The aftermath of violent crime can leave victims with persistent emotional and mental health problems. Although research has shown the potential benefits of prosecuting cases through the courts, there is also a substantial literature that suggests that common features of the criminal justice system can exacerbate the impact of the initial crime, leading to a secondary victimization. The authors present a review of the research on the positive and negative impact of criminal justice involvement, and common points of failure in the efforts of justice institutions to meet the needs of victims. They conclude with recommendations for future work, including the need for research on restorative justice, victim impact statements, court notification systems, victim services, and victim advocates.

State prison populations in the United States have been regularly declining since 2009, and, at the end of 2014, the combined federal and state prison population was at its lowest level since 2005. Criminologists were caught by surprise by this development in the country that epitomized contemporary ‘mass incarceration’. Their theoretical accounts were steeped in a ‘punitive worldview’ that left no space for the stabilization and eventual decline in mass incarceration in the United States. This article focuses on policy processes, rather than structural conditions, as drivers of penal change. The article begins with an overview of theories of punishment and their shortcomings. The framework that guides our study is based on the concept of ‘critical junctures’, which are seedbeds of long-term transformative change that present opportunities and constraints for actors in the penal field. The empirical research presented here analyses the adoption of legal reforms aimed at reducing mass incarceration by the 50 US states. We find that a trifecta of conflicting actors – legal, political and public – accounts for the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which states move towards penal reform.

Why do some criminal justice public policies spread rapidly throughout U.S. states, and other policies never take hold? To answer this question, this article presents the first review specifically of studies that have examined the diffusion of criminal justice policies throughout U.S. states. After a comprehensive review of key research databases, 23 studies are identified. The key findings of these studies are analyzed in great depth, with particular reference to cross-study differences in how three variables from the general policy literature—geographic proximity, political ideology, and media attention—were operationalized. The article identifies important gaps in current knowledge about the factors that affect the diffusion of criminal justice policies and suggests several directions for future research in this area.

The fictional crime programme Midsomer Murders is one of the UK's most successful global television exports, yet scant previous research has probed the programme's global popularity. In this article I argue that much of the programme's international appeal is due to two characteristics: its evocation of the British crime fiction canon, and its nostalgia. Numerous scholars have examined rural nostalgia in British cultural life, but I argue that the global popularity of Midsomer Murders signals a new phenomenon: the emergence of nostalgia for Britain's rural past among the nonBritish. I employ Jonathan Simon's concept of 'wilful nostalgia' to analyse this new phenomenon and critically explore recent controversies about the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the case of Midsomer Murders.

Why do some criminal justice public policies spread rapidly throughout U.S. states, and other policies never take hold? To answer this question, this article presents the first review specifically of studies that have examined the diffusion of criminal justice policies throughout U.S. states. After a comprehensive review of key research databases, 23 studies are identified. The key findings of these studies are analyzed in great depth, with particular reference to cross-study differences in how three variables from the general policy literature-geographic proximity, political ideology, and media attention-were operationalized. The article identifies important gaps in current knowledge about the factors that affect the diffusion of criminal justice policies and suggests several directions for future research in this area.