Law and Criminology

This book analyzes human rights and crime prevention challenges from the perspective of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda, in particular its goal 16 on promoting peaceful, inclusive and just societies, the creation and development of which depend on the interplay between various secular and non-secular (f)actors. The book reflects on the implementation of these two legal instruments from a “back to the future” standpoint, that is, drawing on the wisdom of contributors to the 2030 Agenda from the past and present in order to offer a constructive inter-disciplinary and intergenerational approach. The book’s intended readership includes academics and educationists, criminal justice practitioners and experts, diplomats, spiritual leaders and non-governmental actors; its goal is to encourage them to pursue a socially and human rights oriented drive for “larger freedom,” which is currently jeopardized by adverse political currents.

This critical textbook looks beyond the immediate data on knife crime to try and make sense of what is a global phenomenon. Yet it especially explores why the UK in particular has become so preoccupied by this form of interpersonal, often youthful, violence. The book explores knife crime in its global and historical context and examines crime patterns including the “second wave” of knife crime in Britain. It then incorporates new empirical data to explore key themes including: police responses, popular narratives, and the various interests benefiting from the 'knife crime industry'. It captures the “voices” of those impacted by knife crime including young people, community leaders, and youth work practitioners. Drawing on criminology, sociology, cultural studies and history, the book argues that the problem is firmly located at the intersection of a series of concerns about class, race, gender and generationthat are a product of British history and its global past. It seeks to trace the several roots of the contemporary knife crime 'epidemic', ultimately to propose newer and alternative strategies for responding to it. It encourages a critical engagement with this subject, with the inclusion of some learning exercises for undergraduate students and above in the the social sciences, whilst also speaking to researchers, policy-makers and practitioners.

This book explores innovative and context-driven political and legal policy measures designed to expand the powers of the African Union (AU) in order to meaningfully drive the continental integration process. In this regard, the book addresses issues of context, political will, and innovative and inclusive approaches as essential elements that must be considered. 

Africa is currently experiencing one of the most critical phases of its integrative development. Since 2015, there have been increasing efforts to develop policies and practices that grant the AU broader powers to coordinate and create binding rules regarding the regional integration process. In other words, these processes seek to endow the AU with supranational powers like those exercised by the European Union, which, despite its internal problems, remains the most successful experiment in supranationalism in the world.

This has included the decision to finance the AU through a 0.2% tax on eligible imports into member states; the decision to reduce the number of AU Commission portfolios from eight to six; the adoption and entry into force of the much touted Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area; the adoption of the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right to Residence and Right of Establishment; and the adoption of the AU Agenda 2063 policy framework in 2015. How these processes will change the direction of regional integration in Africa, the book argues, largely depends on the existence of quality-driven institutions.

This textbook provides an overview of the overlap between the criminal justice system and mental health for students of criminology and criminal justice. It provides an accessible overview of basic signs and symptoms of major mental illnesses and size of scope of justice-involved individuals with mental illness.

In the United States, the law enforcement and the criminal justice system is often the first public service to be in contact with individuals suffering from mental illness or in mental distress. Those with untreated mental illnesses are often at higher risk for committing criminal acts, and due to a lack of mental health facilities, resources, and pervasive misconceptions about this population, those with mental illness often end up in the corrections system. This timely work covers the roles of each part of the criminal justice system interacting with mentally ill individuals, from law enforcement and first responders, social services, public health services, sentencing and corrections, to release and re-entry. It also addresses the crucial need of mental healthcare for criminal justice professionals, who suffer from high rates of job stress, PTSD, and other mental health issues.

With new chapters on stigma, mental illness during and after disaster and crisis, and updates and new supplementary materials throughout, this book will be of interest to students of criminology and criminal justice, sociology, psychology, and public health. It will also be of interest to policy-makers and practitioners already working in the field, interacting with and addressing the needs of mentally ill individuals. 

This book examines the ways that brothels are managed under decriminalisation in New Zealand. New Zealand decriminalised sex work in 2003 with the passage of the Prostitution Reform Act, making it the first country to do so. Decriminalisation situates brothels as ‘businesses like any other’ and creates a legislative platform for better working conditions for sex workers. Nevertheless, we have limited understanding of how brothels are managed in New Zealand. Drawing on interviews with brothel operators and sex workers, this book explores how the law is understood and implemented, how brothel operators position their businesses, and how they seek legitimacy in a historically stigmatised sector. It also examines the rules and norms by which operators manage their businesses and the possibilities for sex workers to consent to commercial sexual services in the context of neoliberal norms of work and of managers who expect them to be professionalised, responsibilised and productive.

This edited volume brings together the most recent research about various aspects of organized crime and the responses that have developed worldwide as a result to contain serious criminal acts. This book focuses particularly on the way criminal networking and illegal markets have developed during the first two decades of the 21st century. It examines how these developments have influenced the motivations and opportunities to commit organized crime. The volume not only focuses on illegal activities in illegal markets, such as drug and human trafficking, but also addresses organized crime and deviance in various legitimate industries. The contributions were presented at seminars of the Centre for Information and Research on Organized Crime (CIROC), and will be of particular interest to organized crime scholars and researchers, as well as advanced students of criminology across the world.

This book investigates perceptions against the people of north-east India, and why such prejudicial attitude exists. It subsequently quantifies and develops measures to counter such stereotypes and affiliated violence.

This research examines the north-east Indian population’s and the general Indian population’s understanding of hate crime against the north-eastern population in metropolitan cities of India, both in concept and in perpetration. Further, it evaluates the existing constitutional and statutory provisions in India to determine if the proposed legislation and provisions are sufficient with regards to hate crime against north-eastern people of India.

Drawing on empirical research addressing racial hate crimes in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, this book’s case studies provide a qualitative dive to the problem and offer experiential analysis in order to curate preventive measures.

The global energy economy is undergoing a profound transformation, yielding several pivotal objectives. Foremost among these is mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollutants. Another essential goal involves promoting more sustainable economies, thereby curbing material consumption and reducing our reliance on resource extraction. Further priorities include fostering energy security and economic resilience by reducing dependence on external energy sources. All these aims overlap in one common policy: accelerating the renewable energy capacity deployment. Complementing this paradigm shift is the complete electrification of economic activities and households, resulting in the need to incentivize green electricity generation.

In this context, this book undertakes a comprehensive exploration of the regulatory framework underpinning the advancement of green electricity. After reviewing the political and economic dimensions, it offers an exhaustive analysis of ongoing developments in four legal domains: The WTO, EU, Germany, and Turkey.

Furthermore, the book presents a legal analysis of the intricate interplay between the WTO and EU law coupled with the German and Turkish models. It focuses on the most topical and relevant issues, including the effect of the ongoing energy crisis on state aid for green electricity in the EU; WTO case law on local content requirement components of the promotion schemes; the intricate legal, economic, and political challenges that accompany Germany’s Energiewende and its phasing out of coal and nuclear energy; and Turkey’s regulatory endeavors to bolster its energy self-sufficiency strategy.

Following a thorough examination encompassing theoretical, regulatory, and comparative aspects, the book moves beyond the applicable legal framework to make concrete proposals on the future design of green electricity promotion in Germany and Turkey so as to facilitate a rapid but socially equitable energytransition by incentivizing economic efficiency.

This open access brief summarizes the literature on personal recurrent victimization—broadly defined as experiencing more than one victimization. The featured research uses different categories of personal recurrent victimization to describe ways individuals can be victimized more than once, including (1) recurrent victimization, (2) repeat victimization, (3) multiple victimization, (4) poly-victimization, and (5) revictimization. Each chapter in this text reviews prior work on one of these five categories of personal recurrent victimization to provide an overview of this research in an accessible yet comprehensive way. While there is a large body of literature examining how and why some individuals experience more than one victimization, this is the first comprehensive review of research on each of these categories. As a result, this book is an excellent tool for students, researchers, and practitioners.

The term radicalisation is being used by politicians, activist groups, the media, governmental organisations, and many other groups, although it lacks conceptual clarity and insufficient consideration is given to its historical context. This edited book offers a reflective overview of the state of the research by addressing questions such as ‘what is radicalisation?’ and ‘does the concept help us to understand political violence differently?' across the social sciences. From a global selection of scholars, it explores the definition and the utilisation of the concept of radicalisation, pathway modelling, and the impact of gender, religion, and ideologies on radicalisation. It combines theoretical and historical analysis, providing a good introduction for any scholar and student starting in that field.

The book provides a compelling and comprehensive explanation of the puzzling resilience of the gangs that have operated in Rio de Janeiro since the 1980s. It offers a broad overview of the history of gangs and gang alliances (factions) in the whole of the city, focussing on the evolution and consistency of these groups over time, positing the link between these and the groups’ chances of survival. It draws on more than 285 articles from 15 newspapers and media outlets across a time span covering more than 40 years, supplemented with interviews with high-ranking public security officers and secondary data. Applying a novel and composite translation of biological evolutionary concepts to a complex criminological context, it focusses on three main fields of interest: territory, relations, and internal dynamics.

This book considers how legal rules and institutions affected the outcome of women's trials in nineteenth century Western Australia and how this was mediated by various social and cultural constructs. It uses numerous case studies to determine the effect of legal representation, co-accused status, Aboriginality and mercy on the outcome of these women's trials. The stories of these mainly working-class women, often traced through trials records and witness depositions, also illuminates the challenges and pitfalls of their lives, the survival strategies they used to navigate these and the pathways that led them to be charged with serious crime. Western Australia offers a different set of conditions for examining female criminality. Its small population meant that women committing crime often became well-known identities within their communities and may have been known, at least by reputation, to the limited number of men eligible for jury duty. Western Australia's low population meant that the number of lawyers practising in the colony was small and that few judges were appointed. During this period Western Australia also created separate laws to apply only to Aboriginal defendants meaning that Aboriginal women became subject to different laws to non-Aboriginal women. The book examines how, and why, some women appeared to receive a more lenient outcome, whereas others were less fortunate. Despite the all-male nature of the criminal justice system in which they appeared, some women appeared to possess a degree of legal literacy which allowed them to use the system to achieve a more favourable outcome in court. This book will be of interest to scholars of criminology, as well as those interested in the history of crime, Western Australian history and the history of the criminal justice system in Australia.

The updated second edition of this textbook focuses on understanding and addressing the criminality and victimization experienced by the elderly population globally. It offers insights into the prevalence of elderly crime and victimization through international comparisons and explores effective strategies to tackle this issue.

The book covers a wide range of topics, including the types of crimes committed by the elderly, the characteristics of older offenders, and the responses of the criminal justice system, such as diversion programs and community-based treatments. It also delves into specialized programs providing health and mental health services for older prisoners.

Furthermore, the new edition expands on processing and rehabilitation approaches for elderly offenders, along with services aimed at preventing, protecting, and caring for elderly victims. It also includes comparative international research on crime prevention methods and legislative measures, making it a valuable resource for students in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and gerontology.

This two-volume edited collection showcases the work of leading scholars researching hate crime perpetration. It explores current research into hate crime perpetration, develops theoretical perspectives, and provides scholarly analysis of legal frameworks, policy responses and criminal justice practice. It seeks to understand how hate and intolerance manifest and are perpetrated. 

This Volume (II) focuses on developing responses to hate in online and offline settings while Volume I assesses offender profiles and motivation. Together they highlight links between different forms and arenas of hate crime offending and provides new perspectives on the nature of contemporary hate and intolerance, how it can be understood, and how it might be effectively tackled. 

This two-volume collection contends that ‘difference’ in all its forms can be targeted by vitriol and abuse across and beyond the recognised ‘five strands’ of hate crime law and policy in England and Wales (racist, religiously motivated, homophobic, transphobic and disablist) alongside broader behaviours that underpin intolerance (such as scapegoating, stereotyping and microaggressions). These volumes bring together a range of perspectives to provide the readers – be they students, academics, policy makers, practitioners or the general public – with a comprehensive understanding of this topic.

This book, a product of the Financial Integrity Hub (FIH), explores the societal costs of combating financial crime and the balance between security imperatives, individual rights, and the integrity of global financial systems. It examines the ethical dilemmas and practical challenges faced by policymakers, practitioners, and the public as they navigate the evolving landscape of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) regimes.

While designed to safeguard societies and economies, measures from these regimes can erode privacy, stifle legitimate activity, and exacerbate inequalities. Through analysis and real case studies, this book scrutinises the ethical and legal dilemmas arising from expanded surveillance, showing how the pursuit of security can undermine civil liberties and invite abuse. It assesses the impact of regulatory frameworks on non-profit organisations, vulnerable populations, and businesses, drawing attention to the unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies. It also examines the expanding role of technology in surveillance, raising critical questions about the future of privacy in an increasingly interconnected world. The book highlights the intersection of financial crime and environmental exploitation, demonstrating the far-reaching effects of illicit activity.

Through a global lens, it evaluates regulatory approaches including unexplained wealth orders, risk-based assessments, and emerging tools like Central Bank Digital Currencies. It exposes gaps in current frameworks, questioning whether they adequately address evolving threats of terrorist financing and complex financial crimes. By engaging with these challenges, the book calls for a more nuanced approach to financial crime control, one that protects society without undermining its core values.

Essential reading for legal professionals, policymakers, academics, law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, and anyone concerned with the global fight against financial crime, this book provides critical insights into its ethical and legal dimensions. It encourages reflection on unintended consequences and advocates for a fair, responsible, and balanced approach to safeguarding financial integrity.

Chapter “Surveilling the Citizen: Constitutional Tensions within the Canadian AML Regime” is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter.

The Asian Yearbook of International Economic Law (AYIEL) 2024 addresses the rapidly evolving field of international economic law with a special focus on Asia and the Pacific. With the rapidly changing geopolitical situation, protectionist measures have been taken by many countries, which has caused significant impact on international economic governance. Given the importance of Asia and the Pacific, it is necessary to study on trade protectionism and its impacts especially from a regional perspective. The AYIEL 2024 therefore focuses on “Protectionism and International Economic Law”, exploring the recent trade measures taken by leading economies amid the changing geopolitical and geoeconomic situation, as well as the potential impacts of these changes on Asian countries and beyond.  

Rapid advancements in Generative Artificial Intelligence (like ChatGPT and LLMs) are fundamentally reshaping the landscape of both criminal activity and law enforcement. Artificial Intelligence and Crime collates seminal and insightful published materials into a single, accessible volume.

Currently, scholarship exploring the dual dimensions of AI and the critical intersections is emerging rapidly but remains dispersed across various journals, conference proceedings, and edited volumes. This curated collection will provide readers with a structured understanding of how AI is used maliciously, how it can be leveraged to fight crime, the complex legal challenges it poses, and the ethical considerations surrounding its implementation in the justice system. By bringing these key resources together, the book will serve as an indispensable reference tool, facilitating further research, informing policy, and providing a crucial resource for academic curricula.

The auto-summaries have been generated by a recursive clustering algorithm via the Dimensions Auto-summarizer by Digital Science handled by Subject Matter Experts and the editor of this book. The editor of this book selected which SN content should be auto-summarized and decided its order of appearance. Please be aware that these are extractive auto-summaries, which consist of original sentences, but are not representative of the original papers and/or book chapters, since we do not show the full length of the publications. Please note that only published SN content is represented here, and that machine-generated books are still at an experimental stage.

This book critically examines the primary challenges associated with the indirect implementation of the European Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR) in Brazil. The EUDR is a demand-side regulatory measure designed to mitigate the European Union's (EU's) contribution to global deforestation and forest degradation, thereby aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss.

The regulation has raised concerns among certain countries that its compliance requirements may impose significant costs on their production chains, leading to potential extraterritorial effects. While the EUDR does not directly apply to the normative frameworks of third countries, it mandates compliance for market access to the EU.

Therefore, this study addresses the following research question: What are the challenges to the indirect implementation of the EUDR in Brazil? To answer this question, the book analyzes the relationship between Brazil's national forest-related framework and the EUDR. It posits that the extraterritorial nature of the EUDR does not fully consider the unique specificities of other countries, which may lead to potential incompatibilities with their existing regulatory mechanisms.

This book offers a new perspective on public law and public policies. The collection of papers gathered here begins with an in-depth discussion on gender perspectives in constitutional law, which can support gender justice, but also perpetuate patriarchal norms. The book then analyzes the role of the European Ombudsman in the area of gender discrimination. Despite its limited jurisdiction, this institution has become a significant complementary tool in the protection of gender equality and the elimination of gender discrimination at the EU level. Particular attention is paid to the importance of mainstreaming gender into public policies. Thus, the legal and institutional frameworks of Spain and Serbia are presented, which can serve as an inspiration to other countries. Another important aspect covered in the book is an analysis of systemic differences between the average wages of women and men in the six countries of the Western Balkans. In turn, the book presents a discussion on female genital mutilation as a highly gendered crime based on extreme versions of rigid, patriarchal ethnic and religious norms and customs. It is analyzed through the lenses of the Istanbul Convention, as a tool for combating violence against women. Particular attention is paid to femicide, its definitions, forms, and phenomenological characteristics. Having been only recently acknowledged, femicide is still characterized by an inadequate judicial response in many countries. In this regard, a special focus is on German and Serbian experiences in acknowledging femicide and combating it through various measures. Finally, the importance of stalking laws is discussed, as stalking is a highly gendered crime that many states fail to combat adequately. The collection of essays offered in this book will be of interest to all those working in the field of public law, to policymakers, and to students and academics looking to broaden and deepen their research on various issues in public law and policies from gender perspectives.

This volume presents pioneering research for the purpose of developing a common analytical foundation and framework for the emerging interdisciplinary research field of investment control and national security. It deals with legal and regulatory aspects of investment controls, specifically from an international, transnational, and comparative law perspective.

This book brings together empirical and theoretical case-study research on art and heritage crime. Drawn from a diverse group of researchers and professionals, the work presented explores contemporary conceptualisations of art crime within broader contexts. In this volume, we see ‘art’ in its usual forms for art crime scholarship: in paintings and antiquities. However, we also see art in fossils and in violins, chairs and jewellery, holes in the ground and even in the institutions meant to protect any, or all, of the above. And where there is art, there is crime. Chapters in this volume, alternatively, zoom in on specific objects, on specific locations, and on specific institutions, considering how each interact with the various conceptions of crime that exist in those contexts. This volume challenges the boundaries of what we understand as “art and heritage crimes” and displays that both art, and criminality related to art, is creative and unpredictable.

Blockchains and smart contracts are emerging technologies that pose unique challenges for legal systems. This book outlines the extent to which these new and innovative technologies could have potentially disruptive effects on contract law in Europe. It does so through a comparative, three-part analysis of the recognisability and effects of smart contracts in European legal systems. First of all, in light of the technologies’ transboundary nature, the book employs a comparative approach, considering French law, German law, English law, and Dutch law to analyse the impact on the different systems of contract law. While doing so, it also addresses the formation, interpretation, and vitiation of contracts. Secondly, it analyses the impact of these technologies on European laws regarding unfair terms in consumer contracts and argues that the existing rules should be applied to smart legal agreements in business-to-consumer relations. Lastly, it analyses the current European rules of private international law on the basis of which jurisdiction and applicable law are developed. In this respect, the book concludes that the vast majority of these European rules are “smart contract-proof”.

This book examines the diversity of enforcement titles in cross-border debt collection, focusing on the types, structure, contents and effects of enforcement titles. It offers a comprehensive overview of judgments, court settlements and authentic instruments from a variety of EU Member States. It primarily employs the comparative legal method to draw conclusions on commonalities and differences, as well as prospects for future approximation of laws.

The premise of the research is rooted in the finding that national authorities of EU Member States continue to treat enforcement titles from other Member States with reservations and mistrust despite being committed to the principle of mutual trust. The book identifies the issues of mistrust stemming from the diversity of enforcement titles. The research is based on a rich database of national reports compiled during the course of several large-scale EU Justice Projects.

Divided into five parts, the book offers first somegeneral considerations and presents attempts at a systemisation of enforcement titles. The following parts are then devoted to more specialised approaches toward the different types of enforcement titles. However, the connecting line between all parts of the book are the considerations of cross-border enforcement in the EU (and in a limited manner with third States). Herein, research also addresses critical factors regarding the free movement of judgments in the EU, including those of lis pendens and related actions.

This book provides a valuable contribution to the Theory of European Civil Procedure. Since it is based on a comparative approach and employs both empirical and doctrinal viewpoints, it should also greatly benefit practitioners involved in cross-border dispute resolution. Overall, the findings should be of interest to a broad audience, including policymakers, judges, practitioners and scholars.