The Oven Builders Of The Holocaust: A Case Study of Corporate Complicity in International Crimes
Annika Van Baar and Wim Huisman
Corporate complicity in international crimes is a largely neglected phenomenon that exists on the border of the criminological study of international crimes and the study of corporate crime. In this article, the German corporation Topf & Söhne is analysed as a case study of corporate involvement in international crimes. Topf built the cremation ovens for various concentration and extermination camps in Nazi Germany. It is clear that existing explanations of corporate crime such as the urge to survive, competition between sub-units, corporate culture, normalization and neutralization are applicable. However, the extraordinary circumstances of the Nazi regime had a crucial influence on the motivations, opportunity and lack of control that caused Topf’s involvement in the Holocaust.
Why do People Comply with the Law?: Legitimacy and the Influence of Legal Institutions
Jonathan Jackson, Ben Bradford, Mike Hough, Andy Myhill, Paul Quinton, and Tom R. Tyler
This paper extends Tyler’s procedural justice model of public compliance with the law. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we present a new conceptualization of legitimacy based on not just the recognition of power, but also the justification of power. We find that people accept the police’s right to dictate appropriate behaviour not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. Highlighting a number of different routes by which institutions can influence citizen behaviour, our broader normative model provides a better framework for explaining why people are willing to comply with the law.
Public Opinion Towards the Lay Magistracy and the Sentencing Council Guidelines: The Effects of Information on Attitudes
Julian Roberts, Mike Hough, Jonathan Jackson, and Monica M. Gerber
Public opinion surveys have long documented public criticism of ‘lenient’ sentencers. There are two principal perceptions contributing to negative attitudes: a lack of community input and the view that sentencers determine sentence according to their own views. This study embeds an experimental design within a representative survey of respondents in England and Wales (n = 1,004), supplemented by laboratory-based work (n = 230) and focus groups. Results demonstrated that the public is ill-informed about both the magistracy and the sentencing guidelines. In addition, providing information about sentencing changed public attitudes to sentencing and reduced public punitiveness. Respondents were less critical of disposals and less punitive in their own sentence recommendations when they had been given context about the structure of sentencing.
Police Stations, Architecture and Public Reassurance
Andrew Millie
Architecture has for many years been of interest to criminology in terms of its role in social control and crime prevention. This article focuses on architecture as reassurance and the specific example of the police station—what is an under-researched topic. Supporting evidence is presented from a study of police stations in three English police forces. The study’s aims were modest and exploratory, to draw on theoretical and empirical evidence to consider whether police stations are a worthwhile area of criminological/architectural study, and to investigate the possibility that police stations could contribute to public reassurance. Using the language of semiotics, the article argues that meanings attached to police stations can contribute to reassurance by affecting people’s emotive ‘readings’ of security and safety; yet, to do this, there has to be a rethink for many existing stations in terms of what these buildings communicate. The article adopts an interpretivist view of meaning acknowledging that buildings can mean different things to different people. It is suggested that numerous police stations can be read as intimidating fortresses; many others are secret places; while others are potentially public buildings where the public are welcomed. Implications for a policy of reassurance are discussed in light of the current cuts to police budgets. An agenda for further systematic research is suggested.
‘I Don’t Dial 911’’: American Gun Politics and the Problem of Policing
Jennifer D. Carlson
In what sense does American pro-gun sentiment constitute a ‘politics’? I use in-depth interviews with 60 male gun carriers to propose that pro-gun politics not only involve claims to the state, but also centre on particular understandings about the proper role of the state, particularly public law enforcement. I argue that, within the contemporary US context of neo-liberalism (particularly the War on Crime), guns are a complex response to police failure amid anxieties regarding crime and insecurity. Specifically, guns serve as political tools used to critique the state’s power to police. Most of the time, gun advocates articulate guns as a response to the police’s inability to protect citizens; however, they sometimes also describe guns as a response to the police’s propensity to violate. I identify two sets of pro-gun, police-suspicious beliefs that emerge along racialized, masculine lines, which I denote ‘neo-liberal gun politics’ and ‘neo-radical gun politics’. I explain these political beliefs as responses to the state’s power to police by showing how neo-liberal ideology alongside the War on Crime has shaped American perceptions of public law enforcement.
The Importance of Culture for Cannabis Markets: Towards an Economic Sociology of Illegal Drug Markets
Sveinung Sandberg
This paper reports findings from six years of ethnographic and qualitative research on cannabis markets. Data include interviews with 60 cannabis dealers and 60 customers. The paper describes the vertical and horizontal organization of the cannabis economy, seen from the perspective of Norway. It further distinguishes between private, semi-public and public cannabis markets. The most important cultural influences in the cannabis economy are a non-commercial cannabis culture in private markets and a violent street culture in public markets. These coexist with a general market culture. The difference between markets and market cultures illustrates how illegal drug markets are performed, not ‘natural’, and thus the importance of economic sociology for the study of illegal drug markets.
The Truth, The Half-Truth, and Nothing Like the Truth: Reconceptualizing False Allegations of Rape
Candida L. Saunders
There is a longstanding dispute between criminal justice professionals on the one hand and researchers and commentators on the other regarding the prevalence of false allegations of rape. Prevalence, however, is contingent upon definition. If the various protagonists’ definitions of a ‘false allegation’ do not coincide, it is virtually inevitable that their estimates will diverge. Drawing on original empirical data from in-depth research interviews conducted with police and Crown Prosecutors, this article explores the following important but much-neglected question: When criminal justice professionals tell us that false allegations of rape are common, what precisely are they talking about? What ‘counts’ as a false allegation?
Spaces of Male Fear: The Sexual Politics of Being Watched
Sarah E. H. Moore and Simon Breeze
This article makes a contribution to the sparse literature on the ethnography of fear. Using observation and focus groups, we compare men and women’s perceptions of danger in relation to a specific civic space—public toilets. Here, it is men, rather than women, who express a marked concern about the threat of physical assault. We attempt to understand the nature and social origin of this fear, and its relationship to the arrangement of space. In so doing, we help sketch out what Tuan (1979) called ‘landscapes of fear’. Places that take us outside of, or lie at the margins of, regular social space can be particularly fear-inducing. Civil inattention is a core means of dealing with this problem and we analyse its functions in allaying fear. We also suggest that spaces in which private behaviour can be surreptitiously surveyed or where there is an indeterminate relationship between private and public space can prompt a pernicious sense of worry. Indeed, being watched and being mistakenly perceived to be watching emerge from our data as really important correlates of fear of violence. We employ Sartre, Berger and Mulveys’s ideas about the gaze to analyse the psychosocial effects of this. Finally, we stress the importance of seeing the experience of fear—including its relationship to spatial arrangement—as socially contingent. The discussion section of this paper suggests that we understand men’s fear of violence in public toilets as a reaction to what Turner calls an ‘inter-structural’ social situation, namely the temporary suspension of the usual gender hierarchy.
Socio-Economic Status and Criminality as Predictors of Male Violence: Does Victim’s Gender or Place of Occurrence Matter?
Mikko Aaltonen, Janne Kivivuori, Pekka Martikainen, and Venla Salmi
While low socio-economic status (SES) is generally accepted as a risk factor for violence, some have argued that intimate partner violence (IPV) is a ‘classless’ crime. We examine the effects of SES and prior criminal record on different types of police-reported violence committed in 2005–07 by Finnish men using a register-based general population sample that offers exceptionally good population coverage. While IPV against women appears somewhat less determined by offender’s low SES than other types of violent crime, we demonstrate considerable SES effects for all examined types of violence. Offenders in male-to-male violence in private settings appear the most marginalized. We conclude that social disadvantage contributes to male violence against both men and women.
What Makes A Homicide Newsworthy?: UK National Tabloid Newspaper Journalists Tell All
Anna Gekoski, Jacqueline M. Gray, and Joanna R. Adler
Homicide is the most newsworthy of all crimes. Yet not all homicides are reported equally: some receive extensive coverage while others receive little or none. Qualitative questionnaires, completed by ten UK national tabloid journalists, explored the criteria that determine the newsworthiness of homicide. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis revealed that, with certain exceptions, homicides involving ‘perfect’ victims, statistically deviant features, killers on the run, sensational elements and/or serial killers will almost always be newsworthy, while those involving ‘undeserving’ victims in commonplace circumstances will almost always not. However, analysis further revealed that there will always be caveats to this, with some, normally under-reported, homicides gaining widespread coverage through unpredictable factors such as current societal issues or interest from a particular editor.
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