Criminal Policy and Research

Changes in European instruments as a reflection of a shift in legal philosophies relating to community sanctions and measures Abstract The number of persons under community sanctions and measures in the criminal justice system have grown rapidly in many European countries. In response to this phenomenon, the Council of Europe has issued several recommendations on community sanctions and measures in recent decades. The European Union has also published two framework decisions concerning community sanctions and measures that are legally binding on its member states. This article examines the shifts of the general legal philosophies of European instruments on community sanctions and measures, through a review of the subtle changes in the rhetoric of these. Results show that community sanctions and measures are increasingly promoted because of their inherent value, rather than simply because they provide the means to reduce the use of imprisonment. The European instruments assert interdependence between the two objectives of offender rehabilitation and public protection, consider the indicators related to both as the criteria for effective supervision, and understand community sanctions and measures as being not only efficiency oriented but also based on Europe’s human rights framework. However, a particular concern — risk management of dangerous offenders — leads to looser interpretations of some principles of human rights. To retain the European image of resisting punitiveness, this problem can be addressed by firmer and stricter interpretation of these principles.

Do Flood Mitigation and Natural Habitat Protection Employment Reduce Youth Offending? Abstract The present study examines the association between employment and offending for a sample of young offenders who are paid to work in a pilot programme known as the Skill Mill. First, we analyse a sample of 39 youths over a period of 10 years (40 quarters) to determine whether Skill Mill employed youth are more likely to desist from offending than a control group of youth who are not employed in the Skill Mill. Those youths employed by the Skill Mill committed 1.12 fewer offences per quarter than the control group (p < 0.001). In addition, offending rates among the Skill Mill youths decreased by 0.99 offences per quarter after they began work (p < 0.001). Next, we review results from semi-structured interviews with current Skill Mill employees and their supervisor that helps to unpack why the Skill Mill has been successful in promoting desistance. We conclude that programmes like the Skill Mill can mark an important turning point, and more specifically, a hook for change in the lives of young offenders.

Regulation of Prostitution in the Netherlands: Liberal Dream or Growing Repression? Abstract This paper focuses on the regulation of prostitution in the Netherlands from the twentieth century onward. It aims to provide a full description of the Dutch position on prostitution through the interpretation and explanation of current Dutch prostitution policy. This will be achieved by analyzing the legal narratives that substantiate the legal rules provided in both Dutch criminal and administrative law concerning the regulation of prostitution. We analyze the Dutch prostitution legislation of the past, present, and future, using a newly developed analytical framework. Using this framework, we reconstruct the legislator’s attitude towards prostitution using insights from previous theoretical work on prostitution and using models aimed at regulating this phenomenon that range from a total ban to full decriminalization. In our analysis, we also use the legitimating grounds for application of criminal law developed by Feinberg. These grounds are also used in this paper to interpret the administrative intervention in prostitution. This paper reveals a paradox: The idea of a liberal dream goes hand-in-hand with growing repression of freedom in the Dutch prostitution sector.

Security Needs of Citizens and Community Policing in Serbia – is There a Link? Abstract The local community represents a context in which a real quality of social life can be researched. One of the life quality indicators is a degree of satisfying security needs of citizens. Among the resources which the local community engages to solve these needs, the police occupy the key position. Within the model of police engagement in the local community, the concept of community policing has great significance as a qualitatively new system of the police organization and functioning based on the correlation between the citizens’ expectations and what the police really do. By interviewing 750 respondents in five communities in Serbia, in which this policing strategy is being realized, their security needs are being determined. The research results indicate that the citizens of the researched communities are concerned about the extent and intensity of the different forms of violence and all forms of social behavior which jeopardize the security of their families. They recognize the police as a local community resource in charge of solving their security needs and they point out the necessity of undertaking preventive activities. The following factors are noticed as the limitation factors: lack of interdepartmental cooperation within the police services and insufficient local community involvement in problem solving.

Foreign National Prisoners in Flanders (Belgium): Motivations and Barriers to Participation in Prison Programmes Abstract This exploratory study examines the experiences of foreign national prisoners and the motivations and barriers to their participation in prison programmes (e.g. educational courses, use of the prison library, prison work, sociocultural activities, sports). Data are derived from 15 individual interviews with foreign national prisoners in two Belgian prisons. During the interviews the strengths-based approach of Appreciative Inquiry was used. The results demonstrate that foreign national prisoners experience motivations and barriers that can be placed at the different levels of the ecological model of Bronfenbrenner (1979) which affect individual behaviour: micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-level. Foreign national prisoners were often motivated to participate in prison programmes to improve their health (micro-level) or to facilitate contact inside and outside prison (meso-level). The reverse was also possible; foreign national prisoners were limited in their participation in prison programmes by their social networks (meso-level) and a lack of knowledge and understanding of the available activities (exo-level). In conclusion, limitations, guidelines for further research and implications for practice and policy are considered.

From Human Trafficking to Modern Slavery: The Development of Anti-Trafficking Policy in the UK Abstract The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 is the first national legislation to use the term ‘modern slavery’ and to explicitly target ‘slavery’ as opposed to ‘human trafficking’, ‘forced labour’, or other terms. This article explains the development of UK modern slavery policy, which did not arise as a rational response to a defined problem, but has gradually emerged from the policy process as a moderately structured problem. Problem structuring took place in two phases. The first phase was marked by a series of problematisations and policy responses, with disjunctions between the constructed policy problem and the social problem. Elite problematisations excluded alternatives, although the final shape of policy remained open. Policy built up incrementally, running ahead of research so that the policy frame was limited to sexual exploitation while marginalising labour exploitation concerns. In the second phase, unresolved problems of legislation were questioned under the influence of a new moralistic policy frame, an international discourse on slavery, supported by elite political actors. Campaign groups and licit industry also became more influential, increasing the policy scope to take in more types of exploitation. This generated a second round of legislative problematisation, ultimately embedded in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The two-phase process and prevailing top-down policy direction worked against human rights discourses and victim protection. Modern slavery remains a moderately structured problem, with more work necessary to address unintended consequences and implementation difficulties, including enhancing multi-agency working.

International Anti-Corruption Initiatives: a Classification of Policy Interventions Abstract In recent decades, the number of anti-corruption policies developed in the public sector increased considerably. However, existing attempts at classifying them do not fully address the complexity of corruption types, risk factors, and policy environments. Owing to a limited problem description, existing classifications do not always account for the full spectrum of potential policy tools, thus impeding the design, monitoring, and evaluation of anti-corruption interventions. By reviewing the main features of more than 30 international initiatives targeting administrative corruption, this paper aims at identifying the core elements for a comprehensive and actionable typology of anti-corruption policies. A content analysis of the existing international efforts highlights the importance of considering three main groups of variables for classifying anti-corruption initiatives: the type of gain involved in the corrupt conduct, the mechanism of intervention exploited by the policy, and the type of policy tool. The typology provides an interdisciplinary perspective on existing anti-corruption efforts, confronting well-known criminological distinctions with a detailed classification of policy instruments. The study also identifies the main features and limits of existing anti-corruption classifications and efforts, such as the predominance of the economic paradigm and the focus on the characteristics of developing countries for problematizing corruption.

Reluctant Gangsters Revisited: The Evolution of Gangs from Postcodes to Profits Abstract The aim of the current study was to understand how gangs have changed in the past 10 years since Pitts’ (2008) study in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The study undertook interviews with 21 practitioners working on gang-related issues and 10 young people affected by gangs or formerly embedded in them. Two focus groups involving 37 participants from key agencies then explored the preliminary findings and contributed to a conceptualization of a new operating model of gangs. The study found that local gangs had evolved into more organized and profit-oriented entities than a decade earlier. The new operating model rejected visible signs of gang membership as ‘bad for business’ because they attracted unwanted attention from law enforcement agencies. Faced with a saturated drugs market in London, gangs moved out to capture drugs markets in smaller UK towns in ‘county lines’ activities. This more business-oriented ethos has changed the meaning of both territory and violence. While gang members in the original study described an emotional connection with their postcode, territory is increasingly regarded as a marketplace to be protected. Similarly, violence has moved from an expressive means of reinforcing gang identity to being increasingly used as an instrumental means of protecting business interests. The current study offers a rare opportunity to gain a picture of gangs at two time periods and contributes to work on the contested nature of UK gangs and renewed interest in gang evolution. These findings have important implications for local authorities and criminal justice agencies who need to address the profit motive of gang activity directly.

Assessing the risk of money laundering: research challenges and implications for practitioners

Learning from Money Laundering National Risk Assessments: The Case of Italy and Switzerland Abstract The FATF requires each country to undertake a national risk assessment (NRA) to show the government’s knowledge of money laundering risks. There is little guidance as to how these NRAs are to be conducted, and those that have been published show great variation in terms of data used, analytical methods, and the depth of policy analysis. After expounding some of the concepts basic to any risk analysis, we analyze two of the more detailed published NRAs, from Italy and Switzerland. The Italian NRA, focused on domestic criminal threats, relies almost exclusively on expert opinion. Its most distinctive product is an analysis of the high-threat sectors and the need for specific kinds of policy interventions. The Swiss NRA, focused primarily on threats from other countries, presents far more quantitative data, almost exclusively from suspicious activity reports, to supplement expert opinion. Though both NRAs provide useful insights about money laundering risks, neither is conceptually clear; in particular, neither reflects contemporary practice in the use of expert opinion. Our critique is aimed at helping strengthen the next round of NRAs, and identifies lessons learned for all countries. Our recommendations include the use of risk assessment standards from other fields, the addition of a measure of uncertainty, and a more critical assessment by FATF in its NRA evaluations.