Wrongful Convictions and Erroneous Acquittals: Applying Packer’s Model to Examine Public Perceptions of Judicial Errors in Australia

The fallible nature of the criminal justice system continues to see judicial errors—that is, wrongful convictions and erroneous acquittals—undermine its integrity, efficacy, and legitimacy. Public perceptions of judicial errors are important contributors to criminal justice policy and reforms. The current study utilizes the 2016 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) dataset to examine public attitudes toward judicial errors. It applies Herbert Packer’s crime control and due process models to understand how concerns around procedural safeguards and public safety are associated with public perceptions toward judicial errors. Packer’s model has been challenged by studies, which theorize that the models are not mutually exclusive. Yet, they have not been empirically tested in this context, which is a gap this study seeks to fill. Findings show that due process and crime control concerns shape public attitudes toward wrongful convictions and challenge the notion that Packer’s models be applied on a continuum.

Enabling Collaboration and Communication Across Law Enforcement Jurisdictions: Data Sharing in a Multiagency Partnership

Offenders do not always operate within jurisdictional boundaries and, as such, neighboring law enforcement agencies can benefit from sharing crime data and other investigation-related information with one another, with the shared goal of reducing crime throughout their region. In 2016, one such partnership was formed with seven law enforcement agencies, the District Attorney’s Office, and public health officials in King County, Washington. As part of a larger evaluation of this regional collaboration, the authors assessed the data and intelligence-sharing behaviors of key personnel from each participating agency over an 18-month period. This was done through a series of interviews with key personnel and the use of social network analysis. Results suggest that, although data-sharing networks increased in size and project personnel were able to identify benefits to sharing crime data with one another (e.g., seeing the “bigger picture” regarding crime in their region, using shared crime data to track and combat violent crime), they also identified a number of obstacles associated with cross-jurisdictional data sharing. Findings from this evaluation contribute to the collective understanding and implementation of a regional approach to crime control. If criminal justice agencies plan to work together to reduce crime, data and information sharing are essential. Therefore, it is imperative that agencies are aware of the positive outcomes associated with regional data sharing and the challenges that can arise throughout this collaborative effort.

Citizens’ Perceptions on the Role of Court Sentencing in Crime Control: A Survey of Mthatha High Court Juridical Area in South Africa

For over a century, the role of court sentencing on crime deterrence has generated significant debate. In this study, we explored the citizens’ perceptions on the role of court sentencing in South Africa’s Mthatha area. The findings are looked in the context of the broad theories of punishment namely: retributive theory, deterrence theory, preventive theory, reformative theory and compensation theory. A total of purposefully sampled 90 respondents were invited to participate in this study through closed-ended questionnaires. The univariate perception results of the study reveal that reformation of the offender, protection of the offender from being harmed by the victim in retaliation, and ensuring that the victims get justice are the most significant roles of court sentencing. Collectively, the reality that severe sentence scares potential criminals not to commit crime stands out and is the most correlated role of court sentencing. Court sentencing was also viewed to be having two pronged preventive effect on criminal activities. First, the criminal is incapacitated from engaging in criminal activities during the time of imprisonment; and second, the offender is removed from the environmental factors that led to offending. As part of the conclusion, the study recommends sentencing policies that mainly support reformation of offenders.

Operational-investigative counteraction to crime: another concept or terminological features

The article discusses a number of terms used to denote the activities of the state to combat crime. It is indicated that at present the term counteraction has begun to be widely used in legislation, which requires clarification of this concept. Arguments are given about the relevance of the term “counteraction”, its meaning and relationship with other terms, primarily with the concepts of “fighting crime” and “crime control”. The meanings of the words “counteraction”, “struggle” are considered, it is concluded that it would not be correct to identify the counteraction of crime with its prevention, exactly as with preventive activity. Analyzing the concept of crime control, the author states that it is being put forward in the form of a new strategy in the ORD, although its development is not very intensive today. It is concluded that measures to counter crime, such as the detection and disclosure of crimes, should also be supplemented by a system of preventive measures, such as influencing organized criminal groups and communities in order to separate them, undermining the economic foundations of organized crime, depriving the organizers of organized crime groups and OPS of authority, etc.

The Virtues of Justice: Toward a Moral and Jurisprudential Psychology

Within the theoretical literature on crime control and offender therapy, little has been written about the importance of virtue ethics in the experience of human justice and in the evolution of the common good. As a theory of being, the aretaic tradition extols eudemonic existence (i.e., excellence, flourishing) as a relational habit of developing character that is both practiced and embodied over time. What this implies is that virtue justice depends on a set of assumptions and predispositions—both moral and jurisprudential—whose meanings are essential to comprehending its psychological structure. This article sets out to explore several themes that our integral to our thesis on the virtues (i.e., the being) of justice. We reclaim justice’s aretaic significance, critique the common conflation of justice and law, discuss how the dominant legalistic conception of justice is rooted in a particular view of human nature, suggest how justice might be more properly grounded in natural moral sensibilities, and provide a tentative explication of the psychological character of justice as a twofold moral disposition. Given this exploratory commentary, we conclude by reflecting on how individual well-being, system-wide progress, and transformative social change are both possible and practical, in the interest of promoting the virtues of justice within the practice of crime control and offender therapy.

Racialized Surveillance in New Zealand: From the Tūhoe Raids to the Extralegal Photographing of Indigenous Youth

It has been nearly 15 years since the 2007 anti-terrorism police raids targeting the Ngāi Tūhoe (Tuhoe) iwi (tribe) who reside in the center of New Zealand's North Island. The violent treatment inflicted upon Tūhoe by New Zealand Police and the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) raised questions around the policing and punishing of Indigenous expressions of dissent. In light of recent events, revisiting how policymakers addressed the Raids offers much-needed critical analysis of the policing and surveillance of Māori in the contemporary context. This qualitative study seeks to understand how policymakers framed the 2007 Raids in discussions of crime control policy after the fact. A content analysis of Hansard's (parliamentary) debates of the 2009 Organised Crime Bill reveals that the Raids emerged primarily in discussions to expand police powers and implement harsher penalties for gang-related activity. Green, Māori, and the Labor parties framed the Raids as an act of state violence, a failed operation, a waste of taxpayers’ dollars, and a repeat of similar, historical acts of state violence against the Tūhoe people. Taking the Raids as a point of departure, the second part of the paper argues that two key events reveal a continuing project focused on the extensive policing and surveillance of Indigenous bodies in Aotearoa New Zealand: (1) the Armed Response Team (ART) trials of 2020, and (2) the ongoing extralegal photographing of Māori youth by law enforcement. These events are discussed as chronic acts of violence that lead to different life outcomes for survivors.

Politics, Policy, and Crime Ethnography

This chapter encourages social scientists, policy planners, and public administrators to reflect critically on the methods used to define crime problems and policy responses to them. It argues for the increased use of ethnographic methods in formulating policy by seeking points of connection with quantitative approaches. Quantitative methods are better suited for crime policy given their methodological rigor, instrumental and programmatic orientation, and relatively low costs per datum unit. However, qualitative methods have a complementary role to play, being better attuned to the subjective experiences of crime and crime control and better able to illustrate factors correlated with these phenomena. Ethnographic methods permit reflexivity regarding the broader settings and specific contexts of crime and criminological research. Two cases of ethnographic techniques within criminal justice practice are shared to demonstrate their viability—one from the US Department of Justice and another from Court Watch Poland. The chapter finishes with lessons for researchers and policy planners, including the importance of engaging in collaborative research, triangulating methods, embracing uncomfortable findings, and reconsidering research ethics.

Whose 'Eyes on the Street' Control Crime?

Jane Jacobs coined the phrase 'eyes on the street' to depict those who maintain order in cities. Most criminologists assume these eyes belong to residents. In this Element we show that most of the eyes she described belonged to shopkeepers and property owners. They, along with governments, wield immense power through property ownership and regulation. From her work, we propose a Neo-Jacobian perspective to reframe how crime is connected to neighborhood function through deliberate decision-making at places. It advances three major turning points for criminology. This includes turns from: 1. residents to place managers as the primary source of informal social control; 2. ecological processes to outsiders' deliberate actions that create crime opportunities; and 3. a top-down macro- to bottom-up micro-spatial explanation of crime patterns. This perspective demonstrates the need for criminology to integrate further into economics, political science, urban planning, and history to improve crime control policies.

Using Crime Control Mechanisms in Yoruba Traditional Society as a Template for Redressing Security Challenges in Nigeria

Crime and its attendant fatalities has become a burning issue in Nigeria in recent times. It is a phenomenon that is bedeviling the nation and steps taken by government to prevent it seem inadequate as it continues to spread like a dry season fire. Existing studies on crime and its control have focused mainly on the use of modern methods which are at variance with the cultures of the various societies, while little attention is also paid to the crime control mechanisms of the traditional Yoruba society. The inability of government to tackle the menace of crime has led to palpable fears among the people as security of lives and property is perpetually threatened. This has impacted negatively on the country that is striving to be among the developed nations in the world. A qualitative method of research was adopted for this brief study. The paper argues that crime that has become the order of the day in Nigeria, came as a result of inter alia unemployment, poverty, selfishness and greed. This paper proffers a solution by proposing the use of traditional Yoruba crime control mechanisms with the modern one, side by side, to fight crime in Nigeria in order to foster the rapid economic and social development that everybody is longing for.