Review of Børge Bakken, Crime and the Chinese Dream

Examining the Links Between General Strain and Control Theories: an Investigation of Delinquency in South Korea Abstract In modifying general strain theory (GST), Agnew has accepted the control-related variables as conditioning variables to moderate or mediate the casual process through strain into delinquency. In this regard, this study aims to empirically and theoretically address the void of connecting traditional and redefined self-control variables to GST. To explore this issue, the current study employed data derived from the Korea Children and Youth Panel Study (KCYPS). Specifically, three waves (2012, 2013, and 2014) were used to test hypotheses from GST and control theories. Both trait-based low self-control and revised self-control partially mediated the relationship between strain and delinquency. However, only redefined self-control significantly interacted with strain in producing delinquency. The current research reveals the possible integration of redefined control theory and GST.

Thirty Years of Scholarly Influence in International Journals and Its Relation to the Most-Cited Scholars in Asian Criminology Abstract Citation analysis provides a quantitative means of tracking the most influential scholars and works within a field. Despite this advantage, there is a dearth of research that provides more than a snapshot of influence over a relatively short time period. One exception is the citation analysis body of research conducted by Cohn and Farrington (1990, 2012), which has recently been expanded to include European (Cohn and Iratzoqui 2016) and Asian (Farrington et al. 2019) criminologies. The current paper presents a thirty-year analysis (1986–2015) of scholarly influence within four international journals (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, British Journal of Criminology, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Criminology), as well as an analysis of the Asian Journal of Criminology (AJC) over its first 10-year period (2006–2015). The main conclusions are that, while rankings over time are not generally consistent within journals, the most-cited scholars tend to remain highly ranked over time across the four main international journals. Furthermore, the most highly cited scholars in the four international journals were also highly cited in AJC. The most-cited works of the top scholars across all of the international journals, including AJC, covered four major areas, including developmental and life-course criminology, theoretical issues, statistics, and policy issues.

When Law and Practice Collide: the Implementation of the Plea-Bargaining Process in Malaysia Abstract The amendment of the Malaysian Criminal Procedure Code in 2010 formalised the plea-bargaining process and introduced two new sections, 172C and 172D. The new procedures are intended to reduce the backlog of cases in the criminal courts and as a swift alternative to a full criminal trial. However, the law in action does not appear to be in line with the law in the statute book because currently the actors involved in the process are avoiding the use of the new procedural law. Instead, those actors are following the old informal practice of plea-bargaining to achieve their personal goals which may be inconsistent with the organisational goals of the judiciary and prosecution. This paper adopts a qualitative methodology, in which the primary data is obtained from semi-structured interviews with twenty respondents comprising the stakeholders in the criminal justice system.

Trust in the Police in Rural China: a Comparison Between Villagers and Local Officials Abstract Although the past decade has witnessed the rise of studies on Chinese evaluations of the police, rural villagers’ assessments of the police remain under-researched. Drawing upon performance theory and survey data from China’s countryside, this study tested whether variations in satisfaction with government performance and life are linked to villagers’ and officials’ trust in county and local/town police. We found that villagers displayed lower levels of trust in the police than local officials. Higher satisfaction with government performance and integrity were associated with greater trust in county police among both villagers and officials. Villagers’ greater satisfaction with crime control and safety led to their stronger trust in both county and town police, but such satisfaction was not significantly related to officials’ trust in both levels of police forces. Rural residents’ generalized trust and particularized trust were associated with a greater likelihood of viewing the police as trustworthy. Meanwhile, female respondents, both villagers and officials, and higher-income officials were more likely to view the police as trustworthy. Directions for future research and policy are discussed.

Private, Hidden and Obscured: Image-Based Sexual Abuse in Singapore Abstract This article documents women’s experiences of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) in Singapore. Drawing from 30 IBSA cases reported to a local sexual assault service provider, it utilises McGlynn, Rackley and Houghton’s (Feminist Legal Studies 25(1):25–46, 2017) IBSA continuum and Powell and Henry’s (2017) IBSA typology to map the different ways image technologies impacted Singaporean women’s experiences of sexual violence. This article also builds on extant IBSA literature which has focused on cases featuring image dissemination, online public spheres and stranger perpetrators, to provide an account of IBSA in the private sphere. I argue that while dominant framings show IBSA intertwined with the conditions of the public sphere, these cases show how IBSA and IBSA victims/survivors remain discursively, spatially and politically hidden. This article highlights the need to include the private sphere as a site of analysis to deepen understandings of IBSA types, contexts and victims/survivors within international research.

Real Lives and Lost Lives: Making Sense of ‘Locked in’ Responses to Intimate Partner Homicide Abstract The problem of intimate partner homicide is featuring increasingly on national and international policy agendas. Over the last 40 years, responses to this issue have been characterised by preventive strategies (including ‘positive’ policing; the proliferation of risk assessment tools, and multi-agency working) and post-event analyses (including police inquiries and domestic homicide reviews). In different ways, each of these responses has become ‘locked in’ to policies. Drawing on an analysis of police inquiries into domestic homicides in England and Wales over a 10-year period, this paper will explore the nature of these ‘locked in’ responses and will suggest that complexity theory offers a useful lens through which to make sense of them and the ongoing consistent patterning of intimate partner homicide more generally. The paper will suggest this lens in embracing what is known and unknown affords a different way of thinking about and responding to this problem.

Japan’s Reformed Prosecution Review Commission: Changes, Challenges, and Lessons Abstract This article evaluates how Japan’s Prosecution Review Commission (PRC) has performed since it was reformed in 2009 to allow panels of 11 citizens to override the non-charge decisions of professional prosecutors. In the first eight cases of “mandatory prosecution” that have occurred since 2009, the conviction rate is 20%—far lower than Japan’s usual conviction rate, which exceeds 99%. In the ninth case of mandatory prosecution, three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company have been subject to mandatory prosecution for “professional negligence resulting in death and injury,” for failing to prevent the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima that were precipitated by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, which killed 18,500 people and caused 200,000 more to flee their homes. As of 2018, the trial of the Tepco executives is still in progress. This evaluation study of prosecutorial reform in one Asian nation suggests that, in principle, prosecutors’ non-charge decisions can be checked and controlled. In practice, however, Japan’s PRC reform has done little to alter the standard operating procedures of professional prosecutors. Further reform of the PRC may be necessary.

Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Abstract This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.

Blurring the Distinction Between Empirical and Normative Legitimacy? A Methodological Commentary on ‘Police Legitimacy and Citizen Cooperation in China’ Abstract In a fascinating study into the nature of police legitimacy in Southern China, Sun et al. (2018) present evidence that what researchers have previously been treated as possible sources of legitimacy—public perceptions of police conduct defined along the lines of procedural justice, distributive justice, effectiveness and lawfulness—are in fact constituent components of legitimacy. In this methodological commentary, we argue that the empirical strategy used to reach this conclusion is not fit for purpose because both conceptual stances—possible sources of legitimacy or constituent components of legitimacy—are consistent with the same fitted statistical model. Analysing nationally representative data from 30 countries across Europe and beyond, we also show that erroneous support for the approach to measurement is likely to be found wherever one looks. To be sensitive to cultural context means using a methodology that does not impose the preconditions of legitimacy, and we counsel against a trend starting in international criminology that does precisely the opposite.