European Journal of Criminology

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• Dealing with privilege in a Nordic welfare state? How experiences with, and perceptions of, police, markets, and violence shape decision-making among affluent drug dealers

  Recent research on privileged drug offenders argues that they are at an advantage compared to marginalized people dealing drugs. The main question asked in this article is whether this is also the case in a more egalitarian country like Norway, and if it influences dealers’ decision-making. Findings reveal that privileged drug dealers believed they were at an advantage when it came to police and customers compared to people with an ethnic minority background or people dealing in open drug markets, but at a disadvantage in relation to violence and robberies. With regards to decision-making, believing they had advantages in encounters with the police informed their decision to be cooperative expecting fair treatment. Believing they were at an advantage with affluent customers in wealthy communities, and at a disadvantage with more street-oriented drug dealers, restricted privileged drug dealers' dealing to affluent low-risk contexts. The advantages and disadvantages privileged drug dealers talk about in interviews arguably reflect real-life drug market inequalities but are also a mechanism shaping decision-making that may reproduce drug market inequality. The study adds knowledge to the nascent literature on affluent drug dealers by introducing a novel case.

• Thank you to reviewers
• Corporate offending in Dutch inland shipping: A trajectory analysis

  Objectives: Describe the prevalence, frequency, and longitudinal development of regulatory offences within Dutch inland shipping on both the ship and business level. Examine whether latent groups with differing trajectories can be distinguished and compare differences between these trajectory groups. Methods: Longitudinal inland shipping inspection data from several inspection agencies are analysed. Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients are used to describe offence distributions. Group-based trajectory modelling is applied to analyse the longitudinal development of regulatory violations of ships and corporations. Between-group comparisons are made using (multivariate) analysis of variance. Results: A skewed distribution of offending on both the ship and business level is found. On both levels of analysis, four trajectory groups display differing developments in the distribution of offending. Although differences in characteristics between trajectory groups were present, effect sizes were small. Conclusions: Disproportionality in corporate offending at both levels of analysis is in constant motion. Regulators need to regularly (re)identify their target groups.

• Non-consensual intimate image distribution: Nature, removal, and implications for the Online Safety Act

  Research was conducted in partnership with the Revenge Porn Helpline (RPH) to examine the location and removal of non-consensual intimate image (NCII) abuse. By examining reports to the helpline, data were collected to uncover where intimate images were being non-consensually distributed, how they were proportionally distributed across platforms, and avenues for image removal. The data confirm that social media plays a key role in NCII distribution and provides further insight into where images are being distributed outside of social media platforms. Data on image removal indicate that knowledge of how to navigate different types of platforms is important for image removal success, making contributions from organisations such as the RPH vital, and highlighting the need to make reporting processes more accessible. The findings also indicate significant gaps within the Online Safety Act which will need to be addressed if the Act is to effectively protect victim-survivors. In particular, the need to move beyond focusing on services with the largest user numbers and broadening the scope to include smaller high-risk and problematic platforms.

• Self-legitimacy of prison workers: A comparative study in Slovenian prisons

  Building legitimacy in a coercive prison environment presents a significant challenge for prison workers. Drawing on data from a survey of 465 Slovenian prison workers collected in 2016 and 2022, this study aims to test the stability of prison workers’ sense of self-legitimacy, as prior research strongly suggests that the nature of such legitimacy is fundamentally unstable. Multivariate analyses showed that relationships with prisoners and the internalisation of subcultural norms influenced the self-legitimacy of prison workers in both periods studied. Relationships with colleagues, satisfaction with pay, and with workplace conditions also influenced prison workers’ self-legitimacy in 2016, and education and years of service proved salient in 2022. Results indicate that traditional ‘core variables’ (relationships with colleagues, supervisors’ procedural justice, and audience legitimacy) used to explore legitimacy in criminal justice have limited influence on prison workers’ self-legitimacy. Significant differences were also found in prison workers’ perceptions of self-legitimacy, audience legitimacy, and prison staff subculture in different time periods. Overall, the findings reported here suggest that the self-legitimacy of prison workers is relatively unstable over time. The implications of these findings for both theory and practice are explored.

• A meta-evaluative synthesis of the effects of custodial and community-based offender rehabilitation

  We synthesize 53 meta-analyses on the effectiveness of correctional treatment applied to a wide variety of offender groups delivered in either custodial or community-based settings. Those meta-analyses revealed positive overall effects on reoffending of correctional treatment delivered in both settings. However, the treatment setting is also associated with complex moderator effects. With respect to effect size, for most groups, community-based correctional treatment is associated with statistically significant larger reductions in reoffending than treatments delivered in custodial settings. With respect to effect precision, custodial treatments report more consistent effects on reoffending than community-based treatments. The findings extend and develop the insight that treatment flexibility, such as is found among community-based treatments, can optimize program effectiveness. Likewise, the opportunities for monitoring and treatment fidelity that custodial settings enable can homogenize outcomes. Nonetheless, the promising results observed among treatments delivered both inside and outside institutional settings implicate a complex policy tradeoff between prioritizing strong performance and consistent effects.

• Assessing the role of COVID-19 stressors on perceptions of police misconduct in Bosnia and Herzegovina

  The current study applies the key components of GST to explore the relationship between stress and misconduct during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the answers provided by a sample of 480 police officers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and discovered that the relationship between strain and willingness to engage in police misconduct during the pandemic is complex; not all types of stressors were related to all forms of police misconduct included in our study. The two strongest organizational stressors were perceptions that the police agency was ineffective in dealing with the pandemic and that there was a lack of personal protective equipment for police officers. Fear for their own personal health, fear of COVID-19, and concerns that COVID-19 is much more dangerous than the flu were significant personal stressors related to their willingness to engage in police misconduct. Police's own willingness not to wear a mask and to visit friends and family with whom they do not live decreased the perception that the community is not adhering to the COVID-19 rules and regulations. Living with a partner was also negatively associated with the respondents’ willingness to engage in misconduct.

• Immigrant threat, perception of unsafety, and political articulation of immigration and multiculturalism in European countries

  A large body of work has examined the relationship between population composition and risk of victimization. Past research has also suggested that the nature of political rhetoric may have profound impacts on perceived threat, fear of crime, and moral panic. This study constitutes the first attempt to examine the relationships between the negative political articulation of both immigration and multiculturalism by extreme right-wing parties and the perception of unsafety risk in European countries. We employ data from the 2018 European Social Survey (ESS), which we merge with data from the Manifesto Project Dataset, a comparative dataset on political statements. The results reveal that individuals who reside in countries with higher levels of negative political articulation of immigration and multiculturalism express greater perceived unsafety. The results also show that higher levels of perceived immigrant threat amplify the relationship between negative political articulation of immigration and perceived unsafety. Finally, news exposure amplifies the effect of the negative political articulation of immigration on the perception of unsafety when perceived immigrant threat is higher. Our findings underscore the importance of the political context and the potential of political elites to shape public perceptions, including the perception of unsafety.

• Estimating the incapacitation effect among first-time incarcerated offenders

  Objectives: To estimate how many offenses are averted through the incapacitation of first-time incarcerated offenders with sentences of two years or less. Methods: The counterfactual challenge of estimating criminal acts that would have been committed had the offender not been incarcerated is approached utilizing a matching design. Data comprise all offenders convicted in Sweden in 2018, matched on a vector of time-stable and time-varying covariates drawn from an extensive set of Swedish registers. Each incarcerated offender is matched to a nonincarcerated offender whose offending frequency is used to infer the incapacitation effect. Full sample estimates are provided as well as subgroup estimates for males, females, and various risk groups. Results: The annual incapacitation effect for first-time incarcerated offenders is estimated to be 0.53 when measured as the number of averted convictions and 1.14 when measured as the number of averted offenses that would have resulted in a conviction. For males, the annual number of convictions averted through incapacitation is 0.51, and for females 0.37. For the highest risk group, the annual number of averted convictions is 1.22, and the number of averted offenses resulting in conviction is 2.55. For offenders in the low-to-medium risk groups, the corresponding figures are approximately 0.31 averted convictions and approximately 0.68 averted offenses. Conclusion: For first-time incarcerated offenders, the incapacitation effect is modest and the heterogeneous effects found across different risk groups warrant considering whether the crime-preventive effect is sufficiently large for low-risk inmates and whether noncustodial sanctions might constitute an alternative that would ease overcrowding without producing any considerable risk for costs in terms of recidivism.

• The risk and protective factors for entering organized crime groups and their association with different entering mechanisms: A systematic review using ASReview

  The aims of the current systematic review are to provide an overview of the available evidence concerning the risk and protective factors for entering organized crime groups (OCGs), to explore which entry mechanisms for entering OCGs are distinguished in the literature, and to assess whether different sets of risk and protective factors could be identified for each of these entry mechanisms. To achieve these aims, a systematic literature search for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method studies was performed up to 19 April 2021. To be included in the current review, studies had to be of empirical nature and published in either English or Dutch. ASReview was used to facilitate the inclusion process, a reference check of the included studies was performed, and all included studies in prior reviews on this topic were checked for inclusion. This process resulted in 51 included studies. Relevant study and sample characteristics, information on risk and protective factors, and indicated entry mechanisms were derived from the included studies. In line with earlier reviews, we find relatively strong evidence that being male, belonging to an ethnic minority group, committing certain crimes prior to entry at a young(er) age, committing multiple offenses without being specialized, and having a criminally involved family and/or friends are risk factors for entering OCGs. Entering OCGs occurs via four different entry mechanisms: active recruitment, soliciting for membership, growing into and self-setup. Based on the included studies, the risk and protective factors for entering OCGs that are associated with these different entry mechanisms into OCGs seem to overlap. Although the current review provides grounds to suggest that, in addition to a general set of risk and protective factors for entering OCGs, there might be different risk and protective factors associated with different entry mechanisms, longitudinal prospective studies are needed to substantiate this suggestion.

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• Restoring Justice

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• City and/or Neighbourhood Determinants?

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