While correctional staff are supposed to facilitate the criminal desistance of persons in custody, their effectiveness in this regard has not been clear. A notably unclear aspect of the helpfulness concerns the persons’ trust in correctional staff for their criminal desistance. If the trust is helpful, its benefits will increase with the person’s sentence serving time and young age, in line with social learning theory. To assess such helpfulness, this study surveyed 873 persons in custody across 21 correctional institutions in Hong Kong, China. Results supported the hypotheses based on social learning theory. Accordingly, trust in correctional staff over the previous 2s had a positive effect on desistance intention in the year following discharge. Moreover, this effect increased with sentence-serving time and young age (younger than 21 years). These results suggest that correctional staff can be an effective resource for persons seeking to learn how to desist from crime. Hence, promoting the staff as a trustworthy learning source is advisable. The study identifies the specific age and sentence conditions under which trust in staff successfully predicts criminal desistance.
The exponential growth of online retail has been accompanied by a parallel rise in sophisticated cybercrime, which threatens consumer trust and economic stability. Unlike existing research that focuses solely on AI security tools, the current study systematically utilises artificial intelligence (AI) in conjunction with situational crime prevention, identifying important insights from crime prevention studies. While AI has emerged as a powerful technical countermeasure, its application is often disconnected from established criminological theory. This study presents a systematic literature review of AI-based online retail security through the lens of criminological theory, revealing that current technology-based measures neglect theoretical considerations. Following the PRISMA protocol, we searched four major academic databases, namely Web of Science, ACM, IEEE Xplore, and Scopus, for peer-reviewed articles published in the past 15 years. Our analysis of the final corpus of selected studies reveals that, while AI techniques such as anomaly detection, natural language processing, and biometric analysis are increasingly effective against threats such as fraud and account takeovers, their deployment aligns with SCP strategies largely implicitly rather than by design. The findings indicate a strong focus on increasing the risks and efforts for offenders, but significantly less attention is paid to reducing rewards, reducing provocations, or removing excuses. This review highlights critical gaps in the literature: the absence of an integrated framework that integrates AI’s technical capabilities with SCP’s theoretical robustness. By mapping current AI applications to the five pillars of SCP, this paper offers a novel synthesis that bridges the divide between computer science and criminology, proposing a more holistic, theoretically grounded approach to securing the future of online retail.
Job satisfaction for police officers is linked to many salient and beneficial outcomes. Improving the job satisfaction of officers can aid not only the officers, but the police organization and the community. One way to increase satisfaction from the job is to improve views of organizational justice, a concept that refers to the perception that an employing organization is fair in its treatment of its employees. The four major dimensions of organizational justice are informational, interpersonal, procedural, and distributive. The current study proposed that informational and interpersonal justice would be related to procedural and distributive justice, and procedural justice would be related to distributive justice. In turn, procedural and distributive justice were predicted to be associated with job satisfaction. Using data from police officers receiving training at three training centers in three different cities in China, the proposed model was supported. Informational and interpersonal justice were significant predictors of higher levels of procedural and distributive justice. Procedural justice had a significant association with higher levels of distributive justice. Lastly, both procedural and distributive justice had significant associations with higher levels of job satisfaction.
What causes school bullying? Inspired by Prieur’s contribution to “a criminology of structurally conditioned emotions,” this article integrates general strain theory and edgework theory, perceiving emotions as a link between strains and deviant behaviors in the study of school bullying. Based on semi-structured interviews with 34 participants including students, experienced education professionals and legal practitioners in an inland Chinese city, it examines the major categories of strains that students encounter in their families and schools, resulting in structurally conditioned emotions. Meanwhile, it explores the role of individuals’ agency in motivating students to regulate their negative emotional states, through strategies including alleviating negative emotions and pursuing emotional rewards. Bullying then emerges as their adaptive strategy. This article applies this integrated theoretical framework to examine the causes of school bullying, a prevalent form of deviant behavior exhibited by strained students. It offers one of the first qualitative studies on school bullying in the Chinese context.
Most studies frame Indian juvenile justice policymaking as an authoritative, outcome-oriented activity of government institutions, expressed in terms of laws and rules through which they seek to address offending behavior by children. This framework tends to reduce the complexity of several policy issues, leading to an overemphasis on either policy change or continuity. Extending interpretive policy analysis, this paper develops an alternative approach to conceptualizing juvenile justice policymaking based on how key official and non-official actors make sense of the policy process. Applied to examine the policymaking process underlying India’s current juvenile justice legislation, an interpretive lens exposes contradictions and incoherence as defining features of juvenile justice policy in the postcolonial setting. The findings shed light on the minutiae of agenda-setting, policy formulation, and decision-making that otherwise escape attention. They reveal that contingency, chance, and contestation lie at the heart of a gradual and fragmented policymaking process involving a wide range of actors operating across different institutional and political locations. In the postcolonial context, these dynamics take distinctive forms shaped by layered institutional legacies, symbolic uses of lawmaking, and competing claims to legitimacy. As a result, policymaking emerges as a liminal space between change and continuity, where elements of reform and continuity coexist in fluid and contested ways. I contend that interpreting the ambiguities, complexities, and ongoing contestation of policymaking in this manner not only deepens understanding of Indian juvenile justice but also contributes to more contextually grounded approaches to interpretive inquiry in the Global South.
This study aimed to develop and validate assessment tools for assessing rehabilitation outcomes among Thai juvenile offenders. Participants were 422 juveniles from youth training and rehabilitation centers across Thailand. In addition, 441 professionals from eight disciplines, including psychologists, social workers, guidance counselors, nurses, residential caregivers, academic trainers, vocational trainers, and juvenile probation officers responsible for individual case management, assessed the juveniles’ rehabilitation progress. The instruments comprised a juvenile self-assessment questionnaire and eight professional assessment forms completed by professionals involved in the rehabilitation process. These checklist-based instruments were developed using the dynamic risk and protective factors assessment framework as a guiding measurement model. Psychometric properties were examined, including content validity, factorial validity, internal consistency reliability, and known-groups validity. The findings indicated that both professional ratings and juvenile self-assessments demonstrated satisfactory content validity, construct validity, and internal consistency reliability. However, professional-juvenile score discrepancies were substantial, with juveniles generally rating themselves more favorably than professionals. The instruments also demonstrated preliminary postdictive known-groups validity, with moderate classification performance in distinguishing first-time from repeat offenders based on historical recidivism records. Because this evidence was postdictive rather than longitudinal, future follow-up studies are needed to establish prospective predictive validity for recidivism or post-release outcomes.
In recent years, the online scam industry has expanded rapidly across Southeast Asia, with operations shifting from dispersed setups in apartments, villas, and hotel rooms to large-scale “scam compounds” housing dozens of companies. Thousands of individuals have been deceived and trafficked into these facilities through fraudulent job offers, manipulation by acquaintances, or outright abduction. Yet those trafficked for forced criminality are often not recognised as victims. Because they are compelled to commit fraud, they are frequently perceived as offenders or willing participants rather than as people subjected to coercion. This paper draws on surveys, interviews, court records, and media coverage to compare Chinese and Vietnamese survivors, examining how they were recruited and what happened to them after leaving the compounds. Framing the analysis through the concept of the “ideal victim”, it argues that survivors of forced criminality elicit limited public sympathy in part because they do not conform to dominant stereotypes of victimhood. Many are able-bodied young men who initially believed they were entering legitimate or morally ambiguous work, which complicates their claims to victim status. Contrasting the profiles and narrative framings surrounding the two groups, the paper shows how ideas of deservingness and blame shape public and institutional responses, and calls for more nuanced understandings of coercion in the online scam industry as a basis for effective prevention and support.
This comparative study investigates how prejudicial attitudes related to racial/ethnic diversity and gender equity develop among criminal justice majors across academic stages and national contexts in the USA and South Korea. Using survey data from 325 students at eight universities, the research examines whether levels and predictors of prejudice differ by country and by academic progression from freshman to senior year. Results show that South Korean freshmen reported significantly higher prejudice than their US counterparts, but this difference disappeared by senior year, with no significant differences observed at the senior level. Logistic and OLS regression analyses further revealed that gender and career aspirations (law enforcement, corrections) were consistent predictors of elevated prejudice, while targeted coursework on sexuality and phobia was linked to reduced prejudice, though with culturally contingent effects. These findings indicate that prejudice is dynamic and context-dependent, shaped by the interaction of demographic, educational, and cultural factors. By integrating developmental and cross-national perspectives, the study contributes to addressing key methodological challenges in comparative criminology and underscores the potential role of higher education as a context associated with variation in attitudinal patterns and justice-oriented professional socialization.
Extensive studies have documented how the permeation of algorithmic tactics and data-driven practices into penalty has epitomized actuarial justice (or new penology), reinforced the culture of control, and generated perpetual surveillance. Yet, rare studies to date have examined how these AI-based technologies craft the diverse and fluid identities of offenders as they are entangled with digitalized corrections in China. Drawing on ethnographic data from China’s urban community corrections where smart corrections are extensively constructed, this study focuses on the dynamic process by which offender identities are constructed and enacted in the digitalized penalty. The analysis reveals two intertwined yet seemingly contradictory forms of digital identity: digital citizenship and digital bondage. These digital identities emerge from and are embedded in the strategic deployment of AI-based technologies by correctional workgroups and offenders’ agentic interpretations of technological entanglements. The findings underscore the constitutive yet contested impact of sprawling AI technologies on both penal decision-making and offenders’ lived experiences with Chinese punishment.
Transnational organized crime (TOC) poses significant challenges for law enforcement, especially in the context of Sino–European cooperation. While previous studies emphasize structural models and legal frameworks, little empirical work has examined how cultural orientations and professional dispositions shape cooperative outcomes. This article addresses that gap by analyzing policy documents and 33 qualitative interviews with officers and experts in China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Using Liu’s relationism theory of criminal justice and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, we develop an integrated framework to explain how divergent logics of relationism and individualism influence trust, evidentiary standards, organizational practice, and reciprocity in cross-border policing. Findings show recurring tensions: European officers stress transparency, codified procedure, and rights-based accountability, while Chinese officers emphasize sincerity, reciprocity, and relational trust. These differences often generate mistrust but also create opportunities for adaptation through training exchanges, liaison work, and other mechanisms that improve coordination across institutional divides.
Digital harm in the Global South is expanding rapidly, yet criminological knowledge about it remains constrained by the dominance of Northern data infrastructures and theory-making. This paper introduces the Snapshot of Societymodel, a methodological and epistemic response designed for contexts where canonical surveys, breach registries, and stable reporting systems are limited or absent. Drawing on a three-phase study of Indonesian public reactions to repeated government data breaches—including civil society interviews, a generationally diverse focus group, and a survey of 1081 respondents—we show how seemingly muted public responses reflect data breach fatigue, a patterned form of adaptive resignation shaped by institutional neglect. The Snapshot model demonstrates how Southern researchers can generate grounded, culturally situated insights despite infrastructural constraints, offering an alternative to methodologies that assume Northern forms of data availability. By situating this approach within Southern criminology’s call to reorient knowledge production towards contexts of the South, the paper positions the Snapshot model as both a methodological innovation and an epistemological intervention. It invites cumulative, comparative Snapshot studies across the region to build a truly Southern digital harm scholarship.
Risk assessment of recidivism among men who commit sexual offenses is a critical component of treatment planning and post-release supervision. The present study compared the predictive validity of two widely used static risk assessment instruments, the Static-99 and the Static-99R, in a Taiwanese context. The sample comprised 1,360 men who were released from three Taiwanese prisons. Predictive validity was examined using sexual recidivism as the criterion, and recidivism rates across risk levels were also evaluated. Results indicated that both instruments demonstrated acceptable discriminatory power in this sample, with area under the curve (AUC) values ranging from .70 to .73. Based on these findings, recommendations are offered regarding the optimal use and interpretation of these tools within Taiwan. Overall, the results provide empirically grounded guidance for the Taiwanese correctional system in assessing recidivism risk among men who commit sexual offenses.
This study explores factors associated with fear of crime among Chinese police cadets using four-wave panel data. Findings indicate that fear of crime is relatively low among cadets. Internship experience has a short-term effect, with levels of fear rising temporarily after the internship (second wave) before returning to baseline by the third and fourth waves. In addition, the analysis reveals that positive attitudes toward community policing are significantly associated with lower levels of fear. Female cadets, older cadets, and those specializing in crime-related law and forensics exhibit higher levels of fear. The study offers valuable insights into police training programs and directions for future research.
Research on police legitimacy and collective efficacy has grown rapidly, yet evidence remains mixed and is heavily concentrated in Western settings. Drawing on a community survey of residents in 43 communities across 24 streets in Chongqing, China, this study examines whether perceived police legitimacy, procedural justice, and police effectiveness are associated with residents’ perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy. Ordinary least squares models, with a robustness check using nonparametric bootstrap resampling, indicate that higher perceived police legitimacy, procedural justice, and effectiveness are each associated with higher perceived collective efficacy net of sociodemographic controls. We also estimate supplemental models that disaggregate collective efficacy into informal social control and social cohesion and trust to assess whether associations differ across components. The study extends empirical tests of the relationship between police legitimacy and collective efficacy to a large Chinese city and underscores the value of considering collective efficacy’s subdimensions when theorizing how policing relates to neighborhood capacity for informal social control.
This study examines how transgender individuals in Punjab, Pakistan, encounter policing not as a protective institution but as a site of recurring harm. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), we explore in-depth interviews with 15 transgender participants whose everyday interactions with law enforcement were marked by misgendering, mockery, arbitrary detention, coercive sexual encounters, and physical violence. These violations were not isolated; they formed a pattern of symbolic and structural domination that eroded institutional trust and produced a chronic sense of civic abandonment. Framed through Institutional Trust Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Labelling Theory, and critical traditions including Queer and Feminist Criminology, the analysis reveals how the transgender body is criminalized, policed, and rendered hyper-visible as a threat yet invisible as a victim. At the same time, participants resisted this dehumanization through silence, advocacy, ritualized strategies of survival, and engagement with reform efforts. The study not only highlights how policing in the Global South operates through colonial residues and gendered hierarchies but also foregrounds transgender voices as agents of transformative justice. Ultimately, it calls for reimagining justice not through procedural reforms alone, but through the lived truths and reparative agency of those historically silenced.
This research examines 210 cases of youth offenders, aged 18 to below 21, tried in Singapore’s State Courts for violent offences, excluding sexual violence. While global research on youth crime is extensive, local studies have been limited. This study adopts a sociological model to explore both structural and contextual factors contributing to youth violence. Using an integrated framework of social capital, social control, routine activities, and the subculture of violence, the study analyses how a lack of social and cultural capital correlates with low social control, leading youths to engage in violent subcultures. The findings reveal that males were notably overrepresented in this cohort. Violent offences in Singapore typically involve assaults and rioting, attributed to strict legal sanctions against weapons possession and collectivist cultural norms. The dominant form of violence observed was “expressive” in nature, shaped by the prevalent subculture of violence. The study found that demographically similar individuals and groups with comparable violent tendencies often converge, resulting in violent incidents.
This study provides the first large-scale empirical analysis of appellate decisions in China's Pao Fen ((sic)(sic)) cases, a rapidly evolving form of cyber-enabled money laundering involving "money mule" operations. Analyzing 661 criminal appeals from China Judgements Online, the study borrows its conceptual framework from four major socio-legal theories and applies logistic regression, moderation analysis, stepwise selection, and CART modeling to identify key predictors of appellate success. Results show that appeals filed by the procuratorate, and voluntary fine payment significantly increase success rates, while denial of charges and vague legal arguments reduce them. Demographic factors such as age, gender, and education moderate these effects, revealing implicit biases in judicial reasoning. The study critically reflects on the limitations of China's appellate system in responding to technologically complex crimes like Pao Fen, where participant culpability is often blurred by coercion, deception, and digital intermediaries. It offers critical implications for judicial reform, emphasizing the need for context-sensitive review mechanisms, improved prosecutorial oversight, and more equitable recognition of defendants' structural vulnerabilities.
Existing corporate crime research, grounded in Western assumptions of dispersed ownership and independent regulation, has inadequately addressed the distinctive mechanisms of malfeasance within South Korea’s family-controlled conglomerates, known as ‘chaebols’. This article investigates the structural, institutional, and cultural logics of corporate crime under the chaebol system through the 2003 SK Group accounting scandal. Drawing on academic literature, judicial archives, and media reports, our analysis reveals a tripartite dynamic. Structurally, cross-shareholding and concentrated family control, coupled with symbolic governance facades, particularly in the absence of robust external oversight, help explain transparency failures and risk-laden misconduct. Institutionally, the politico-business symbiosis of South Korea, reinforced by resource dependence, elite cohesion, and revolving-door dynamics, fostered regulatory capture and selective enforcement. Rather than simple failure, this reflects a patterned permissiveness in which oversight is selectively withdrawn and misconduct tolerated. Culturally, Confucian norms of hierarchy and loyalty align with Scott’s cultural-cognitive pillar, rendering paternalistic leadership legitimate and whistleblowing deviant. Such norms help rationalize state leniency, embedding elite impunity within collective narratives of growth and stability. Thus, this article proposes an integrated “structural-institutional-cultural coupling” framework to reveal how corporate crime is systematically reproduced through the interplay of concentrated power, institutional tolerance, and cultural legitimation; it concludes with policy recommendations including strengthening corporate criminal liability, restricting presidential pardons, and advancing governance restructuring to enhance corporate accountability and legal robustness. By challenging the applicability of mainstream Western theories, this research offers a new theoretical lens for understanding corporate governance and crime in South Korea and comparable contexts.
