Volume 99, Issue 3

The article analyses influencing factors of three forms of political extremism. Influencing factors were deduced from disintegration, social bond and self-control theory. The empirical analysis is based on a large sample of adolescents of the ninth grade who were surveyed in 2013 in Lower Saxony, Germany. The results show that only a small proportion of adolescents agrees with extremist attitudes or perform extremist behaviour. Some factors influence all three forms of political extremism: institutional disintegration (operationalised by a negative perception of treatment by the police), belief (law-abiding attitudes) and risk-seeking (as one dimension of low self-control). Regarding Islamic extremism, which due to the data basis is operationalised as hostility towards Germans, several specific influencing factors are identified (structural disintegration, club membership, and experiences in school).

In criminology very little is known about crime in developing countries. Rural areas in particular are neglected. Departing from the study of Clinard & Abbott from 1973, the article reviews the state of the art and raises open questions. Inter alia, the unreliability of official statistics, data of the International Crime Victims Survey, and the relationship between crime and development are thoroughly discussed. Moreover, perspectives of future research are outlined.

This paper focuses on recidivism rates of female prisoners after release and correlates and causes of recidivism. We therefore conducted a study among all female prisoners incarcerated in 2004 in Lower Saxony, Germany (N = 294). Data were gathered from documentation about each prisoner by staff at the beginning and at the end of imprisonment. Using this data we got a more comprehensive description of the female prison population, their life conditions in prison and also their change. We combined these data with information from the prisoners’ criminal records in order to get information on (celerity of) recidivism in general and correlates of recidivism in particular.

With regard to research work in the field of sexual offences, the validity of police crime statistics is restricted as the dimensions of unreported crime are suspected to be enormous. Therefore, we conducted empirical research with students at Erfurt University of Applied Sciences using an online survey in order to investigate quantities and manifestations of sexual victimisation as well as motivations for and against reporting offences like sexual assault and rape. As none of the victims made a complaint, all criminally relevant sexual offences (8.7 %, n = 46) can be assigned as unreported cases. Although affected persons described diverse and individual reasons against reporting a crime, three main motivations could be identified by using factor analysis. These were: fear of secondary victimisation, apprehensions regarding the criminal proceeding and emotional distress as well as a lack of confidence in the judicial system. Because of these concerns, victims of sexual assault and rape do not support the idea that professional consultants are obliged to report crimes. Furthermore, we observed a correlation that sexually victimised persons are more afraid of both general and specific crime. This particularly applies to the cognitive component of specific fear of crime.