Paul Knepper

International handbook of victimology

Theoretical and Historical Frameworks Becoming a Victim R. Strobl The Meaning of Justice for Victims Jo-Anne Wemmers The Evolution of a Young, Promising Discipline: Sixty Years of Victimology, a Retrospective and Prospective Look Ezzat A. Fattah History and a Theoretical Structure of Victimology G. Ferdinand Kirchhoff Research Methods in Victimology Property Crimes and Repeat Victimization: A Fresh Look A. Tseloni and K. Pease Key Victimological Findings from the International Crime Victims Survey J. Van Kesteren and J. Van Dijk Patterns of Communal Violence Victimization in South India: A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analysis K. Jaishankar Patterns of Victimization Secondary Victims and Secondary Victimization R. Condry Drugs and Alcohol in Relation to Crime and Victimization M. Clark Victims of Sex Trafficking: Gender, Myths, and Consequences S. Milivojevic and S. Copic Occupational Victimization R. Lusignan and J. D. Marleau Tourism and Victimization R. I. Mawby, E. Barclay, and C. Jones Responses to Criminal Victimization Victims and Criminal Justice in Europe J. Shapland Lobbying for Rights: Crime Victims in Israel U. Yanay and T. Gal Victim Services in the United States B. T. Muscat Fear of Crime in the Republic of Ireland: Understanding Its Origins and Consequences M. Butler and P. Cunningham Restorative Justice When Prisoners Leave: Victim-Offender Relationships in a Transitions Context R.White Death of a Metaphor? Healing Victims and Restorative Justice T. Daems The Healing Nature of Apology and Its Contribution toward Emotional Reparation and Closure in Restorative Justice Encounters E. Brook and S. Warshwski-Brook Exploring the Effects of Restorative Justice on Crime Victims for Victims of Conflict in Transitional Societies H. Strang Victims and Social Divisions The Hidden Violent Victimization of Women W. S. Dekeseredy Images of Criminality, Victimization, and Disability M. Madriaga and R. Mallett The Psychological Impact of Victimization: Mental Health Outcomes and Psychological, Legal, and Restorative Interventions S. N. Verdun-Jones and K. R. Rossiter Culture and Wife Abuse: An Overview of Theory, Research, and Practice C. Machado, A. R. Dias, and C. Coelho The Idea of the Crime Victim as a Trojan Horse in the Swedish Social Services Act C. Ljungwald Conclusion S. G. Shoham and P. Knepper

Traffic in Women

The murders of several women in London’s Soho district during the 1930s caused a political furore. News-writers created drama around one of the victims, French Fifi, said to be a prostitute under the control of Max Kasel, the leader a fearsome gang of international white-slave traffickers. In the House of Commons, several MPs asked the government how it was possible for such wickedness to occur in the capital of agreat empire. The Metropolitan Police maintained that press accounts ‘hopelessly exaggerated’ the extent of the white slave trade and blamed the affair on ‘greedy, foreign prostitutes’. They also complained about the role of anti-traffic organisations in amplifying the inaccuracies. Superintendent Arthur Askew of the Criminal Investigation Division protested to the Home Office about a pamphlet circulated by the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. Traffickers in London: Danger Ahead was ‘very carelessly worded and obviously based on lurid press accounts’. The suggestion that the police were incompetent was ‘an insult to English police forces’, and the insinuation of police corruption, ‘indicative of the prejudiced minds of the persons responsible for issue of the leaflet’.1

Historical criminology and the imprisonment of women in 19th-century Malta

For many criminologists, theory matters more than evidence in historical studies. But can historical criminology really proceed on this basis? In this article, we argue for the importance of primary research, that is, analysis of documents that originate in the period of interest. Using examples from archived documents in a study of women imprisoned in Malta during the 19th century, we address four issues related to history and theory: gaining perspective from unfamiliar places, finding the beginning of historical processes, making discoveries from details, and recovering the significance of forgotten practices. In this, we wish to join a conversation about historical evidence and genealogical accounts in prison history. We will also contribute to the significant, but relatively limited, literature on prisons for women in the 19th century.

“JEWISH TRAFFICKING” AND LONDON JEWS IN THE AGE OF MIGRATION

There are excellent accounts of the Jewish response to “trafficking” in women for prostitution during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but recent analyses of the white slavery phenomenon have raised new questions. This article concerns the response of Jews in England, and specifically the motivations and activities of those who founded the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women (JAPGW). The JAPGW set the model for initiatives carried out by Jewish communities throughout the British Empire and was a primary contributor to internationalisation of the issue on the part of the League of Nations after the First World War. The JAPGW’s motivations were complex: they involved a particular religious outlook, the response to antisemitism and assumptions along lines of class and gender. In addressing “Jewish trafficking”, Britain’s established Jewish community sought to take ownership of what it meant to be a Jew in British society.

Michael Polanyi and Jewish Identity

Michael Polanyi’s Jewish identity contributed to his philosophical outlook. His life in a Hungarian-acculturated, nonobservant Jewish family in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; his experience as a Jew emigrating from Hitler’s Germany; and his thoughts about Zionism informed his theory of knowledge. During the late 1930s and 1940s, he worked to reconcile his Jewish identity with his commitments to Christianity, and this tension contributed to his thinking about the nature of scientific discovery. The malapropism baptized Jew characterizes the scientist on the verge of discovery, one who occupies a twilight world between adherence and apostasy with regard to the scientific community.

Falling crime rates: What happened last time

Although the falling crime rates in the 1990s surprised criminologists, it was not the first time crime had declined. There was a ‘crime drop’ in England in the 1920s. When crime did not rise as expected following the Great War, the government closed half the prisons, and Edwin Sutherland came to investigate ‘England’s empty prisons’. To conduct his analysis, Sutherland relied on work by SK Ruck, and between them, they came up with most of the leading explanations now used by criminologists. They considered the police and prisons, the economy and household security. They also discussed the psychological conditions of low-crime societies, the ‘sense of security’. Drawing on their unpublished material from archives in New York and London, the discussion here examines what can be learned about contemporary analyses of the crime drop of the 1990s. Overall, this article argues for the importance of theory in analysing the statistics of falling crime and how historical studies of crime trends can be useful in developing this theory.

Crime Prevention in a Multinational Open Society

The interest in crime prevention on the part of international organizations raises important questions about the usefulness of criminological knowledge in the policy-making context. Two models can be identified: the evidence-based model, advocated by the Campbell Collaboration, and the reflexive model, envisioned by George Soros’s Open Society foundations network. Although both models reference ideas of Karl Popper, neither makes full use of his social philosophy. Popper has more to offer criminology than the idea of falsification. His concepts of social situation, social tinkering, and open society emphasize the important methodological principle of learning from mistakes. If policy makers, and the criminologists who hope to advise them, are interested in pursuing crime prevention within a multinational open society, they should take into account the self-organizing aspect of science, the normality of accidents in social affairs, and the politics of social science research.

White Slave Trade

No issue of public morality, in the decades before the Great War, attracted greater international attention than trafficking in women and girls for prostitution. The French term for the problem, traite des blanches, emphasised the whiteness of the victims; the German term, der Madchenhandel, called attention to their youthfulness. Both drew on the moral imagery of the ‘white slave trade’ as used in Great Britain and the United States. The English term, an allusion to the abolition of chattel slavery earlier in the nineteenth century, was meant to emphasis the gravity of this activity as a moral offence. The language reflected an era of melodrama when workers and women described themselves as ‘slaves’ to emphasise their plight to government authorities notoriously indifferent to their circumstances.1

Oakeshott and the New Crime Prevention

Abstract Many countries now have some kind of national crime prevention structure.This new crime prevention, unlike traditional criminology, extends the responsibility for preventing crime outside of criminal justice to households, neighbourhoods, and families. Drawing on the work of British political philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, the article discusses recent prevention trends in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Specifically, the discussion applies four of Oakeshotts central themes — his attitude toward social science, his concept of a person, his theory of human association, and his description of the rule of law to four emerging rationales — evidence-based policy, situational crime prevention, social crime prevention and marketing prosocial values.

Criminology and Criminal Justice in Malta

Maltese criminology can be said to occupy a significant place in the national life of Malta. As a course of study, criminology makes a relatively recent appearance with the founding of the Institute of Forensic Studies at the University of Malta in 1993, although Maltese criminology has roots in forensic medicine from the 19th century. Criminologists in Malta, in their role of teaching and training police, probation and other criminal justice officials, have an identifiable influence on the practice of criminal justice. Some institutions are more reluctant than others to incorporate academic research into the policy-making process, but there is a well-prepared core of researchers carrying out relevant research.