A Perspective on Crime - Exploring contemporary research in criminology.

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 Madella called "I was so Afraid All You Wanted from Me Was Sex’: A Corpus Assisted Study in the Pragmatics of Manipulation in Online Child Sexual Groomers" we see how online perpetrators flip this script entirely. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41701-025-00218-0How victims are manipulated to believe they are the ones with all the power and that what is abuse, is in fact a relationship of equals.To contact A Perspective on Crime, follow the link belowhttps://linktr.ee/APerspectiveOnCrime

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 even tell an accurate story?The research we are looking at in this episode is called Lives on the Line of Duty: Preventing Suicide Among Police Officers and Staff by Marina Hasan and Lewis Leeming from Leeds Trinity University. It was published in International Journal of Criminology and Policing Education.DOI: https://doi.org/10.70386/ijcpe.v1i1.27To contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW

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 is authored by Elisabeth Carter, Jack Mark Whittaker, and Tim Day, and published in the journal Crime Media Culture. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17416590251393960To contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW

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 Rowlands, Christine A. Weirich, Ben Bradford and Adam Crawford published in The British Journal of Criminology in 2025.https://academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azaf118/8407384To contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW

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 Without Smoke: Understanding Spontaneous Career Ending Police Misconduct." It was authored by Timothy I. C. Cubitt, Morven Brown, and Matthew Bland, and published in the journal Police Quarterly. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10986111251414963To contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW

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 governance in a large European city: The case of gangs in London." It’s written by Paolo Campana, Federico Varese, and Cecilia Meneghini, and published in the European Journal of Criminology. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14773708251315581To contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW

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://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/1667911388/DuncanLord_2025_Football_ownership_report.pdfTo contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW

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 find it published in the journal Crime and Justice. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/735665?journalCode=cjTo contact A Perspective on Crime follow the link belowhttps://tr.ee/Ymb5yiqRUW