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'Crime' and 'Crime Control'

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'Crime' and 'Crime Control' ORGANIZATION EUROCRIM2015 CONFERENCE IS ORGANIZED BY: ESC Challenging ‘Crime’ and ‘Crime Control’ in Contemporary EuropeFDUP, SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY 17th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology 13–16 September 2017 Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom Book of Abstracts P6.1 - 1 Theorising the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders as “Coercive Connectivity”: Locatability and Penal Control in a Digital Era Mike Nellis (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland) For all that it has been in use in many parts of the world since the 1980s, and especially since the 2000s, electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders remains seriously undertheorised, and somewhat resistant to insights from digital sociology. Yet its “conditions of possibility” lie entirely within the multiple forms of real-time digital connectivity that contemporary information and communication technologies enable. EM, is at root, a form of “coercive connectivity”, customizing everyday digital technology – especially its capacity for pinpointing locations – at the behest of judicial and penal authorities. The businesses and governments which promote EM do so in a language of “technological humanism” (to make social life more efficient and convivial). Its apparently growing appeal to penal decision- makers can’t be understood apart from its normality and ordinariness as a digital technology which mirrors, and gains legitimacy from, many of the everyday uses to which such technologies are put. Nonetheless, there are pertinent questions to be asked of EM, as with digital technology more generally, about the scale and purposes of its use in particular fields of social life, about what we might want (and not want) it to replace or augment, and how – if possible – this might P6.1 - 2 Electronic Monitoring – Nordic Perspectives Tapio Lappi-Seppälä Lappi-Seppälä (University of Helsinki, Finland) Noora Lähteenmäki (University of Helsinki, Finland) The overriding motive for the adoption of EM originates from its potential as a noncustodial alternative to imprisonment. In this respect, the success rates vary across the countries. Target groups consist of offenders either sentenced to short-term prison sentences (front-door) or prisoners serving longer sentences (back-door). EM as a front door measure is used instead of prison sentences of maximum four (Norway) or six (others) months. As a back door strategy, prisoners under EM supervision may be granted early release six month before the standard period of time when early release is normally granted. Executing the sentence under EM requires commitment to work, education or rehabilitation programmes. The content of EM is thus not confined to mere stand-alone supervision or “house arrest”; on the contrast, EM is integrated with other support approaches. The numbers of EM measures in all Scandinavian countries remain small, but nevertheless there are some quantitatively important measures of EM, such as the back-door early release scheme in Finland. Diversified practices of EM have expanded beyond the purpose to find alternatives to imprisonment. In this respect, risks of expansion of formal social control onto the civil society and everyday-life have actualized. P6.1 - 3 Electronic Monitoring and Crime Policy – A Critical Review on Different Practices in Europe Frieder Duenkel (University of Greifswald, Germany) Judith Treig (University of Greifswald, Germany) The paper summarises a comparative research on 17 jurisdictions in Europe with regard to legal conditions and practices of Electronic Monitoring of offenders. In particular, it emphasises the crime policy and its sociological background. It focuses on different target groups and the dynamic expansion in some states. Major problems, such as if EM serves primarily to expand social control, if it contributes to net-widening or if it may serve as a promising strategy to reduce prison population rates are discussed. The results reveal that positive effects of reducing prison population rates can be identified only rarely. Net- widening is a major effect and the principle of proportionality is widely neglected. With regard to that principle EM must not only be seen as an alternative to imprisonment, but also be justified as necessary compared to other, less intrusive community sanctions. Therefore, EM for low-risk offenders who could be easily supervised by traditional forms of probation, must be rejected. There are only few countries which take the principle of proportionality sufficiently into account. One of the reasons for the pan-European “epidemic” of expanding EM may be found in the overwhelming fascination of technical solutions to crime problems. P1.2 - 4 Grand Theft Auto V and registered juvenile crime in the Netherlands Marinus Beerthuizen (WODC, Ministry of Security and Justice) Gijs Weijters (WODC, Ministry of Security and Justice) André van der Laan (WODC, Ministry of Security and Justice) Prior research suggests that playing videogames can have a voluntary incapacitating effect on criminal behaviour. The current study investigates whether this negative association between videogames in general and crime rates can also be found for the release of a single videogame―Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV)―and for registered juvenile crime in the Netherlands. A diminishing effect was modelled to estimate the active player base of GTAV (i.e., the most players are active on and directly following release, with a decline in the weeks thereafter) and correlated with the number of registered offences in 2012-2015 committed by male 12-18 and 18-25 year olds in a time series analysis. The effect of the release of GTAV was negatively associated with the number of registered offences in both age categories, while controlling for covariates (e.g., day of the week). Implications are discussed. P1.2 - 5 Storytelling in court cases concerning violence towards police officers Julie Høivik (Norwegian Police University College) The last couple of years the reported cases concerning violence against police officers in Norway have increased. Regardless what this increase might be caused by, it is interesting to explore what these cases are about, who is charged and when, where and in what context the incidences occur. Through observation of main hearings in the district court where someone stands accused for this particular crime I’ve tried to form a better understanding of this offence as it appears in the proceedings. This paper also uses narrative analysis to deconstruct how the different parties involved use a certain range of rhetorical devices in their storytelling, for example to build up the dramatic tension or make the story seem more authentic. There are certain similarities between both the incidents in question on their own, but also in the stories which are used to project meaning and/or intent to their actions. The different ways the two parties build their own argument, sometimes very skillfully, seems to follow certain patterns, both because of the formalized situation their story is told in, but also with the use of references to known cultural narratives. P1.2 - 6 Arab adolescents' religiosity as a moderating factor in the association between peer delinquency and youth violence Mona Khoury-Kassabri (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Adeem Massarwi (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Rana Eseed (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) The association between religiosity and youth involvement in violence has been explored in many previous studies focusing mainly on Christian youth from Western cultures. The current study expands previous works in the field by examines the involvement of Arab Muslim youth in violent behaviors and explore the direct and moderating effects of religiosity on their involvement in violence. This association was explored after controlling for family socio-economic status, gender, age, parental support and youth exposure to community violence. The data used in this study is based on a large and representative sample of 2,948 Arab Muslim students from Israel, aged 11-18. The results showed that almost 30% of the adolescents reported using sever physical violence and almost 50% reported using moderate physical violence toward another student at least once during the last month. The findings indicated, as expected, that greater affiliation with delinquent peers is associated with higher adolescent’s reports of sever and moderate physical violence involvement. While the stronger the adolescents’ religiosity the lower were their reports on violence involvement. Furthermore, it was found that stronger level of religiosity serves as a protective factor that mitigates the negative impact of association with delinquent peers. P1.2 - 7 Situational Influences of Co-Offending on Juvenile Violence Kevin P. Conway (National Institute on Drug Abuse) Patrick McGrain (Gwynedd Mercy University) Marushka L. Silveira (National Institute on Drug Abuse) One of the most robust and distinguishing features of youth crime is its collective nature, but how the social nature of youth crime relates to violence is less clear. Co-offending may trigger violence for reasons associated with the collective nature of the incident itself. An alternative view discounts the influence of the situation, arguing instead that co-offending brings together individuals with violent backgrounds. To date, no study has directly contrasted these opposing viewpoints. In the current study, we ask whether co-offending associates with violence because of its offense-specific factors or because of
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