might be immediate (e.g., evaluating a novel intervention) or longer term (e.g., building theoretical or empirical knowledge about a particular issue).
Crime science is broad: researchers may contribute to it without self-identifying as crime scientists. Indeed, its early proponents hesitated to draw its parameters, suggesting they should be defined operationally. Under a shared focus on crime, crime science research transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. The prevalence of multi- and interdisciplinary work reflects the inherent complexity of crime and its control. The social, physical, biological, and computer sciences—and their associated technologies—all have contributions to make.
Although the term crime science was first formalized in 2001, its roots go back much further. Within criminology, it particularly overlaps with environmental and experimental criminology. As well as sharing methods with these two areas, crime science’s theoretical underpinning derives from opportunity theories of crime (e.g., routine activity theory, the rational choice perspective, crime pattern theory). Crime is conceptualized accordingly as primarily non-random and as influenced by both individual criminal propensity and environmental factors that facilitate, promote, or provoke, criminal events.
Crime science techniques have been applied to a variety of issues: primarily volume crimes (e.g., burglary), but also more serious and complex crimes (e.g., terrorism and human trafficking). There is now substantial evidence of the effectiveness of targeted interventions in tackling crimes by manipulating their opportunity structures. Claims that such approaches are unethical and merely cause displacement have been discredited. Crime science now faces other, more challenging criticisms. For example, its theoretical underpinnings are arguably too narrow and the boundaries of the field lack clear distinction. Other challenges include expanding interventions into the online world and resolving tensions around evaluation evidence.
Crime science can clearly help explain and address crime problems. Its focus on outcomes rather than outputs speaks to the growing demand that research be impactful. Evidence generated through robust studies has value for policy and designing primary, secondary and tertiary interventions. In times of austerity and increased focus on multi-agency collaboration, there is a clear audience for crime-related research that can inform targeted responses and speaks to a broader agendum than law enforcement alone.
Article
Cyberterrorism
Mehmet F. Bastug and Ismail Onat
Many real-world crimes have long been transformed into cyberspace, and terrorism is no different. Cyberspace is becoming a new battleground where different rules, strategies, and tactics apply. Cyberterrorism is a form of terrorism that can briefly be described as a form of terrorism that takes place in the cyberspace. However, there has not been a consensus among experts and scholars regarding what exactly constitutes cyberterrorism. In its pure form, cyberterrorism refers to politically or ideologically motivated cyberattacks to coerce or intimidate governments or societies that result in violence, severe economic damage, or significant fear among the public. In a broad sense, it may also incorporate terrorist use of cyberspace, including online information and communication technologies, in furtherance of terrorist objectives. Various taxonomies of cyberterrorism have been developed in the literature, most of which distinguish the terrorist use of the Internet from terrorism in which cyberspace becomes a weapon or a target. The lack of a unified understanding of cyberterrorism hinders the development of effective strategies to prevent or mitigate cyberterrorist activities.
Article
Defensible Space
Robert I. Mawby
While the term “defensible space” is widely referenced in literature on situational crime pre vention and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, it is commonly mentioned in passing, almost as an historical landmark, with its relationship to more recent work assumed rather than rigorously examined. Yet, Oscar Newman’s work bridged the gap between criminological theories and preventive approaches in the pre-1970s era and the more grounded and policy driven approaches that are common today. Consequently, this article looks at the context within which Newman developed his ideas and revisits his core work. It then considers the initial response from the criminology and planning communities, which focused on the methodological and theoretical weaknesses that undermined what were, essentially, a series of imaginative, exploratory propositions about the influence of design on crime patterns. In this sense, it is clear that Newman both provoked and inspired further research into the relationship between urban design and crime, and indeed, between crime, crime targets, and space, looking at the specific influence of design, technology, social engineering, and so on. Terms such as ownership, visibility, occupancy, accessibility, image, and juxtaposition, which Newman used, are now incorporated into more sophistical theories of situational crime prevention. This article thus offers a reanalysis of defensible space in the context of later refinements and the application of Newman’s ideas to current policies.
Article
Developmental Origins of Antisocial Behavior
Richard E. Tremblay
Most studies conducted on the development of antisocial behavior focused on school children and attempted to understand how children learn to steal and aggress others. Results from longitudinal studies that were initiated in early childhood show that children do not learn to bully, physically aggress, and rob from their environment. These longitudinal studies show that antisocial behaviors are most frequent during early childhood and that children learn from their environment not to bully, not to aggress, and not to rob. In other words, young children are socialized by their environment. Those who do not learn well enough to control these natural tendencies are rejected very early in their development by their environment, unless they are living in an antisocial environment. The further advance of this research area will require that the next generation of researchers integrate theories and methods from the biological, psychological, and social sciences because the development of antisocial behavior involves complex interactions between biological, psychological and sociological causal factors. The lack of an integrated bio-psycho-social perspectives has been a major weakness of research in criminology up to now. Future research needs to concentrate on two central questions: (a) Why a minority of young children fail to learn to inhibit antisocial behaviors, and (b) how we can help these children learn alternatives to antisocial behavior. Valid and effective answers to these questions will come from randomized control trials which target at risk families with intensive and long term preventive interventions during early childhood, preferably at the start of a girl’s first pregnancy, with follow ups until the at risk children have become adults and are having their own children.
Article
Developmental Targeted Prevention of Conduct Disorder
Frank Vitaro and Richard E. Tremblay
Traditionally, the term targeted prevention refers to interventions designed to prevent the development of adjustment problems in individuals by reducing risk factors or by implementing protective factors identified in studies of human development. Because risk and protective factors vary with development, a developmental perspective is necessary in order to identify which factors are most relevant at each period of life, based on well-defined and empirically supported etiological models. Moreover, because prevention strategies vary greatly depending on the factors that are targeted at different developmental periods and ages, a developmental perspective suggests that they need to be shaped accordingly. A further expansion of the concept of developmental targeted prevention includes the notion of “stepwise continuous prevention” for the extreme cases who do not revert to normative behavior during a given developmental period. This notion draws on the chronic-disease model of conduct problems and encompasses several developmental periods. The current debate around these issues is important as they apply to the prevention of conduct problems in youth by targeting risk factors during maternal pregnancy, early childhood, childhood, and adolescence. A consensual view of developmental targeted prevention is, however, necessary for prevention efforts to be coordinated and fruitful.
Article
Electronic Monitoring Around the World
Mike Nellis
Since its operational beginnings in the United States in 1982—where its prototypes were first experimented with in the 1960s and 1970s—the electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders has spread to approximately 40 countries around the world, ostensibly—but not often effectively—to reduce the use of imprisonment by making bail, community supervision, and release from prison more controlling than they have hitherto been. No single authority monitors the development of EM around the world, and it is difficult to gain fully comprehensive accounts of what is happening outside the Western and Anglophone users of it. Some countries are secretive. Standpoints in writing on EM are varied and partisan. Although it still tends to be the pacesetter of technical innovation, the United States remains a relatively lower user of EM, in part because the exceptional punitiveness of its penal culture has inhibited its expansion, even when it has itself been developed in various punitive ways. Interprofessional and intergovernmental processes of “policy transfer” have contributed to EMs spreading around the world, but the commercial bodies that manufacture and market EM equipment have been of at least equal importance. In Europe, the Confederation of European Probation (CEP), a transnational probation advocacy organization, took an early interest in EM, and its regular conferences became a touchstone of international debate. As it developed globally, the United Nations reluctantly accepted that it may be of some value even in developing countries and set out standards for its use. Continuing innovations in EM technology will create new possibilities for offender supervision, both more and less punitive, but it is always culture, commerce, and politics in particular jurisdictions which shape the scale, pace, and form of its development.
Article
Epidemiological Criminology
Ali Rowhani-Rahbar and Haylea Hannah
Health and crime are interrelated in numerous ways. Criminal offending can influence health outcomes, while health and well-being can change the likelihood of criminal offending. In addition, tools of the criminal justice system can affect health, while health policy may influence criminal offending. Notably, the tools of the public health and criminal justice system can work synergistically or antagonistically to impact both health and crime outcomes. Epidemiological criminology (EpiCrim) has been viewed as a paradigm linking the methods of public health with those of the criminal justice system and integrating epidemiological theories and practices with their corresponding theories and tools in criminology. The specific contribution of this framework is toward the development of strategies and interventions that address multiple factors underlying health and criminal behavior at different biopsychosocial levels. The overarching premise of this paradigm is that sustained and intentional efforts toward applying the principles of EpiCrim could improve health and well-being and reduce criminal behavior in manners that exceed the contribution of each field separately.
Article
Fear of Crime
Nicole Rader
Fear of crime has been a serious social problem studied for almost 40 years. Early researchers focused on operationalization and conceptualization of fear of crime, specifically focusing on what fear of crime was (and was not) and how to best tap into the fear of crime construct. This research also found that while crime rates had been declining, fear of crime rates had stayed relatively stable. Nearly 40% of Americans indicated they were afraid of crime, even though crime was declining during the same time period. This finding led researchers to study the paradox of fear of crime. In other words, why does fear of crime not match up with actual chances of victimization? Several explanations were put forth including a focus on vulnerability (e.g., individuals felt vulnerable to crime even if they were not vulnerable) and a focus on differences in groups (e.g., women were more afraid of crime than men, even though they were less likely to be victims). Thus, many studies began to consider the predictors of fear of crime. Researchers since this time have spent most time studying these fear of crime predictors including individual level predictors (i.e., sex, race, age, social class), contextual predictors (neighborhood disorder, incivilities, and social cohesion), along with the consequences of fear of crime (psychological and behavioral). Such results have provided guidance on what individuals fear, why they fear, and what impact it has on the daily lives of Americans. Future research will continue to focus on groups little is known about, such as Hispanics, and also on the impact of behavior on fear of crime. This future research will likely also benefit from new techniques in survey research that analyzes longitudinal data to determine causality between fear of crime and other predictors such as risk and behavior.
Article
Focused Deterrence Strategies
Anthony Braga
Focused deterrence strategies are increasingly being implemented in the United States to reduce serious violent crime committed by gangs and other criminally-active groups, recurring offending by highly-active individual offenders, and crime and disorder problems generated by overt street-level drug markets. These strategies are framed by an action research model that is common to both problem-oriented policing and public health interventions to reduce violence. Briefly, focused deterrence strategies seek to change offender behavior by understanding underlying crime-producing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring crime problems and by implementing an appropriately focused blended strategy of law enforcement, community mobilization, and social service actions. Direct communications of increased enforcement risks and the availability of social service assistance to target groups and individuals is a defining characteristic of “pulling levers” strategies.
The focused deterrence approach was first pioneered in Boston, Massachusetts and eventually tested in other jurisdictions. The available empirical evidence suggests these strategies generate noteworthy violence reduction impacts and should be part of a broader portfolio of crime reduction strategies available to policy makers and practitioners. While focused deterrence strategies attempt to prevent crime by changing offender perceptions of sanction risk, complementary crime prevention efforts seem to support the crime control efficacy of these programs. These strategies also seek to change offender behavior by mobilizing community action, enhancing procedural justice, and improving police legitimacy. Focused deterrence strategies hold great promise in reducing serious violence while improving strained relationships between minority neighborhoods and the police departments that serve them.
Article
Gang Desistance
Christian L. Bolden and Anna Q. Iliff
Gang desistance refers to the cessation of gang activities and disentanglement from gang identity. Despite the widespread myths concerning an inability to leave a gang without severe consequences, most individuals will desist from gang activities in a passive manner. Although passive exits may be common, gang desistance is both a social and a psychological phenomenon that defies an oversimplified event of sudden cessation. Studies have revealed theoretical patterns and processes that involve a wide variety of motivations and exit strategies that are not mutually exclusive from each other. Although the majority of gang-involved individuals will eventually leave the gang, the paths toward desistance are not always straightforward, sometimes resulting in ambivalent and ambiguous behaviors, such as regression back to gang involvement, and residual attributes of street lifestyles rather than abrupt cessation of gang affiliation.
For concerns of outside observers, the nebulous boundaries of gangs further complicate understanding of gang exit. Motivators of desistance include push factors such as personal and vicarious experiences of violence and victimization, disillusionment with gang life, dissolution of gangs and membership attrition, and incarceration. Pull factors that motivate gang desistance are maturing or aging out, parenthood, family and prosocial support, and religion. Despite the rhetoric surrounding a violent requirement for gang exit, it is more common for an individual to cease gang activity without a violent incident. Nonviolent exits are accomplished through walking away, fading out of the gang scene, and geographic relocation. Despite the varied regional contexts, studies on gang desistance have resulted in similar findings.
Article
Gangs and Violence
Haley Bullard and Shannon Reid
Much of the ongoing concern about the presence of gangs and gang members in the community has to do with the association between street gangs and violence. Decades of research on street gangs demonstrates the complexity of the violent perpetration and victimization of gang members. Although the violence attributed to gang members reached its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gang members continue to be disproportionately involved in violence, both as perpetrators and victims. Understanding gang violence requires careful consideration of the overlapping and intersecting relationships between violence and gang identity, victimization, perpetration, gender, and space. Violence plays an important role in the creation and maintenance of gang identity. Research on violence participation by gang members has demonstrated that gang violence can have both symbolic and instrumental purposes, and that this violence helps the gang build a collective identity and makes violence more normative. Despite some continued misconceptions about the role of female gang members and their presence in gangs, women make up a substantial portion of gang members, and any discussion of the relationship between gangs and violence must also consider the impact of gender on violence participation and victimization. Both male and female gang members are impacted by violence, but levels of participation and types of risk can vary by gender. The complex and gendered aspects of gang violence can make the prevention, intervention, and suppression of gang violence difficult tasks for law enforcement and policymakers. There are a range of perspectives on how best to reduce gang violence. Some researchers advocate early prevention programs to keep youth from joining gangs; others focus on ways to pull youth out of gangs at critical moments, such as when they enter emergency services. Other programs and policies are aimed at reducing gang violence that is ongoing in the community. These programs, such as Operation Ceasefire and Project Safe Neighborhoods, have utilized a focused deterrence framework to curb gang violence. All of these programs are aimed at reducing the amount of violence gang members participate in an attempt to minimize the risk of future violent victimization. Research on gang violence continues to grow and includes new avenues of research. The utilization of innovative methodologies, such as social network analysis, and new areas of research, such as examining the impact of social media on gang violence, continue to advance our knowledge of gang violence and its causes, correlates, and impact.
Article
Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
Brooke B. Chambers and Joachim J. Savelsberg
Genocide and ethnic cleansing are among the most deadly human-made catastrophes. Together with other forms of government violence, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, the death toll they caused during the 20th century alone approximates 200 million. This is an estimated ten times higher than the number of deaths resulting from all violence committed in civil society during the same period. Yet the definition of genocide, its perception as a social problem, and the designation of responsible actors as criminals are all relatively recent. Globalization, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and cultural shifts are interrelated contributors to this process of redefinition.
While genocide and ethnic cleansing often appear to be unpredictable and chaotic, they nonetheless underlie a socio-logic across time and space. As the field of study evolved, scholars debated the role of authority and ideology in enabling violence. Today, consensus has shifted away from deterministic explanations about intrinsic hatred engrained in particular groups to sociological factors. They include the role of political regimes, war, organization, and narratives of ethnic hatred, each of which can play a role in facilitating violence.
Recent developments also include the creation of new institutional mechanisms that seek to punish perpetrators and prevent the occurrence of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Among them are criminal justice responses that work potentially through deterrence, but also—more fundamentally—through the initiation of cultural change. Prosecutions, as well as supplemental mechanisms such as truth commissions, may indeed lead to a radical shift in the perception of mass violence and those responsible for it, thereby delegitimizing genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaigns.
Article
Guardianship and Informal Social Control
Danielle M. Reynald
This article provides a critical overview of the concepts of guardianship and informal social control. The discussion compares these fundamental criminological concepts and highlights areas where there is overlap, as well as key points of departure. The relationship between these concepts is scrutinized to illustrate their distinct origins as well as the distinctive ways each of these concepts have developed within the criminological literature. This article focuses on informal social control as a multi-level community process, and on guardianship as a multi-dimensional situational concept comprising, in its most fundamental form, the presence or availability of guardians, inadvertent and/or purposive supervision and direct or indirect intervention. In doing so it showcases the dimensions of guardianship which bear close resemblance to aspects of informal social control, while simultaneously emphasizing that there are important distinctions to consider when comparing some of these dimensions and the levels at which they operate. One core distinction is that informal social control is dependent on neighborhood social ties and collectively shared expectations. On the other hand, while guardianship can be strengthened by social ties at the street-block or neighborhood level, it does not necessarily require such ties to function effectively at the microlevel. Although these concepts do coincide the discussion stresses that theoretical and empirical clarification about what makes them distinct is important. In conclusion, this article shows how each concept makes a unique contribution to criminological understanding about the role of informal citizens in crime control at places.
