Journal of Experimental Criminology最新文献

Objectives

This study examines how sexuality, gender, and severity affect the willingness of third parties to mobilize facets of the criminal justice system in response to witnessing intimate partner violence (IPV).

Methods

An M-Turk online sample of 803 adults in the USA completed a factorial vignette survey. Participants were presented with an incident of intimate partner violence and asked to report how likely they would be to notify police and select jail as punishment for the perpetrator.

Results

Results of the study uncover no clear evidence of heteronormative bias. Rather, female victims of IPV garner the most support from third parties. Furthermore, respondents were more likely to favor a jail sentence for male perpetrators. Patterns were amplified in severe incidents.

Conclusion

The current study suggests that gender and violence severity, rather than sexuality, are the most salient predictors of the third-party’s decision to notify the police and prefer strong criminal justice punishments.

Abstract

Objective

This study sought to understand how the public perceived new offenses in a time of public health crisis—social distancing deviance in the COVID-19 pandemic—and what factors influenced their perceptions. We also explored whether the correlates of crisis-related punitiveness changed over time, as the pandemic became more politicized.

Data and methods

Our data came from two national surveys administered one year apart, in March 2020 (n = 995) and March 2021 (n = 1,030). To measure sanction preferences, we used experimental vignettes randomizing the characteristics of the offense (e.g., victim harm) and offender (e.g., individual vs. business owner).

Results

As with other types of deviance, just desert concerns predominated. Respondents preferred harsher penalties when offenders violated social distancing directives (versus guidelines) and caused more harm. Certain political/ideological factors (e.g., binding foundations, libertarianism, racial resentment) became more predictive one year into the pandemic, after controlling for personal fear of the virus and demographic factors.

Conclusions

The findings illustrate how public punitiveness toward antisocial behavior develops over time. When new offenses emerge, the public initially evaluates them mostly based on moral culpability and harm. With politicization, however, other factors (e.g., racial and political beliefs) play a role as well. It appears, then, that public reactions to new offenses initially reflect intuitions of justice and are later updated to incorporate cultural and political concerns.

Objectives

Criminology has begun to use virtual reality (VR) as a tool to understand criminal behaviour. There have been many advances in VR that open up the possibility of novel research designs, in addition to the inclusion of augmented reality (AR) as a potential research tool. A review of the efficacy of the use of AR and VR (together known as XR) within criminology is now required to guide the further development of this field.

Methods

We employed a scoping review, which after screening, incorporated 41 papers for review.

Results

We uncovered three important characteristics for the papers: research topics for which XR is employed, the prominence of VR research over AR and XR and methodological rigour. VR is mostly employed for creating scenarios, in particular in research on memory and aggression. Studies vary greatly in their use of interaction within VR scenes, description of technical specifications and sample sizes.

Conclusions

Despite the identification of some methodological limitations in the existing literature, VR has found its place in criminological research. With technological advancement, AR may also find its place in the future, allowing for the ongoing development of research applications. Creating comprehensive guidelines on how to use XR technology in criminology remains necessary.

Objectives

This study examined the long-term effects of the Better Start program, an adaptation of Incredible Years parent training enhanced with home visits, for families with mothers being released from incarceration.

Methods

Participants in this quasi-experimental longitudinal study were 224 mothers, of whom 145 (64.7%) received intervention and the other mothers constituted a no intervention group. Official criminal justice records and mother reports of parenting behaviors and child behavior were collected up to 10 years after intervention. Mixed effects models, Cox regression analyses, and latent linear growth models were used to test potential intervention effects on adolescent delinquency, maternal recidivism, parenting behaviors, and disruptive child behaviors.

Results

Outcomes favoring participants in the intervention condition were found for adolescent delinquency, maternal recidivism, and the number of disruptive child behaviors.

Conclusions

Effects on maternal recidivism and delinquency in their children indicate that the Better Start program contributes to preventing the intergenerational transmission of delinquency.

Objectives

In this study, we investigate the mechanisms, timing, and types of the relationship between paternal criminal justice involvement and children’s health.

Methods

Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 5622), we leverage the natural experiment embedded in a sibling-comparison design that adjusts for all confounding factors shared by siblings.

Results

The results show a significant association between paternal criminal justice involvement and poorer children’s health, even when such involvement occurred before children’s birth. This association becomes more pronounced when paternal criminal justice involvement took place close to children’s birth. Furthermore, the association varies depending on the type of paternal criminal justice involvement.

Conclusion

These findings contribute to our understanding of the collateral consequences of criminal justice involvement, revealing that the impact can commence as early as the initial arrest and is exacerbated by subsequent conviction and incarceration.

Objective

To test the process and impact of a complaints handling prototype to enhance the practical application of procedural justice (PJ) principles in a prison setting.

Methods

A randomised control trial and process evaluation involving 50 staff participants and 120 of their complaint responses. Complaint responses were quantitatively assessed for their PJ content, sentiment, and readability. Perceptions of the value of the prototype and how it had been implemented were examined qualitatively, through interviews or focus groups with six staff and five prison residents.

Results

The complaints prototype brought about statistically significantly improved PJ practice overall, and the impact was maintained over the 6-month follow-up. The prototype resulted in no change in the sentiment of words used. Concerningly, a statistically significant increase in the required reading age was observed.

Conclusions

The prototype improves prison staff’s use of PJ principles when responding to complaints. The approach is experienced as feasible and worthwhile.

Objectives

To test whether news images from George Floyd protests and the Capitol insurrection affected feelings about the police differentially depending on respondents’ primary news environment.

Methods

This mixed-methods explanatory study combines national digital survey experiments and structural topic modeling of open-ended questions. Survey experiments were conducted on 990 respondents in June 2020 and 1,174 respondents in January 2021, at the heights of the events.

Results

Respondents who get their news primarily from conservative sources had substantially warmer feelings about the police after seeing Floyd protest images but not after seeing Capitol insurrection images. Topic modeling and qualitative analysis suggest this group distinctively perceived Floyd protesters as “looters” and “rioters,” discussing the Floyd protests but not the insurrection in terms of racialized chaos and anxiety.

Conclusions

Findings suggest asymmetric affective dynamics driven by the racialized anxiety of consumers of mainly conservative news when seeing images of racial justice protests.

Abstract

Objectives

Examine how crimes against person (CAP) calls are spatially patterned around the Spurs’ arena and city. Using data from 2019–2021, we investigate the geospatial clustering of CAP calls when fans are and are not present.

Methods

CAP calls are separated by Spurs game day or not, home or away games, and before or during COVID-19. ArcGIS Pro is used to run optimized hot spot analyses and hot spot comparisons with similarity values and spatial fuzzy kappa for each comparison.

Results

The largest hot spot is around the Riverwalk and downtown, and days with home games do not increase hot spots around the arena. There are significant changes in hot spots across the city on days with home versus away games and during COVID-19 versus before.

Conclusions

The location of stadiums/arenas and proximity to popular areas with micro-facilities should be considered in sports and crime research and crime prevention discussions.

Objectives

This study aimed to assess whether the receptivity of prison officers toward academy training differs based on their views of rehabilitation and punitiveness.

Methods

Using the potential outcomes framework, we quasi-experimentally examine the role of newly-hired officers’ (N = 519) rehabilitative and punitive attitudes on post-training self-efficacy in performing the occupational duties of a prison officer. Linear regression models are estimated to examine the effects of the two attitudes on the confidence to perform the job of a prison officer.

Results

Results indicate that officers espousing greater rehabilitative views leave academy training with greater confidence in completing all roles associated with the job, while officers holding stronger punitive views leave with substantially less confidence.

Conclusions

There are substantial differences in what rehabilitative-oriented prison officers get out of academy training versus punitively oriented officers.