| Learning from Journal Articles |
The criminal law is the foundation of the criminal justice system. It defines the acts for which individuals are investigated, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and punished. The articles on this website link the criminal law to the larger criminal justice system.
| First Author | Year | Topic | Journal | Journal Link |
| Bjerregaard | 2006 | State Legislature | Homicide Studies | http://hsx.sagepub.com/ |
| Duff | 2005 | Criminal Categorization | American Behavioralist Scientist | http://abs.sagepub.com/ |
| Karstedt | 2002 | Criminal Justice | Theoretical Criminology | http://tcr.sagepub.com/ |
| Federman | 2004 | Habeus Corpus | The Prison Journal | http://tpj.sagepub.com/ |
| Downing | 1999 | First Amendment | Discourse and Society | http://das.sagepub.com/ |
| Jacobs | 2002 | First Amendment | Theoretical Criminology | http://tcr.sagepub.com/ |
| Stein | 2004 | First Amendment | "Media, Culture, and Society" | http://mcs.sagepub.com/ |
| Saucedo | 2000 | Punishment | Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences | http://hjb.sagepub.com/ |
| Wood | 2003 | Sentencing | Punishment & Society | http://pun.sagepub.com/ |
| Schabas | 2000 | Sentencing | Punishment & Society | http://pun.sagepub.com/ |
| Rodriguez | 2003 | Sentencing | Criminal Justice Policy Review | http://cjp.sagepub.com/ |
| Levine | 1999 | Bystander | Human Relations | http://hum.sagepub.com/ |
| Becker | 2006 | Status | Rationality and Society | http://rss.sagepub.com/ |
| Stueve | 2006 | Bystander | Health Promotion Practice | http://hpp.sagepub.com/ |
| Kaufman | 2003 | Intent | Criminal Justice Review | http://cjr.sagepub.com/ |
| McLaughlin | 2002 | Intent | Theoretical Criminology | http://tcr.sagepub.com/ |
| Watts | 1999 | After the Fact | The Family Journal | http://tfj.sagepub.com/ |
| Spry | 2002 | Vicarious Liability | Journal of Industrial Relations | http://jir.sagepub.com/ |
| Lombardo | 2002 | Conspiracy | Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice | http://ccj.sagepub.com/ |
| Martel | 2001 | Consent | Social Legal Studies | http://sls.sagepub.com/ |
| MacDonald | 2001 | Infancy | Homicide Studies | http://hsx.sagepub.com/ |
| White | 2003 | Police Use of Force | Evaluation Review | http://pqx.sagepub.com/ |
| Hudson | 1999 | Duress | Social Legal Studies | http://sls.sagepub.com/ |
| Hontz | 1999 | Police Use of Force | Police Quarterly | http://pqx.sagepub.com/ |
| Arrigo | 2003 | Insanity | Theoretical Criminology | http://tcr.sagepub.com/ |
| Merlo | 2003 | Juvenile Justice | Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice | http://yvj.sagepub.com/ |
| Arrigo | 2000 | Insanity | Criminal Justice Policy Review | http://cjp.sagepub.com/ |
| O'Donohue | 2003 | Rape | Journal of Interpersonal Violence | http://jiv.sagepub.com/ |
| Farrwell | 2004 | Rape | Affilia | http://aff.sagepub.com/ |
| Bennice | 2003 | Rape | Trauma Violence Abuse | http://tva.sagepub.com/ |
| Kovandzic | 2004 | Homicide | Criminal Justice Policy Review | http://cjp.sagepub.com/ |
| Boulahanis | 2004 | Homicide | Criminal Justice Policy Review | http://cjp.sagepub.com/ |
| Weisheit | 2005 | Homicide | Homicide Studies | http://hsx.sagepub.com/ |
| Kearon | 2000 | Burglary | Theoretical Criminology | http://tcr.sagepub.com/ |
| Kocsis | 2003 | Arson | International Journal of Offender Therapy… | http://ijo.sagepub.com/ |
| Capowich | 2003 | Burglary | Criminal Justice and Behavior | http://cjb.sagepub.com/ |
| Neumayer | 2005 | Robbery | Journal of Peace Research | http://jpr.sagepub.com/ |
| Felson | 2000 | Robbery | Journal of Research in Crime and Deliquency | http://jrc.sagepub.com/ |
| Bernstein | 2004 | Identity Theft | Compensation Benefits Review | http://cbr.sagepub.com/ |
| Piquero | 2004 | White-Collar Crime | Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice | http://ccj.sagepub.com/ |
| Gerber | 2000 | White-Collar Crime | International Journal of Offender Therapy… | http://ijo.sagepub.com/ |
| Friedrichs | 2002 | White-Collar Crime | Criminology and Criminal Justice | http://crj.sagepub.com/ |
| Wright | 2003 | Animal Cruelty | International Journal of Offender Therapy… | http://ijo.sagepub.com/ |
| Hagedorn | 2005 | Gangs | Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice | http://ccj.sagepub.com/ |
| Williamson | 2002 | Prostitution | Violence Against Women | http://vaw.sagepub.com/ |
| Jürgensen | 2004 | Terrorism | "Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society" | http://bst.sagepub.com/ |
| Jalata | 2005 | Terrorism | International Journal of Comparative Sociology | http://cos.sagepub.com/ |
| Galicki | 2005 | Terrorism | American Behavioralist Scientist | http://abs.sagepub.com/ |
As you read these articles, think about the following questions:
- What is the central argument of the article?
- What evidence is used to support this argument?
- To what previous literature is the work addressed?
- Were you persuaded by the author's argument? Why or why not?
- Would a criminal court judge benefit by reading this article? Why or why not?
- Would a state legislator involved in voting on criminal law statutes and proposing legislation benefit by reading this article? Why or why not?
- Does the article add to our understanding of issues of race and/or gender? Explain.
- What does the article add to our understanding of criminal law, criminal defenses, and/or criminal punishment?
- What did you learn from this article?
In addition to answering these questions, complete the following:
Write a summary of the article of at least four sentences. What questions occur that you might want to ask the author? Do you agree or disagree with the author's conclusions?
Chapter 1: The Nature, Purpose, and Function of Criminal Law
Anti-gang Legislation and its Potential Impact: The Promises and the Pitfalls
Beth Bjerregaard
The purpose of the article is to examine the approach taken by state legislatures to make participating in gang activities a substantive crime…Notes on Punishment and Terrorism
R. Antony Duff
This article focuses on the question of whether we should see terrorists as criminals, who are both bound and protected, as all citizens are, by the criminal law, or as enemy combatants…Emotions and Criminal Justice
Susanne Karstedt
This article seeks to address two facets of the 'return of emotions' to criminal justice…Who has the Body? The Paths to Habeas Corpus Reform
Cary Ferderman
The purpose of this article is to place the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996 within a political and historical framework…
Chapter 2: Constitutional Limitations
‘Hate Speech' and ‘First Amendment Absolutism' Discourses in the U.S.
John D Downing
This article argues that the First Amendment to the US Constitution has suffered from an ideological refusal to acknowledge its dangerous implications for the growth of hate speech…Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics
James B Jacobs
The new hate crime laws, typically sentence enhancements for some (but not all) criminal offences when a bias motive can be proven, are not necessary for criminal justice purposes. These new hate crime laws, while well motivated, may impose serious negative consequences…Understanding Speech Rights: Defensive and Empowering Approaches to the First Amendment
Laura Stein
This article draws on liberal democratic theory to provide a philosophical foundation for understanding the relationship between speech rights and democracy…
Chapter 3: Punishment and Sentencing
The Legal Issues Surrounding the TAAS Case
Leticia M Saucedo
This article provides an overview of the legal claims made by plaintiffs challenging the State's required passage of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) exit-level test for graduation…Consequences of Truth in Sentencing: The Mississippi Case
Peter Wood and R. Gregory Dunaway
This article examines both the direct effect of Truth in Sentencing (TIS) on correctional populations, as well as the unanticipated impact of TIS on patterns of judicial decision making and political and economic dynamics related to prison construction in rural counties…Life, Death, and the Crime of Crimes: Supreme Penalties and the ICC Statute
William Schabas
This article examines the evolution of international attitudes toward supreme penalties such as capital punishment and life imprisonment.The Impact of ‘Strikes' in Sentencing Decisions: Punishment for only some Habitual Offenders
Nancy Rodriguez
Link to article
In this study, criminal history record and prior strike offenses are used to measure sentence length of convicted felony offenders in Washington State…
Rethinking Bystander Non-intervention: Social Categorization and the Evidence of Witnesses at the James Bulger Murder Trial
Mark Levine
In this article, the testimony provided by 38 bystander s at the trial of two 10-year-old boys for the murder of 2-and-a-half-year-old James Bulger is analyzed…Social Class and Delinquency: An Empirical Utilization of Rational Choice Theory with Cross-Sectional Data of the 1990 and 2000 German General Population Surveys (ALLBUS)
Rolf Becker
This article examines social class and type of criminal offense. The researcher concludes that among other factors, the social status of the offender affects the type of crime that is committed…Rethinking the Bystander Role in School Violence Prevention
Ann Stueve et.al
This article examines the role of the bystander in preventing school violence…
Chapter 5: Mens Rea, Concurrence, Causation
Motive, Intention, and Morality in the Criminal Law
Whitley R.P. Kaufman
A remarkably persistent dispute in the criminal law concerns the relevance of a defendant's motive to his or her criminal liability…
Chapter 6: Parties to Crime and Vicarious Liability
Rock and Hard Places: The Politics of Hate Crimes
Eugene McLaughlin
This article examines the role of definitions, methods of data collection, and political initiatives towards crimes motivated by crime or prejudice…Confidentiality and the Duty to Report: A Case Study
Richard E Watts
In the course of counseling, marriage and family counselors may experience the dilemma of deciding between the necessity of keeping confidential what clients have shared versus the counselor's duty to report and protect individuals and society in general…Unions, Vicarious Liability, and Quasi-Criminal Conduct
Max Spry
Link to article
This article considers two recent intermediate appellate court decisions concerning the circumstances in which an employer union will be vicariously liable for the actions of its employed organizers in quasi-criminal proceedings…
Chapter 7: Attempt, Conspiracy, and Solicitation
The Black Hand: Terror by Letter in Chicago
Robert Lombardo
The alien conspiracy theory argues that organized crime in American society evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies…
Examining the Foreseeable: Assisted Suicide as a Herald of Changing Moralities
Joane Martel
This article argues that the Rodriguez assisted suicide may have been a useful 'crime' (in the Durkheimian sense) in that it brought to the fore the possibility that social conditions - which made the 'crime' possible - may no longer be in harmony with conventional morality…The Structural Determinants of Justifiable Homicide: Assessing the Theoretical and Political Considerations
John M MacDonald
Given the debate about the role of guns in cases of self-defense, it is clear that this category of homicide is important to study for theoretical and practical reasons…Examining the Impact of External Influences on Police Use of Deadly Force over Time
Michael D White
This article employs interrupted time-series analysis (ARIMA) to examine the impact of legislation and judicial intervention on use of deadly force by Philadelphia police officers…
Punishment, Poverty, and Responsibility: The Case for a Hardship Defense
Barbara Hudson
This article involves ideas of responsibility and the social; the empirical point is the balance of the formal and substantive justice concerns in sentencing…Justifying the Deadly Force Response
Thomas A Hontz
This article provides an overview of research conducted between May and July 1996. The research was designed to determine how fast an officer can react with an accurate shot after a visual cue…Justice and the Deconstruction of Psychological Jurisprudence: The Case of Competency to Stand Trial
Bruce A Arrigo
Critical psychological jurisprudence draws attention to the forces of ideology, power and violence embedded in the narratives of law and psychiatry, criminal justice and mental health…Defining Juvenile Justice in the 21 st Century
Alida V Merlo and Peter J. Benekos
This article reviews juvenile justice policy and examines initiatives that demonstrate positive directions for the future of the juvenile justice system…Law, Psychology, and Competency to Stand Trial: Problems with and Implications for High-Profile Cases
Bruce A. Arrigo and Mark C. Bardwell
In this article, the authors revisit the legal and psychological pitfalls attributable to the Competency to Stand Trial determination…
Chapter 10: Criminal Sexual Conduct, Assault and Battery, Kidnapping, and False Imprisonment
Rape Prevention with College Males: The Roles of Rape Myth Acceptance, Victim Empathy, and Outcome Expectancies
William O'Donohue, et.al
This study investigated the immediate impact of a video-based prevention program developed to decrease undergraduate men's potential to commit rape …War Rape: New Conceptualizations and Responses
Nancy Farwell
This article presents new conceptualizations of war rape in international law and defines rape as a weapon and strategy of war…Marital Rape: History, Research, and Practice
Jennifer A. Bennice and Patricia A. Resick
This article provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the marital rape literature…
When Prisoners Get Out: The Impact of Prison Release on Homicide Rates, 1975-1999
Tomislav Kovandzic et.al
The issue here is whether release rates directly affect crime, independently of any impact they might have through their impact on prison populations…Perceived Fears: The Reporting Patterns of Juvenile Homicide in Chicago Newspapers
John G. Boulahanis and Martha J. Heltsley
This article takes a social constructionist approach in examining the reporting patterns of juvenile homicide in two major daily newspapers: Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, from 1992 to 2000…Deadly Violence in the Heartland: Comparing Homicide Patterns in Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan Counties
Ralph A. Weisheit and L. Edward Wells
Link to article
In the study of homicide , one common research finding is the strong association between urbanization and homicide rates…
Chapter 12: Burglary, Trespass, Arson, and Mischief
Invasion of the ‘Body Snatcher': Burglary Reconsidered
Tony Kearon and Rebecca Leach
This article takes a novel approach within this debate contending that the conceptualization of victimization remains underdeveloped with respect to the experience of crime for victims…Criminal Psychological Profiling of Serial Arson Crimes
Richard N. Kocsis and Ray W. Cooksey
This study seeks to develop an empirical model of serial arsonist behaviors that can be systematically associated with probable offender characteristics…The Conditioning Effects of Neighborhood Ecology on Burglary Victimization
George E. Capowich
Using neighborhood-level data from eight Chicago neighborhoods, this study tested a theoretically derived hypothesis that burglary victimization would vary across neighborhoods with different social orders…
Chapter 13: Crimes Against Property
Inequality and Violent Crime: Evidence from Data on Robbery and Violent Theft
Eric Neumayer
This article argues that the link between income inequality and violent property crime might be spurious, complementing a similar argument in prior analysis by the author on the determinants of homicide…Acquaintance Robbery
Richard B. Felson et.al
The authors find that people who are Black, poor, young, and single are particularly vulnerable to acquaintance robbery …New Privacy Concerns for Employee Benefit Plans: Combating Identity Theft
Susan Bernstein
Link to article
In response to the proliferation of identity theft cases and the severity of the cost of the crimes, several bills have been introduced in Congress that would set new boundaries for the use of Social Security numbers….
Chapter 14: White-Collar Crime
White-Collar Crime and Criminal Careers
Nicole Leeper Piquero and Michael L. Benson
This article reviews the current state of developmental theories as they apply to life course offending patterns, summarizes what is known about the intersection of white - collar crime and criminal careers, and suggests ways in which the current theoretical understandings of crime over the life course can be modified to account for white - collar crime patterns…Controlling Transnational Corporations: The Role of Governmental Entities and Grassroots Organizations in Combating White - Collar Crime
Jurg Gerber and Eric L. Jensen
Controlling transnational corporations is problematic because of the absence of powerful international regulations and inconsistent national legislation. Corporations that conduct business in several countries can therefore often engage in corporate behaviors that are illegal in one country but not in others…Occupational Crime, Occupational Deviance, and Workplace Crime: Sorting out the Difference
David O. Friedrichs
In the interest of greater conceptual clarity within the field of white collar crime the argument is made here for restricting the term 'occupational crime ' to illegal and unethical activities committed for individual financial gain - or to avoid financial loss - in the context of a legitimate occupation. The term 'occupational deviance' is better reserved for deviation from occupational norms (e.g. drinking on the job; sexual harassment), and the term 'workplace crime ' is better reserved for conventional forms of crime committed in the workplace (e.g. rape; assault…
Chapter 15: Crimes Against Public Order and Morality
From Animal Cruelty to Serial Murder: Applying the Graduation Hypothesis
Jeremy Wright and Christopher Hensley
Based on five case studies of serial murder ers, the authors contribute to the existing literature by exploring the possible link between childhood cruelty toward animals and serial murder with the application of the graduation hypothesis…The Global Impact of Gangs
John M. Hagedorn
The American study of gangs can no longer start and stop with local conditions but today must also be rooted in a global context. Studying gangs is important because of unprecedented world urbanization, the retreat of the state under the pressure of neoliberal policies, the strengthening of cultural resistance identities…Pimp-Controlled Prostitution: Still an Integral Part of Street Life
Celia Williamson and Terry Cluse-Tolar
Link to article
This work reports on a qualitative study designed to understand pimp-related violence to women involved in pimp-controlled prostitution . In addition, this work contributes to the understanding of the relationships between pimps and prostitutes, the roles that each play, and the social rules of the business…
Chapter 16: Crimes Against the State
Terrorism , Civil Liberties, and Preventive Approaches to Technology: The Difficult Choices Western Societies Face in the War on Terrorism
Arnd Jürgensen
This article explores public policy alternatives to the current war on terrorism …State Terrorism and Globalization
Asafa Jalata
This article compares the essence and effects of Ethiopian and Sudanese state terrorism by focusing on the commonalities between the two states…International Law and Terrorism
Zdzislaw Galicki
Link to article
What important developments have occurred in multilateral international treaties between the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism of 1937 and the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism of 2002? This article answers this question as well as whether these laws have been an effective legal response in combating terrorism …
