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RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: In this article the research objectives are the rights of children deprivedof liberty and suspected of having committed crimes in international and regional agreements aswell as in Swedish legislations and intended to preserve the child's dignity. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The method applied to study their dignity is, onone hand, in the context of international and regional agreements; on the other hand, in the contextof Swedish legislations, which are relevant to these children. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The argument is whether in Sweden children underthe age of 15 years deprived of liberty and suspected of having committed crimes are treated ina manner consistent with promoting the child's sense of dignity during the investigation of the crime.These children are of particular interest as they are more vulnerable than adults in the same situation;the spirit of dignity should therefore be more explicitly expressed for them. RESEARCH RESULTS: The research result confirms that dignity is fundamental for the rights ofchildren as expressed in the studied international and regional agreements and, more specifically,in the CRC Articles 37 and 40. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Swedish legislations still needimprovements to preserve the dignity of children, particularly regarding the rights of children underthe age of 15 deprived of liberty and suspected of having committed crimes.

We estimate the impact of determinate sentencing laws (DSLs) on prison commitments, prison populations, and Uniform Crime Report crime rates. Ten states enacted these laws between 1976 and 1984; all abolished parole and most established presumptive sentences. The research uses a multiple time‐series design that, among other benefits, controls for national trends and facilitates the use of control variables. We found that DSLs are clearly associated with prison population growth in only one state, Indiana, and with major reductions in two, Minnesota and Washington. The remaining laws show no evidence of increasing populations and may have reduced them somewhat. The estimated impacts on commitments are similarly varied. There is little or no evidence that DSLs affect crime. Earlier studies evaluating individual DSLs are often criticized for poor research designs, and our findings support the criticisms.

Two archival analyses were performed to examine the association between annual temperatures and U.S. crime rates. The first was based on area-averaged temperatures in the United States as a whole for the years 1950 through 1999. Box-Jenkins time-series analyses indicated that annual temperatures were associated with assault but not murder rates in analyses that controlled for yearly population, ethnicity, and three economic variables. The second analysis was based on state-centered crime rates from 1960 through 1998 and included the same controls. Contrary to the general aggression model, cross-sectional time-series analyses indicated that annual temperatures were associated with rates for assault, rape, robbery, burglary, and larceny, but not murder or motor vehicle theft. The results are consistent with a routine activity theory interpretation of everyday and criminal behavior.

"The findings of forensic science--from DNA profiles and chemical identifications of illegal drugs to comparisons of bullets, fingerprints, and shoeprints--are widely used in police investigations and courtroom proceedings. While we recognize the significance of this evidence for criminal justice, the actual work of forensic scientists is rarely examined and largely misunderstood. Blood, Powder, and Residue goes inside a metropolitan crime laboratory to shed light on the complex social forces that underlie the analysis of forensic evidence. Drawing on eighteen months of rigorous fieldwork in a crime lab of a major metro area, Beth Bechky tells the stories of the forensic scientists who struggle to deliver unbiased science while under intense pressure from adversarial lawyers, escalating standards of evidence, and critical public scrutiny. Bechky brings to life the daily challenges these scientists face, from the painstaking screening and testing of evidence to making communal decisions about writing up the lab report, all while worrying about attorneys asking them uninformed questions in court. She shows how the work of forensic scientists is fraught with the tensions of serving justice--constantly having to anticipate the expectations of the world of law and the assumptions of the public--while also staying true to their scientific ideals."--Inside jacket cover

AbstractSince the mid‐1970s, the percentage of non‐White people convicted of white‐collar type crimes in the federal judicial system has been growing steadily. In 2015, non‐Whites accounted for more than half of all convictions for certain white‐collar type crimes, but the increase in non‐White participation has not occurred evenly across all race and ethnic groups. Asians and Latinos have increased their participation in white‐collar crime more so than Blacks. Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Census, we investigate whether the differential increase among race and ethnic groups in white‐collar type crimes can be explained by their differential increase in middle‐class occupations. The findings have implications for opportunity, cultural, and race‐centered perspectives on crime, as well as institutional anomie theory, and they suggest that low‐level white‐collar crimes are being democratized along lines of race and ethnicity.

Significant growth in the population of the planet, migration processes, rapid economic, political, social and technological progress have led not only to the development of the human and technical capabilities, but also to the evolution of the criminal activity. Throughout its existence the mankind has actively countered the criminal manifestations of its socially dangerous representatives, but the success of these measures was largely dependent on a well thought-out and effective strategy to prevent the crimes. The modern period of development of criminology is marked by diversity of ideas and concepts that try to explain the causes and conditions of committing the crimes, as well as to find a key "lever" in their avoidance. The XXI century is characterized by a high degree of urbanization and an outflow of people from countryside to large cities. A significant number of large cities and cities-millionaires dictate the need to ensure safety of their population from criminal acts and accidents. To this end, dozens of crime prevention programs are being developed and implemented annually at the local, regional and state levels. One of such programs is creation of a secure space, which involves the safe city-planning and architectural-spatial features that can adversely affect the criminality level of a territory, since most of situational and street crimes are committed under significant influence of a particular life situation. Thus, the effective use of these developments will significantly reduce the number of criminal offenses committed on the streets, near houses, enclosed premises and territories which are isolated and inaccessible to visual surveillance.

This research examines the deterrent effect of a written legal threat on a group of persons who are known to be receiving an unauthorized premium cable television signal. The experiment attempts to determine (1) the overall violation rate: (2) the extent to which violators direr from a systematic random sample of cable signal customers (according to age, total household income, and gender); and (3) the deterrent effect of the threat of intervention. Additionally, a six‐month follow‐up was conducted to assess the duration of the threat's effect.Overall, two thirds of the subjects (n=67) reacted to the threat; the major reaction to the threat was an attempt to hide the violation. There were some differences found regarding participation in cable crime and deterrence, but none reached a reliable level of statistical significance. Regarding deterrence, the findings that males heeded the threat least and that the youngest and richest also showed low desistance rates after exposure to the threat are consistent with previous research. Regarding participation in cable crime, the youngest and richest seem to be involved more often in the pilfering of signals. The follow‐up revealed that the deterrent effect of the intervention lasted at least six months. The benefits of using experimentation as a general deterrence research strategy are emphasized throughout.