"Did you actually read my article?" The 5 Species of Journal Reviewers

Oh, the joys of peer-reviewed journals. I myself can give some hilarious and ludicrous examples where you start to doubt the usefulness and fairness of some reviews. Professor Robert A. Giacalone (Temple University) has written an article about his experiences:  The 5 Species of Journal Reviewers. Let us know what your experiences are!


"Yet it is the nasty reviewer that many of us like the most because her vitriol is usually accompanied by an outright rejection, which means that we will not have to respond to the comments. We will not have to degrade ourselves by agreeing with her and "fixing" it. We will not need to mollify her lack of humanity with changes that will likely make the paper worse rather than better.
I just try not to think about how those reviewers must be treating their students."


Thanks to Amy for pointing us to this article!

The exercise of discretion in the probation service and Bottoms’ model of compliance

Jake writes about compliance in probation in the Early Career Academics Network Bulletin of the Howard League for Penal Reform. He concludes that "although the move towards compliance was seen positively by offender managers and there is evidence of them exercising discretion after a period of very limited discretion, the fact that the move thus far has been set within a managerialist framework means that the kind of compliance achieved is short-termist and might work against normative compliance as proposed by Bottoms."

Jake Phillips publishes about target, audit and risk assessment cultures in the probation service

Jake has recently published his paper entitled "Target, audit and risk assessment cultures in the probation service" in the European Journal of Probation.

This article traces the rise of managerialism in the probation service in England and Wales before exploring the impact of these changes through reference to in-depth observation and interviews in probation. The article considers how national standards affect practice; how audits feature and their impact on accountability; and how the use of risk assessment tools are perceived and resisted in two probation teams in England Wales. The article then turns to changes implemented by the Coalition Government and highlights some tensions between managerialist occupational cultures in probation and what might occur in the near future.

Sytske Besemer publishes in Journal of Quantitative Criminology about specialisation in intergenerational transmission.

Sytske's article entitled "Specialized Versus Versatile Intergenerational Transmission of Violence: A New Approach to Studying Intergenerational Transmission from Violent Versus Non-Violent Fathers: Latent Class Analysis" has recently been published online in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
The paper investigates whether fathers who have been convicted of a violent offense transmit criminal and violent behavior more strongly than fathers who were convicted, but never for violence. First, a more traditional approach was taken where offending fathers were divided into two groups based on whether they had a violence conviction. Secondly, Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was performed to identify two classes of fathers, one of which was characterized as violent. Sons of fathers in this class had a higher risk of violent convictions compared with sons whose fathers were in the other class.

24/7 isn't the only way: A healthy work–life balance can enhance research

A commentary in Nature describes exactly what I (and I know some others here too) think about a work-life balance: 24/7 isn't the only way: A healthy work–life balance can enhance research.

Esther van Ginneken in Dutch newspaper NRC Next

Esther van Ginneken, Ph.D. student at the IoC, has written an opinion article in the Dutch newspaper NRC Next which was published on Friday 8 July 2011. Since most of the readers of this blog probably will not be able to read Dutch, I will give a brief overview of what she has written and why she wrote the article.

The Dutch Secretary of Justice continues to introduce proposals for tougher punishments, such as minimum prison sentences for repeat offenders. With these proposals he wants to answer to public demands for more punitive sentencing. However, sentencing in the Netherlands has already become more punitive over the last ten years, and is certainly not lenient when compared to other European countries. Furthermore, the public's knowledge about actual sentencing practices may be limited.

Esther's article briefly describes some of the impact of a prison sentence, and it explains that longer prison sentences may be counterproductive. The article recommends that more attention needs to be paid to alternative punishments, and to restorative justice in particular. It is argued that politicians should focus less on populist rhetoric and more on understanding and addressing the causes of crime.

Well done Esther for making criminological knowledge and the results of academic research known to the public!

Also, if you do want to read the original article, contact Esther!

Tony Bottoms talks about desistance in the Sheffield Study

Last week the Dutch Society for Criminology (NVK- Nederlandse Vereniging voor Kriminologie) held their annual conference and invited our own professor Sir Anthony Bottoms to give a keynote lecture on desistance. He gave an interesting presentation about results found with the Sheffield Desistance Study. People who are interested, can read an interview with him on the website of Crimelink, a magazine about crime and safety.

Amy publishes her meta-analysis of Cross-national predictors of crime

Talking about good writing, Amy Nivette has published another paper! Her article entitled 'Cross-National Predictors of Crime: A Meta-Analysis' has been published in the most recent issue of Homicide Studies. Well done Amy!

Bad Writing and Bad Thinking: useful article!

Thanks to Amy who pointed us towards this article about (how to avoid) bad writing. A useful reminder how not to fall into these habits. Interestingly, Rachel Toor, an assistant professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University in Spokane, refers to George Orwell's Politics and the English Language. I remember one PhD seminar about writing, where we were also advised to read this piece by Orwell. Thanks to Amy I am now reminded and will go read it!

Amy Nivette publishes yet another paper!

Amy has published a paper in the most recent number of the British Journal of Criminology, titled Violence in non-state societies

The abstract: "Anthropological sources on non-state, tribal societies offer a wealth of evidence on violence that can expand the spatial and temporal gaze of criminological research. Reviewing this literature allows for a more comparative analysis of patterns of violence and challenges contemporary notions of social change and order. This paper provides an overview of the most relevant anthropological evidence on patterns of violence in non-state societies. Specifically, trends and overall levels of violence, age and sex patterns as well as social and environmental factors are reviewed in order to determine whether contemporary concepts and patterns of violence are universal or culturally specific. The findings presented here indicate that violence in non-state societies is a ubiquitous but culturally varying phenomenon used by males and may be related to interdependent social organizations and networks of exchange."

Congratulations Amy!

Amy Nivette publishes in Theoretical Criminology about Adler's theory of low crime

Amy Nivette, Ph.D. Student at the Institute of Criminology, recently published an article, titled 'Old theories and new approaches: Evaluating Freda Adler's theory of low crime and its implications for criminology' in Theoretical Criminology. Congratulations Amy!

The abstract of the paper:

Many years ago, Freda Adler (1983) sought to explain the full variation of crime rates through the notion of synnomie. Although Adler’s research was incomplete and somewhat flawed, it drew attention to low crime societies as the subject of criminological research. In this article I critically revisit Adler’s ideas in order to encourage a more methodologically rigorous approach to researching low crime societies. The main issues this article addresses are the assumption of ‘low’ crime and the meaning this label entails, the implications of ‘norm cohesion’ and the need for an alternative approach when studying ‘low’ crime. I conclude with implications for criminological research in the hope that this will invite future inquiry into matters that lie outside the traditional criminological gaze.

Article by student at Institute of Criminology: relationship between parental imprisonment and offspring offending in England and the Netherlands

Sytske Besemer, a Ph.D candidate at the Institute of Criminology, has published an article in the British Journal of Criminology that she co-authored with Victor van der Geest (NSCR), Joseph Murray, Catrien Bijleveld (NSCR), and David Farrington. The article is based on research in England and the Netherlands. They investigated parental imprisonment and offspring offending and differences between the countries on this topic. 

Article by student at Institute of Criminology

David Humphreys, a Ph.D candidate at the Institute of Criminology, has an article in the January issue of Criminology and Public Policy that he co-authored with Manuel Eisner. The article is based on his research on the impact of changes in England's alcohol licensing policy on violent crime and disorder. Congratulations!

Student article published

One of the Institute's students, Léon Digard, has just published an article in the Probation Journal entitled '"When Legitimacy is Denied: Offender Perceptions of the Prison Recall System." The article is focuses on the perspectives of sex offenders about the legitimacy of authority in the probation context. Congratulations, Léon!!