Criminology & Criminal Justice

Although it has not yet been applied to domestic violence and other types of crime in Canadian public housing, the social disorganization/collective efficacy model described in this article may help explain why people who live in such areas characterized by poverty and joblessness report higher rates of intimate partner violence and several other offenses than those living in more affluent communities. Using data generated by the Quality of Neighborhood Life Survey, a main objective of the Canadian study described here was to test this model. One of the most important findings is that community concerns about street crimes and informal means of social control designed to prevent such harms are not effective forms of alleviating intimate partner violence in public housing.

Contrary to the majority of studies dealing with prison in Israel that examine the relationships within the prison system, the current article attempts to present a general picture of the changing trends in the rates of imprisonment over the years. Three findings emerge from this analysis. First, after a steady rise, which reached its peak in the late 1980s, came a slow but consistent drop in the total incarceration rate. This drop is due to a significant reduction in the number of Palestinian prisoners from the Occupied Territories held in Israel in the wake of the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993. Second, with reference to Israeli citizens only, without including the Palestinians, there is a clear and steady rise in incarceration rates. Finally, the Arab/Jewish breakdown for Israeli citizens in prison shows that a disproportionate number of prisoners are Arabs, throughout the entire period. The article examines the question of over-representation of Israel's Arab minority in prison, and discusses the penal policy in Israel in theory and practice.

This article discusses some recent empirical research into the sentencing of dangerous offenders in England and Wales in its wider socio-legal context. It is particularly concerned to draw attention to the ways in which the operation of those procedural constraints that circumscribe judicial discretionary decisions in this area bear little relevance to notions of moral legitimacy, nor the legal rights of offenders, victims or the wider community.

Trafficking of women for marriage is recognized as a modern-day slave trade, although it has a long history in China. The reasons for its resurgence in China include, but are not limited to, patriarchal values, state-tolerated sex discrimination, vulnerability of women and the transformation of socio-economic situations. Accordingly, the task of eradicating the trafficking in women involves combating feudal and patriarchal assumptions about male dominance and male supremacy; building up the confidence and dignity of the gender of female; systematic governmental and international support of issues of importance to women; restructuring legal systems where they are still imperfect; adjusting economic systems so that women are never exploited economically; strengthening fundamental and higher education of women; regulating objectifying and pornographic media images of women; and developing ways in which men and women can relate without either dependency or dominance. The author examines and evaluates both the strengths and weaknesses of the current criminal justice policy of the Chinese government against trafficking practices. She then argues that the existing policy against trafficking is insufficient and ineffective and needs to be reformed in a number of aspects as suggested. In this article, the author takes a multi-disciplinary approach, including historical, cultural, economic, ideological, sociological and legal study.

The dangers of doing fieldwork have received little consideration within the criminological literature. This article examines the author's experiences over the last five years studying policing and security in Colombia. It reflects upon a number of issues relating to the personal safety of the researcher and to the ongoing viability of doing field-based research in such an environment. The project `survival' skills of adaptability and methodological pluralism are contextualized and argued. The importance of local supports and acknowledging personal limits is also stressed. The need for criminology to look to anthropology and other field-oriented disciplines is suggested if criminology's quest for relevance in a globalizing world is to be successful.