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Journal Article #1: Albanese, J. (2017). Crime control measures, individual liberties, and crime rates: An assessment of 40 countries. International Criminal Justice Review, 27(1), 5-18. doi:10.1177/1057567716680401

Abstract: The balance between crime control methods and individual liberties is always problematic, creating tension, because in order to investigate crime, and adjudicate and punish offenders, it is necessary to make reasonable intrusions into the liberty of citizens. This study uses data from 40 countries to examine the crime control measures (police per capita and conviction rates) that reflect government investments in criminal justice apparatus to control crime and criminals, as well as the use of these crime control measures through government intervention in the lives of its citizens (formal citizen contacts with police, prosecution rate, and detention rate), to examine their impact on crime victimization rates (homicide rates and crimes included in the international crime victim survey). The purpose is to examine whether these government interventions have any impact on crime rates across countries, controlling other independent variables that might help to explain any observed relationships among these variables (such as measures of civil liberties, democracy, human development, available information and communications technologies, political rights, corruption perceptions, education, economic freedom, freedom of the press, and prosperity).

Journal Article #2: Vaske, J. C., Gehring, K. S., & Lovins, B. (2017). Gender differences in the measurement of criminal thinking. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 44(3), 395-415. doi:10.1177/0093854816677311

Abstract: Despite the importance of criminal thinking to the etiology of crime, studies disagree on whether there are gender differences in criminal thinking and whether females exhibit criminal thinking to the same degree as males. Part of the differences across studies may be due to gender differences in the measurement of criminal thinking, yet this question has not been systematically examined. The current study assesses whether the measurement of criminal thinking (via measurement invariance tests of the Criminogenic Cognition Scales and the Criminal Sentiments Scale–Modified) varies between male and female probationers. The results highlight both similarities and differences in the measurement of criminal thinking, with 26% of items significantly varying between genders. Once measurement differences and similarities were taken into account, male and female probationers were just as likely to exhibit antisocial attitudes. The implications highlight the notion that researchers cannot assume that criminal thinking assessments are gender-neutral.