Organized crime differs substantially from high-volume crime, at least theoretically. But do offenders differ as well? This study makes an extensive comparison between offenders who engage in organized crime at a particular moment in their lives and general offenders, based on various dimensions of their criminal careers. Many organized crime offenders do not have judicial contacts before adulthood. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case for the comparison group as well. However, organized crime offenders do more often have previous judicial contacts, and those previous contacts are also far more serious. These general findings are robust; they also hold when the comparisons are restricted to organized crime offenders and general offenders who have engaged in drug crimes and fraud cases.
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In our highly digitalized society, cybercrime has become a common crime. However, because research into cybercriminals is in its infancy, our knowledge about cybercriminals is still limited. One of the main considerations is whether cybercriminals have higher intellectual capabilities than traditional criminals or even the general population. Although criminological studies clearly show that traditional criminals have lower intellectual capabilities, little is known about the relationship between cybercrime and intelligence. The current study adds to the literature by exploring the relationship between CITO-test scores and cybercrime in the Netherlands. The CITO final test is a standardized test for primary school students - usually taken at the age of 11 or 12 - and highly correlated with IQ-scores. Data from Statistics Netherlands were used to compare CITO-test scores of 143 apprehended cybercriminals with those of 143 apprehended traditional criminals and 143 non-criminals, matched on age, sex, and country of birth. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses were used to compare CITO test scores between cybercriminals, traditional criminals, and non-criminals. Additionally, a discordant sibling design was used to control for unmeasured confounding by family factors. Findings reveal that cybercriminals have significantly higher CITO test scores compared to traditional criminals and significantly lower CITO test scores compared to non-criminals.
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‘The fear of crime’ is “upon everybody’s tongue” nowadays (Farrall & Gadd 2004:1). The concept is widely accepted as social problem across the globe (Gray, Jackson & Farrall 2008, Garland 2001) as it is held to impinge ‘(…) upon the well-being of a large proportion of the population’ (Farralll et al. 1997:658). But do we actually have a valid picture of a genuine ‘social problem of striking dimensions’ (Ditton 1999:83)? Critical voices say we don’t. ‘The fear of crime’ - as we generally know it - is seen by them as ‘(…) a product of the way it has been researched rather than the way it is’ (Farrall et al. 1997:658). And still, 45 years after the start of research, ‘surprisingly little can be said conclusively about the fear of crime‘ (Ditton & Farrall 2000:xxi). This research contributes to a growing body of knowledge - from especially the last fifteen years - that treats ‘the fear of crime’ as ‘(…) a complex allocation of interacting feelings, perceptions, emotions, values and judgments on the personal as well as the societal level’ (Pleysier 2010:43). One often replicated and paradoxical observation catches the eye: citizens perceive a growing threat of crime to their society, but consequently perceive a low risk that they themselves will fall victim of crime. Taking a social psychological approach (e.g. see Farrall et al. 2000; Jackson 2008), we will search for suitable explanations for this paradoxical observation in the fear of crime’s research tradition. The aim of this research is ‘to integrate social psychological concepts related to the individual’s identity and evaluation of his position in an increasingly complex society, to enhance our understanding of the fear of crime concept’ (Pleysier & Cops 2016:3).
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