The British Journal of Criminology

Bachiller López, Covadonga

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azac009pmid: N/A

This article explores how Frontex border policing is organized and performed at the level of the everyday. Based on ethnographic research in the Aegean Sea and interviews with Frontex and Hellenic Coast Guard officers, it details the mundane workings of ‘early detection’—a bordering practice that is systematically performed at EUrope’s frontier. By analysing the tactical labour and interactions with the host authority, the article documents a transformation in Frontex officers’ understandings of their role from humanitarian rescue towards deterrence. A focus on the day-to-day practices of Frontex officers and their limited conception of human rights reveals the ways unlawful bordering tactics become routinized within the Frontex operational theatre.

Timmer, Anastasiia; Antonaccio, Olena; Botchkovar, Ekaterina V; Johnson, Robert J; Hughes, Lorine A

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azac002pmid: N/A

This study uses survey data from multi-stage stratified random samples of adults from two large Ukrainian cities to examine and specify associations between war exposure and the likelihood of committing violent acts against another person. Findings from regression models reveal that both direct and vicarious war exposure predict projected interpersonal violence by civilians, and mediation analyses show that daily strains and, in some instances, negative affect serve as links in the relationship between vicarious war exposure and the likelihood of violent behaviour. Daily strains also emerge as a significant and robust moderator of this relationship. The study demonstrates dangerous effects of war-related events on civilians and highlights the need for interventions aimed at reducing violence in war-weary countries around the world.

Stansfield, Richard; Semenza, Daniel

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azab119pmid: N/A

This study seeks to examine how urban affordability, and related issues of eviction and joblessness, are associated with gun violence in the United States. After discussing the theoretical importance of studying housing affordability, we provide a preliminary examination of how urban affordability moderates the relationship between other markers of economic disadvantage and gun violence. This study further considers whether these different indicators of disadvantage are associated with gun violence differently by majority Black and majority White neighbourhoods. This study rests on neighbourhood-level data from 4 large US cities. Through a series of fixed-effects models, our results reveal that changes in affordability are significantly associated with rising gun violence in general, particularly in majority Black neighbourhoods. Furthermore, joblessness and eviction are less influential in shaping gun violence in more affordable neighbourhoods, but more consequential in communities facing higher rent burdens. The study reiterates several recommendations about reducing unaffordability in urban communities, as well as recommending several avenues for future research on urban violence.

Ejbye-Ernst, Peter

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azab121pmid: N/A

The article investigates whether third-party intervention influences the continuation of antagonist conflict behaviour in interpersonal conflicts. The analysis is based on a systematic coding of video footage of real-life conflicts from the streets of Amsterdam. A panel data analysis shows that intervention leads to discontinuation of conflict behaviour. The analysis furthermore finds that while physically forceful intervention stops conflict behaviour, expressions of disapproval have no noticeable effect. The social relationship between third parties and antagonists does not appear to matter for this effect. Third parties thus play an integral part in the development of interpersonal conflicts, but this influence depends on how they intervene. Future preventive efforts should emphasize that intervention works but must be performed in certain ways to be effective.

Williams, Ryan; Liebling, Alison

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azab122pmid: N/A

Sociological studies of prisons require expanded methodologies and interdisciplinary concepts to address challenges posed by changing prisoner demographics and transformed geopolitics. We aim to revitalize sociological inquiry on prisons and prisoner leadership by focussing on the question of whether prisons cause radicalization. Our findings support those of the most persuasive original studies: distinct prison climates generate different hierarchies, only some of which are violent. Through extensive fieldwork we explore the differences between a prison with high levels of ‘political charge’, or anger, and another with less, drawing on extremist events that unfolded over time. We contrast the dangerous dynamics of prison 1 with the more fluid, prosocial religious explorations facilitated by prison 2, considering the implications for prison radicalization studies.

Kokkalera, Stuti S; Singer, Simon I

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azac001pmid: N/A

Parole is one of the least visible decision-making processes in the criminal justice system. We consider decision statements that support or reject release as symbolic of organizational concerns beyond the candidate’s individual attributes. To draw out the symbolic, we focus on decision statements issued to 33 juvenile lifers previously ineligible for parole. We find that what is meaningful to a parole board is highly selective, and there is no generalized presumption of mitigated culpability and capacity for rehabilitation. Rather release is justified based on childhood abuse, peer dependency and a redemptive self. In contrast, denying narratives selectively highlight the seriousness of the sentencing offence by focusing on the ‘horrific,’ and the retributive requirement for more time to be served.

Halsey, Mark; Mizzi, Jenna

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azab123pmid: N/A

Drawing on primary data from a unique crime prevention initiative in Australia, this article examines how a small group of co-offenders harnessed the pro-social dimensions of their offending to co-desist from crime. We focus particularly on the evolving nature of group dynamics and the roles played by policing (including non-policing), innovative ‘24/7’ casework, and the provision of a culturally safe divergent setting in the emergence of co-desistance scenarios. We show how initial apprehensions around co-offenders associating in the community were unfounded and in fact proved key to the success of such an approach. Building on the supported desistance literature, the article positions co-desistance as a related but distinct concept worthy of further study in its own right.

Gheorghiu, Iulia; Ham, Julie

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azac003pmid: N/A

This article explores the concept of biographical work as a sustained pursuit during interviews with persons engaging in stigmatized and criminalized work. Based on interviews with women engaging in sex work and intimate economies in Hong Kong, the article examines the research interview as an interactional and institutional encounter where interviewer and interviewee jointly create meaning and articulate experiences to produce credibility. Relying on the sex workers’ rights framework and its adjacent debates, the article argues that social theory and critique construct reality by shaping public discourse and moral sensitivities in institutional encounters and act as moral resources that inform positionalities. The article argues for the importance of attending to both interactional and institutional demands made by interview encounters in data interpretation.

Reid, Ebony

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azac004pmid: N/A

This article explores urban men’s involvement in the drug economy, examining the conditions in which they become ‘trapped’ in difficult lifeworlds and identities. Through an ethnographic exploration of what disadvantaged urban men term ‘trap life’, this article demonstrates how different ‘trapper’ identities, enacted to manage economic, social and psychological vulnerability, allows an understanding of the varied motivations to take part in criminality and violence. Whilst the terms ‘dangerous’, ‘pathological’ and ‘criminal’ are deployed to account for street lifestyles, such stereotypical imagery with roots in history, media, political discourse and policing practices, downplays the humanity of men living on the margins of society and neglects their version of reality. Far from being exclusively violent perpetrators, urban men are especially vulnerable as they are trapped in a never-ending existential crisis, which prevents successful transitions into mainstream life. I demonstrate that the issue of violence and the 21st century drug business must be placed in broader psychosocial contexts to provide a better understanding and perhaps one-day inform therapeutic and other practice interventions specifically tailored for those seeking to exit ‘trap life’.

Rennie, Ailie; Crewe, Ben

doi: 10.1093/bjc/azac008pmid: N/A

This article explores how men serving mandatory life sentences in England and Wales anticipate life after release and the imposition of a life licence. It reports the various ways that lifers feared licencing as being exceedingly ‘tight’ and restrictive, sometimes resulting in them retreating from release altogether. At the same time, some participants reported a motivation to embrace the ‘tightness’ of their impending licence conditions, and use penal power as a means of structuring life on release. Whether they resisted or embraced penal intervention, all participants altered their aspirations to what seemed achievable upon release when subject to numerous conditions. Specifically, the article argues that the anticipation of a particular mode of penal power has a material effect on lifers’ approach to release.