Christopher Birkbeck
Biographic Data
| ID | 129359 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Birkbeck |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Birkbeck |
| SIGNATURE | BIRKBECK C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Salford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1690-9708 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Las Experiencias de los Adolescentes con el Delito ¿Afectan su Postura Moral ante la Delincuencia?
The objective of this study is to examine how experiences with crime, either as a victim or as an offender, influence adolescents’ moral stance toward crime. The data were drawn from the fourth edition of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD4), collected in 92 schools across six cities in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, with a total sample of 5,407 students aged 13 to 17. Structural equation modelling showed that previous exper…
Young People’s Experiences with Online and Offline Crime: First Findings from the ISRD4 Study on Victimization and Offending Across the World
‘So, your words weren’t twisted were they?’: Formulations in a restorative justice meeting
Formulations, one type of talk about talk, arise in restorative justice meetings just as they do in other discursive domains. They represent explicit references to things said previously and can perform several functions. Our study of formulations in a restorative meeting between probation staff and an offender identified five such functions: communicating active listening, promoting affiliative talk, changing the offender's way of thinking, prai…
Moral work in victim–offender meetings
Although many studies of restorative justice touch on its moral dimensions, they provide a rather fragmentary view of the moral work that takes place in meetings between victims and offenders. We treat moral work as a discursive phenomenon that emerges through the evaluative rendering of character and behaviour in extended sequences of talk. Using transcripts from four victim–offender meetings, we explore how participants work within the structur…
You and Your Laws and Us With Our Laws: A Murderer s Stories Navigate Conflicting Normative Domains
Employing Labov’s structural model of stories and Schönbach’s typology of accounts, we examine an interview with a murderer in Venezuela and compare two stories that were narrated within it: one about the murder and one about his family life. While most of the first story accounted for the murder by calling on values and norms that attach to the criminal subculture, it also evaluated the crime from the perspective of a conventional framework that…
Internationalizing the Study of Gang Membership: Validation Issues from Latin America
Developing valid measures of gang membership for self-report surveys is a challenging task in comparative cross-national research. In this article, we use the Venezuelan case to assess the validity of the Eurogang indicators of gang membership. Based on focus groups with adolescents and the results from two sweeps of the International Self-Report Survey of Juvenile Delinquency, we identify problems in the content and construct validities of the E…
Imprisonment and internment: Comparing penal institutions North and South
Recent references to the ‘warehouse prison’ in the United States and the prisión-depósito in Latin America seem to indicate that penal confinement in the Western Hemisphere has converged on a similar model. However, this article suggests otherwise. It contrasts penal facilities in North America and Latin America in terms of six interrelated aspects: regimentation; surveillance; isolation; supervision; accountability; and formalization. Quantitati…
Prisiones e internados: Una comparación de los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina
El empleo reciente de términos como "warehouse prison" en Estados Unidos y "campo de concentración" en América Latina parecería indicar que las condiciones de privación de la libertad son distintas en ambas regiones. El análisis presentado aquí explora esas diferencias. Se comparan los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina a través de seis dimensiones relacionadas entre sí: la organización interna de los espacios, la vigi…
Prisiones E Internados: Una comparación de los establecimientos penales em América del Norte y América Latina
El empleo reciente de términos como "warehouse prison" en Estados Unidos y "campo de concentración" en América Latina parecería indicar que las condiciones de privación de la libertad son distintas en ambas regiones. El análisis presentado aquí explora esas diferencias. Se comparan los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina através de seis dimensiones relacionadas entre sí: la organización interna de los espacios, la vigil…
Venezuela: The shifting organizational framework for the police
Recent political polarization in Venezuela has exacerbated longer term tensions over the organization and control of the police. Additionally, there is ongoing and widespread public dissatisfaction with the nature of policing. The patrimonial and authoritarian nature of much policing and the heterogeneity of training programs and resource provision pose considerable challenges to reform. Nevertheless, today’s police officers are right to wonder w…
The character of penal control in Latin America: Sentence remissions in a Venezuelan prison
While imprisonment is often referred to in Englis-speaking countries as ‘doing time’, in Venezuela this phrase is never used; people speak of ‘discharging the sentence’. This linguistic difference is a useful starting point for a reflection on cultural differences in the character of penal control. In this article, we examine the administration of sentence remissions in a Venezuelan prison during the six years following the enactment of the Sente…
Tres Enfoques Necesarios Para La Criminología
O discurso popular sobre o problema da inseguraça pessoal carrega três dimensões implícitas de análise. A primeira é uma postura moral, que se expressa nas qualificações de censura sobre o delito, os delinqüentes e as causas destes fenômenos. A segunda é a pretensão de afirmar algo sobre as características empíricas dos mesmos; e a terceira é o chamado para intervenir sobre eles ou a proposta de abordá-los, em termos programáticos, com uma técnic…
The effect of citizens' status and behavior on Venezuelan police officers' decisions to use force
Whereas most research on police use of force has not found citizens’ social status to be a significant explanatory variable, we explore the alternative viewpoint that citizens’ social status may affect police decisions to use force against them, even after controlling for the effects of their behavior during the encounter. We argue that Venezuelan citizens’ respectability and influence is related to their ability to register a successful complain…
Avoiding complaints: Venezuelan police officers’ situational criteria for the use of force against citizens∗
Situational justifications for the use of force by the police are constructed in several domains. One type of justification are the tactical rules that officers formulate in order to do their work. Our assumption is that these rules play an important role in guiding police behavior and in shaping officers’ retrospective accounts of how they behaved. The present study examines the content of tactical rules for the use of force among a group of Ven…
Against ethnocentrism: A cross-cultural perspective on criminal justice theories and policies
Culture is defined as the values, ideas, and behaviors that may be associated with one or more than one social or national group. The cross-cultural perspective developed in this paper involves the search for ideas from different cultures and their consideration in the context of our own culture. Examples from Latin American and Russian criminology are presented to illustrate the potential contribution of a cross-cultural perspective on criminal …
The Neglected Situation: A Crossnational Study of the Situational Characteristics of Crime
Although it is generally recognized in the social sciences that the “situation” is indispensable for understanding behavior, thus far criminologists have not devoted systematic attention to situational analysis. This paper contributes to the development of a situational perspective on crime by defining the concept of situation, developing four hypotheses about the situational characteristics of selected personal contact crimes, and then testing t…
Latin American Banditry as Peasant Resistance: A Dead-End Trail
Despite the length and detail of Gilbert Joseph's study of Latin American bandits, his argument is relatively simple: previous research has focused too narrowly on Hobsbawm's model of the "social bandit." That model has become constricting, and it is time to reexamine bandits within the larger themes of peasant resistance and peasant consciousness, drawing on recent work in other areas of the world, particularly Asia. In opposition to this argume…
Imprisonment and internment: Comparing penal institutions North and South
Recent references to the ‘warehouse prison’ in the United States and the prisión-depósito in Latin America seem to indicate that penal confinement in the Western Hemisphere has converged on a similar model. However, this article suggests otherwise. It contrasts penal facilities in North America and Latin America in terms of six interrelated aspects: regimentation; surveillance; isolation; supervision; accountability; and formalization. Quantitati…
The Neglected Situation: A Crossnational Study of the Situational Characteristics of Crime
Although it is generally recognized in the social sciences that the “situation” is indispensable for understanding behavior, thus far criminologists have not devoted systematic attention to situational analysis. This paper contributes to the development of a situational perspective on crime by defining the concept of situation, developing four hypotheses about the situational characteristics of selected personal contact crimes, and then testing t…
The effect of citizens' status and behavior on Venezuelan police officers' decisions to use force
Whereas most research on police use of force has not found citizens’ social status to be a significant explanatory variable, we explore the alternative viewpoint that citizens’ social status may affect police decisions to use force against them, even after controlling for the effects of their behavior during the encounter. We argue that Venezuelan citizens’ respectability and influence is related to their ability to register a successful complain…
Avoiding complaints: Venezuelan police officers’ situational criteria for the use of force against citizens∗
Situational justifications for the use of force by the police are constructed in several domains. One type of justification are the tactical rules that officers formulate in order to do their work. Our assumption is that these rules play an important role in guiding police behavior and in shaping officers’ retrospective accounts of how they behaved. The present study examines the content of tactical rules for the use of force among a group of Ven…
Latin American Banditry as Peasant Resistance: A Dead-End Trail
Despite the length and detail of Gilbert Joseph's study of Latin American bandits, his argument is relatively simple: previous research has focused too narrowly on Hobsbawm's model of the "social bandit." That model has become constricting, and it is time to reexamine bandits within the larger themes of peasant resistance and peasant consciousness, drawing on recent work in other areas of the world, particularly Asia. In opposition to this argume…
Internationalizing the Study of Gang Membership: Validation Issues from Latin America
Developing valid measures of gang membership for self-report surveys is a challenging task in comparative cross-national research. In this article, we use the Venezuelan case to assess the validity of the Eurogang indicators of gang membership. Based on focus groups with adolescents and the results from two sweeps of the International Self-Report Survey of Juvenile Delinquency, we identify problems in the content and construct validities of the E…
Prisiones e internados: Una comparación de los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina
El empleo reciente de términos como "warehouse prison" en Estados Unidos y "campo de concentración" en América Latina parecería indicar que las condiciones de privación de la libertad son distintas en ambas regiones. El análisis presentado aquí explora esas diferencias. Se comparan los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina a través de seis dimensiones relacionadas entre sí: la organización interna de los espacios, la vigi…
The character of penal control in Latin America: Sentence remissions in a Venezuelan prison
While imprisonment is often referred to in Englis-speaking countries as ‘doing time’, in Venezuela this phrase is never used; people speak of ‘discharging the sentence’. This linguistic difference is a useful starting point for a reflection on cultural differences in the character of penal control. In this article, we examine the administration of sentence remissions in a Venezuelan prison during the six years following the enactment of the Sente…
The Neglected Situation: A Crossnational Study of the Situational Characteristics of Crime
Although it is generally recognized in the social sciences that the “situation” is indispensable for understanding behavior, thus far criminologists have not devoted systematic attention to situational analysis. This paper contributes to the development of a situational perspective on crime by defining the concept of situation, developing four hypotheses about the situational characteristics of selected personal contact crimes, and then testing t…
Latin American Banditry as Peasant Resistance: A Dead-End Trail
Despite the length and detail of Gilbert Joseph's study of Latin American bandits, his argument is relatively simple: previous research has focused too narrowly on Hobsbawm's model of the "social bandit." That model has become constricting, and it is time to reexamine bandits within the larger themes of peasant resistance and peasant consciousness, drawing on recent work in other areas of the world, particularly Asia. In opposition to this argume…
Against ethnocentrism: A cross-cultural perspective on criminal justice theories and policies
Culture is defined as the values, ideas, and behaviors that may be associated with one or more than one social or national group. The cross-cultural perspective developed in this paper involves the search for ideas from different cultures and their consideration in the context of our own culture. Examples from Latin American and Russian criminology are presented to illustrate the potential contribution of a cross-cultural perspective on criminal …
Avoiding complaints: Venezuelan police officers’ situational criteria for the use of force against citizens∗
Situational justifications for the use of force by the police are constructed in several domains. One type of justification are the tactical rules that officers formulate in order to do their work. Our assumption is that these rules play an important role in guiding police behavior and in shaping officers’ retrospective accounts of how they behaved. The present study examines the content of tactical rules for the use of force among a group of Ven…
The effect of citizens' status and behavior on Venezuelan police officers' decisions to use force
Whereas most research on police use of force has not found citizens’ social status to be a significant explanatory variable, we explore the alternative viewpoint that citizens’ social status may affect police decisions to use force against them, even after controlling for the effects of their behavior during the encounter. We argue that Venezuelan citizens’ respectability and influence is related to their ability to register a successful complain…
The character of penal control in Latin America: Sentence remissions in a Venezuelan prison
While imprisonment is often referred to in Englis-speaking countries as ‘doing time’, in Venezuela this phrase is never used; people speak of ‘discharging the sentence’. This linguistic difference is a useful starting point for a reflection on cultural differences in the character of penal control. In this article, we examine the administration of sentence remissions in a Venezuelan prison during the six years following the enactment of the Sente…
Tres Enfoques Necesarios Para La Criminología
O discurso popular sobre o problema da inseguraça pessoal carrega três dimensões implícitas de análise. A primeira é uma postura moral, que se expressa nas qualificações de censura sobre o delito, os delinqüentes e as causas destes fenômenos. A segunda é a pretensão de afirmar algo sobre as características empíricas dos mesmos; e a terceira é o chamado para intervenir sobre eles ou a proposta de abordá-los, em termos programáticos, com uma técnic…
Venezuela: The shifting organizational framework for the police
Recent political polarization in Venezuela has exacerbated longer term tensions over the organization and control of the police. Additionally, there is ongoing and widespread public dissatisfaction with the nature of policing. The patrimonial and authoritarian nature of much policing and the heterogeneity of training programs and resource provision pose considerable challenges to reform. Nevertheless, today’s police officers are right to wonder w…
Prisiones e internados: Una comparación de los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina
El empleo reciente de términos como "warehouse prison" en Estados Unidos y "campo de concentración" en América Latina parecería indicar que las condiciones de privación de la libertad son distintas en ambas regiones. El análisis presentado aquí explora esas diferencias. Se comparan los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina a través de seis dimensiones relacionadas entre sí: la organización interna de los espacios, la vigi…
Prisiones E Internados: Una comparación de los establecimientos penales em América del Norte y América Latina
El empleo reciente de términos como "warehouse prison" en Estados Unidos y "campo de concentración" en América Latina parecería indicar que las condiciones de privación de la libertad son distintas en ambas regiones. El análisis presentado aquí explora esas diferencias. Se comparan los establecimientos penales en América del Norte y América Latina através de seis dimensiones relacionadas entre sí: la organización interna de los espacios, la vigil…
Imprisonment and internment: Comparing penal institutions North and South
Recent references to the ‘warehouse prison’ in the United States and the prisión-depósito in Latin America seem to indicate that penal confinement in the Western Hemisphere has converged on a similar model. However, this article suggests otherwise. It contrasts penal facilities in North America and Latin America in terms of six interrelated aspects: regimentation; surveillance; isolation; supervision; accountability; and formalization. Quantitati…
Internationalizing the Study of Gang Membership: Validation Issues from Latin America
Developing valid measures of gang membership for self-report surveys is a challenging task in comparative cross-national research. In this article, we use the Venezuelan case to assess the validity of the Eurogang indicators of gang membership. Based on focus groups with adolescents and the results from two sweeps of the International Self-Report Survey of Juvenile Delinquency, we identify problems in the content and construct validities of the E…
You and Your Laws and Us With Our Laws: A Murderer s Stories Navigate Conflicting Normative Domains
Employing Labov’s structural model of stories and Schönbach’s typology of accounts, we examine an interview with a murderer in Venezuela and compare two stories that were narrated within it: one about the murder and one about his family life. While most of the first story accounted for the murder by calling on values and norms that attach to the criminal subculture, it also evaluated the crime from the perspective of a conventional framework that…
Moral work in victim–offender meetings
Although many studies of restorative justice touch on its moral dimensions, they provide a rather fragmentary view of the moral work that takes place in meetings between victims and offenders. We treat moral work as a discursive phenomenon that emerges through the evaluative rendering of character and behaviour in extended sequences of talk. Using transcripts from four victim–offender meetings, we explore how participants work within the structur…
Young People’s Experiences with Online and Offline Crime: First Findings from the ISRD4 Study on Victimization and Offending Across the World
‘So, your words weren’t twisted were they?’: Formulations in a restorative justice meeting
Formulations, one type of talk about talk, arise in restorative justice meetings just as they do in other discursive domains. They represent explicit references to things said previously and can perform several functions. Our study of formulations in a restorative meeting between probation staff and an offender identified five such functions: communicating active listening, promoting affiliative talk, changing the offender's way of thinking, prai…
Las Experiencias de los Adolescentes con el Delito ¿Afectan su Postura Moral ante la Delincuencia?
The objective of this study is to examine how experiences with crime, either as a victim or as an offender, influence adolescents’ moral stance toward crime. The data were drawn from the fourth edition of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD4), collected in 92 schools across six cities in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, with a total sample of 5,407 students aged 13 to 17. Structural equation modelling showed that previous exper…
Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (7 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (7 works) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance (6 works) · Law (6 works)