Issue 2/2021

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 2/2021

Content

Full papers

Verbotener function creep. Biogeographische Herkunftsinformation im Spannungsfeld forensischer DNA-Analysen, polizeilicher Ermittlung und rechtlicher Vorgaben (German)

Forbidden function creep.

Nils Ellebrecht & Dominik Weber

The forensic analysis of the biogeographical ancestry of an unknown suspect is not permitted in Germany on the basis of DNA traces. However, it has been already carried out. This function creep is only partly covered by special legal regulations and grey areas. The article shows that the suspect‘s genetic ancestry has its point of departure in DNA profile matching. Then, ancestry analysis grows into an independent technique, the prohibited use of which is promoted by three developments. (1) In forensic laboratories, ancestry information becomes partly unintentionally visible in the course of DNA analyses. (2) The popularisation and automation of ancestry analyses have massively facilitated them. (3) Control deficits lead to analyses being formally permitted and carried out although there is no legal basis. Therefore, function creeps do not only depend on technical but also on institutional feasibilities.

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Carceral Feminism in Deutschland? Debatten um Vergewaltigungsrecht und sexuelle Gewalt in Partyräumen (German)

Carceral Feminism in Germany? Debates over rape law and sexual violence in party areas

Jenny Künkel

To combat sexual violence, women’s movements, among other strategies, call for punitive solutions and a strong state. Especially US-based scholars have criticized this as “carceral feminism”. To analyze how far such logics have spread in Germany, the paper explores the left margins of particularly emotional sexual violence debates. Case studies are the rape law reform after New Year’s Eve 2015 and a moral panic among the leftist scene regarding secret pornography at a festival in 2020. The analysis shows that punitive logics are common in the German debate, including in leftist activist circles. Here, interests of the white middle-class merge in group specific ways with individualistic sexual politics that are legitimized by gender discourses. The paper calls for intersectional perspectives that include the material conditions of sexual violence.

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Forschung zu Polizeigewalt in Deutschland: Potenziale entfalten mithilfe der US-amerikanischen use of force Forschung (German)

Research on police force in Germany: Deploying potential using US-American use of force research

Hanna Meyer

The article asks the question how research in Germany on police use of excessive force can be carried out in the future as a basis for the development of evidencebased control mechanisms. Based on the analysis of 46 studies from Germany and 29 studies from the United States, the article gives an overview of challenges and deficiencies as well as potentials of German research and points out the compatibility with the US-American use of force research. Especially an integrative approach provides advantages for research and objective discourse on police violence in Germany on the one hand, but also carries a risk on the other hand.

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Book reviews

Ulrich Eisenberg & Ralf Kölbel: Kriminologie. 7. Auflage. (Harrendorf)

Alex S. Vitale: The End of Policing (Sack)

Bernard E. Harcourt: Gegenrevolution.Der Kampf der Regierungen gegen die eigenen Bürger und Daniel Loick (Hg.): Kritik der Polizei (Scheerer)

Dörte Negnal (Hg.): Die Problematisierung sozialer Gruppen in Staat und Gesellschaft (Legnaro)

Lucia Sommerer: Personenbezogenes Predictive Policing. Kriminalwissenschaftliche Untersuchung über die Automatisierung der Kriminalprognose (Schneider)

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News

Open-Access publications

Open Access publications

From issue 1/2022 onwards all English-language papers published in the Kriminologisches Journals will be made available as open access papers. The papers can be downloaded from the publisher's homepage or via content-select. Additionally the download links can be found if you click on the respective issues.

German papers can also be published via open access within the framework of the usual conditions of our publisher Beltz Juventa.

Changes on the Editorial Board

New editors-in-chief of the Kriminologisches Journal

As of Issue 2/2021the position of editor-in-chief passed over from Meropi Tzanetakis to Christine Graebsch and Jens Puschke.

Drugs and Digital Technologies

Call for Abstracts for a special issue of the KrimJ

Illicit drug markets are undergoing a significant transformation: digital technologies have a profound influence on how illicit drugs are accessed, and they have also changed information- sharing about drugs. In addition, the proliferation of information and communication technologies has changed law enforcement activity. Digitalisation also comes with rapid changes in communicative environments across time and geographic location. While online forums and other internet resources have massively increased the amount of available information and discourse on psychoactive substances for more than two decades, mobile phones, encrypted platforms, cryptocurrencies, social media and messaging applications have recently diversified the ways in which illicit drugs are distributed. This diversity includes hybrid forms of distribution, e.g. using social media applications to make physical appointments.

New Editorial Board

New Editors of the Kriminologisches Journal

As of January 1st 2021 the Editorial Board of the Kriminologisches Journal consists of Prof. Dr. Jens Puschke LL.M, Dr. Meropi Tzanetakis, Dr. Simon Egbert, Prof. Dr. Christine Graebsch, Prof. Dr. Dörte Negnal und Dr. Bernd Werse.