British Journal of Criminology 51(2)

Articles

When Two Worlds Collide: Aboriginal Risk Management in Canadian Corrections
Joane Martel, Renée Brassard, and Mylène Jaccoud

In the last two decades, Indigenous lobbies have pointed a harsh finger at the endemic overrepresentation of Indigenous individuals in prisons in Canada and abroad. In reaction to such a condemnatory critique, correctional authorities in Canada have sought to ‘aboriginalize’ prisons. This paper addresses some of the prison's adaptation schemes to shed light on three contradictory logics of risk-based management: (1) high-risk aboriginal offenders have little access to risk-reducing programmes; (2) aboriginality undergoes an ontological mutation that occurs during the process of risk assessment; and (3) aboriginal correctional staff play a contradictory role in the (re)production of ‘aboriginal risk’. To what extent, then, does the aboriginalization of prisons constitute a valuable transformation?

Indigeneity And The Judicial Decision To Imprison: A Study of Western Australia's Higher Courts
Christine E. W. Bond and Samantha Jeffries

Internationally, sentencing research has largely neglected the impact of Indigeneity on sentencing outcomes. Using data from Western Australia's higher courts for the years 2003–05, we investigate the direct and interactive effects of Indigenous status on the judicial decision to imprison. Unlike prior research on race/ethnicity in which minority offenders are often found to be more harshly treated by sentencing courts, we find that Indigenous status has no direct effect on the decision to imprison, after adjusting for other sentencing factors (especially past and current criminality). However, there are sub-group differences: Indigenous males are more likely to receive a prison sentence compared to non-Indigenous females. We draw on the focal concerns perspective of judicial decision making in interpreting our findings.

Value Judgments and Criminalization
Andrew Millie

Fuelled by contemporary concerns of risk and majoritarian calls to adhere to ‘the values the majority hold dear’ there can be said to be a ‘crisis of criminalization’ in liberal democracies. Whilst criminalization is clearly an important theme in criminology there has been little attention on the value judgments behind processes of criminalization. By drawing on elements of moral philosophy and by applying these ideas to everyday criminalization in Toronto, this article takes a first step towards addressing this omission. The article adopts a pluralist and social constructivist perspective where differential interpretations lead to the same behaviour being celebrated, tolerated or censured, depending on context and power. A model of value judgment and criminalization is offered that includes consideration of moral, prudential, economic and aesthetic judgments. Value consensus is questioned and the political capital required to dictate values is considered.

Income Disparities of Burglary Risk: Security Availability during the Crime Drop
Nick Tilley, Andromachi Tseloni, and Graham Farrell

In the past 15 years, volume crimes dropped substantially in most countries with reliable crime-trend estimates. In England and Wales, domestic burglary fell by 58 per cent between 1995 and 2008/09, the trend levelling off after 2005/06. Wider use of more and better security arguably contributed to these drops. The availability of enhanced and especially basic security increased between 1997 and 2005/06, while burglary risk fell for all population income groups. Considering, however, the financial cost of burglary-protection devices, it is not surprising that enhanced security continues to be more accessible to better-off households. In 2005/06, the most affluent households were 60 per cent more likely to have such devices compared to the poorest. This is consistent with the finding that nationally burglary drops have occurred least amongst the poorest segments of the population. The better-off continue to benefit most in terms of crime protection: burglary-risk differentials between the lowest and all other income groups widened during the decade up to 2005/06. Security Impact Assessment Tool analysis, however, shows that enhanced security confers greatest burglary protection for those who can least afford it. These results suggest that making enhanced security available to the poorest would further reduce national burglary rates.

Sequential Foraging, Itinerant Fences and Parrot Poaching in Bolivia
Stephen F. Pires and Ronald V. Clarke

Despite legal prohibitions, poaching of wild parrots is widespread in the neo-tropics, with the result that many species are now endangered. Guided by optimal foraging theory, secondary data are used to investigate why some species of Bolivian parrots, but not others, are found in an illegal pet market in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Species commonly found in the market make more enjoyable pets, are more abundant in the wild and more accessible to humans. They are also mostly found within 50 miles of the city, but some found at greater distances are probably brought to the market by wildlife traders, ‘itinerant fences’ who travel around buying parrots poached by villagers. It is concluded that opportunistic villagers are responsible for most parrot poaching in Bolivia and that this should guide solutions to the problem.

Policing Young People As Citizens-In-Waiting: Legitimacy, Spatiality and Governance
Jacqueline Kennelly

This paper draws upon data from two research projects following two distinct groups of young people: youth activists and homeless or street-involved youth. Although these two groups differ in many ways—the former largely white and middle-class, the latter more ethnically diverse and entirely working-class—each describes encounters with the police that are strikingly similar. The paper explores two such similarities: (1) the role played by cultural discourses of the ‘good and legitimate citizen’ and (2) the role of spatiality, or, more specifically, the importance of being an appropriate body in the appropriate space. The paper explores how the above two dimensions nuance and complicate the relationship between youth and police, in the context of governmentality studies.

Crime Script Analysis of Drug Manufacturing In Clandestine Laboratories: Implications for Prevention
Yi-Ning Chiu, Benoit Leclerc, and Michael Townsley

Despite the growing problem of clandestine drug laboratories, there is currently little evidence of systematic knowledge regarding the crime-commission process involved in this criminal enterprise. In addition, as mentioned by Levi and Maguire, strategic measures utilized in law enforcement interventions that extend beyond immediate operational goals towards a lasting reduction in organized forms of crime are also lacking. The purpose of this study is to better understand the crime-commission process of clandestine drug laboratories and identify significant points for intervention by using crime scripts. This objective is achieved through a qualitative content analysis of 25 court cases in which a crime script comprising seven stages is identified. Potential prevention measures are also underpinned and summarized according to the problem analysis triangle. It is concluded that a focus on location, chemicals and equipment might have the most detrimental effect on the overall manufacturing script process.

Five Kilos: Penalties and Practice in the International Cocaine Trade
Jennifer Fleetwood

Current and proposed sentence guidelines for drug-trafficking offences in the United Kingdom are underpinned by the neo-liberal ‘commonsense’ assumption that greater quantities will yield a greater profit, which deserves greater punishment. At present, this is achieved through the use of weight to determine the maximum sentence available (five kilos for Class A drugs). Drawing on ethnographic research with drug traffickers imprisoned in Ecuador, this paper problematizes the use of weight as a measure of seriousness. This research finds that mules often carry greater quantities than professional traffickers and that therefore sentence guidelines premised on weight will punish mules disproportionately.

Undercover Policing: Assumptions and Empirical Evidence
Edwin W. Kruisbergen, Deborah de Jong, and Edward R. Kleemans

This article describes and analyses the implementation and results of undercover operations in one country (the Netherlands). First, we examine and analyse the main assumptions underlying academic and legislative discourses relating both to the regulation and control of undercover operations and to the kind of results the operations may produce. Second, we analyse documentation and interviews relating to all 89 Dutch criminal investigations in 2004 in which undercover teams were consulted.

The Relationship Between Parental Imprisonment and Offspring Offending in England and The Netherlands
Sytske Besemer, Victor van der Geest, Joseph Murray, Catrien C. J. H. Bijleveld, and David P. Farrington

This article examines whether prisoners’ children have more adult convictions than children whose parents were convicted but not imprisoned. This is investigated in England and the Netherlands from 1946 to 1981 using two prospective longitudinal datasets: the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development and the NSCR Transfive Study. In the Netherlands, no significant relationship was found between parental imprisonment and offspring offending. In England, a relationship was found for sons only. This association can be partly explained by parental criminality. However, after controlling for number of parental convictions and other childhood risk factors, a significant relationship remained between number of parental imprisonments and sons’ offending. When parental imprisonment at different ages is examined, parental imprisonment only significantly predicted sons’ offending when it happened after the sons’ seventh birthday.

Review Articles

From ‘Public Criminology’ To The Reflexive Sociology of Criminological Production and Consumption: A Review of Public Criminology? by Ian Loader and Richard Sparks (London: Routledge, 2010)
Loïc Wacquant

Where is Policing Studies?: A Review of Democratic Policing in a Changing World. By Peter K. Manning (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2010, xvii + 306pp. $95.00 hb, $28.95 pb), The Policing Web. By Jean-Paul Brodeur (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, xiii + 404pp. $45 hb), Lengthening the Arms of the Law: Enhancing Police Resources in the Twenty-First Century. By Julie Ayling, Peter Grabosky and Clifford Shearing
Ian Loader

British Journal of Criminology, March 2011: Volume 51, Issue 2