Investigating death: the emotional and cultural challenges for police

The over-representation of vulnerable populations within the criminal justice system, and the role of police in perpetuating this, has long been a topic of discussion in criminology. What is less discussed is the way in which non-criminal investigations by police, in areas like a death investigation, may similarly disadvantage and discriminate against vulnerable populations. In Australia, as elsewhere, it is police who are responsible for investigating both suspicious and violent deaths like homicide as well as non-suspicious, violent deaths like accidents and suicides. Police are also the agents tasked with investigating deaths which are neither violent nor suspicious but occur outside hospitals and other care facilities. This paper, part of a larger funded Australian research project focusing on the ways in which cultural and religious differences are dealt with during the death investigation process, reports on how police describe – or are described by others – during their role in a non-suspicious death investigation, and the challenges that such investigations raise for police and policing. The employment of police liaison officers is discussed as one response to the difficulty of policing cultural and religious difference with variable results.

Examining the effectiveness of Police-Citizens Youth Clubs on crime prevention and community safety

PCYCs, individually and as a whole, are highly valued in communities across Queensland. Participants in this evaluation identified numerous benefits of PCYCs, including: providing structured low-cost activities for young people and other community groups; developing positive relationships and trust between young people and police; developing young people into effective citizens; providing a safe place for young people and a hub for whole communities; addressing disadvantages faced by young people; and fostering social inclusion. Depending on the particular activities and programs delivered by a branch, PCYCs have the capacity to minimise risk factors and enhance protective factors relating to young people’s involvement in crime. For example, PCYCs can play an important role in strengthening young people’s engagement with education and family. However, the crime prevention and community safety aims of PCYCs, and measures that might work towards these aims are not widely- or well-understood, or appreciated, by those working in and with PCYCs. The key recommendation of this evaluation is therefore that the crime prevention and community safety aims of PCYCs in Queensland need to be better articulated, understood and reflected in the practice of those working in and with PCYCs. A related key finding is that many of the activities and programs currently provided by PCYCs could be better oriented towards the goals of crime prevention and community safety without major resource implications.

Prostitution Ideology and Trafficking Policy: The Impact of Political Approaches to Domestic Sex Work on Human Trafficking Policy in Australia and the United States

Debates over the legitimacy and legality of prostitution have characterised human trafficking discourse for the last two decades. This article identifies the extent to which competing perspectives concerning the legitimacy of prostitution have influenced anti-trafficking policy in Australia and the United States, and argues that each nation-state’s approach to domestic sex work has influenced trafficking legislation. The legal status of prostitution in each country, and feminist influences on prostitution law reform, have had a significant impact on the nature of the legislation adopted.

Romantic terrorism: An autoethnography of domestic violence, victimization and survival

Romantic Terrorism offers an innovative methodology in exploring the ways in which domestic violence offenders terrorise their victims. Hayes and Jeffries employ a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach to analyse their own lived experiences of domestic violence, particularly how romantic love is employed and distorted by abusers. Its focus on the insidious use of tactics of coercive control by abusers opens up much-needed discussion on the damage caused by emotional and psychological abuse, which are often overlooked or downplayed in both the literature and the criminal justice system. To this end, it offers strategic advice for policy-makers, practitioners, and criminal justice professionals involved in domestic violence service provision.

A review of: "Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling: The Function of Avowal in Justice. By Michel Foucault. Edited by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt. Translated by Stephen W. Sawyer"

Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling: The Function of Avowal in Justice is a collection of seven lectures delivered by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault at the Catholic University of Louvain in 1981. Compiled from audiovisual recordings and Foucault’s original manuscripts, these lectures explore the notion of avowal and its place within criminal justice processes. Accompanied by three contemporaneous interviews given by Foucault (only one of which has previously been available in English), and a preface and concluding essay by the editors contextualizing these lectures in Foucault’s oeuvre, this volume contributes much to Foucaultian scholarship, particularly when considered alongside the recently published volumes of Foucault’s lecture courses at the Collège de France. However, while the book promises to offer some insights of relevance to criminology, it is important to remember that this is not its key purpose, and criminologists should read it with this caveat in mind...

A new public health context to understand male sex work

Background Researching male sex work offers insight into the sexual lives of men and women while developing a more realistic appreciation for the changing issues associated with male sex work. This type of research is important because it not only reflects a growing and diversifying consumer demand for male sex work, but also because it enables the construction of knowledge that is up-to-date with changing ideas around sex and sexualities. Discussion This paper discusses a range of issues emerging in the male sex industry. Notably, globalisation and technology have contributed to the normalisation of male sex work and reshaped the landscape in which the male sex industry operates. As part of this discussion, we review STI and HIV rates among male sex workers at a global level, which are widely disparate and geographically contextual, with rates of HIV among male sex workers ranging from 0% in some areas to 50% in others. The Internet has reshaped the way that male sex workers and clients connect and has been identified as a useful space for safer sex messages and research that seeks out hidden or commonly excluded populations. Future directions We argue for a public health context that recognises the emerging and changing nature of male sex work, which means programs and policies that are appropriate for this population group. Online communities relating to male sex work are important avenues for safer sexual messages and unique opportunities to reach often excluded sub-populations of both clients and male sex workers. The changing structure and organisation of male sex work alongside rapidly changing cultural, academic and medical discourses provide new insight but also new challenges to how we conceive the sexualities of men and male sex workers. Public health initiatives must reflect upon and incorporate this knowledge.

Young and unaffected by road policing strategies: Using deterrence theory to explain provisional drivers' (non)compliance

Newly licenced drivers are disproportionately represented in traffic injuries and crash statistics. Despite the implementation of countermeasures designed to improve safety, such as graduated driver licencing (GDL) schemes, many young drivers do not comply with road rules. This study used a reconceptualised deterrence theory framework to investigate young drivers’ perceptions of the enforcement of road rules in general and those more specifically related to GDL. A total of 236 drivers aged 17–24 completed a questionnaire assessing their perceptions of various deterrence mechanisms (personal and vicarious) and their compliance with both GDL-specific and general road rules. Hierarchical multiple regressions conducted to explore noncompliant behaviour revealed that, contrary to theoretical expectations, neither personal nor vicarious punishment experiences affected compliance in the expected direction. Instead, the most influential factors contributing to noncompliance were licence type (P2) and, counterintuitively, having previously been exposed to enforcement. Parental enforcement was also significant in the prediction of transient rule violations, but not fixed rule violations or overall noncompliance. Findings are discussed in light of several possibilities, including an increase in violations due to more time spent on the road, an ‘emboldening effect’ noted in prior studies and possible conceptual constraints regarding the deterrence variables examined in this study.

Outdated journal rankings and the ERA exercise

As the results of the latest Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) exercise come closer to being announced, universities around Australia are holding their collective breaths. The ERA claims to be an assessment of research strengths and quality at Australian universities. While it is not supposed to produce a set of league tables, ultimately that is what tends to happen...

Eco-crime and freshwater

The unsustainable and exploitative use of one of the most important but scarce resources on the planet - freshwater - continues to create conflict and human dislocation on a grand scale. Instead of witnessing nation-states adopting more equitable and efficient conservation strategies, powerful corporations are permitted to privatise and monopolise diminishing water reservoirs based on flawed neo-liberal assumptions and market models of the ‘global good’. The commodification of water has enabled corporate monopolies and corrupt states to exploit a fundamental human right, and in the process have created new forms of criminality. In recent years, affluent industrialised nations have experienced violent rioting as protestors express opposition to government ‘freshwater taxes’ and to corporate investors seeking to privatise drinking water. These water conflicts have included unprecedented clashes with police and deaths of innocent civilians in South Africa (BBC News, 2014a); the United Nations intervention in Detroit USA after weeks of public protest (Burns, 2014); and the hundreds of thousands of people protesting in Ireland (BBC News, 2014,b; Irish Times 2015). Subsequently, the commodification of freshwater has become a criminological issue for water-abundant rich states, as well as for the highly indebted water-scarce nations.

Is being #instagay different from an #lgbttakeover? A cross-platform investigation of sexual and gender identity performances

This paper introduces research in progress that examines how queer women perform sexual identity across social media platforms. Applying a lens of queer theory and Actor Network Theory, it discusses women’s embodied self-representations as taking on forms that both conform to and elaborate upon the selfie genre of digital representation. Acknowledging similarities and differences across platforms, specifically between Instagram and Vine, a novel walkthrough method is introduced to identify platform characteristics that shape identity performances. This method provides insights into the role of platforms in identity performances, which can be combined with analysis of user-generated content and interviews to better understand digital media’s constraints and affordances for queer representation.

Bangarra Dance Theatre: Copyright law and Indigenous culture

This article considers the artistic and legal practices of Bangarra Dance Theatre in a case study of copyright law management in relation to Indigenous culture. It is grounded in the particular local experience, knowledge and understanding of copyright law displayed by the performing arts company. The first part considers the special relationship between Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Munyarrun Clan. It examines the contractual arrangements developed to recognise communal ownership. The next section examines the role of the artistic director and choreographer. It looks at the founder, Carole Johnson, and her successor, Stephen Page. The third part of the article focuses on the role of the composer, David Page. It examines his ambition to set up a Indigenous recording company, Nikinali. Part 4 focuses upon the role of the artistic designers. It looks at the contributions of artistic designers such as Fiona Foley. Part 5 deals with broadcasts of performances on television, film, and multi-media. Part 6 considers the collaborations of Bangarra Dance Theatre with the Australian Ballet, and the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. The conclusion considers how Bangarra Dance Theatre has played a part ina general campaign to increase protection of Indigenous copyright law.

Environmental Crime and Specialist Courts: The case for a ‘One-Stop (Judicial) Shop’ in Queensland

The increasing international political, public and scientific engagement in matters of environmental sustainability and development has produced a rapidly expanding body of environmental law and policy. The advent of international protocols, directives, and multilateral agreements has occurred concomitantly with the harmonisation of widespread environmental regimes of governance and enforcement within numerous domestic settings. This has created an unprecedented need for environmental legal apparatuses to manage, regulate and adjudicate legislation seeking to protect, sustain and develop global natural habitats. The evolving literature in green criminology continues to explore these developments within discourses of power, harm and justice. Such critiques have emphasised the role of dedicated environmental courts to address environmental crimes and injustices. In this article, we examine the important role of specialist courts in responding to environmental crime, with specific reference to the State of Queensland. We offer a critique of existing processes and practices for the adjudication of environmental crime and propose new jurisdictional and procedural approaches for enhancing justice. We conclude that specialist environmental courts endowed with broad civil and criminal jurisdiction are an integral part of an effective response to environmental crime.

'Crossing the line': Criminological expertise, policy advice and the 'quarrelling society'

In October 2009, Professor David Nutt, eminent neuropsychopharmacologist and world leading expert on drugs, was dismissed as Chair of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for comments he made at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies’ Eve Saville lecture. This article considers the role of evidence in political decision-making through the case of David Nutt. It is argued that the status of expert knowledge is in crisis for both the natural and the social sciences. We examine the role of the criminological advisor within emerging discourses of public criminology and suggest that high-stakes political issues can open up unprecedented opportunities for critical voices to engage in unbridled critique and to mobilise movements of dissent.

Family law reform and domestic violence: Lessons from Australia

This chapter reviews recent changes in family law related to domestic violence and the research on their impact in Australia.