The “Kriminologisches Journal” (KrimJ) is a quarterly scientific journal which is published by Beltz-Juventa. The journal features original scientific articles, discussion papers, practice and research reports on criminological theory and practice in German and English language. The thematic focus is on critical approaches to the structures and measures of social control bodies. All manuscripts undergo selective editorial and peer-review assessment prior to acceptance for publication. The peer-review process is strictly anonymous.
The “Kriminologisches Journal” is available both in print and online. Single issues and subscriptions are available at Beltz Juventa.
Issue 3/2023
Issue 2/2023
Content
Full Paper
Policing the Overdose Crisis (English)
Sandra Bucerius, Harvey Krahn, Kevin Haggerty, Luca Berardi & Rebekah McNeilly
The opioid overdose crisis in Canada continues to claim the lives of people who use drugs (PWUD). Historically, Canadian crime policy has prioritized crime control forms of surveillance, interdiction and punishment in response to drug use. More recently, harm reduction measures have gained traction, including safe consumption sites (SCS) and police officer use of Naloxone to assist PWUD who have overdosed on opioids. The effectiveness of harm reduction efforts, however, is to some degree contingent on their embrace or acceptance by police agencies and officers. This paper is based on research conducted on the two largest city-level police services in Alberta, Canada. We conducted 94 interviews with officers and had 1,406 officers complete a quantitative survey on issues relating to illicit drugs, overdoses, and fentanyl. Our findings show that police officers generally see opioid use as a serious problem and are concerned about the dangers they face when dealing with PWUD. There is also considerable confusion about the nature and severity of these dangers. Even so, attitudes appear to be shifting and some police officers are changing their practices. In general, our research documents a softening of police attitudes in Canada towards SCS facilities and harm reduction more generally. This greater embrace of a public health orientation could improve the lives of PWUD and their interaction with law-enforcement in Canada. Given the prospect that fentanyl and related synthetic opioids will continue their global spread, these findings should be of interest to an international audience of scholars, police, and healthcare officials.
Unterhaltsame Verhaltensdirektive. Über die Relevanz anthropomorpher Tierdarstellungen in der Drogenprävention (German)
Entertaining directives. On the significance of anthropomorphic animal illustrations in drug prevention
Tabea Louis & Bettina Paul
Drug risk communication is alternately located in the field of tension between criminalisation and healthism. The use of graphic animals to convey risk messages shows historical continuity, as the article illustrates with two case studies. Through the visual styles of fictional animals, an anthropomorphic personification of behavioral directives can be observed. These stand in contrast with campaigns that rely on direct visual deterrence, while they are seen as emancipatory campaigns by their creators. Thus, cartoon-animals become an antagonistic medium in many ways: they promise entertainment far removed from directives, while indirectly problematising anticipated risks of both legal and illegal drugs.
Formen von Kriminalität. Zur historischen Hervorbringung differentieller Kriminalitätswirklichkeiten (German)
Forms of crime. On the Historical Creation of Divergent Realities of Crime
Bernd Dollinger
The contribution is based on the assumption that crime does not stand for itself but is always perceived and presented in a specific way. This is done very differently in the form of reports, statistics, pictorial representations, narratives or other. Each of these forms has special characteristics and shapes the content of the representation. With regard to this form-dependent representation of crime, a telling situation arose around 1800: punishments were to be organized by the state, instrumentally focused, and in their execution oriented to the subjectivity and morality of those punished. In the course of this ambition, three forms of representing crime gained particular relevance: crime stories, biographical tables, and crime statistics. These three forms are presented in the article in their specificity and compared with each other. They are forms of representation that are still relevant today and compete with each other on the question of how to depict crime.
Weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf – Sexualität als mehrdimensionales Tabu im deutschen Jugendstrafvollzug (German)
Sexuality as a Multidimensional Taboo in German Juvenile Prisons
Julian Knop & David Zimmermann
This article addresses the topic of sexuality and prison by describing the various dimensions of tabooing prison sexuality in the German prison system and by presenting possible explanations for the tabooing processes.
Book Reviews
Hans Dieter Schwind & Jan-Volker Schwind: Kriminologie und Kriminalpolitik. Eine praxisorientierte Einführung mit Beispielen (Fritz Sack)
Matthew Bacon & Jack Spicer: Drug Law Enforcement, Policing and Harm Reduction. Ending the Stalemate (Lorenz Böllinger)
Dominik Hofmann: Impunität. Zur Frage, was es bedeutet, wenn nicht gestraft wird (Sebastian Scheerer)
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