Journal of Criminology

This paper draws on the findings of a longitudinal study of police socialisation to refine and expand on the Bourdieuian framework of police culture developed in Chan (1997). The research supports the conclusion that the socialisation of police is a more complex and contingent process, and recruits far more active and reflective, than previously assumed. In addition, the paper shows that the socialisation process has become more unpredictable as a result of the changing social and political context of policing. It is argued that a deeper understanding of the socialisation process must take into account the interaction between the occupational “habitus” and the changing “field” of policing.

Criminological theory has historically assumed that economic adversity increases crime rates because it increases the motivation to offend. This assumption appears supported in cross-sectional studies of the relationship between economic adversity and crime but time series studies have generally produced much less consistent results. Attempts to resolve this anomaly without abandoning the motivational hypothesis have met with mixed success. The purpose of this paper is to test the motivational assumption using monthly data drawn from a period during which a severe recession occurred. The results of the study do not support the motivational assumption. Alternative explanations of the aggregate-level relationship between economic adversity and property crime are canvassed.

This article analyses the social context in which the corroboration warning became entrenched in the child sexual assault trial, its historical legacy in terms of present day practice and the theoretical implications of this history and practice in terms of the sexed and gendered constructions of the female child complainant. In light of this analysis, the article discusses the implications for law reform of the child sexual assault trial, in particular the need to address the unique problems associated with prosecuting child sex offences.

There is a perception in Victoria that some ethnic groups are more heavily involved in illicit drugs than others. The published police and prison statistics appear to support this view. The paper discusses why published statistics show an increase in drug offending by people of Vietnamese birth, describes some of the outcomes of current criminal justice responses to the illicit drug problem in Victoria, and identifies differing offending patterns between drug offenders of “Asian” and “non-Asian” backgrounds. Court and Juvenile Justice key informants’ perceptions of the reasons young “Asian” people become involved with heroin is also briefly discussed.

Data available on the characteristics of all Australian homicides over ten years since mid 1989 provide an opportunity to investigate whether child homicide is subject to temporal clustering. If this were found to be the case, then contagion resulting from media publicity might be a possible explanation. This follows from studies indicating some influence from media publicity given to suicides. No temporal clustering could be detected and results indicate that any given child homicide in Australia has no effect on the subsequent rate of child homicides. The study suggests that caution is needed before assuming that proximate events are necessarily related. It remains a possibility that child homicide may be the product of contagion over a longer time frame, as a consequence of intense media publicity given to high profile events. The media should respect community sensibilities in reporting such events and avoid sensational coverage in an ethical and balanced way.

In recent years workplace stress has been seen as an important occupational health and safety problem and probation officers in New Zealand have been identified as suffering from increasing perceptions of stress. Accordingly, the present study was undertaken with a sample of 50 New Zealand Probation Officers in three offices to examine the relationship of individual, organisational and work stressors with work related strains. It was predicted that work stressors would be positively related to strains and that individual differences (e.g., age or gender) would have a moderating effect on the relationship between stressors and strains. The results showed that stressors caused by organisational problems, such as role boundary and overload, were related to strains, more strongly than job content problems, such as difficult clients. Secondly, age may have a curvilinear relationship to strains. Thirdly, the office, or place of work, moderates the stressor strain relationship.