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Crime against elderly people is a matter of grave concern in contemporary India. Today, they are being attacked with grievous harm, murder, and abusive behaviour by known and unknown persons. These cases have certainly had a negative impact on their way of life and sense of well-being. Consequently, fear of crime is being recognised as an emerging social problem among the elderly population in India. The purpose of this paper is to examine different types of crime that are being committed against the elderly, leading to a fear of crime. And, to identify the victim offender relationship.

A mixed method approach has been applied in this paper. This study has been designed as an exploratory lead-in to a planned wider study. It examines the factors shaping the victimisation experience of the elderly. The study has been conducted from October 2012 to January 2013 on a sample of 220 elderly people living in both rural and urban areas of Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India.

The findings suggest that emotional crime is a major problem among the elderly and more prevalent than crime against the body and property. The study has also found that elderly people have a fear of crime in their own houses due to victimisation.

This is an original paper, which is based on the experiences of elderly people living in Indian society and discussed the impact of prior victimisation.

This study seeks to identify personal characteristics that help to explain variation in consumer confidence in legal authorities' ability to effectively deal with fraud victimization in the State of Florida.

The study uses cross‐sectional survey data from 918 adults who participated in a telephone interview in 2004 and 2005. Univariate statistics are used to describe the distribution of the dependent variable (i.e. consumer confidence in legal authorities). Hypotheses are tested using bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques.

Results show that less than one‐half of respondents (48.2 percent) report that they have either “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in the ability of legal authorities to respond to consumer fraud victimization. Bivariate correlations show that younger respondents, those with more formal education, recent fraud victims, and individuals inclined to take risks with their financial assets report lower levels of confidence. These findings persist in a multivariate context.

Because these data were collected from survey respondents living in a single state, one should exercise caution when generalizing these findings to other settings.

The findings can be used to target public awareness efforts and educational campaigns to consumer groups with low levels of confidence in legal authorities. Doing so may not only help bolster confidence, but also potentially increase rates of fraud victimization reporting.

This study extends the literature on confidence in legal authorities to the previously unexplored crime‐related context of consumer fraud victimization.

The purpose of this study was to explore human factors as the possible facilitator of cyber-dependent (hacking and malware infection) and cyber-enabled (phishing) crimes victimisation and to test the applicability of lifestyle routine activities theory (LRAT) to cybercrime victimisation.

A mixed methods research paradigm was applied to address the research questions and aims. The data set of Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) 2014/2015 and 42 semi-structured interviews conducted with victims of cybercrime and non-victim control group participants were analysed via binary logistic regression and content analyses methods.

This research illustrated that Internet users facilitated their victimisation through their online activities. Additionally, using insecure Internet connections and public access computers emerged as risk factors for both cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crime victimisation. Voluntary and involuntary personal information disclosure through social networking sites and online advertisement websites increased the likelihood of being a target of phishing. Deviant online activities such as free streaming or peer-to-peer sharing emerged to increase the risk of cyber-dependent crime victimisation.

The binary logistic regression analysis results suggested LRAT as a more suitable theoretical framework for cyber-dependent crime victimisation. Future research may test this result with models including more macro variables.

Policymakers may consider implementing regulations regarding limiting the type of information required to login to free Wi-Fi connections. Checking trust signs and green padlocks may be effective safeguarding measures to lessen the adverse impacts of impulsive buying.

This study empirically illustrated that, besides individual-level factors, macro-level factors such as electronic devices being utilised to access the Internet and data breaches of large companies also increased the likelihood of becoming the victim of cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crime.

The commercialized sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), specifically child trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and enticement, has become a burgeoning topic over the past several decades. The purpose of this paper is to determine the characteristics of those victims who were at risk for sex trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and traveling/enticement.

This observational, survey design includes a records review of 18 victims who were identified by the FBI Miami Field Office. Case illustrations are provided for a more in-depth analysis of CSEC victims.

The results of this paper indicated that hands-on sexual abuse and child prostitution were the most common CSEC offenses that victims experienced. Additionally, Caucasian females, between 13 and 18 years of age, were often victimized. Victims more frequently experienced web forms of sexual abuse and engaged in risky sexual behaviors outside of the victimization. Further, the majority of victims in the sample came from a low socioeconomic background and lived in a single-parent home.

The current results, combined with prior research, may aid law enforcement, mental health, and medical professionals in understanding potential characteristics correlated with various forms of CSEC offenses.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first descriptive studies involving case illustrations of CSEC victims.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the research on citizen participation in police work by attempting to disentangle the difference between volunteers and general citizens.

Independent variables including the demographic characteristics, victimization experiences, fear of crime, neighborhood disorders, and satisfaction with the police services were used to explain the volunteers’ attitudes toward the police. A random sample of general citizens was used as a comparison group. Using two data sets derived from a survey of 324 citizen volunteers in community policing programs and a random telephone survey of 1,197 general citizens in Houston, TX, two structural equation modeling models for general citizen sample and citizen volunteer sample were tested.

The results revealed that satisfaction with the police services was the only factor having a direct impact on attitudes toward the police in volunteer group. In addition, volunteers’ attitudes toward the police and satisfaction with the police services were higher than general citizens even though their victimization experiences, fear of crime, perceived neighborhood disorders were higher than general citizens.

The authors argue that there is a strong diffused support, first raised by David Easton (1965), among the volunteers. This exploratory study would be a reference for future studies.

The focus of this study is to examine Indian police officers' punitiveness toward violators of criminal sanctions attached to COVID-19 mitigation laws enacted by the Indian Penal Code. The authors draw from the conceptual frameworks and correlates typically employed in traditional crime and justice research and adapt them to the context of the pandemic. Additionally, the authors examine whether officers' punitive attitudes are related to their belief in self-legitimacy and their job assignment (civilian vs. armed personnel) in a country with inherited colonial policing legacies.

Data for the study came from 1,323 police officers in a northern state of India.

Findings suggest that officers with vicarious fear of COVID-19 infections (e.g. infection of family members) find the sanctions associated with the new laws harsh. Additionally, officers who subscribe to the classical attributions of offenders feel that the laws are not punitive enough. In contrast, those with deterministic views perceive the sanctions as excessively harsh. Findings also suggest that officers' self-legitimacy, and belief in the authority and responsibility vested in them, is a key predictor of their punitive attitudes. Finally, officers assigned to police lines are more punitive than those designated to patrol/traffic work.

Data or prior research on officers' punitive attitudes toward other violations (non-COVID-19 violations) is unavailable for comparison with this study’s findings.

No prior research has examined the relationship between police officers' perceptions of self-legitimacy, their belief in the authority vested in them by the state, their belief in their role as police officers and their relationship to their punitive attitudes.

The determinants of the fear of crime have been extensively investigated over the past three decades, yet few studies are comparative, include data from developing countries or use attitudes toward the police as explanatory variables. Understanding how perceptions of police performance influence fear of crime is essential to developing strategies which will reduce citizens’ isolation and reluctance to exert informal social control in their communities. Such lack of engagement creates opportunities for increased crime and disorder and heightens fear of crime. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study examines the mediating effect of perceived confidence in the police on citizens’ fear of crime in seven developing Caribbean region countries using structural equation modeling. The data were collected in a 2011 United Nations survey from representative samples in each nation.

The results indicate that confidence in the police plays a significant and partial mediating role in explaining fear of crime and that community- and individual-level characteristics influence the level of confidence and independently affect fear of crime as well.

This is one of the few studies that employs comparative victimization data in the Caribbean to examine the role that confidence in the police has on fear of crime. The findings of this study will contribute to fill the gap in the understanding of the drivers of fear of crime in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between global and specific attitudes of unfair police treatment towards Mexican Americans and how attitudes towards the police vary with socio‐demographic characteristics, victim status, linguistic barriers, group consciousness and socially disorganized contexts.

Data from the 2006 National Latino Survey, which is a representative random sample of 1,815 self‐identified persons of Mexican‐origin born in the USA were used to investigate three research questions: What is the prevalence in which Mexican‐Americans claim to be treated unfairly by the police?; What is the prevalence in which Mexican‐Americans perceive unfair treatment toward their ethnic group?; and Do cultural factors and/or heightened group consciousness and identity contribute to Mexican‐Americans perceptions of either specific or more generalized unfair police treatment? A structural equation model was developed to explore the relationship between global and specific measures of unfair police treatment and variables measuring socio‐demographic and linguistic characteristics, as well as socially disorganized contexts, group consciousness and identity.

Mexican‐Americans residing in socially disorganized contexts are significantly more likely to have positive global assessments of the police. The relationship between both social disorganization and specific and global attitudes was statistically significant. Individuals who have a strong sense of linked fate, possess a shared sense of common purpose and interest, and identify strongly with their ethnic group are significantly more likely to perceive that the police treat their group unfairly.

The current investigation is limited by the nature of the data, which is based wholly on self‐report. In addition, while the frequency and nature of police contact plays a role in influencing negative perceptions of police encounters, it was not possible to assess those influences here. Finally, the current analysis is limited by the cross‐sectional nature of the data and no inferences regarding causality can be made.

This study has implications for the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and will help criminal justice actors understand the broader implications of police‐citizen interactions.

The paper shows how social interactions are affected by group membership.

No study to date explores the relationship between group‐based identity, group consciousness and perceptions of unfair treatment by the police. These studies are usually limited to the political science literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex constellation of underlying factors between community policing and fear of crime by embracing various exogenous variables identified through accumulated empirical research. Another important purpose of the current study is to examine the association between community policing and fear of crime in the Korean context.

The data originated from a survey administrated by the Korean Institution of Criminology in the area of Seoul, South Korea, in an attempt to examine citizens’ fear of crime, perceptions of public safety and environment. Using a stratified sampling method, a total of 654 respondents were selected. Structural equation modeling was used to examine direct and indirect relationships among exogenous and endogenous variables and to test the authors’ hypothesized structural model of the citizen's fear of crime.

The current study found that the four proposed models between community policing and fear of crime were not supported in the Korean context. Neither direct nor indirect relationships between community policing and fear of crime were statistically significant. On the other hand, community policing was found to be significantly and indirectly associated with perceived risk of crime; those who more perceived community policing activities felt a greater risk of crime. A logical explanation for these findings requires understanding of the characteristics of community policing practice and the unique crime environment in South Korea.

This study shows unique characteristics in the community policing‐fear of crime nexus in Korean society in relation to the implementation of community policing, the level of fear of crime and perception of community‐based crime control.

Purpose – This chapter examines the relationship between intersections of race and gender for vulnerability for human trafficking and criminalization of exploitation in the United States that is rooted in the broader socio-historical contexts dating to colonization and chattel enslavement.

Methodology/approach – This chapter utilizes intersectional criminology and historical intersectional criminology as epistemological frameworks to contextualize the construction of race and gender that began with colonization of indigenous populations to chattel enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Overall, this chapter’s approach is a call for contextualization within the study of human trafficking and an intersectional approach to understanding the structures that enable trafficking and the ramifications it has for victims.

Findings – Through an application of intersectional criminology, the findings herein demonstrate how racial ideologies and legacies within the United States contributed to the vulnerabilities of race and gender for sex trafficking predation as well as criminalization for Black and Native American girls and women. The gendered analysis of men and women who chose to become sex traffickers reveal different gendered pathways into trafficking offending and addresses the significance of these pathways for trafficking victims and potential future traffickers. These analyses demonstrate that intersectional criminology problematizes current research on human trafficking and future directions research should incorporate.

Originality/value – Current criminological research has a scarcity of intersectional criminological applications and fewer that offer a critical analysis of structural inequalities, histories of colonization and chattel enslavement, and interrogation of identities in both vulnerabilities for trafficking victims, how they may interact with agents from the criminal justice system, and the impacts of intersecting identities for traffickers and their offending. If criminology scholars aim to use their research in anti-trafficking efforts and policy recommendations, these analyses are vital both for addressing victimization and offending pathways for exploitation victims and their exploiters.