InMay 2012, the UN Security Council approved a statement reporting thatinternational peace and security are being threatened by illicit transnationalcriminal activity such as piracy, terrorism, and the trafficking in drugs,humans, and weapons. The council stated that threats are being perpetuated byorganized crime groups and networks that use sophisticated communicationtechnologies that allow them to become mobile and diversified in their illicitactivities. If we find this U.N. statement credible, we must accept that crimehas moved from being primarily a domestic social problem to one that is moreglobal in nature. Two academic disciplines with particular interest in theseissues are criminology and criminal justice. These fields of study have much incommon but are clearly distinguished. Criminologists are interested in crime asa social phenomenon and as social behavior. Criminal justice scholars areinterested in the people and procedures established by a government in itsattempt to maintain social order and accomplish justice in society. Thischapter describes how comparative criminologists and comparative criminaljustice scholars go about their work, and identifies some issues which willconfront both disciplines in the future.

WhyShould We Compare Issues of Crime and Justice?

Thereare many reasons to study and compare issues of crime and justice. We willconcentrate on three: (1) to benefit from the experience of others, (2) tobroaden our understanding of different cultures, and (3) to help deal with themany transnational crime problems that plague the world today.

To benefit from others’ experience.Comparative work in criminal justice is an excellentvehicle for learning more about how others practice criminal justice. When wecan learn about the criminal justice processes of other countries, we are thenable to develop hypotheses that will help us begin to solve our own problemsrelated to crime and justice. Many countries have also adopted rules ofcriminal procedure that were pioneered by others. In fact, some criminalprocedure rules, such as the right to counsel at an early stage of the criminalprocess, are becoming universal in many systems of justice around the world.And many countries have even adopted entire legal codes from the codes ofothers. The Napoleonic Code of civil law, developed in France in the early 19thcentury, was one such export, as was the French penal code, also developedunder Napoleon. Another export in the late 19th century was the German CivilCode. These codes have had an enormous influence on the development of legalsystems and criminal justice systems throughout the world. Correctionsstrategies also tend to spill over borders. For example, the idea of day fines,which was first developed in Scandinavian countries, has been adopted byGermany, Great Britain, and the United States. However, it should be kept inmind that it is naive to try to import ideas in criminal justice that are boundto local cultural values without modifying them to conform to the new context.For example, it would be short-sighted for U.S. policymakers to think that wecould easily implement a strict corporal punishment system like that found inIslamic societies, given the significant differences in the diversity of thepopulation and the process by which laws are made.

To broaden our understanding of the world. Another reason for studying theadministration of justice in other countries is to broaden our understanding ofother countries and cultures. This is imperative because the multiculturalworld we now live in has entered the stage of globalization, whereby the worldhas become interdependent in terms of the events and the actions of people andgovernments around the world. In short, globalization is the idea that theworld is getting smaller. Although in many ways globalization is a positivecondition, one possible pitfall is that we are all more likely to fall prey tothe problem of ethnocentrism—the belief that one's own country or culture doesthings “right” and all other ways are “wrong” or “foreign.” Ethnocentrism is acommon phenomenon; people often think their country, culture, or religion isbetter than all others. In terms of crime and criminal justice, ethnocentrismis a problem because it can lead to crime within and across borders as well asto discrimination, oppression, or violent ethnic-based conflicts. Less extremeforms of ethnocentrism are the pejorative comments made by the media,academics, and activists over actions taken by criminal justice officialsaround the world. A nation's way of administering justice often reflectsdeep-seated cultural, religious, economic, political, and historical realities.Many of these might be hard for many to understand. Learning about the reasonsfor these different practices can give us insight into the values, traditions,and cultures of other systems. Such broadening of perspective helps us see ourown system and the world in more objective terms.

To deal with transnational crime problems. A third good reason to studycriminal justice from a comparative perspective is the increasing need toaddress transnational and international crime problems. Numerous worldwideevents have served to fuel the move to globalization. One of the results ofglobalization, however, is the rise in international and transnationalcrime. Transnational crimes are occurring with increasing frequency asopportunities expand for the global movement of people, products, technology,and communications. In some regions of the world, it appears that gardenvariety thefts, robberies, and assaults have become less troublesome thanoffenses such as transnational organized crime, corruption, terrorism, and thetrafficking of humans. Fortunately, we now are keenly aware that the solutionto this kind of crimes requires coordination of resources at multiple levelsand multiple jurisdictions in different criminal justice systems acrossboundaries. We have had some success in this area, But if we wish to continueto serve justice well, whether it be for crimes committed within our borders orin another region of the world, international cooperation must be an essentialingredient. Without international cooperation, we cannot find, extradite, orserve justice on those who violate laws and cause pain, suffering, and lossthroughout the world.

Benefitingfrom others’ experience, broadening our understanding of the world, andcombating transnational crime are clearly three excellent reasons for studyingcomparative crime and justice. Those reasons express clear goals that appeal tothe practitioner, policymaker, and to academics with an applied bent. There isanother good reason for comparing issues of crime and justice, but this reasonis often neglected because its application is less obvious. Specifically,comparative studies can help build, modify, and advance theoretical analysis ofcrime and criminal behavior. Obviously, theory informs practice, so it isunfair to suggest that strengthening theoretical analyses cannot be lumped withpractical reasons for comparative studies. But a consistent predicament oftheoreticians is to have their applied credentials questioned. A brief reviewof the efforts of comparative criminology will show how comparative studiesbenefit the growth of theory. We will then turn our attention to comparativejustice studies in order to appreciate how that field of study works to achievesome of the other benefits of comparative study.

ComparativeCriminology

Comparativestudies have a lengthy history in the social sciences, and despite itsseemingly recent appearance, comparative criminology is no exception. JeremyBentham, Émile Durkheim, Adolph Quetelet, Gabriel Tarde, and Alexis deTocqueville would be on many lists of scholars interested in cross-nationalstudies of crime. But just what do comparative criminology scholars study andwhat have they found? These are important questions when trying to understandthe current interest in comparative criminology and when considering the future ofthis field of study. We briefly consider each question in hopes of whetting theappetite of persons interested in a more rigorous inquiry into comparativecriminology.

What Is the SubjectMatter of Comparative Criminology?

Criminologistsare interested in crime as a social phenomenon and as social behavior. Mostsimply, comparative criminologists are interested in the same things but on abroader scale. Beirne and Nelken define comparative criminology as referring tothe systematic and theoretically-informed comparison of crime in two or morecultures. Appealing aspects of Beirne and Nelken's definition are the focus oncrime and the requirement that two or more cultures are compared. Byrestricting comparative criminology to the study of crime, It avoids confusionwith comparative criminal justice, which focuses on the policies and proceduresestablished by a culture to achieve social order. Another feature ofcomparative criminology must be noted. To date, comparative criminology hasmostly compared domestic crime events in two or more countries. The growth ofcriminal acts that cross national borders should also be of interest tocomparative criminologists. An understanding of such criminal events as moneylaundering and trafficking in illicit drugs requires knowledge of their spreadand distribution across time and place—a type of inquiry appropriate tocomparative criminology. In addition, transnational crime involves thecooperative behavior of people in several countries as they coordinate effortsto accomplish the crime. Explaining such behavior by criminals in differentcountries is also an appropriate investigation for comparative criminologists.To more accurately reflect contemporary research topics, we propose anexpansion of Beirne and Nelken's definition of comparative criminology to be asystematic and theoretically informed comparison of crime in two or morecultures or across two or more countries.

What Explanations HaveComparative Criminologists Offered?

Here,we provide a brief account of the more traditional research endeavors thatcompare domestic crime in two or more countries. This review of classic andcontemporary examples of comparative criminology shows the diversity of crimesconsidered, variables addressed, and theories proposed by scholars interestedin comparing crime across cultures.

Apopular technique among comparative criminologists has been an attempt toidentify commonality among cases of crime to determine a general theory ofcriminal behavior. Shelley’s Crime and Modernization is an earlyexample of this methodology. As the title indicates, Shelley uses empiricalevidence to show that modernization provides the best theoreticalexplanation for crime's evolution in recent history. Specifically, she suggeststhat social processes accompanying industrial development have resulted inconditions conducive to increased criminality, such as loosened family ties,instability of family, and lack of supervision of younger family members. Morerecent versions of this approach are grouped as examples ofDurkheimian-modernization theory. This perspective uses the nation-state orsociety as the unit of analysis, and it posits that all nations develop throughsimilar stages. Variables such as industrialization, population growth,urbanization, the division of labor, social disorganization, anomie, modernvalues, and cultural heterogeneity are used to explain variation in crimerates.

Recenttheorizing in the Durkheimian-modernization vein uses the triad ofmodernization, civilization, and power to explain different criminologicaldevelopments in diverse societies. This synthesized modernization-civilizationtheory is seen by some as strengthening the explanatory power of theDurkheimian-modernization perspective by adding civilization and power variables.The civilization concept, drawn from Elias's civilization theory, provides thelink between the long-term structural changes and the alteration of personalitystructures. At the individual level, Elias suggests that historically there hasbeen an ever-increasing refinement of customs and manners, an obviouspacification of the conditions of daily life, and an intensification ofinstinctive and affected inhibitions. At the institutional level, Elias foundthree key societal factors in the development of greater individual control:(1) the monopolization of the instruments of power, (2) the centralization ofstate power, and (3) the creation of power monopolies. According to Elias, thelimitations on individual behavior can find equilibrium only when they are partof a relatively stable and easily comprehensible arrangement of actions by thebroader society. And such a situation occurs when there is a monopoly of socialinstitutions. If Elias's hypothesis holds true, that interpersonal relations varywith the civilization of society, then so should the nature of interpersonalviolence and crime. And it would not be unreasonable to hypothesize that a morecivilized society would have lower volumes of violent crimes but higher volumesof self-inflicted harmful behaviors such as drug use or suicide.

Intheir assessment of the Durkheimian-modernization perspective, Neuman andBerger found weak support for the perspective's ability to explain variation incrime rates across countries. Believing other perspectives could work as well,Neuman and Berger consider a Marxian world-system perspective and anecological-opportunity perspective. The Marxian world-system perspectivedefines crime as a sociopolitical concept that reflects production and powerrelations, which are intrinsically linked to a society's relation to othersocieties. This perspective treats industrialization and urbanization as theoutcomes of capitalist expansion. Unlike the Durkheimian-modernizationperspective, which sets modernization as a key predictor of crime rates, theMarxian-world system perspective uses modernization only as an interveningvariable. In this way, it argues that the effect of industrialization andmodernization depends on how modes of production articulate with one another.

Durkheimian-modernization,synthesized modernization-civilization, and Marxian world-system perspectivesall provide a macrolevel analysis of variation in cross-national crime data.The ecological-opportunity perspective takes a microlevel approach byconcentrating on the criminal act itself. This theory argues that crime occurswhere environmental conditions are favorable. For example, LaFree and Birkbeckstudied victimization data in Venezuela and in the United States and found thatin both countries, robbery typically involves public domains, lonevictims, strangers, and incidents taking place outside buildings. Neuman andBerge see this ability to identify the specific situations that immediatelyprecede in space and time the actual execution of a crime as a strength of theecological-opportunity perspective. Should comparative criminologists continueto find that crimes occur in similar situations, regardless of country, we willhave valuable information about criminal acts—although our knowledge aboutmotivation to commit those acts will not necessarily be advanced.

Itis apparent from this review of comparative criminology that it is a field ofstudy in which scholars are drawing on traditional criminological theory andmethodology while simultaneously expanding the discipline’s enquiry beyondevents in a single country. In a similar manner, scholars interested incomparative criminal justice are borrowing from the knowledge base indisciplines such as sociology, political science, and criminal justice as theyseek to understand how nations have sought to maintain a system of formalsocial control. We now turn our attention to this other area of importance—thebroad field of comparative studies.