bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
CRIME AS HAZARD: PERCEPTIONS OF RISK AND SERIOUSNESS*
Authors: MEIER ROBERT F. , SHORT JAMES F.
Published: March 2006

The study of crime suffers from an inattention to the social consequences of criminal acts. Conceiving crimes within the larger context of “hazard,” data are reported on the relative seriousness of conventional and white‐collar crimes, as well as other hazards, using a sample of Washington state respondents. The results indicate that there is an inverse relationship between the perceived likelihood of a hazard and its seriousness. Generally, the more immediate the threat of a hazard, such as white‐collar crimes, the more serious it is perceived to be. There are also implications from these consequences for perceptions of institutional effectiveness and interpersonal relationships. This suggests that future studies of the consequences of criminality, especially white‐collar and corporate violations, might be directed toward the notions of risk and, eventually, social trust.
COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND FATAL FIREARM ACCIDENTS*
Authors: McDOWALL DAVID , LOFTIN COLIN
Published: March 2006

This paper offers an explanation for rates of fatal firearm accidents in terms of confidence in collectively provided justice and security. It describes the collective security model and presents an analysis of time‐series data from Detroit which supports it: accidental gunshot deaths varied positively with violent crime and civil disturbances and negatively with the allocation of resources to the police. Finally, it discusses some implications for research design and social policy.
ASSESSMENTS OF RISK AND BEHAVIORAL EXPERIENCE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF CHANGE
Authors: PATERNOSTER RAYMOND , SALTZMAN LINDA E. , WALDO GORDON P. , CHIRICOS THEODORE G.
Published: March 2006

This study examines the relationship between assessments of the risk of punishment and self‐reported involvement in three illegal behaviors in a sample of college‐aged respondents. It is found that those respondents who had not yet committed a particular offense were more likely to perceive a greater certainty of punishment than those with experience in committing the offense. For two of three offenses the effect of becoming involved in offending had a more substantial impact on the perceptions of those respondents with both experience in offending and high perceived certainty of punishment than on those who had experience and less pessimistic estimates of risk Finally, a multivariate analysis of the relationship between behavioral and perceptual change reveals that each variable affects the other even when other sources of change are controlled. The importance of the findings for the deterrence doctrine are discussed.
ARE UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS A VALID INDICATOR OF THE INDEX CRIMES? AN AFFIRMATIVE ANSWER WITH MINOR QUALIFICATIONS*
Authors: GOVE WALTER R. , HUGHES MICHAEL , GEERKEN MICHAEL
Published: March 2006

For more than two decades, the validity and reliability of official statistics on crime have been treated as highly questionable. Recently a number of studies have investigated the construction of official statistics on crime and issues related to their reliability and validity. However, there has been no recent attempt to bring together and evaluate these studies; thus, we do not know what official statistics mean and how we should interpret them. In the present paper it is argued that it is now possible to develop an understanding of what official statistics measure. It appears that both citizens and the police are in general agreement about what a serious crime is: it involves bodily injury (or serious threat of bodily injury), the property stolen is of high value, the act is committed by a stranger, or it involves breaking and entering. The authors argue that the perceived seriousness of the crime, first and primarily as defined by the victim, second as determined by the police, apparently accounts for most of the variance in whether a crime is reported and officially recorded; personal characteristics of the offender and victim have only minor effects. It is concluded that the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), as measured by the FBI Index of Crime, are valid indicators of serious crimes as defined by the citizenry. The evidence supporting this conclusion is very substantial with regard to motor vehicle theft, robbery, burglary, and homicide, while with larceny, rape, and aggravated assault, the evidence supporting this conclusion is substantial but does require the interpretation of conflicting evidence.
DENYING THE GUILTY MIND: ACCOUNTING FOR INVOLVEMENT IN A WHITE‐COLLAR CRIME*
Authors: BENSON MICHAEL L.
Published: March 2006

This study of convicted white‐collar offenders treats their explanations for involvement in criminal activities. It focuses specifically on the techniques that are used to deny criminality. The strategies used to accomplish this end are detailed. It is suggested that the accounts developed by white‐collar offenders to explain involvement in criminal activities are structured by the mechanics, histories, and organizational formats of offenses and by the requirement that they defeat the conditions of successful degradation ceremonies. In conclusion, some preliminary observations concerning the causes of white‐collar crime are made.
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DECISION TO PROSECUTE ECONOMIC CRIME*
Authors: GURNEY JOAN NEFF
Published: March 2006

Increasing attention to the area of economic crime has raised questions about the abilities of social control agencies to handle this phenomenon effectively. While some research has focused on federal and state enforcement procedures, little is known about how local agencies attempt to deal with this form of crime. This study of a local county economic crime unit utilizes a logit analysis procedure to identify those factors which appear related to the decision to prosecute a case of economic crime. The analysis suggests that cases in which the defendant is an individual, the victim is an organization, and there is more than one victim more frequently result in prosecution. A theoretical framework emphasizing the demand for performance statistics in the face of limited resources is used as a means of explaining the observed pattern in the data.
STRUCTURAL SOURCES OF VARIATION IN RACE‐AGE‐SPECIFIC RATES OF OFFENDING ACROSS MAJOR U.S. CITIES*
Authors: SAMPSON ROBERT J.
Published: March 2006

Recently, much attention has been focused on the structural determinants of variations in crime rates across U.S. cities. Virtually all research in this area has utilized aggregate reported offense rates as the dependent variable. While it provides a good indicator of the total volume of crime, the aggregate crime rate suffers two major disadvantages‐it obscures individual‐ and aggregate‐level effects, and it does not allow testing of criminological theory which specifies differential effects of economic variables (for example, poverty, inequality) on offending rates for various population subgroups (for example, black adults, white adults). The present study addresses these issues by examining the economic determinants of age, race, and crime‐specific offending rates for a sample of the nation's largest cities. The overall results suggest that income inequality has a direct positive effect on black offending rates for serious crime, whereas black poverty has no effect. In contrast, white poverty has positive effects on white violence, while inequality significantly increases white robbery and burglary. The implications of findings for recent theoretical developments of conflict and relative deprivation theory are assessed.
VICTIM RESPONSES TO ROBBERY AND CRIME CONTROL POLICY*
Authors: ZIEGENHAGEN EDUARD A. , BROSNAN DOLORES
Published: March 2006

Victim responses in robbery incidents may constitute individual behavior relevant to the goal of crime control. By regulating crime outcomes it may be possible to reduce the rewards associated with criminal behavior and thereby reduce the likelihood of recurring incidents. Yet, criminal justice professionals often advocate submission to robbers' demands apparently based upon the belief that victims can and ought to exchange property losses in return for escaping physical injury. Analysis of 13‐city National Crime Panel data of 3,679 robbery incidents discloses that victim resistance to execution of robbery is not often associated with serious injury but is linked to preventing the successful execution of the crime. Victims may play a critical role in the control of crime outcomes, and policy prescriptions which entail limiting the range of responses open to victims may be harmful to both the victims and the interest of society in controlling crime.
PRODUCING PERSONAL SAFETY: THE EFFECTS OF CRIME RATES, POLICE FORCE SIZE, AND FEAR OF CRIME
Authors: KRAHN HARVEY , KENNEDY LESLIE W.
Published: March 2006

Aggregate data from a sample of 23 Canadian cities are used to examine relationships among crime rates, police staffing rates, fear of crime, and citizens’crime prevention behaviors. Bivariate and path analyses reveal positive correlations between fear of crime and parallel production (crime prevention behaviors) and negative impacts of police force size on such behaviors. Crime rates have both direct and indirect positive effects (via fear of crime) on parallel production. while police force size does not have any real effect on fear of crime.
SOCIOLOGICAL AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENTAL EXPLANATIONS OF CRIME: CONFLICT OR CONSENSUS?*
Authors: DENNO DEBORAH W.
Published: March 2006

This paper examines multidisciplinary correlates of delinquency in an attempt to integrate sociological and environmental theories of crime with human developmental and biological explanations of crime. Structural equation models are applied to assess links among biological. psychological, and environmental variables collected prospectively from birth through age 17 on a sample of 800 black children at high risk for learning and behavioral disorders. Results show that for both males and females, aggression and disciplinary problems in school during adolescence are the strongest predictors of repeat offense behavior. Whereas school achievement and family income and stability are also significant predictors of delinquency for males, early physical development is the next strongest predictor for females. Results indicate that some effects on delinquency also vary during different ages. It is suggested that behavioral and learning disorders have both sociological and developmental correlates and that adequate educational resources are necessary to ensure channels of “legitimate opportunities” for high ‐risk youths.
EXPENSIVE DRUG USE AND ILLEGAL INCOME: A TEST OF EXPLANATORY HYPOTHESES*
Authors: COLLINS JAMES J. , HUBBARD ROBERT L. , RACHAL J. VALLEY
Published: March 2006

Although the empirical association of heroin use and income‐generating crime is well established in past research, the magnitude of the association after control of other factors such as legal income is not known. The relationship between the use of cocaine and income‐generating crime has not received adequate attention. Moreover, the explanatory basis for the expensive drug use/income‐generating crime association is not well understood. This article tests the robustness of the heroin use/income‐generating crime relationship and examines the same question for cocaine use. Hypotheses derived from two explanatory perspectives (the compulsion/demand and life‐style models) are tested. Data were collected from more than 3,500 individuals who were interviewed at the time they entered publicly funded drug abuse treatment programs in 1979. Regression analyses show that daily use of heroin and weekly and daily use of cocaine are strongly associated with illegal income. Theoretical interpretation of the findings suggest: (1) the addiction/compulsion explanatory model is an insufficient explanation, (2) the life‐style concept is useful for understanding the expensive drug use/income‐generating crime relationship, and (3) the concept of addiction needs refinement and elaboration.
CORPORATIONS, ORGANIZED CRIME, AND THE DISPOSAL OF HAZARDOUS WASTE: AN EXAMINATION OF THE MAKING OF A CRIMINOGENIC REGULATORY STRUCTURE*
Authors: SZASZ ANDREW
Published: March 2006

This paper explores the relationship between legitimate corporations that generate hazardous waste and elements of organized crime with whom they contract for the removal, treatment, or disposition of those wastes. The scope and importance of hazardous waste as a social problem is first described and the variety of organized crime participation in waste handling is summarized. The paper then explores the factors that enabled organized crime to become active in this sector of the economy. Lax implementation and en forcement, the most common explanations, are discussed. The formation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 is analyzed to show that there was a prior and more fundamental factor: large corporate generators of hazardous waste fought for a regulatory structure that would prove to be highly vulnerable to organized crime intrusion. This fact is then used to discuss and critique two current explanations of the relationship of corporate generators to organized crime waste handlers: “ignorance” and “powerlessness.” Finally, it is argued that although generators did not consciously intend to facilitate organized crime entry into hazardous waste hauling, they did subsequently enjoy tangible benefits from that entry.
THE STOOPER: A PROFESSIONAL THIEF IN THE SUTHERLAND MANNER
Authors: ROSECRANCE JOHN
Published: March 2006

Sutherland's conceptualization of professional crime, while hailed as a milestone in criminology, has been criticized as excessively narrow, and its applicability to modern criminal activity has also been seriously questioned. Using qualitative data developed during an 18‐month investigation, this paper demonstrates that modern‐day stoopers, who retrieve discarded winning racetrack tickets, manifest criminal behavior that closely resembles Sutherland 's characterization of professional crime. The characteristics of this small group of determined thieves are delineated by using the j v e criteria of professionalism established by Sutherland. This delineation demonstrates that the Sutherland model remains viable and shouId not be relegated to the status of an historical footnote.
PARENTS AND DRUGS REVISITED: SOME FURTHER EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY*
Authors: DEMBO RICHARD , GRANDON GARY , VOIE LAWRENCE La , SCHMEIDLER JAMES , BURGOS WILLIAM
Published: March 2006

Social control and social learning theories suggest divergent relationships between attachment to parents and children's drug use when level of parent drug use is considered. Social control theory proposes a uniformly negative relationship between children's drug use and attachment to parents whereas social learning theory proposes that the relationship is affected by parental drug use. The relationship between attachment to parents and children's drug use was investigated for each of three groups of low, moderate, and high parental drug use through estimation of a latent variable structural model of attachment to family on children's tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. Results indicate that attachment to parents related inversely, but with different magnitudes, to children's drug use for youths whose parents use drugs at low or moderate levels. No significant relationship exists between attachment to family and children's drug use for youths whose parents are relatively high‐level users. Neither ethnicity nor sex affected these findings. The implications of these results supporting social learning theory are discussed.
THE MUNICIPAL POLICE DETECTIVE: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
Authors: KUYKENDALL JACK
Published: March 2006

When modern policing in cities developed in the United States, detection was more a private than a public matter. Once public detectives became an integral part of police departments, their role and activities gradually changed. Between the middle of the 19th and 20th centuries, detectives evolved through three phases: secretive rogue, inquisitor, and bureaucrat.
SOCIAL CLASS AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOR*
Authors: BROWNFIELD DAVID
Published: March 2006

This paper examines the relationship between violent behavior and a variety of measures of social class. Police records from one study and questionnaire data from two studies are analyzed. The strength of the relationship between class and violence varies significantly, depending primarily on the measure of class used. The implications of these findings are potentially profound for class‐based theories of crime and delinquency. Methodological implications of the findings are significant for sampling issues as well as for conceptualizations of class.
THE IMPACT OF POLICE INVESTIGATIONS ON POLICE‐REPORTED RATES OF GANG AND NONGANG HOMICIDES*
Authors: KLEIN MALCOLM W. , GORDON MARGARET A. , MAXSON CHERYL L.
Published: March 2006

This paper is concerned with the utility of police‐reported rates of gang violence, particularly important in an era which stresses officially determined rates of violence. The basic question is whether police investigation procedures have a major impact on the police designations of homicides as gang related, a question of causal order answerable only by the triangulation provided by multiple forms of data analysis. With minor qualification, the results suggest that“gang” designations of homicides reject characteristics of the incident settings and participants, that intrusion of investigative processes on reported gang versus nongang homicide rates was minimal, and that gang homicide rates reported by these departments could be used as reasonable criteria for evaluating program impact.
GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL COMPONENTS OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: A STUDY OF 265 TWIN PAIRS*
Authors: ROWE DAVID C.
Published: March 2006

This study investigates the common‐family environmental (CE), within‐family environmental (WE), and hereditary (H) components of antisocial behavior and its correlates using a twin study design. The subjects are 265 adolescent twin pairs who reported in a mail survey on their antisocial behavior, deceitfulness, parental rejection (as perceived), anger, impulsivity, and value placed on school achievement. These six variables are intercorrelated in two ways: between‐families (twin pairs' sums) and within‐families (twin pairs' differences). The former covariance structure captures the twins' resemblances: the latter, the twins' differences in behavior. LISREL is used to model the observed relationships using structural equations containing CE, WE, and H factors. The best‐fitting model requires only H and WE factors to explain the variables' relationships. Within this population, delinquent behavior is unaffected by CE influences such as social class, child rearing styles, parental attitudes, parental religion, and other factors equally affecting the twins. The principal genetic correlates of delinquency appear to be deceitfullness and temperamental traits.
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY AND LEVELS OF HOMICIDE: AN ANALYSIS OF URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS*
Authors: MESSNER STEVEN F. , TARDIFF KENNETH
Published: March 2006

This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between levels of economic inequality and homicide rates for a sample of 26 neighborhoods in Manhattan, New York. It argues that neighborhoods are more appropriate units of analysis for studying inequality and homicide than are larger political and statistical units because neighborhoods are more likely to constitute meaningful frames of reference for social comparisons. The principle hypothesis is that a high degree of economic inequality in a neighborhood will give rise to high levels of relative deprivation and high rates of homicide. The results of a series of multiple regression analyses fail to support this hypothesis. The measure of economic inequality is weakly associated with the observed homicide rates. Similarly, the racial composition of Manhattan neighborhoods exhibits no significant association with levels of homicide, given statistical controls for other sociodemographic variables. Two neighborhood characteristics do emerge as significant predictors of homicide rates: the relative size of the poverty population and the percent divorced or separated. Homicide rates tend to be highest in those neighborhoods characterized by extreme poverty and pervasive marital dissolution.
PRISON GUARDS AND THE USE OF PHYSICAL COERCION AS A MECHANISM OF PRISONER CONTROL*
Authors: MARQUART JAMES W.
Published: March 2006

This paper examines the dynamics of the use of unofficial force by prison guards in a Texas penitentiary. The findings suggest that rather than being idiosyncratic or sporadic, guard use of physical coercion was highly structured and deeply entrenched in the guard subculture Upperranking guards served as mentors and socialized younger nonmnking guards into the process of using physical coercion. These nonranking guards actually served as apprentices. Most importantly, guards who used physical force were rewarded for their behavior with improved duty posts or even promotions.
“CLUB FED” AND THE SENTENCING OF WHITE‐COLLAR OFFENDERS BEFORE AND AFTER WATERGATE
Authors: HAGAN JOHN , PALLONI ALBERTO
Published: March 2006

This paper counterposes the common assumption that criminal justice systems are resistant to reform with the widespread belief that the sentencing of white‐collar offenders became more severe after Watergate. It is argued that readjustments may be more more common than actual reforms in criminal justice systems. This paper provides an example of how such processes of readjustment can be explored in the context of sentencing decisions made before and after the unique historical experience of Watergate. It is shown with data from one of America's most prominent federal district courts that changes did occur in sentences imposed before (in 1973) and after (1975) Watergate, but with offsetting results: after Watergate, persons convicted of white‐collar crimes were more likely to be sentenced to prison, but for shorter periods of time, than less‐educated persons convicted of common crimes. Using a technique that corrects for sample selection processes, these effects are shown to cancel one another out. Examples are provided of the token kinds of prison sentences assigned after Watergate to white‐collar offenders in several highly publicized cases and areas of enforcement.
NEIGHBORHOOD AND DELINQUENCY: AN ASSESSMENT OF CONTEXTUAL EFFECTS*
Authors: SIMCHA‐FAGAN OM , SCHWARTZ JOSEPH E.
Published: March 2006

The sociological perspectives which helped formulate the study of delinquency and continue to underlie more specific conceptual frameworks—Social Disorganization, Subculture, and Labeling—point to the importance of contextual effects in the dynamics explaining delinquent and criminal behavior. Yet, systematic examination of such effects has been all but neglected. This paper delineates and empirically assesses neighborhood characteristics postulated to represent contextual factors affecting individual delinquency and criminality. Data were collected from a stratified random sample of adolescent males drawn from 12 New York City neighborhoods. The initial model, designed to refine hypotheses specifying community contextual effects, exhibits a highly satisfactory fit to the data. The framework underscores the importance of considering distinct community contextual effects as well as individual‐level effects. Two neighborhood‐level factors, the effects of which are quite distinct, are important: the community's level of organizational participation and the extent of disorder and criminal subculture. The indirect and direct effects of these factors are elaborated in relation to three measures of de1inquency—namely, self‐reported, officially recorded, and severe self‐reported delinquency.
POLICE KILLINGS AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: THE POST‐FURMAN PERIOD
Authors: BAILEY WILLIAM C. , PETERSON RUTH D.
Published: March 2006

In view of (1) escalating national attention and political and judicial activity centering on capital punishment during recent years and (2) concomitant changes in police killing rates, this paper investigates the impact of the death penalty on rates of lethal assaults against the police for the post‐Furman period, 1973–1984. In keeping with recent investigations of deterrence and general homicides, multiple regression is used as a means of controlling for the influence of possible confounding variables in examining the capital punishment/police killings relationship. Consistent with previous investigations, the present analysis provides no indication that our national return to capital punishment since Furman has had a systematic impact on police homicides. Law enforcement officers are not afforded an added measure of protection in death penalty compared to abolitionist states, nor is there anything but a chance association between the rate of police killings and the level of use of the death sentence for convicted murderers.
COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND THE OWNERSHIP OF FIREARMS FOR PROTECTION
Authors: YOUNG ROBERT L. , McDOWALL DAVID , LOFTIN COLIN
Published: March 2006

This paper examines the hypothesis that people purchase firearms for protection when confidence in collective institutions of justice and security declines. Analysis of survey data from Detroit indicates that gun ownership for protection is inversely related to confidence in the police and in the courts, and that these relationships are independent of demographic and socioeconomic variables and fear of crime.
RACE AND GENDER EFFECTS ON FEAR OF CRIME: AN INTERACTIVE MODEL WITH AGE*
Authors: ORTEGA SUZANNE T. , MYLES JESSIE L.
Published: March 2006

While the literature on fear of crime is not wholly consistent, results generally indicate that blacks, women, and the elderly are the groups most fearful. In those instances where race, gender, and age have been simultaneously taken into account, studies have generally assumed that the relationships are additive. However, the gerontological literature suggests that age ofen interacts with other status characteristics in producing quality of life differences. Multiple regression techniques are used on survey data from eight Chicago neighborhoods to assess whether or not the effects of age, race, and gender on fear of crime are interactive. Findings indicate that significant interactions are present, and the relevance of these findings are discussed in terms of actual and perceived risks of victimization and of subcultural interpretations of crime and fear of crime.
THE SEXUAL STRATIFICATION HYPOTHESIS AND SEXUAL ASSAULT IN LIGHT OF THE CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF RACE
Authors: WALSH ANTHONY
Published: March 2006

Recent research examining race‐based sentencing has reported anomalous results. It has been argued by Heck (1981) and Peterson and Hagan (1984) that these anomalies would not be perceived as such given a greater sensitivity to the “changing conceptions of race” in American society. This study performs a limited test of the sexual stratification hypothesis which asserts that various degrees of opprobrium are attached to sexual assaults depending on the racial composition of the offender/victim dyad. This hypothesis is tested with an additive and a race‐specific model. The additive model fails to reveal any significant differences in severity of penalties based on either offender or victim race. The race‐specific model reveals that significantly harsher penalties were imposed on blacks who sexually assaulted whites than were imposed on blacks who sexually assaulted blacks. The additive model suppresses this differential sentencing severity because blacks who assaulted blacks received the most lenient penalties, thus moving the black grand mean to one which was not significantly different from the white grand mean. Thus, both differential leniency and harshness are possible for blacks depending on the race of the victim.
THE IMPACT OF THE ETHNICITY AND GENDER OF DEFENDANTS ON THE DECISION TO REJECT OR DISMISS FELONY CHARGES*
Authors: SPOHN CASSIA , GRUHL JOHN , WELCH SUSAN
Published: March 2006

While social scientists have long been interested in the issue of racial and sexual discrimination within the criminal justice system, they have concentrated on the decisions to convict and sentence and have paid relatively little attention to the decision to prosecute. This study examines the issue of pretrial discrimination by focusing on the prosecutor's decision to reject or dismiss charges against black, Anglo, and Hispanic male and female defendants in Los Angeles. The data reveal a pattern of discrimination in favor of female defendants and against black and Hispanic defendants. Hispanic males are most likely to be prosecuted fully, followed by black males, Anglo males, and females of all ethnic groups.
RECONCEPTUALIZING SANCTIONS
Authors: FREIBERG ARIE
Published: March 2006

This article is an attempt to extricate sanction analysis from its criminological context and to focus on the sanction as an independent realm of knowledge. A framework for the study of sanctions based on power relations is suggested which has three major aspects: first, sanction form, of which seven types are identified (physical, economic, social, informational, political, privacy, and legal); second, sanction mode (postulated as either positive or negative); and third, arena of deployment, being either public or private. The advantages of this type of analysis over other sanction taxonomies are briefly discussed.
NORMLESSNESS, POWERLESSNESS, AND TROUBLE WITH THE LAW*
Authors: ROSS CATHERINE E. , MIROWSKY JOHN
Published: March 2006

This paper examines the conditions under which normlessness leads to trouble with the law and the mechanisms through which social structure affects trouble with the law. Objective conditions of structural inconsistency, common in low socioeconomic positions, can lead to normlessness. The results presented here show that the association of normlessness and trouble with the law depends on whether normlessness is combined with a sense of powerlessness or with one of instrumentalism. Among persons who see themselves as powerless, normlessness is not associated with trouble with the law. Among persons who see themselves as instrumental, normlessness is associated with greater trouble with the law.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AND DELINQUENCY *
Authors: CERNKOVICH STEPHEN A. , GIORDANO PEGGY C.
Published: March 2006

Family interaction and attachment assume prominent roles in social control theories of delinquency. However, the degree of conceptualization and the measurement strategies generally employed arguably are inadequate to capture the real dynamic quality of such relationships and to specify their effects on delinquency involvement. The purpose of this research is to distinguish more precisely those family interaction mechanisms which are associated with delinquency. The analysis, based on a sample of 824 adolescents, leads to the specification of seven distinct family interaction dimensions: control and supervision, identity support, caring and trust, intimate communication, instrumental communication, parental disapproval of peers, and conflict. Compared with research based on a single attached‐unattached dimension, this multidimensional model gives a much more complete and precise sense of the kind of relationships which exist between parents and their more or less delinquent children. In addition, the analysis shows that the family interaction variables have similar effects on delinquency in both‐parent, mother‐only, and mother/stepfather homes. The analysis by race, sex, and race‐sex subgroups suggests, however, that while there is a core of family attachment dimensions that is important for all adolescents, there are several important subgroup differences.
ADDICTED WOMEN AND CRIME*
Authors: ANGLIN M. DOUGLAS , HSER YIH‐ING
Published: March 2006

The relationship between women's narcotics use and crime is examined among Anglo and Chicana methadone maintenance clients. Three types of analyses are employed: (1) the temporal ordering between narcotics involvement and criminal activities: (2) comparisons of crime levels before and after critical events in the addiction career including narcotic initiation, addiction, last daily use, first treatment entry, and first treatment discharge; and (3) crime levels as a function of increasing narcotics use. Women in this study demonstrate extensive criminal involvement and some also engage in dealing and/or prostitution. Property crime activities precede the addiction career for many women but, once addicted, the amount of property crime committed appears to be generally regulated by narcotics use levels. After the addiction career, property crime decreases substantially. Chicanas, in general, display higher baseline pretreatment criminal activity and show fewer changes in crime levels than Anglo women in reaction to events such as treatment or termination of addiction career.
SPECIALIZATION AND THE CRIMINAL CAREER*
Authors: KEMPF KIMBERLY L.
Published: March 2006

Hirschi recently (1985) attempted to show the compatibility of social control with rational choice theory. This effort by Hirschi is noteworthy because, if successful, he could provide a connection between positive and classical sentiments which have traditionally appeared in contention. Hirschi fails, however, to achieve his objective and is hindered by what he views as the incompatible objectives of the two theories. Hirschi uses the recently accepted findings which indicate lack of specialization among persons involved in illegal behavior to illustrate the difference he sees between criminality and crime and, thus, the divergence between social control and rational choice. This paper attempts to remove the barrier found by Hirschi by providing improved measurement of specialization, such as has been proposed by Farrington (1986) and Klein (1984), and by placing the results in a more realistic criminal careers perspective than has been done in previous studies. This study utilizes data from the 1958 Philadelphia Birth Cohort. With information to age 26 for 27,160 persons, these data are perhaps better suited to investigate this topic than any available.
PSYCHIATRISTS IN BLUE: POLICE APPREHENSION OF MENTAL DISORDER AND DANGEROUSNESS*
Authors: MENZIES ROBERT J.
Published: March 2006

This article examines the discretionary judgments and reporting practices of police officers, in their apprehension of 528 defendants subsequently remanded for psychiatric assessment in a forensic unit located in Toronto, Canada. Analysis of arrest documents indicated that police routinely invoked labels of mental illness and dangerousness, and that they recommended psychiatric assessment in over a third of cases that eventuated in clinical remands. A significant relationship was yielded between police judgments and clinical assessments concerning the dangerousness of defendants. The police reports of forensic patients demonstrated the tendency of arresting officers to recommend psychiatric assessment as a vehicle for ensuring the dual application of judicial and therapeutic interventions. These police records were replete with moral assessments about mentally disordered defendants and with a number of strategies designed to influence the subsequent decisions of other legal and psychiatric authorities. In this study the police functioned as forensic gatekeepers, alerting clinicians and other officials to signs of mental disorder and criminality and to appropriate courses of action. At the initial point of arrest, the police assisted in laying the groundwork for the subsequent institutional careers of medicolegal subjects.
CITIZEN CRIME STEREOTYPES—NORMATIVE CONSENSUS REVISITED
Authors: HANSEL MARK
Published: March 2006

This paper examines the extent of agreement about complex perceptions of crime—crime stereotypes. The literature addresses crime seriousness. Crime perception is a complex phenomenon including much more than judged seriousness. Crime stereotypes are shown to be coherently organized around a few basic perceptions such as level of violence, amount of property harm, level of sex relatedness, and perhaps a few others. While the data affirm that there is agreement about judged seriousness, it suggests significant disagreement regarding crime stereotypes. Different people adopt different crime stereotypes. These differences are related to social variables. The most important theoretical conclusion is that agreement about any single crime perception, including seriousness, does not imply agreement about other features.
FAMILY, ACQUAINTANCE, AND STRANGER HOMICIDE: ALTERNATIVE PROCEDURES FOR RATE CALCULATIONS*
Authors: WILLIAMS KIRK R. , FLEWELLING ROBERT L.
Published: March 2006

This paper describes the extent of missing data within the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR), collected as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program of the FBI. The yearly SHR provides coded information on the victim, the offender, and the circumstances of all reported homicides in the United States. Thus, the data allow the computation of specific kinds of homicide rates, such as those involving family members, acquaintances, and strangers. However, missing data within reported events, primarily on offender characteristics and thus the victim/offender relationship, present a serious obstacle to the accurate calculation of such rates. The authors propose computational procedures designed to compensate for missing data and empirically evaluate the impact of these procedures on comparative analyses of homicide rates for cities, metropolitan areas, and states.
THE PREVALENCE, CORRELATES, AND CONTINUITY OF SERIOUS CONDUCT PROBLEMS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN*
Authors: LOEBER ROLF
Published: March 2006

Police and court records rarely reject the prevalence of delinquent acts of elementary school‐aged children. Data are presented on conduct problems during the elementary school years in regard to how well they predict adult delinquency and chronic offending. In addition, the paper presents prevalence estimates of illegal and serious conduct problems occurring prior to high school, such as fighting, the), truancy, firesetting, vandalism, marijuana use, and delinquency. Policy implications are discussed in view of the fact that early onset of serious conduct problems is ominous for chronic offending to develop at an age when children are not yet judged to be criminally responsible.
PEER GROUP INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE THE RISK OF DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR: A SELECTIVE REVIEW AND A NEW EVALUATION*
Authors: GOTTFREDSON GARY D.
Published: March 2006

Evaluations of correctional treatment programs for criminal offenders and of school‐based delinquency prevention programs based on Guided‐Group Interaction (GGI) and similar interventions are critically reviewed. One study—the Provo Experiment—provided convincing evidence for the superiority of a community treatment program involving GGI over incarceration (for persons who would otherwise be incarcerated) and modest superiority over probation (for persons who would otherwise be assigned probation). Some evaluations of school‐based prevention programs involving GGI derivatives that have been cited as supporting the efficacy of these programs are flawed and may be misleading. A new experimental evaluation of a school‐based intervention based on a GGI derivative implies that it increased delinquent behavior among students exposed to it.
PARTICIPATION IN CRIME PARTNERSHIPS BY FEMALE DRUG USERS: THE EFFECTS OF DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS, DRUG USE, AND CRIMINAL INVOLVEMENT*
Authors: PETTIWAY LEON E.
Published: March 2006

Research findings on the crime patterns of women suggest that social changes in gender roles are associated with increased female criminality. Some researchers note that the increasing participation of women in established criminal organizations increases female crime levels in general, Other researchers demonstrate that involvement with deviant boyfriends or husbands in particular not only introduces women to addictive drugs, but also contributes to greater crime participation. Measures of the domestic network, crime commitment, drug use, ethnicity, and participation in vice and predatory crimes are used to focus on women's formation and participation in crime partnerships. Findings reveal that ethnicity, living with boyfriends or husbands, high levels of crime commission, particularly while carrying weapons, and participating in vice and predatory crimes are factors that are shared by a number of crime partnerships. On the other hand, having children raised by others, a history of incarceration and arrest, and opiate use are factors that are important for specific crime partnerships; therefore, these factors are unique considerations that relate to the likelihood that criminal partnerships will develop.
BETWEEN CLASSICISM AND POSITIVISM: CRIME AND PENALITY IN THE WRITINGS OF GABRIEL TARDE*
Authors: BEIRNE PIERS
Published: March 2006

This study is a foray into a neglected but nevertheless important area in the intellectual history of the sociology of crime. Its focus is the writings of Gabriel Tarde (1843–1904), an elusive figure who was tremendously influential in his own time yet whose criminology was quickly lost in the even wider acclaim then accorded his contributions to political philosophy and social psychology. Three consistent lines of enquiry in Tarde's considerable discourse on crime are explained here, as follows: (1) his virulent opposition to biological positivism; (2) his attempt to transcend the crude scientism of the Franco‐Belgian moral statisticians; and (3) his debate with Durkheim about the putative normality of crime. It is suggested that Tarde's engagement in these debates contributed to a protracted, neoclassical compromise in the domain of penality whereby the legal subject of classical jurisprudence was rescued from the positivist revolution in criminology.
THE STATE OF CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY*
Authors: GIBBS JACK P.
Published: March 2006

After nearly 20 years of ferment in criminology, the reactive conception of criminality is the most intractable issue. It can be circumvented only if criminologists use official data to compute crime rates and to identify criminals or delinquents. That proposed strategy does not necessarily entail acceptance of the reactive conception, especially in light of an argument about etiological theories that purport to answer two of the four major criminological questions, those having to do with variation in the crime rate and with individual differences as regards criminality. Any such theory will be empirically indefensible unless it encompasses (1) some etiological condition as the independent variable; (2) the frequency of some type of behavior as an intervening variable; (3) an official criminality variable (for example, an official crime rate); and (4) a reactive variable, one which pertains to the behavior of legal officials and supposedly determines the connection between the intervening variable and the dependent variable. The argument bears on Marxist and conflict criminology only insofar as advocates of those perspectives genuinely pursue etiological theories about crime. Finally, apart from any substantive consideration, criminological theories will remain defective until criminologists adopt formal theory construction. The more general and important point is that some 20 years of ferment will not culminate in a new theory without some special strategy—if not the one proposed here, then another.
TOWARD AN INTERACTIONAL THEORY OF DELINQUENCY*
Authors: THORNBERRY TERENCE P.
Published: March 2006

Contemporary theories of delinquency are seen as limited in three respects: they tend to rely on unidirectional causal structures that represent delinquency in a static rather than dynamic fashion, they do not examine developmental progressions, and they do not adequately link processual concepts to the person's position in the social structure. The present article develops an interactional theory of delinquency that addresses each of these issues. It views delinquency as resulting from the freedom afforded by the weakening of the person's bonds to conventional society and from an interactional setting in which delinquent behavior is learned and reinforced. Moreover, the control, learning, and delinquency variables are seen as reciprocalIy interrelated, mutually affecting one another over the person's life. Thus, delinquency is viewed as part of a larger causal network, affected by social factors but also affecting the development of those social factors over time.
DEVIANT PLACES: A THEORY OF THE ECOLOGY OF CRIME
Authors: STARK RODNEY
Published: March 2006

It is well known that high rates of crime and deviance can persist in specific neighborhoods despite repeated, complete turnovers in the composition of their populations. That this occurs suggests that more than “kinds of people” explanations are needed to account for the ecological concentration of deviance—that we also need to develop “kinds of places” explanations. This essay attempts to codify more than a century of ecological research on crime and deviance into an integrated set of 30 propositions and offers these as a first approximation of a theory of deviant places.
ROUTINE ACTIVITIES AND CRIME PREVENTION IN THE DEVELOPINGMETROPOLIS*
Authors: FELSON MARCUS
Published: March 2006

Routine activities deliver easy crime opportunities to the offender. Astute planners and managers can interfere with this delivery, diverting flows of likely offenders (such as adolescents) away from streams of suitable targets (such as television sets). They can engineer traffic to provide “natural surveillance.” Past trends encouraged crime rate increases, but the developing metropolitan facility could reverse this, privatizing substantial portions of metropolitan turf.
UNDERSTANDING CRIME DISPLACEMENT: AN APPLICATION OF RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
Authors: CORNISH DEREK B. , CLARKE RONALD V.
Published: March 2006

It has been claimed that the rational choice perspective, which sees criminal behavior as the outcome of decisions and choices made by the offender, can provide a useful framework for analyzing crime control policies. By developing the concept of “choice‐structuring properties,” which refers to the constellation of opportunities, costs, and benefits attaching to particular kinds of crime, this paper attempts to develop rational choice theory in order to improve analysis of crime displacement—a concept frequently invoked by the critics of opportunity‐reducing measures of crime prevention.
CRIMINAL CAREER RESEARCH: ITS VALUE FOR CRIMINOLOGY*
Authors: BLUMSTEIN ALFRED , COHEN JACQUELINE , FARRINGTON DAVID P.
Published: March 2006

In a recent paper published in this journal, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1986)1 argue that the concepts of criminal careers, career criminals, selective incapacitation, prevalence, and incidence, and longitudinal studies all have little value for criminology. In our view their paper misrepresents these concepts and our research on these topics. We are pleased to have the opportunity in this paper to develop these concepts more clearly and to show their relevance for criminology.
SCIENCE, PUBLIC POLICY, AND THE CAREER PARADIGM*
Authors: GOTTFREDSON MICHAEL , HIRSCHI TRAVIS
Published: March 2006

The career model reappears with some consistency in the history of criminology. It consistently fails, however, to organize the facts about crime in a meaningful way. As a consequence, we predict that criminology will once again abandon career models in favor of theories of crime.
EXPLORING THE INTERSEXUAL NATURE OF VIOLENT CRIMES*
Authors: O'BRIEN ROBERT M.
Published: March 2006

Data on criminal homicides (from the Uniform Crime Reports) and aggravated assaults and simple assaults (from the National Crime Surveys) are analyzed to determine the extent to which violent crimes occur within or between sexes. The routine activities approach is used to develop hypotheses, and those hypotheses are tested using models that estimate the proportion of ingroup and outgroup crimes “expected.” With the exception of homicides, in which women murder men more often than expected, each of these violent crimes occurs within sexes more often than expected. There is a strong relationship between the type of violence (simple assault, aggravated assault, and homicide) and the extent to which the target of female aggression is a male.