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CRIME PREVENTION

CRIME PREVENTION-POLICING-CRIME REDUCTION-POLITICS

Posts in social sciences
Witchcraft and policing : South Africa Police Service attitudes towards witchcraft and witchcraft-related crime in the Northern Province

By Riekje Pelgrim.

In the last two decades, the Northern Province of South Africa has experienced hundreds of so-called witch attacks: violent assaults in which individuals or groups of people are accused of practicing witchcraft. Since the mid 1980s, the attacking and killing of people believed to be witches has become an increasingly problematic social issue in this part of the world. Narrations of witchcraft related violence have been numerous in the press, police reports and the academic world. South African newspapers and television have covered the issue of witchcraft related problems extensively: a quick review of backdated articles and television programmes reflects the ever-growing social problem caused by the belief in witchcraft. During my six-month fieldwork period in the Northern Province, both The Mirror and the Soutpansberger, two local weekly newspapers, carried on average one witchcraft related article per edition. Even the Mail & Guardian and the Sowetan, national newspapers of substantial influence and objective reputation, have published numerous articles dealing with witchcraft related issues. Additionally, police reports of witchcraft related crime have been numerous. Statistics show that between 1990 and 2001, the number of witchcraft related cases has increased from an estimated 50 cases per year to over 1300 a year. As a result, special attention has been paid to this type of crime: the South Africa Police Service (SAPS) has been collecting statistical data and organising rallies and workshops. In this manner, the police have tried to raise awareness regarding the serious consequences of this type of crime and hope to diminish it.

Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2003. 171p.

Security, safety and criminal justice in the Netherlands: an organizational and legal perspective

By E. R. Muller.

Criminal justice, security and safety are crucial aspects of a democratic state. In the Netherlands these themes are subject of intensive political and public debate. These debates are mostly oriented on national aspects. But some of these debates are also relevant for other countries. Maybe other countries can learn from the problems and solutions in the Netherlands. In this book I have tried to give an overview of the main aspects of the discussions on criminal justice, security and safety in the Netherlands.

Deventer, Kluwer, 2012. 393p.

Crossing Empire’s Edge: Foreign Ministry Police and Japanese Expansionism in Northeast Asia

By Erik Esselstrom.

For more than half a century, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) possessed an independent police force that operated within the space of Japan’s informal empire on the Asian continent. Charged with "protecting and controlling" local Japanese communities first in Korea and later in China, these consular police played a critical role in facilitating Japanese imperial expansion during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Remarkably, however, this police force remains largely unknown. Crossing Empire’s Edge is the first book in English to reveal its complex history. Based on extensive analysis of both archival and recently published Japanese sources, Erik Esselstrom describes how the Gaimusho police became deeply involved in the surveillance and suppression of the Korean independence movement in exile throughout Chinese treaty ports and the Manchurian frontier during the 1920s and 1930s. It had in fact evolved over the years from a relatively benign public security organization into a full-fledged political intelligence apparatus devoted to apprehending purveyors of "dangerous thought" throughout the empire. Furthermore, the history of consular police operations indicates that ideological crime was a borderless security problem; Gaimusho police worked closely with colonial and metropolitan Japanese police forces to target Chinese, Korean, and Japanese suspects alike from Shanghai to Seoul to Tokyo. Esselstrom thus offers a nuanced interpretation of Japanese expansionism by highlighting the transnational links between consular, colonial, and metropolitan policing of subversive political movements during the prewar and wartime eras. In addition, by illuminating the fervor with which consular police often pressed for unilateral solutions to Japan’s political security crises on the continent, he challenges orthodox understandings of the relationship between civil and military institutions within the imperial Japanese state. While historians often still depict the Gaimusho as an inhibitor of unilateral military expansionism during the first half of the twentieth century, Esselstrom’s exposé on the activities and ideology of the consular police dramatically challenges this narrative. Revealing a far greater complexity of motivation behind the Japanese colonial mission, Crossing Empire’s Edge boldly illustrates how the imperial Japanese state viewed political security at home as inextricably connected to political security abroad from as early as 1919—nearly a decade before overt military aggression began—and approaches northeast Asia as a region of intricate and dynamic social, economic, and political forces. In doing so, Crossing Empire’s Edge inspires new ways of thinking about both modern Japanese history and the modern history of Japan in East Asia.

Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020. 249p.

Some facts regarding toleration, regulation, segregation and repression of commercialized vice

By the Committee of Sixteen.  The Committee of Sixteen in seeking sources for this report has studied the experience of various organizations m England and the United States formed for the suppression of vice, and has found them interestingly similar in aims and methods to its own We have found other organizations of private individuals, like ourselves, which have been formed because they desire, first, to get accurate information as to local conditions; second, to study experience elsewhere; and third, to make a continuous effort to deal with the vice problem.

Montreal: The Committee, 1919. 80p.

Report by W.L. Mackenzie King, C.M.G., deputy minister of labour, on the need for the suppression of the opium traffic in Canada

By Canada. Dept. of Labour.

Printed by order of Parliament. Sir,—In the report recently presented, of the settlement of the claims of the Chinese residents of the city of Vancouver, B.C., for losses occasioned by the anti- Asiatic riots of September last, I drew attention to a report of the evidence before the commission, disclosing the existence of opium manufacturing on a considerable scale in the province of British Columbia, and respectfully submitted that the operations of the opium industry should receive the immediate attention of parliament, and of the legislatures, with a view to the enactment of such measures as would effectually suppress the opium traffic in Canada, and wholly eradicate this evil and its baneful effects.

Ottawa: S.E. Dawson, 1908. 13p.

Protecting Children Online?

By Tijana Milosevic

Cyberbullying Policies of Social Media Companies. Foreword by Sonia Livingstone. This book investigates regulatory and social pressures that social media companies face in the aftermath of high profile cyberbullying incidents. The author’s research evaluates the policies companies develop to protect themselves and users. This includes interviews with NGO and social media company reps in the US and the EU. In an environment where e-safety is part of the corporate business model, this book unveils the process through which established social media companies receive less government scrutiny than start-ups.

MIT Press (2017) 297 pages.

National Security Intelligence and Ethics

Edited by Seumas Miller, Mitt Regan, and Patrick F. Walsh. This volume examines the ethical issues that arise as a result of national security intelligence collection and analysis. Powerful new technologies enable the collection, communication, and analysis of national security data on an unprecedented scale. Data collection now plays a central role in intelligence practice, yet this development raises a host of ethical and national security problems, such as: privacy; autonomy; threats to national security and democracy by foreign states; and accountability for liberal democracies. This volume provides a comprehensive set of in-depth ethical analyses of these problems by combining contributions from both ethics scholars and intelligence practitioners. It provides the reader with a practical understanding of relevant operations, the issues that they raise, and analysis of how responses to these issues can be informed by a commitment to liberal democratic values. This combination of perspectives is crucial in providing an informed appreciation of ethical challenges that is also grounded in the realities of the practice of intelligence.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 317p.

The Popular Policeman and Other Cases: Psychological Perspectives on Legal Evidence.

By Willem Albert Wagenaar and Hans Crombag.

In this compelling title, two distinguished scholars share their experiences as expert witnesses in cases ranging from eyewitness testimony, person identification and recovered memories, to false confessions, collaborative storytelling and causal attribution, in the context of various interrogation techniques and their ability to deliver reliable results. Each chapter describes in lucid, entertaining prose a representative case in the context of scholarly literature to date, showing how psychological expertise has been (and can be) used in a legal setting. The cases include petty and serious crime, from illegal gambling, infringed trademarks and risqué courtship behaviour, to honour killing and death on the climbing wall. The authors' findings and recommendations apply to legal systems worldwide. There is no other English-language textbook covering a similarly wide range of offences, and this volume will fill a gap in the existing literature and demonstrate how psychological expertise can be used in a much larger area than is often realised.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. 288p.

Controlling Vice: Regulating Brothel Prostitution in St. Paul, 1865-1883,

by Joel Best. For eighteen years following the Civil War, the police in St. Paul, Minnesota, informally regulated brothel prostitution. Each month, the madams who ran the brothels were charged with keeping houses of ill fame and fined in the city’s municipal court. In effect, they were paying licensing fees in order to operate illegal enterprises. This arrangement was open; during this period, the city’s newspapers published hundreds of articles about vice and its regulation.

Joel Best claims that the sort of informal regulation in St. Paul was common in the late nineteenth century and was far more typical than the better known but brief experiment with legalization tried in St. Louis. With few exceptions, the usual approach to these issues of social control has been to treat informal regulation as a form of corruption, but Best’s view is that St. Paul’s arrangement exposes the assumption that the criminal justice system must seek to eradicate crime. He maintains that other policies are possible.

In a book that integrates history and sociology, the author has reconstructed the municipal court records for most of 1865–83, using newspaper articles, an arrest ledger kept by the St. Paul police, and municipal court dockets. He has been able to trace which madams operated brothels and the identities of many of the prostitutes who lived and worked in them.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2998. 184p

Cybersecurity: Public Sector Threats and Responses

Edited by Kim Andreasson.

The Internet has given rise to new opportunities for the public sector to improve efficiency and better serve constituents in the form of e-government. But with a rapidly growing user base globally and an increasing reliance on the Internet, digital tools are also exposing the public sector to new risks. An accessible primer, Cybersecurity: Public Sector Threats and Responses focuses on the convergence of globalization, connectivity, and the migration of public sector functions online. It identifies the challenges you need to be aware of and examines emerging trends and strategies from around the world. Offering practical guidance for addressing contemporary risks, the book is organized into three sections: Global Trends—considers international e-government trends, includes case studies of common cyber threats and presents efforts of the premier global institution in the field. National and Local Policy Approaches—examines the current policy environment in the United States and Europe and illustrates challenges at all levels of government. Practical Considerations—explains how to prepare for cyber attacks, including an overview of relevant U.S. Federal cyber incident response policies, an organizational framework for assessing risk, and emerging trends.

Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2011. 391p.

Trusting the Police: Comparisons across Eastern and Western Europe

By Silvia Staubli.

The police can be seen as a governmental institution or as an organizational body, where especially the work – effectiveness, or fairness in encounters – is valued. Through the combination of these approaches and the inclusion of social trust and criminal victimization, Silvia Staubli offers an understanding beyond existing literature on institutional trust and procedural fairness. Moreover, due to analyses for Eastern and Western Europe, she addresses experts from sociology, political science, criminology, and social anthropology equally. Beyond, the study offers an insight to the public on how public opinions towards institutions are shaped Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2017. 201p.

Rethinking Community Policing in International Police Reform: Examples from Asia

By Deniz Kocak.

In 2014, United Nations Security Council resolutions on security sector reform (SSR) and on police operations as part of UN missions confirmed the stated aim to seek the sustained implementation of a “community-oriented approach” to policing in the respective mission countries.1 While promoting the implementation of community-oriented policing since for more than a decade,2 a clarification of what this approach should actually entail and how exactly the UN missions and operating UN agencies in as diverse country contexts such as Papua-New Guinea, Ukraine, or South-Sudan should pursue this approach is still missing. Community policing has often been promoted, particularly in liberal democratic societies, as the best approach to align police services with the principles of good security sector governance (SSG). The stated goal of the community policing approach is to reduce fear of crime within communities, and to overcome mutual distrust between the police and the communities they serve by promoting police citizen partnerships. This SSR Paper traces the historical origins of the concept of community policing in Victorian Great Britain and analyses the processes of transfer, implementation, and adaptation of approaches to community policing in Imperial and post-war Japan, Singapore, and Timor-Leste. The study identifies the factors that were conducive or constraining to the establishment of community policing in each case. It concludes that basic elements of police professionalism and local ownership are necessary preconditions for successfully implementing community policing according to the principles of good SSG. Moreover, external initiatives for community policing must be more closely aligned to the realities of the local context.

London: Ubiquity Press Ltd., 2018. 69p.

Encouraging hate crime reporting - The role of law enforcement and other authorities

This report examines why victims do not report bias-motivated incidents and the barriers that they face when reporting incidents through national crime reporting systems. By mapping existing practices that have a bearing on the victim’s experiences when reporting bias-motivated violence and harassment, it aims to provide evidence to support national efforts to encourage and facilitate reporting – and ultimately assist Member States in delivering on their duties with regard to combating hate crime.

Vienna, Austrla: European Union Agency for Fundamental Right. 2021. 85p.

Police Code of Silence in Times of Change

By Kutnjak Sanja Ivković, Jon Maskály, Ahmet Kule, Maria Maki Haberfeld.

This book explores the contours of the code of silence and provides policy recommendations geared toward creating an environment less conducive for police misconduct. It responds to the recent calls for police reform, in the wake of the perceived illegitimacy of police actions and the protection that the code of silence seems to provide to the police officers who violate the official rules. Using a case study of a medium-sized U.S. police agency, this book employs the lens of police integrity theory to provide empirically grounded explanations of the code of silence. It examines the potential effects of organizational factors and the attitudes of individual police officers on their willingness to adhere to the code of silence in cases of police corruption, the use of excessive force, interpersonal deviance, and organizational deviance. The book focuses on the following factors that could influence the police code of silence in the times of change: The impact of organizational rule dissemination, discipline, and disciplinary fairness on the scope of the code of silence The role organizational justice plays in shaping police officer willingness to report misconduct The effect that police officers’ self-legitimacy has on their decisions to adhere to the code The influence of peer culture on individual police officer amenability to maintain the code The relationship between officers’ views of themselves, the organization, and the community on their willingness to report misconduct.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2022. 129p.

Electric-Shock Weapons, Tasers and Policing: Myths and Realities

By Abi Dymond.

Building on five years of research, and drawing on criminology, science and technology studies (STS), socio-legal studies and social psychology, this book is the first non-medical book written on electric-shock weapons, of which the best well known is the TASER brand. The police’s ability to use force is one of their most crucial powers, yet one that has been relatively neglected by criminology. This book challenges some of the myths surrounding the use of these weapons and considers their human rights implications and impact on members of the public and officers alike. Drawing on STS, it also considers and role and impact of electric-shock technologies, examines the extent to which technologies and non-human agency may also play a role in shaping officer decision making and discretion, and contributes to long standing debates about police accountability.

London; New York: Routledge, 2021. 202p.

Crime and Fear in Public Places: Towards Safe, Inclusive and Sustainable Cities.

Edited ByVania Ceccato, Mahesh K. Nalla.

No city environment reflects the meaning of urban life better than a public place. A public place, whatever its nature—a park, a mall, a train platform or a street corner—is where people pass by, meet each other and at times become a victim of crime. With this book, we submit that crime and safety in public places are not issues that can be easily dealt with within the boundaries of a single discipline. The book aims to illustrate the complexity of patterns of crime and fear in public places with examples of studies on these topics contextualized in different cities and countries around the world. This is achieved by tackling five cross-cutting themes: the nature of the city’s environment as a backdrop for crime and fear; the dynamics of individuals’ daily routines and their transit safety; the safety perceptions experienced by those who are most in fear in public places; the metrics of crime and fear; and, finally, examples of current practices in promoting safety. All these original chapters contribute to our quest for safer, more inclusive, resilient, equitable and sustainable cities and human settlements aligned to the Global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

London. Taylor and Francis. Imprint Routledge. 2020. 484p.

Planning for Crime Prevention: A Transatlantic Perspective, 1st ed.

By Ted Kitchen, Richard H Schneider.

Crime and the fear of crime are issues high in public concern and on political agendas in most developed countries. This book takes these issues and relates them to the contribution that urban planners and participative planning processes can make in response to these problems. Its focus is thus on the extent to which crime opportunities can be prevented or reduced through the design, planning and management of the built environment. The perspective of the book is transatlantic and comparative, not only because ideas and inspiration in this and many other fields increasingly move between countries but also because there is a great deal of relevant theoretical material and practice in both the USA and the UK which has not previously been pulled together in this systemic manner.

London ; New York : Routledge, 2002. 356p.

Cybersecurity in Poland: Legal Aspects

Edited by Katarzyna Chałubińska-Jentkiewicz, Filip Radoniewicz, Tadeusz Zieliński.

Presents a comprehensive and synthetic approach to issues related to the cybersecurity system of the Republic of Poland. Provides a research perspective that adopts issues of state security and citizen security as the fundamental level of analysis. The first part of the book is an introduction to cybersecurity issues. In the main part of the publication, the authors, guided by the systematics of the Act, discuss the role of individual entities included in the cybersecurity system, Part II presents tasks and competences of entities responsible for ensuring cybersecurity under the national cybersecurity system (“imperious entities”, e.g. competent authorities, CSIRTS), Part III describes the obligations of other entities included in the national cybersecurity system (“participants” of the national cybersecurity system, especially operators of essential services and digital service providers). The last part is dedicated to cybercrime and combating this phenomenon.

Cham: Springer, 2022. 506p.

Retreat or Entrenchment? Drug Policies in the Nordic Countries at a Crossroads.

Edited by Henrik Tham. The drug policies of the Nordic countries have been relatively strict. Since this seems to contradict the internationally recognized liberal criminal policy in general, analyses have been devoted to try to understand this gap. Why doesn’t the “Scandinavian exceptionalism” apply to the drug policies? The new question in relation to drug policy is, however, if and how the Nordic countries will adapt to a situation when several countries all over the world are questioning ‘the war on drugs’ and orienting themselves in the direction of decriminalization and legalization.

Stockholm: SWE: Stockholm University Press., 2021. 324p.

The Codes of the Street in Risky Neighborhoods: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Youth Violence in Germany, Pakistan, and South Africa.

By Wilhelm Heitmeyer Simon Howell Sebastian Kurtenbach Abdul Rauf Muhammad Zaman Steffen Zdun. This book is the first comprehensive study of the street code concept attempting to determine if this concept and process exists in milieus beyond the United States, and if so where, and when it does, its extent, and how and why it is manifested. In sum, the purpose of the study is to provide “an international, cross-cultural comparison of the norms which define and make meaningful violence in three countries, namely Germany, South Africa, and Pakistan.

Open Access (2019) 196p.