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 1/2021
Issue 1/2021
Content
Full papers
San Quentin Blues. Autoritäre Einstellungen von „Kriminellen“ in The Authoritarian Personality (German)
San Quentin Blues. Authoritarian Attitudes of “Criminals” in The Authoritarian Personality
Andreas Kranebitter
This article reconstructs one historical attempt of research in this regard, Theodor W. Adorno’s, Else Frenkel-Brunswik’s, Daniel J. Levinson’s and R. Nevitt Sanford’s study The Authoritarian Personality. Questionnaire and in-depth interviews with prisoners at California’s San Quentin prison supposedly showed that “criminals” were particularly authoritarian and thus the “recruiting ground for a fascist movement”. By reconstructing their methodological approach, serious shortcomings are exposed, which were partly addressed by William R. Morrow, the junior scientist responsible for this research: the prisoners’ responses were partly due to their consent to the psychiatric authority in an authoritarian situation and the conditions of a hierarchical prisoner society. The article explores how both life and interview situation of the San Quentin prisoners influenced their responses in the study.
Legitimation und Vertrauen. Prozesse und Mechanismen der Sozialisation in brauchbare Illegalität (German)
Legitimacy and Trust
Mark Schäfers
Supervisors in youth travel agencies are widely obliged to overlook smoking participants, despite of a strict legal prohibition. This is understood as a case of useful illegality and by analysing it, the way of introducing newcomers to such a prevailing practice is being brought out. Besides anyhow latent processes of socialisation, prospective supervisors are trained to understand the practice as legitimised. This understanding of the practice as justified and in the sense of the organisation correct behaviour leads to a general acceptance of the expectation so that a wide conformity of members in youth travel agencies with the behaviour is ensured without questioning its legality.
Der Kommunale Außendienst. Die Verfolgung öffentlich sichtbarer Armut am Beispiel der Münchner Kommunalpolizei (German)
The Munich Communal Police. On the Persecution of Publicly Visible Poverty
Roman Thurn
Munich Central Station is considered to be an area of high crime intensity. The city of Munich has therefore issued special regulations to prohibit certain forms of begging and the consumption of alcohol, thereby practically eliminating publicly visible poverty from the cityscape. The city also set up a municipal police authority that patrols around the central station. Their operational praxis will be further examined in this article. Their introduction is intended to strengthen the citizens‘ sense of security through presence policing and also to ensure the enforcement of the regulations. It can be shown that although the authority tends to deal fairly with its clientele in the sense of the theory of procedural justice, it faces both practical and legitimacy problems due to its field of duty, which cannot be solved by closeness to the citizens alone.
“Now Is Not The Time For Parties!” The Construction Of Public Health, Problematic Youth And Moral Panic (English)
Hares Sarwary & Jan Opper
To be intelligible, public health emergencies (PHEs) rely on narratives that are mediated within discourses. Responses to PHEs also draw on such narratives. During the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis in Germany, one powerful narrative that guided response measures revolved around young people engaging in what were labeled “Corona Parties”. Based on a qualitative content analysis of German newspaper reports from March 2020, our findings strongly suggest that the Corona Parties narrative amounted to a moral panic. This drew on established narratives about problematic youth and ultimately contributed to the implementation of a contact ban and further restrictions in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Conference Report
Quo vadis Qualitative Kriminologie? Report in the Online-Conferenz at the Kriminologischen Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e. V. (KFN), November 4th-5th 2020. (Jukschat/Leimbach/Neubert)