Susanne Karstedt

Emotions and criminal justice

During the last decade, a process of ‘emotionalization of law’ has spread around the globe, changing the criminal justice system in many ways. Anger, disgust and shame are perceived as ‘valuable barometers of social morality’ and brought back to criminal procedures. The ‘return of emotions’ to penal law and criminal justice is linked to and illuminates the moral imagination of late modern societies. This article seeks to address two facets of the ‘return of emotions’ to criminal justice. The first part explores the changes in the public sphere and in the pattern of emotional culture in late modern societies that are responsible for the reemotionalization of the penal realm. In the second part, problems that emerge in the criminal justice system are addressed. Bringing emotions back involves profound problems that go beyond the mere instrumental use of emotions in criminal justice, or a restricted perspective of ‘what works’. Three ‘core’ problems—and associated—questions are discussed: first, are emotional reactions towards crimes ‘natural’ or ‘primordial’ such that they should occupy a prominent place in criminal justice that has been unduly ignored? Second, and relatedly, do emotions constitute our moral principles? Finally, should institutions elicit or even require ‘authentic emotions’ from individuals? These questions are addressed within the framework of contemporary emotion theory and the consequences of this perspective for the ‘use’ of emotions in criminal justice are discussed.

Soziologie der Kriminalität

Mit Beitragen von Henner Hess, Sebastian Scheerer, David Garland, Steve Messner, John Hagan, Bill McCarthy, Oliver Morgenroth, Klaus Boehnke, Lydia Seus, Gerald Prein, Shadd Maruna, Stephen Farrall, John Braithwaite, Eva Schmitt-Rodermund, Rainer K. Silbereisen, Dirk Enzmann, Karin Brettfeld, Peter Wetzels, Alexander Vazsonyi, Christian Seipel, Stefanie Eifler, Willem de Haan, Letizia Paoli, Klaus Boers, Hans Theile, Kari-Maria Karliczek, Tim Hope, Susanne Karstedt und Dietrich Oberwittler.

Reading the riots : what were the police doing on Twitter?

The widespread adoption of new forms of digital communication platforms such as micro-blogging sites presents both an opportunity and a challenge for researchers interested in understanding peoples attitudes and behaviours, especially in the context of unfolding crises and the need for government agencies such as the police to inform the public and act swiftly to ensure public order and safety. In this paper, we use a study of a recent public order crisis in England to explore how the police, other organisations and individuals used Twitter as they responded to this event.

Democracy, Values, and Violence: Paradoxes, Tensions, and Comparative Advantages of Liberal Inclusion

Democracies represent an institutional framework and a way of life that is, almost by definition, nonviolent. Contrasting with this ideal are two simultaneous global trends: an extension of democratic regimes and rising levels of violent crime. This article explores this seeming gap between democracy’s ideal and reality. The author identifies comparative advantages and disadvantages for both democracy and autocracy in restraining violent crime. Comparative advantages of two core democratic values—individualism and egalitarianism—are examined with data from a sample of twenty-six countries. Results show that compared to collectivistic and authoritarian patterns, individualistic and egalitarian values reduce levels of violence. Societies with high levels of violent crime are concentrated among autocracies, which mostly have collectivistic and authoritarian values. In contrast, democratic societies are mostly characterized by individualistic and egalitarian values and have lower levels of violent crime. Democratic values have comparative advantages if they are fostered by democratic practices and institutions.

Democracy, Crime, and Justice

By SUSANNE KARSTEDT and GARY LaFREE The connection between democracy and criminal justice is so fun a ental as to be self-evident: the rule of law guarantees due process, and the observation of human rights is an integral part of the emergence and institu tionalization of democracy. Indeed, most mea sures of the strength of democracy include an index of criminal justice and due process guar antees. By contrast, the connection between democracy and crime is less obvious and has only recently begun to attract the attention of scholars from different disciplines, notably political scientists. However, the focus of polit ical science has been less on crime than on

The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Research Methods

Editorial Introduction - David Gadd, Susanne Karstedt, Steven F. Messner PART ONE: CRIME AND CRIMINALS Life Histories and Autobiographies as Ethnographic Data - Neal Shover Self-Report Surveys within Longitudinal Panel Designs - Marvin D Krohn, Terence P Thornberry, Kristin A Bell, Alan J Lizotte, Matthew D Phillips In-depth Interviewing and Psychosocial Case Study Analysis - David Gadd Grounding the Analysis of Gender and Crime: Accomplishing and Interpreting Qualitative Interview Research - Jody Miller Neurocriminological Approaches - Yu Gao, Andrea L Glenn, Melissa Peskin, Anna Rudo-Hutt, Robert A Schug, Yaling Yang, Adrian Raine Gun Prevalence, Homicide Rates and Causality: A GMM Approach to Endogeneity Bias - Tomislav Kovandzic, Mark E Schaffer, Gary Kleck PART TWO: CONTEXTUALIZING CRIME IN SPACE AND TIME: NETWORKS, COMMUNITIES AND CULTURE Multi-level Modeling and Criminological Inquiry - Eric P Baumer amd Ashley N Arnio Examining the Role of the Environment in Crime Causation: Small Area Community Surveys and Space-Time Budgets - Per-Olof H Wikstroem, Kyle Treiber, Beth Hardie Social Networks and the Ecology of Crime: Using Social Network Data to Understand the Spatial Distribution of Crime - George E Tita and Adam Michael Boessen Using Census Data and Surveys to Study Labor Markets and Crime - Robert D Crutchfield and Suzanna R Ramirez Historical and Archival Research Methods - Barry Godfrey PART THREE: PERCEPTUAL DIMENSIONS OF CRIME Ethnographic Photography in Criminological Research - Cecile Van de Voorde Autoethnography - Jeff Ferrell Interviewing Victims of State Violence - Elizabeth Stanley Questioning Homicide and the Media: Analysis of Content or Content Analysis? - Moira Peelo and Keith Soothill Assessing Crime through International Victimization Surveys - Pat Mayhew and Jan Van Dijk In Search of the Fear of Crime: Using Interdisciplinary Insights to Improve the Conceptualisation and Measurement of Everyday Insecurities - Emily Gray, Jonathan Jackson and Stephen Farrall Measuring Public Attitudes to Criminal Justice - Julian Roberts, Matrina Feilzer, Mike Hough PART FOUR: CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS: ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS Researching Police Culture: A Longitudinal Mixed Method Approach - Janet Chan Quasi-experimental Research on Community Policing - Wesley G Skogan Order in the Court: Using Ethnomethodology to Explore Juvenile Justice Settings - Aaron Kupchik, Joseph De Angelis and Nicole L Bracy Evaluation Research and Probation: How to Distinguish High Performance from Low Performance Programmes - Karin Tusinski Miofsky and James M Byrne Conceptualising and Measuring the Quality of Prison Life - Alison Liebling, Susie Hulley and Ben Crewe Comparing Justice and Crime across Cultures - Susanne Karstedt PART FIVE: PREVENTING CRIME AND IMPROVING JUSTICE Experimental Criminology and Restorative Justice: Principles of Developing and Testing Innovations in Crime Policy - Heather Strang and Lawrence W Sherman Large-Scale Criminological Field Experiments - Manuel Eisner, Tina Malti, Denis Ribeaud Meta-Analysis as a Method of Systematic Reviews - Martin Schmucker and Friedrich Loesel Crime Concentration and Police Work - Ken Pease Assessing the costs of Fraud - Michael Levi The Other Cultural Criminology: The Role of Action Research in Justice Work and Development - Cyndi Banks Feminist Approaches to Criminological Research - Gail Mason and Julie Stubbs Research Ethics in Criminology - Mark Israel and Iain Hay

From Absence to Presence, From Silence to Voice: Victims in International and Transitional Justice Since the Nuremberg Trials

As much as victims have been absent in traditional and national criminal justice for a long time, they were invisible in transitional and international criminal justice after World War II. The Nuremberg Trials were dominated by the perpetrators, and documents were mainly used instead of victim testimony. Contemporaries shared the perspective that transitional justice, both international and national procedures should channel revenge by the victims and their families into the more peaceful venues of courts and legal procedures. Since then, victims have gained an ever more important role in transitional, post-conflict and international criminal justice. Non-judicial tribunals, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, and international criminal courts and tribunals are relying on the testimony of victims and thus provide a prominent role for victims who often take centre stage in such procedures and trials. International criminal law and the human rights regime have provided victims with several routes to make themselves heard and fight against impunity. This paper tracks the road from absence to presence, and from invisibility to the visibility of victims during the second half of the last and the beginning of the present century. It shows in which ways their presence has shaped and changed transitional and international justice, and in particular how their absence or presence is linked to amnesties.

Does democracy matter? Comparative perspectives on violence and democratic institutions

Comparative perspectives on crime and violence have paid little attention to the institutional context of the polity with few exceptions. Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) presents an underlying narrative of institutional change and the evolvement of democratic institutions to the secular process of decreasing violence, between as well as within states. Do democracies have comparative advantages in curbing violence? This paper translates Pinker’s diachronic perspective into a synchronic and cross-sectional analysis of violence in contemporary societies between 2005 and 2009. Its largely descriptive exploration ranges from the micro-foundations of democracies to the institutional breakdown in processes of state failure, using different descriptive indicators of institutional patterns as diagnostic tools.

Soziale Probleme und soziale Bewegungen

Kurzlich wurde vorgeschlagen, das der Staat soziale Bewegungen gegen das Problem „Alkohol am Steuer“ nicht nur fordern, sondern sogar selbst inaugurieren solle (Jacobs 1989; vgl. McAdam/McCarthy/Zald 1988, S. 720). Das theoretische Programm der „Soziologie sozialer Probleme“, das mit der kritischen, gegen die „professionelle Ideologie der Sozialpathologen“ (Mills 1943) gerichteten „epistemologischen Wende“ durch Blumer (1971) und vor allem Spector und Kitsuse begann (Kitsuse/Spector 1973; Spector/Kitsuse 1973, 1977), ist inzwischen offensichtlich paradigmatisch so fest verankert, das es sich nahtlos in eine „Sozialtechnologie“ sozialer Probleme einfugen last (Gusfield 1981a). Zu diesem erstaunlichen Erfolg eines Paradigmas, dessen Verfechter soziale Probleme als eine Form kollektiven Verhaltens auffassen (Blumer 1971; Mauss 1975; Spector/Kitsuse 1973), durften zwei parallele gesellschaftliche und wissenschaftlich-paradigmatische Entwicklungen in den vergangenen 20 Jahren beigetragen haben, die eng miteinander verknupft sind.

Contextualizing mass atrocity crimes: The dynamics of ‘extremely violent societies’

Mass violence and genocidal events are presently characterized by new patterns that clearly set them apart from previous genocides and mass atrocities. These changes in the nature of mass atrocity events have necessarily shifted perspectives and conceptualizations of genocide and mass atrocities. Gerlach’s (2006, 2010) concept of ‘extremely violent societies’ seeks to deconstruct conventional understandings of genocidal mass violence and to re-contextualize it within a larger framework of conflict and in the ‘grassroots nature’ of other types of violence from which these events emerge. Based on his concept, I constructed a ‘Violent Societies Index’ (VSI), which offers a new approach to the multifaceted nature of contemporary mass violence and provides a new tool for a contextual and pattern analysis: it is the ‘how’ of extreme levels of violence that is addressed rather than the ‘why’.