International Criminal Justice Review

Drawing on the cultural collectivism–individualism literature, we predict that Japanese students, compared to Americans, tend to commit fewer deviant acts because they are less inclined toward individualistic value orientations, risk seeking, negative emotionality, and subjective stress; because they are exposed to greater parental discipline and have stronger parental attachment; because they have weaker peer attachment and associate with peers who react less favorably to deviance; because they have stronger bonds to conventional society and greater social support from significant others; and because they are exposed to fewer deviance opportunities. Analyses of comparable data from college students in Japan (N = 469) and the United States (N = 594) provided mixed support for our predictions. As expected, Japanese students committed fewer deviant acts during their high school days. Furthermore, consistent with expectations, Japanese students had lower scores on all four individual factors, the two peer factors, and the environmental factor of deviance opportunities. After controlling for these seven factors, the effect of Japan versus the United States decreased by one third. The decrease was not greater at least partly because, in Japan, compared to the United States, risk seeking had significantly less influence on student deviance, and subjective stress had significantly more influence on student deviance.

Using a South Korean sample from 2010 National Crime Victim Survey, the current research examined the gender differences of fear of four different types of crime testing the shadow of sexual assault thesis, which asserts that sexual assault operates as a master offense for females. The current study provides insight into the robustness of the shadow hypothesis by controlling for various covariates (e.g., perceptions of the neighborhood and crime-related media consumption) that have been often omitted in this line of literature. Results show that the largest difference in fear between males and females was the fear of sexual assault, and based on coefficient comparison tests, fear of sexual assault was a stronger predictor of fear of other crimes among males than among females. The current study calls for future research to disentangle the shadow of sexual hypothesis in different settings and to conduct more studies specifically on men’s fear of crime.

Situational action theory (SAT) posits that morality plays a core role in determining whether situations are viewed as suitable for crime. However, little attention has been paid to moral identity, the degree to which a person considers morality to occupy a central position in their view of themselves. Using a convenience sample of Iranian soccer fans (N = 374), we test both the direct and moderated role of moral identity in explaining cyberbullying, an outcome that differs from most SAT research focusing on violent/property crime. We find that fans with a weaker moral identity tend to engage in more cyberbullying and that moral identity significantly interacts with a number of SAT-derived predictors (moral emotions, self-control, perceptual deterrence, and situational morality) in expected ways.

The prevalence of performance-enhancing drug (PED) use at different levels of professional sport has become an important social issue, particularly when considering recent high-profile incidents from professional sports and the Olympics. Due to the myriad of individual, team, and sociopolitical consequences that can stem from PED use, it becomes critical to study the etiology of PED involvement among athletes regarding this deviant behavior. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime is one such theory that may aid in explaining this phenomenon. As such, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between effective parenting, self-control, and athletes’ use of banned PEDs. Survey data from 784 professional athletes in Iran were collected, and the findings indicated that ineffective parenting, low self-control capacity, and self-control desire had significant effects on PED use. In addition, moderation effects and gender analyses were examined. Specific findings, policy implications, and study limitations are discussed.

This introduction to the International Criminal Justice Review provides a brief overview of the books reviewed in this special issue, which address multiple facets of the immigration system. Then, I provide an overview of the key immigration policy changes and legal challenges that have occurred in the midst of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic between March and July 2020. This health crisis exacerbated the struggles faced by the immigrant community and exemplify the systemic barriers that impede integration.