Criminology & Criminal Justice

Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper has drawn the criticism of the community of amateur sleuths dubbed ‘Ripperologists’ for its revisionist perspective, which claims that the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper were not all sex workers. Rubenhold’s victim-centred approach has opened a new front in the history wars, as Ripperologists accuse her of historical denialism in pursuit of a feminist agenda. This article assesses Rubenhold’s methods, and her contribution to historical criminology, as well as considering why dominant historical narratives of crime prove so resistant to reinterpretation.

This article describes the characteristics and scale of Francoist repression in Spain and analyses the potential interpretation of the mass killings of people with leftist ideology as an act of genocide in accordance with the provisions of international law. Focus is placed on the difficulties associated with the inclusion of political groups in the category of genocide victims, and the possibility of a broader interpretation of this categorization is defended. Furthermore, the present study emphasizes the influence of the positivist trend on the configuration of Francoist criminal policy and provides evidence that allows Francoist repression to be considered as genocide in full accordance with international law.

The overloaded court system, along with the increasing recognition of the harm inflicted upon offenders by the criminal court procedure, led, in 2013, to the enactment of a new criminal-administrative procedure, termed “conditional dismissals,” which diverts minor offenses from the courts to be settled by prosecution authorities. This preliminary study examines the profile of 1750 cases of conditional dismissals concluded by district attorneys and police prosecution division between 2016 and 2018 and whether some notions of the “restorative justice” model were implemented. The findings indicate that both district attorneys and police prosecution division had initial difficulties in implementing the notion of diverting cases from the criminal court process. Over half of the cases in both agencies were for bodily injury and property offenses. There is a significant difference regarding the majority of the dismissal terms between the district attorneys and the police prosecution division. The results further indicate that 4.5% of all dismissals contained only restorative stipulations (especially in sex offenses), and one-third contained restorative stipulations along with punitive stipulations. The findings also show that the district attorneys are more inclined to use restorative terms, while the police prosecution division is more inclined to use punitive terms. The article discusses the possible explanations for these findings and the significant differences in the application of restorative practice between the police prosecution division and the district attorneys.

The so-called ‘wall of silence’ presents a threat to successful police investigations and criminal trials. Explanations for it have focused on cultural narratives, including distrust in the police, a ‘no snitching’ culture and manipulative ‘professional criminals’. Drawing on a study of serious multi-handed violence and ‘joint enterprise’ as a legal response, this article highlights the role of the law, and its agents, in generating silence among young suspects, whose primary concern is the legal risks of talking. Yet, these young people face a precarious trap, as their silence is interpreted as guilt by the police, propelling them towards charge. This article concludes that to avoid over-charging and to encourage young people with knowledge of serious violence to talk, structural change is needed. The system must reverse the legal rules regarding silence and reform the law on secondary liability to reduce the legal risks of talking.

Rising crime rates and strained police–community relations in China are calling for more research on people’s crime-reporting desires and associated predictors. Drawing upon survey data collected from a sample of 757 local and nonlocal residents in a large city in Southern China, this study takes the initiative to assess Chinese people’s reluctance to report crime to the police. Results show that a lower level of political efficacy, external efficacy specifically, is associated with a higher level of reluctance to report crime. The effects of group care are mixed, with the inner-circle care exerting a negative and the outer-circle care a positive association with crime-reporting desires. Furthermore, net of all controls, local hukou residents express lower levels of willingness than their nonlocal counterparts to report crime. Finally, the perception of police misconduct is the most significant and strongest predictor of Chinese people’s reluctance to report crime. These findings suggest the importance of including a combination of both policing and non-policing factors when studying crime-reporting inclination, opening up an interdisciplinary perspective for studying the issue.

Much previous research has considered experiences of bereavement and loss in a prison-based setting. This overshadows the nature of bereavement within the context of community supervision and probation delivery, resulting in inadequate explorations of the potential link to persistence and/or desistance from crime. Research into desistance has predominantly focused on relationships with those who are still alive. This article evidences an emergent theme of bereavement experiences within the context of probation delivery, relationships and desistance. It draws upon narrative research undertaken within a Community Rehabilitation Company in the north of England, collected as part of a doctoral thesis. Evidence demonstrates the similarities between the process of desistance and that of bereavement with the narratives of men and women reiterating how bereavement can influence the onset of criminal or risk-taking behaviour whilst highlighting emergent evidence on how bereavement can disrupt desistance. This enables the article to highlight the importance of resilience in the process of both bereavement and desistance.

Drawing on interview data with over 50 male former prisoners in Ontario, Canada, we examine male ex-prisoners’ narratives of change within prison settings. Specifically, we focus on how ex-prisoners talk about change to self and their persona, as they reflect back on both their pre-prison selves and the ways they believe prison changed them. We find that these ex-prisoners described prison as a time where they developed a more general sense of positive change. Ex-prisoners described how prison living made them “calmer,” “stronger,” and more “patient” overall. These descriptions stand in tension with the overall hostility of prison environments where prisoners are forced to focus on survival and basic well-being as they navigate the risks and threats of prison living. Overall, in this article, we seek to contribute to emerging discussions on positivity within prison settings, acknowledging that studying the more positive impacts of prison is a delicate yet important endeavor necessary to help better understand the experiential complexities of punishment.