International Research
Study of peers, activities and neighborhoods (SPAN)
dr. Frank Weerman, prof. dr. Gerben Bruinsma, dr. Wim Bernasco, prof.dr. Lieven Pauwels (Ghent University, Belgium) and prof.dr. Per-Olof Wikström (Cambridge University, UK), Prof. Marie Torstensen Levander (Malmö)
Research in developmental and life course criminology has taught us a lot about the way that characteristics of individuals, their families, and their neighborhoods can stimulate or discourage delinquent behavior. Whether or not youth will become involved in delinquent behavior is also likely to be affected by their spatial behavior patterns. In this study the time use of 12-13 and 15-16 year old youth is assessed using a space-time-budget method. What do they do, when, where and with whom? And what is the effect on criminal offending and victimization? The findings allow us to test criminological explanations, and to combine etiological explanations with ecological ones. We closely cooperate with the universities of Cambridge (prof. Wikström) en Malmö (Prof. Marie Torstensen Levander), where the identical research projects are being carried out.
A swelling culture of control: the Belgian case of governing incivilities
Elke Devroe, lic Crim, University of Ghent, Belgium
Supervisors: professor Gerben Bruinsma en professor Tom vander Beken Ghent University, Belgium
The organizing patterns in contemporary crime control and their social and cultural underpinnings are an important topic in modern criminology. The post-modern society and her characteristics was analyzed by many Anglo-Saxon authors. David Garland is considered the leading scholar in this matter with his theory of the “culture of control” and his analysis of criminal justice & crime control in Britain and America. His theory played a important role in the development of the analysis of the risk society. This research project will test D. Garland’s analyses in a non Anglo-Saxon, continental setting. The empirical part of this research project will study the forces playing a role in governing incivilities in Belgium (the stakeholders of the institutions) and the strategies and measures they have developed. The case study will elucidate the meaning of Garland’s theory for the Belgian situation on governing incivilities, where similarities, differences and gaps between America, Britain and the continent can be detected.
The Belgian legislation on ‘administrative community sanctions’ to counter incivilities exists more than 10 years. This research study implies 4 topics, different research questions and a set of hypotheses derived from the analyses Garland made. These research questions will be tested in Belgium in 3 different research settings, (1) one on the national level, (2) one on the community level in the French speaking part of Belgium and (3) one on the community level in the Dutch speaking part of the country.
The research questions and their hypotheses are oriented around 4 different topics, that are (1) the influence of criminology on the governing incivilities in Belgium, (2) the stakeholders and the moral context, (3) the measures of implementation and (4) the consequences of the implementation.
The methodology of the case study will be used in a multi-method approach, that will include in-depth interviews with a semi-structured questionnaire. The interviews will not be to structured, only the 4 topics mentioned above will structure the interview. Of course, different aspects of the research questions will be answered by a literature study and a study of secondary sources
Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Editors-in- Chief: professor Gerben Bruinsma (NSCR, Amsterdam) and professor David Weisburd (George Mason University, Washington and Hebrew University, Jerusalem).
Associate editors: professor Martin Killias (University of Zurich), professor Michael Tonry (University of Minnesota/NSCR), professor Stephen Mastrofski (George Mason University), David Green, PhD (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York), professor Alex Piquero (University of Maryland), professor George Rengert (Temple University), professor Sally Simpson (University of Maryland), professor Hans Kerner (University of Tübingen), professor Daniel Nagin (Carnegie Mellon University) and dr. Arjan Blokland (NSCR), professor Doris MacKenzie (University of Maryland), as well as about 100 area editors and about a 1000 authors.
The goal of this encyclopedia (to be published by Springer New York) is to provide a comprehensive reference work for the field of criminology and criminal justice. The Encyclopedia covers the field broadly, and internationally, and to be up to date as to recent developments in research and practice in the field. The encyclopedia is not just comprehensive but also cutting edge and, defining the contours of the field of criminology and criminal justice. It covers the following fields:
1) Corrections and Criminal Justice Supervision in the Community
2) Courts, Sentencing and the Judicial System
3) Police and Law Enforcement
4) Crimes, Criminals and Victims
5) Crime Places and Situations
6) Explanations for Criminal Behavior
7) History of Criminology
8) Data, Methods and Statistics
9) Social Interventions and Prevention
10) Forensics, Psychology of Law and Investigative Psychology
Assessing key criminological theories
prof. P-O. Wikström (Cambridge, UK), prof. Gerben Bruinsma & dr. Kyle Treiber (Cambridge, UK)
Critically Assessing Key Criminological Theories is a joint project addressing seven major criminological theories: routine activity theory, social disorganization theory, self-control theory, social bonds theory, strain theory, differential association theory and labeling theory. The discussions are focused on the four major shortcomings of criminological theories: (1) problems of defining what these theories seek to explain; (2) the frequent failure of theories to treat crime as an action, something which a person does in response to a given situation; (3) failure to identify key causal factors and, in particular, the mechanisms which link those factors to acts of crime. Theories tend to focus on either individual or environmental-level factors, rather than both, and few if any address how these factors interact and lead individuals to offend, and (4) a general insufficiency in the explanation of stability and change in crime involvement, and the causes of crime, despite the importance of these issues for understanding the onset of, persistence in and desistance from offending.
A book of Assessing key criminological theories will be published by Springer, New York in 2011.
Punishment Philosophies and Paradigms
prof. Michael Tonry, dr. Jan de Keijser (Leiden University) and profs Doug Husak, Antony Duff, Richard Fras, Matt Mattravers, John Kleinig, Julian Roberts, Peter Ramsay, Alice Ristroph, Michael O’Hear and Andrew von Hirsch
This project aims to develop new normative models for analysis of penal policies and practices. Criminal justice systems of most Western countries are incorporating new practices and policies-including restorative justice initiatives, communitarian ideas, greater used of coerced participation in rehabilitative programs, increased incapacitative use of risk assessments and instruments-that do not rest comfortably within prevailing retributive and consequentialist theories.
Leading philosophers and theorists will be commissioned to develop ideal punishment theories premised on particular rationales or justifications in order to develop new normative models that can take account of recent policy developments in principled, ethical ways. A series of small conferences will be held to examine successive iterations of such models.
Comparisons of legal systems
mr.dr. Marijke Malsch & prof. dr. I. Freckelton (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia). A number of comparative studies into characteristics of legal systems worldwide has been conducted in cooperation Australia. One study focused on the use of expert evidence in different types of legal systems (see Malsch, M. & Freckelton I. (2005). Expert bias and partisanship. A comparison between Australia and the Netherlands. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 1, 42-61). The other study explored the archetypical ways in which evidence is evaluated, and it attempted to answer the question whether there is a relation with features of the legal system. Or, in other words, is the process of evaluating evidence in inquisitorial systems different from that in adversarial systems? (see Malsch, M. & Freckelton, I. (2009). The evaluation of evidence: differences between legal systems. In H. Kaptein, H. Prakken & B. Verheij (eds.), Legal evidence and proof. Statistics, stories, logic (p. 117-134). Aldershot: Ashgate). The objective of these studies is to refine theoretical models of legal systems, and to examine possibilities to adopt characteristics of one model into the other. Future cooperative work will focus on international comparisons of various types of legal proceedings, among which disciplinary law, and the role of victim compensation in these proceedings.
The geography of robbery in Chicago
dr. Wim Bernasco, professor emeritus Richard Block (Loyola University Chicago)
In this project, we study the geography of street robbery in Chicago. One line of research uses the discrete spatial choice framework to explain the locations of street robbery incidents. Discrete spatial choice recently emerged as a new framework for analyzing criminal location decisions, and provides an elegant but comprehensive modelling environment to answer various substantive research questions. A first publication appeared in 2009 (Bernasco & Block. 2009. Where Offenders Choose To Attack: A Discrete Choice Model of Robberies in Chicago. Criminology, 47, 93-130. The second line of research explores the spatial unit of analysis in studying robbery. Recent work in environmental criminology suggest that robbery and other crimes should be studied at small levels of aggregation, ‘micro places’ such a s street blocks. The smaller the spatial unit of analysis, the larger is the potential influence it receives from its environment. Therefore, we develop models that can account for spatial effects. At the lowest level we distinguish the approximately 25,000 census blocks in Chicago.
Offenders on offending
dr. Wim Bernasco and others
In October 2008 NSCR organised an international 3-day workshop Offenders On Offending with the aim of addressing the truthfulness, veracity and validity of what we can learn about offending from offenders in interviews, autobiographies and ethnographic research. Wim Bernasco prepared an edited volume on the topic (published by Willan publishers in April 2010) that includes contributions of Fiona Brookman, Heith Copes, Ric Curtis, Henk Elffers, Frank van Gemert, Andrew Hochstetler, Scott Jacques, Jody Miller, Carlo Morselli, Claire Nee, Veronika Polišenská, Marie Lindegaard, Neal Shover, Lucia Summers, Richard Wright, Birgit Zetinigg, and Sheldon Zhang.
Contrast in tolerance: Imprisonment in the Netherlands and England
dr. Anja Dirkzwager and prof.dr. Candace Kruttschnitt (University of Toronto)
In this study, we revisit a classic work in comparative penal policy, David Downes’ (1988) Contrasts in Tolerance. Downes examined Dutch and English post-war criminal justice policies through the mid-1980s and found that prisons in the Netherlands provided more humane and open environments. Over the ensuing twenty years, crime control policies and imprisonment rates changed in both England and the Netherlands. Using the findings from Downes’ comparative study of prison life in England and the Netherlands as a baseline, we examined the theoretical claim of widespread growth in punitiveness. As Downes did, we conducted interviews with Dutch prisoners currently held in England and English prisoners currently held in Dutch prisons in order to examine whether the conditions and experiences of confinement have changed over time.
EuroGang
dr. Frank Weerman and many other researchers over the world
The NSCR is involved in the Eurogang Program of Research, an international network of researchers, aimed at stimulating and developing comparative research on street gangs and troublesome youth groups in European countries and elsewhere in the world. The network has formulated a consensus definition of the subject of its efforts: “a street gang (or troublesome youth group) is any durable, street-oriented youth group whose identity includes involvement in illegal activity”. Members of the network conduct studies that are focused on getting insight in prevalence and spread of gangs and troublesome youth groups in different countries, differences and similarities in gang characteristics and risk factors for gang membership between European countries and between Europe and the United States, and in understanding the social and individual factors that affect gangs and gang membership.
At the NSCR, data on troublesome youth groups were collected within the NSCR Schoolproject, which included a longitudinal survey among secondary school students. These data have been used for the Eurogang program. Analyses were published in several international articles and book chapters, among them a cross-national comparison between gang / troublesome youth group membership among American and Dutch youths. In 2009, a contribution was made to the development of a ‘manual’ in which the background of the Eurogang program and the use of common instruments is explained in great detail.
New Advances in Experimental Criminology
prof. dr. Brandon C. Welsh, Northeastern University & NSCR, with M.S. Meghan E. Peel, Northeastern University & NSCR
This project aims to advance the global knowledge base on experimental criminology by initiating experiments (including randomized controlled trials) on leading criminological interventions, conducting systematic reviews on important and emerging crime and justice topics, and undertaking field and laboratory experiments within the existing research programs at the NSCR. Important to the project are collaborations with leading scholars and experimentalists from across the world in an effort to improve our international comparative understanding of crime, its causes, and methods of crime prevention and control.
A number of projects are underway, including development of a randomized experiment on intensive supervision probation for youthful offenders and systematic reviews on probation and other treatments for youthful offenders (with prof. dr. Peter van der Laan, dr. Jean-Louis van Gelder, and MSc. Willemijn Lamet), development of an experiment to test formal and informal guardianship (with prof. dr. Henk Elffers and dr. Danielle Reynald), and a workshop on new advances in experimental criminology that will take place at NSCR in Spring 2011.