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European Journal of Criminology recent issues

• Gender framing effects in victim surveys
  

  Crime victimization surveys are important sources of trend information and provide data for basic criminological research. In recent years, victim surveys have proliferated and their strengths are well known. The aim of this study is to increase the methodological literature on victim surveys by analysing framing effects, defined as the way the survey instrument communicates its topic and aim, especially in terms of the gendered nature of violence. Three experimental frames were applied to independent, random samples of the adult Finnish population: male-to-male violence frame, female-to-male violence frame, and male-to-female violence frame. The impacts of these frames were analysed in relation to two outcome variables: self-assessed propensity to report hypothetical borderline incidents in a victim survey and reporting of prior personal violent victimization. Thus, we utilized measures of both intended survey reporting behaviour and real survey reporting behaviour. The findings indicate that the male-to-female violence frame increases the willingness of the respondents to report borderline cases to survey researchers, regardless of other factors. It also increases the prevalence of reported prior victimizations. The female-to-male frame has a similar but weaker framing effect. The findings are discussed from the point of view of the ‘conversation’ paradigm of survey methods research.

  
  
  
• Shades of professionalism: Risk assessment in pre-sentence reports in Sweden
  

  An emphasis on risk assessment has been introduced in the instructions guiding pre-sentence reports in Sweden. Since this focus indicates an organizational aspiration to risk management, we examined how pre-sentence assessments are made and especially how probation officers relate to risk assessments. Our results show that probation officers do not act in accordance with the guidelines; they tend to focus on offender needs and social situations more than risk factors, and the reports still resemble the previous social reports based on clinical assessments. This article is based on an analysis of 1320 pre-sentence reports, along with 18 individual interviews and 6 focus groups with probation officers.

  
  
  
• Intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour: Conviction trajectories of fathers and their children
  

  This article investigates father and offspring criminal careers by employing the semi-parametric, group-based trajectories methodology. The findings demonstrate that children of sporadic and chronic offenders have significantly more convictions than children of non-offenders. However, contrary to expectations based on taxonomic and intergenerational theories, chronic offending fathers do not have more chronic offending children than sporadic fathers. The results demonstrate strong intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour, but it is the fathers having a conviction rather than their conviction trajectory that is related to offspring convictions.

  
  
  
• Deliberative processes and attitudes toward sex offenders in Spain
  

  Public opinion has been studied as an important influence in criminal policy and legislation. Different ways of measuring public preferences have been proposed. The aim of this study is to compare attitudes toward sex offenders when assessed through surveys and deliberative polls. An experimental design was used, with treatment and control groups and multiple observations. The results of the multivariate analyses show that the attitudes measured through deliberative polls are less punitive and more stable over time. The implications of this study for future research and the potential of deliberative polling in informing criminal policy are discussed.

  
  
  
• Police-youth relationships: A qualitative analysis of Flemish adolescents' attitudes toward the police
  

  This article reports on focus group interview-based research conducted to improve knowledge of European adolescents’ Attitudes Toward the Police (ATP). The study explores Flemish Belgian youths’ perceptions of three main aspects of policing (performance, procedural justice and distributive justice) and how much importance they attach to those perceptions. The 106 13–19 year olds who participated in 12 focus group interviews proved to have nuanced and mature conceptions of police work. They stated that proclaiming a negative ATP is ‘part of the deal’ of being young rather than a reflection of negative perceptions of police functioning. This study shows the importance of complementing the largely survey-based research on adolescents’ ATP with qualitative research.

  
  
  
• Routine activities and fear of crime: Specifying individual-level mechanisms
  

  Studies have examined individual-level associations between fear of crime and various environmental and cognitive assessments but have largely dismissed the relationship between various dimensions of fear and broad behavioural adaptations. Drawing on the risk interpretation model, we specify path models to assess the nature of relationships between perceptions of risk of crime and disorder and the patterning of voluntary and compulsory routine activities. We also explore whether these activities influence the relationship between disorder, risk and fear. Using data from the 2007–8 British Crime Survey, we find support for the proposed distinction between types of routine activities. Although we also find that the various manifestations of fear exhibit different associations with these activities, our models offer marginal support for the proposed mediating role of behavioural policies.

  
  
  
• Criminology, crime and criminal justice in Finland
• Differential association and substance use: Assessing the roles of discriminant validity, socialization, and selection in traditional empirical tests
  

  Although the correlation between personal and perceived peer substance use remains among the strongest in criminology, the discriminant validity of personal and perceived peer measures remains to be formally tested via confirmatory factor analysis. Further, only limited research has attempted to discern whether substance users seek out similar others rather than being influenced by the substance use that they perceive among their peers. Finally, research has yet to isolate, via panel analysis, the reciprocal relationship between personal substance use and perceived peer attitudes. The present study addresses each of these issues using National Youth Survey data. Results reveal that personal substance-related behavior and perceived peer behavior/attitudes bear only minimal discriminant validity and that, as predicted by Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime, selection provides a better explanation of their correlation than does socialization.

  
  
  
• Measuring juvenile delinquency: How do self-reports compare with official police statistics?
  

  The accuracy of measuring the prevalence of delinquency by means of self-reported questionnaires is difficult to evaluate. This study assesses the differential validity of self-reported delinquency in adolescents and, more specifically, self-reported police contacts because of suspected misconduct. This study was conducted as part of the Rotterdam Youth Monitor, a youth health surveillance system. Self-report data of pupils (mainly 12–15 years old) in the first or third grade of secondary school in the school years 2007–8 and 2008–9 (n = 23,914) were merged with police data. Of the pupils registered as a suspect, 62 percent admitted to having been interrogated at the police station. However, there were differences between groups. Multivariate analysis showed that Moroccan pupils and first-grade pupils were more likely to give an invalid response. Pupils who were registered for theft, vandalism or assault were more likely to give a valid response, whereas pupils who were registered for an offence involving fireworks were more likely to give an invalid response. We conclude that using only self-reported data to measure delinquency in an ethnically diverse population results in substantial bias. It is advisable to use multiple sources to measure the prevalence of delinquency.

  
  
  
• Suffering at the hands of the state: Conditions of imprisonment and prisoner health in contemporary Greece
  

  With imprisonment rates rising in a large number of jurisdictions worldwide, ever more research attention has been paid to conditions of imprisonment and prisoner health. With a view to contributing to the emerging body of literature, this article offers a systematic summary of key findings from Greece. Prison establishments in this country are vastly overcrowded and material conditions of detainment are deplorable. Healthcare provision in prison is minimal and the prevalence of serious transmittable diseases and mental disorders amongst prisoner populations is high, as are the rates of deliberate self-harm, suicide and death more generally. Prisoner use of prescribed and illicit drugs is alarmingly common, especially as regards injection drugs, and drug overdose appears to account for the majority of deaths in custody.