By Gunes A. Aşık, Naci Mocan:

We analyze the expressive content of government action, focusing on Istanbul Convention, an international treaty aimed at protecting women against violence, signed and ratified by 39 countries. In 2021, ten years after signing the Convention, the Turkish government withdrew from it, on the grounds that it "was hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality, which is incompatible with Turkey's social and family values." Although this withdrawal did not alter existing laws or law enforcement practices, women's rights advocates viewed it as a signal of tolerance for violence against women. We use two separate datasets on female murders from independent sources. Analyses, including a difference-in-difference model with male homicide data, show that the withdrawal led to an additional 70 female murders per year, primarily committed by intimate partners. The effect is more pronounced in provinces where the long-governing religious-conservative coalition parties have stronger voter support and in provinces with lower education levels. We also show that Turkey's entry into the Convention in 2011 had the opposite impact, leading to a decrease in female murders. The signing of the Convention, which acted as a normative signal against violence, and the subsequent enactment of comprehensive legislation strengthening deterrence, had distinct effects. The signaling effect of the Entry was more significant in the same provinces that reacted more strongly to the Exit: those with lower education levels, stronger support for the governing party, and the Eastern region of the country. These findings indicate that government actions are interpreted as normative signals by society.

Bonn, Germany: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. 56p

May Contain Markup

Edited by Peter Becker & Richard F. Wetzell

Historical Scope: The book covers the history of criminology from the late 18th to mid-20th centuries across various countries, includingWestern Europe, the United States, Argentina, Australia, andJapan.

Criminological Discourse: It examines criminology as a discourse and practice, involving police, courts, parliamentary debates, media reports,and writings of statisticians, jurists, and medical doctors..

Cesare Lombroso's Influence: The book provides a comparative study of the worldwide reception of Lombroso's criminal-anthropological ideas and their impact on criminological discourse.

Interdisciplinary Approach: The chapters highlight the relationship between criminological discourse and politics, society, and culture,integrating perspectives from history, sociology, and medical science.

Cambridge University Press, 2006, 492 pages

By Lloyd W. Klemke

Sociological Perspective: The book delves into the sociological aspectsof shoplifting, exploring its occurrence, techniques, and the profiles ofshoplifters.

Research and Theories: It examines various research studies andtheoretical frameworks related to shoplifting, including typologies andbehavioral theories.

Security and Prevention: The text discusses methods for detecting,apprehending, and preventing shoplifting, as well asthe role of storesecurity personnel

Legal and Social Responses: It addresses the legal system's response to shoplifting and the societal implications of this deviant behavior.

The document provides a comprehensive analysis of shoplifting from multiple angles within the field of criminology and sociology

Bloomsbury Academic, 1992, 159 pages

ByThomas D. Akoensi, Justice Tankebe

Using an experimental vignette design, the study inves-tigates the effects of criminal records on the hiring deci-sions of a convenience sample of 221 human resource(HR) managers in Ghana. The HR managers were ran-domly assigned to read one of four vignettes depicting job seekers of different genders and criminal records:male with and without criminal record, female with and without criminal record. The evidence shows that a criminal record reduces employment opportunities for female offenders but not for their male counter-parts. Additionally, HR managers are willing to offer interviews to job applicants, irrespective of their crim-inal records, if they expect other managers to hire ex-convicts. The implications of these findings are dis-cussed.

The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, online first, May 2024

By Robert D. Crutchfield 

Are the unemployed more likely to commit crimes? Does having a job make one less likely to commit a crime? Criminologists have found that individuals who are marginalized from the labor market are more likely to commit crimes, and communities with more members who are marginal to the labor market have higher rates of crime. Yet, as Robert Crutchfield explains, contrary to popular expectations, unemployment has been found to be an inconsistent predictor of either individual criminality or collective crime rates. In Get a Job, Crutchfield offers a carefully nuanced understanding of the links among work, unemployment, and crime.

Crutchfield explains how people’s positioning in the labor market affects their participation in all kinds of crimes, from violent acts to profit-motivated offenses such as theft and drug trafficking. Crutchfield also draws on his first-hand knowledge of growing up in a poor, black neighborhood in Pittsburgh and later working on the streets as a parole officer, enabling him to develop a more complete understanding of how work and crime are related and both contribute to, and are a result of, social inequalities and disadvantage. Well-researched and informative, Get a Job tells a powerful story of one of the most troubling side effects of economic disparities in America.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2014. 303p.

By Mary Louise Frampton, Ian Haney Lopez, and Jonathan Simon

Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed a pyrrhic war on crime, with sobering numbers at once chilling and cautionary. Our imprisoned population has increased five-fold, with a commensurate spike in fiscal costs that many now see as unsupportable into the future. As American society confronts a multitude of new challenges ranging from terrorism to the disappearance of middle-class jobs to global warming, the war on crime may be up for reconsideration for the first time in a generation or more. Relatively low crime rates indicate that the public mood may be swinging toward declaring victory and moving on.
However, to declare that the war is over is dangerous and inaccurate, and After the War on Crime reveals that the impact of this war reaches far beyond statistics; simply moving on is impossible. The war has been most devastating to those affected by increased rates and longer terms of incarceration, but its reach has also reshaped a sweeping range of social institutions, including law enforcement, politics, schooling, healthcare, and social welfare. The war has also profoundly altered conceptions of race and community.
It is time to consider the tasks reconstruction must tackle. To do so requires first a critical assessment of how this war has remade our society, and then creative thinking about how government, foundations, communities, and activists should respond. After the War on Crime accelerates this reassessment with original essays by a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars as well as policy professionals and community activists. The volume's immediate goal is to spark a fresh conversation about the war on crime and its consequences; its long-term aspiration is to develop a clear understanding of how we got here and of where we should go.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008.256p