‘I have used up my entire youth in the bush’: the Comités de Autodefensa during and after the Peruvian internal armed conflict
AbstractYoungsters participate as combatants at the forefront of armed conflicts around the globe, be it as part of state forces, as members of rebel groups, or as drivers of armed civilian resistance. This contribution explores the social trajectories of (ex-)civil self-defense militia members in Peru who fought alongside the state forces to defeat the Maoist rebels of Shining Path in the 1980 and 1990s. On the one hand, by taking the PeruvianComit és de Autodefensa (CAD) as a somewhat atypical case-study, the article aims to enhance a more nuanced understanding of youth as drivers of and participants in civil war violen...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - October 5, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
The scope of food fraud revisited
AbstractFood fraud is an emerging field of study in academic literature. The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether current understanding of food fraud in literature is in congruence with incidents of food fraud in the Netherlands. The discussion that follows is based on an analysis of 53 empirical cases on food fraud investigations conducted at the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the nationwide enforcement body tasked with investigating food fraud. The findings elucidate the differences between food fraud and other (food) crime and highlight the discrepancies with academic definitions to d...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - October 5, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
Designed to break: planned obsolescence as corporate environmental crime
AbstractPlanned obsolescence is the practice of deliberately designing products to limit their life span to encourage replacement. It is a common business strategy for consumer goods, with far-reaching ecological and social consequences. Here, we examine the definition, causes and consequences of planned obsolescence by using insights from corporate crime literature, integrated with environmental philosophy, management sciences, technology studies and law. Focusing on cases of planned obsolescence in consumer electronics, we show that the concept and procedure carries conceptual ambiguity and moral ambivalence, bearing dif...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - October 1, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
Occupational crimes in casinos: employee theft in Macau, China
AbstractIt is virtually impossible to accurately measure employee theft across the casino industry using official statistics. In this paper, we use the self-report method for measuring crime to (a) estimate the prevalence, incidence, seriousness, and versatility of occupational offending in casinos in Macau, China —the largest casino gambling location in the world; and (b) identify characteristics which correlate with that offending. One in seven employees in our sample (14%; 38 out of 281) reported engaging in at least one of six offenses (theft in the workplace, falsification of documents, computer fraud, bribe offerin...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - October 1, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
Risky business: food fraud vulnerability assessments
AbstractMajor food fraud scandals of the last decade have created awareness of the need to strengthen companies ’ ability to combat fraud within their own organizations and across their supply chains. The scandals compelled food companies and the food industry as a whole to take action and to protect companies and industries against the threat of food fraud. Stakeholders expect food companies to act proacti vely to mitigate food fraud risks. Certification schemes expect food producers to consider food fraud and to undertake food fraud vulnerability assessments and prepare control plans to mitigate fraud risks. This paper...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 24, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
The helpless defense: Notes on the role of Brazilian public defenders in sentence enforcement proceedings
AbstractThe article exposes and analyzes the potentialities and limits of the activities of public defenders who work in Brazilian criminal sentence enforcement courts. It is the result of a work of systematization of different research experiences carried out in recent years: an ethnographic research with the Public Defender's Office of S ão Paulo and a documentary research on criminal sentence enforcement proceedings in the state of Rio de Janeiro. After making some general considerations about the role of public legal assistance in the Brazilian criminal justice system, the article explores the role of public defenders...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 19, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
Crime and crisis in China ’s P2P online lending market: a comparative analysis of fraud
This study indicates that, similar to the U.S. experience, crime-facilitative environments allowed for endemic fraud in China’s online lending industry. It suggests that a primarily reactive approach to financial crime is less effective than a proactive system of compliance that includes mo re comprehensive and transparent financial regulation and law enforcement. (Source: Crime, Law and Social Change)
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 15, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
Is criminalisation necessary for the enforcement of intellectual property rights in Jordan and the UAE? Criminal v commercial measures
This article examines the national legislatures of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) regarding civil/commercial litigation procedures, and their relation to a c riminal law enforcement approach to IP enforcement. In particular, this work considers whether this approach achieves its goal of protecting IPRs and providing legal and economic stability within the IP system. Thus, the application of criminal enforcement measures by courts was examined to understa nd both the need for criminalisation and whether there may be a negative impact on IPR infringement deterrence, should the courts fail to implement criminal mea...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 13, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
County trajectories of pyramid scheme victimization
Abstract
Community-level vulnerability to pyramid scheme fraud may be affected by place-based sources of strain and opportunity. Using national victim data from a pyramid scheme fraud case from 2000 –2013, this research explores pyramid scheme adoption with group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM). GBTM is used to look for distinct trajectories of pyramid scheme join rates and to explore the effect of strain, as measured by a county’s Social Vulnerability Index and unemployment rate, and oppo rtunity or protection, as measured by a series of social capital variables, on the group trajectories. Findings suggest that co...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 9, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
The impact of corruption on government performance: evidence from South Korea
This study employs a probit model, a rando m-effects model, and time-lagged regression to capture the impacts of corruption. The findings show that a low level of corruption within public organizations is positively associated with a high-performance level under certain conditions. This outcome shows that fighting corruption might contribute to improved organizational performance in public organizations. (Source: Crime, Law and Social Change)
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 9, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
County trajectories of pyramid scheme victimization
Abstract
Community-level vulnerability to pyramid scheme fraud may be affected by place-based sources of strain and opportunity. Using national victim data from a pyramid scheme fraud case from 2000 –2013, this research explores pyramid scheme adoption with group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM). GBTM is used to look for distinct trajectories of pyramid scheme join rates and to explore the effect of strain, as measured by a county’s Social Vulnerability Index and unemployment rate, and oppo rtunity or protection, as measured by a series of social capital variables, on the group trajectories. Findings suggest that co...
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - September 9, 2022 Category: Criminology Source Type: research
