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Volume 88 Issue 1 (february) 2005
Content
Articles
Risk Assessment im Maßregelvollzug: Grenzen psychometrischer Gefährlichkeitsprognose im therapeutischen Umfeld
von Thomas Ross und Friedemann Pfäfflin
[in German language]
Summary
Psychometric risk assessment has gained ground during the last couple of years. The results of psychometrically based assessments, especially those derived from Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), have become a cornerstone of risk assessment in the German criminal justice system. Yet, there are a number of theoretical and practical problems relating to the application of psychometric instruments for both risk prediction in general, and the PCL-R in particular. Although highly relevant to the treatment of mentally ill offenders, few have taken notice of these shortcomings. In this paper, critical aspects of risk assessment with the PCL-R are discussed, and conclusions are drawn toward a more cautious handling of the PCL-R and related methods.
pp. 1-11
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Psychiatrische Kriminalprognose in einer »fachfremden« Maßregel: Erfahrungen mit Probanden vor bzw. in Sicherungsverwahrung
von Elmar Habermeyer
[in German language]
Summary
Matters of preventive detention are important for forensic psychiatry, but so far rarely discussed. Studies concerning the delinquents are still missing: A retrospective analysis of ten own expert testimonies should redress this deficiency: Our data was collected with the HCR-20, which can be a useful tool for psychiatric examination in the context of preventive detention. The data indicates that the inmates are part of a high risk population. Most are social unintegrated, some of them show noticeable personality problems or personality disorders. Professional criminals are in the minority (n = 1). Furthermore a third group of inmates consists of 3 people with severe psychiatric disorders. This point raises the question, if their commitment into preventive detention was correct.
pp. 12-25
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Good People, Dirty Work?
Wie die Polizei die Wissenschaft und Wissenschaftler die Polizei erleben und wie sich Polizeiwissenschaft entwickelt
von Thomas Feltes und Maurice Punch
[in German language]
Summary
In this article the authors try to draw on some particular (national and international) books and studies on policing and on their own experiences to sketch in some fundamental changes and developments in policing during the last thirty years. The authors also focus on some key insights from police studies, and they examine some major changes in policing that they have perceived in their own research and in teaching of senior police officers. The dispute between »practitioners« and »academics« is also discussed. The authors conclude, that the Police of thirty years back was somewhat amateurish; they were often good practitioners with a strong sense of vocation but their ecucational level was low and equipment was primitive. Police practitioners nowadays are better paid, better educated and trained, better equipped and more sophisticated – but also more critical against their own profession and their leadership.
pp. 26-45
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Delinquenz und Viktimisierung Jugendlicher in der Schweiz
Eine ländervergleichende Studie
von Ben Backmann
[in German language]
Summary
The article summarises the results of a study examining the sanctioning profiles, criminal behaviour, violence and value concepts of juveniles in Baden-Württemberg and Northwest Switzerland completed in 2002 by the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law and the Pedagogical School of Freiburg. This international comparison establishes a connection between harsh punitive attitudes and the low incidence of criminal behaviour as well as between minimal punitive attitudes and a high level of self reported criminal behaviour. Above all the study reveals that neither the formal rules (penal law, juvenile penal law) nor the official sanctions are crucial in the juvenile’s decision to commit a crime or not. Rather, it is the informal values and moral concepts learnt in familiar socialisation or socialisation between the juveniles themselves that play a pivotal role in this decision. The juvenile is influenced solely through his social backround.
pp. 46-60
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Beurteilung egoistisch oder altruistisch motivierter Einbrüche zur empirischen Fundierung des § 19 StGB
von Wilfried Hommers und Martin Lewand
[in German language]
Summary
In order to support the 14 years age limit of criminal responsibility in German law, sentencing judgments of 263 subjects, 7 to 16 years of age, were obtained with stories about two differently motivated burglaries (altruistic vs. egoistic). Descriptions of the crimes were followed by thoughts of the perpetrator while acting. The thoughts had moral contents like risk for the societal order or intent of recompense and were systematically varied. Already most of the 10-year-olds considered societal risk in their sentencing judgments independently of the motive. Except recompense information societal risk had the largest effect among all other moral thoughts in most of the 10-year-olds. Finally societal risk had a larger effect than recompense in most of the 14-year-olds. These results were obtained by individual statistical tests.
pp. 61-69
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Psychologische Bedingungen des Sexualmordes
Ein empirischer Vergleich zwischen Sexualmördern, Vergewaltigern und Männern, die der Versuchung zur Gewaltanwendung bei sexuellen Handlungen widerstanden haben
von Peter Steck, Markus Raumann und Ursula Auchter
[in German language]
Summary
The research paper is a comparative study of the biographies of 22 rapists who murdered their victims, of 48 rapists, and of 24 non-criminals who have been tempted to rape a woman. The biographies were analysed for indicators consistent with the concept of a criminal career. Moreover, the processes of crime were investigated by comparing sexual killers and rapists. The data were collected using semi-standard interviews. The biographies of the murderers and of the rapists both differed from the biographies of the non-criminals by many indications of sociopathic development. Only one significant difference was found among the perpetrators: the murderers reported more clinical signs in their childhoods. However, important differences were found in the planning and process of the crime. The murderers reported more frequently that they had planned the rape, and reported more signs of frustration, anger, and loss of control during the commission of the crime. The rapists reported more patterns of deviant sexual behaviour. Both criminal groups described states of emotional disturbance which occurred immediately before the crime.
pp. 70-81
Conference Proceeding
40. Kolloquium der Südwestdeutschen und Schweizerischen Kriminologischen Institute
von Sven Höfer und Gerhard Spiess
[in German language]
pp. 82-85
Coming Events / Information
Fritz Sack Preis für Kriminologie - Ausschreibung
Nominierungen bis 2. Mai 2005
p. 86
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Jugendarbeitslosigkeit und Jugendkriminalität
KrimZ Fachtagung, 21. bis 22. April 2005 in Leipzig
p. 86
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Empirische Polizeiforschung VII: Evaluation der Polizei
Tagung, 7. bis 9. Juli 2005 in Bremen
p. 87
Book Reviews
Kinzig, Jörg
Die rechtliche Bewältigung von Erscheinungsformen organisierter Kriminalität
Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2004, 849 Seiten
von Ulrich Eisenberg, Berlin
pp. 88-90
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Van Zil Smit, Dirk
Life Imprisonment Seriosly: in National and International Law
Kluwer Law International, The Hague, London, New York 2002, 256 Seiten
von Hartmut-Michael Weber, Fulda
pp. 90-92
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