A Perspective on Crime - Exploring contemporary research in criminology.

Why are victims of rape and serious sexual assault highly unlikely to receive justice? It's clear that they are failed by the criminal justice system, but are the reasons we assume for that failing dictated by fact or fiction? The research we are looking at in this episode is called "Rape Trials: Bridging the Gap Between Myth and Reality" by Dr. Candida Saunders. It was published in Criminal Law R...

However disturbing the thought online grooming of children and young people is, we reconcile ourselves that we know at least how these predators behave. They’ll manner their interactions down to a victim’s level. They’ll use age-appropriate language to seem accessible. They’ll draw upon the power dynamic of age. Right? Through a new piece of research by Beata Pienczykowski & Pauline ...

The subject of mental health and suicide is belatedly moving from the shadows into the public conversation. Within policing - a service which by definition is exposes those within it to the extremes of human experience - do the provisions exist to provide adequate support to officers and staff? Do Forces even have aware of the unique risks it's employees are exposed? Do the official statistics eve...

What's the difference between a scam and a fraud? Do you have the same reaction when told someone has been scammed as you would if you'd been told they'd been the victim of fraud? That's the question we look at in this week's episode as we look at a paper entitled "More than splitting hairs: Exploring trivialisation and harmful narrative distortion in the synonymous use of ‘scam’ and ‘fraud’". It...

When faced with a potentially dangerous situation, at what point do the public think it's right to call the police? Do different demographics asses risk differently and what are the triggers that motivate dialling 999? The title of the work is "Should I Call the Police?’ Exploring Public Views on Whether to Invoke Police in Incidents Involving People with Vulnerabilities" . The authors are David R...

Our expectations of how the police behave are rightly high. Forces have those expectations too and use a variety of methods to identify officers who are at risk of behaviour incompatible with their role as upholders of the law. This week's episode looks at research which questions whether the current frameworks for monitoring officers misses a major cohort of miscreants. The paper is called "Fire...

Criminal gangs have been part of our society since well before we had a police force. In most cases, they limit their role in communities to simply providing illicit services. Some though go further and start to act as informal systems of governance. They play a role which in normal circumstances would be the preserve of the state. In this week's episode we look at a paper called , "Criminal gover...

At one time, brown envelopes were the method by which illicit money moved through football. With the game now global, has it's scale opened it up to significant risk of falling prey to far more malign forces. In this week's episode we look at recent report titled "Staying Onside – English Football, Illicit Finance, and the Incoming AML Regime" by Dr Peter Duncan and Professor Nicholas Lord. https:...

In todays episode we look a new piece of research which explores how young people convicted of murder process their actions, frame their own blameworthiness and interpret the context of their crimes. What impact do these three insights have a young person convicted of murder and how do they impact any hope of rehabilitation? It's a paper called The Moral Weight of Murder by Dr Susie Hulley and is...

The National Crime Agency estimate that £100 billion of criminal cash passes through the UK financial markets every year. There may be a vast network of global obligations in place to prevent money laundering, but is the system fit for purpose? The research discussed today is "How Well Does the Money Laundering Control System Work?" . It was authored by Mirko Nazzari and Peter Reuter , and you can...

In this week’s episode, I explore how the DNA of a perpetrator can be transferred by and to our four legged friends. The paper in this episode is called "Investigation of human DNA transfer during mock dog- napping: and was authored by Heidi Monkman, Roland A.H. van Oorschot, Volgin Luke and Mariya Goray. It was published in the journal Forensic Science International https://ww...

In this week’s episode, I explore one of criminology's central puzzles: How does an offender choose their target? A recent US study approached this challenge by working with 160 incarcerated burglars using Virtual Reality . Researchers immersed participants in a virtual neighborhood, using a "think-aloud protocol" to capture their real-time thought processes. The study in question is called How en...

How did the term "incel" transform from a supportive blog in 1997 into a platform for violent, misogynistic extremism? This week, we dive into the complex and troubling phenomenon of involuntary celibacy (incel) extremism and the real threat it poses to the UK by looking at new research by Jonathan Jackson , Katie Oxley, Daniel Sefton in The International Journal of Criminology and Policing Educat...

Prisons are meant to be an antidote to crime; a place where those who commit crimes are sent to break there cycle of offending. The assumption is that at least while behind bars, they can't be up to no-good. A new paper in by Kate Gooch, Matt Hopkins, and James Treadwell, published in the journal  Criminology & Criminal Justice challenges this idea. Titled Prisons as ecosystems of organis...

This episode investigates the nature and extent of victim and perpetrator misidentification, particularly concerning policing responses to coercive and controlling behaviour (CCB) in England and Wales.  It looks at an academic research paper called "Who is the victim? Exploring the complexities of misidentification"  by Charlotte Barlow and Sandra Walklate p...

In this episode, we explore the role of restorative justice in addressing historical clerical child sexual abuse at Blackrock College, a prominent school in Dublin, Ireland. The discussion is grounded in the academic research paper: Empowering Victims/Survivors or Restorative Washing? Institutional and Clerical Sexual Abuse of School Children and Restorative Justice by David O’Mahony and Michelle...

This analysis interrogates the key findings of research focusing on the profound and often contradictory experiences of young people serving community sentences in rural England. The discussion is grounded in the academic research paper Rurality and Crime: A Qualitative Study Exploring Young People’s Experiences in a Region of England Sarah Lavinia Joseph , Hannah Marshall , Joel Harvey, Caroline...

A Perspective on Crime is a podcast that explores contemporary research in Criminology. The show launches on 16th October 2025 and will run weekly... new episodes arriving every Thursday. To suggest a piece of research you've read or are about to publish, don't hesitate to drop me a line. peaktruecrime@protonmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.