Theoretical Criminology 13(4)

Civilization, economic change, and trends in interpersonal violence in western societies
Dennis M. Mares

This article moves forward on recent studies on historical trends in violence. Whereas many studies agree that levels of interpersonal violence have subsided since the late Middle Ages, some have found periods of strong increases within this general decline. Building on Norbert Elias’s civilizing thesis, this article proposes to incorporate a greater degree of attention to economic processes. Using illustrative evidence from Western Europe and the USA, this article demonstrates how within the overall decline of violence, cycles of increasing and decreasing violence can be tied to the development of both state formation and the growth of a world economic system.

American 'pain-ology' in the war on terror: a critique of 'scientific' torture
Michael Welch

Questionable tactics in America’s war on terror continue to undergo scrutiny due to their threats to human rights, chief among them ‘enhanced’ interrogation and torture. Indeed, a growing chorus of criticism has been leveled at the political, legal, and ethical considerations of those policies and practices. Scholars, nonetheless, have neglected other important aspects of the controversy, for instance, the extent to which modern torture has been influenced by ‘scientific’ claims involving the effectiveness and appropriateness of certain procedures. Filling the void, this analysis explores the invention of modern torture as it draws on behavioral and psychological research in developing a new paradigm for pain. Delving into the assertions of ‘enhanced’ techniques, the critique focuses on a science studies perspective aimed at deciphering the allure of science in policing as well as in the war on terror. Such ‘scientification’, as discussed herein, reinforces the illusion that the state’s capacity to unveil the truth is infallible.

Darfur and the Crime of Genocide by John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond: a symposium: Introduction
Nicole Rafter

[Full text:] Slowly and belatedly, criminology is incorporating genocide as one of the crimes it can and must try to account for. Many criminologists are, in fact, anxious to include genocide in their theorizing and teaching, but they have lacked an example, a road map to guide them through this difficult terrain. Darfur and the Crime of Genocide offers that guide. To bring it to the attention of other criminologists, I invited four scholars to review the book and  assess  its  potential  for  the  evolving  criminology  of  genocide.  The reviews are followed by a response in which John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond react not only to the reviewers, but also to a challenge to the propriety of their attempt to intervene in African politics. In a number of ways, the following contributions mark a milestone in the development of criminological thought.

Genocide, criminology, and Darfur
Joachim J. Savelsberg

Mobilizing criminology: The boundaries of criminological science and the politics of genocide
Bruce Hoffman

Mass atrocity and criminology
Hadar Aviram

Toward a new criminology of genocide: theory, method, and politics
Ross L. Matsueda

Criminology confronts genocide: whose side are you on?
John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond

Theoretical Criminology, November 2009: Volume 13, Issue 4

Journal of Quantitative Criminology 25(4)

Modeling the Distribution of Sentence Length Decisions Under a Guidelines System: An Application of Quantile Regression Models
Chester L. Britt

How should sentencing disparity be assessed when decisions are constrained under a sentencing guidelines system? Much of the debate over the measurement of sentence disparity under a guidelines system has focused primarily on using specific values from within the sentencing grid (e.g., minimum recommended sentence) or on using interaction terms in regression models to capture the non-additive effects of offense severity and prior record on length of sentence. In this paper, I propose an alternative method for assessing sentencing disparity that uses quantile regression models. These models offer several advantages over traditional OLS analyses (and related linear models) of sentence length, by allowing for an examination of the effects of case and offender characteristics across the full distribution of sentence lengths for a given sample of offenders. The analysis of the distribution of sentence lengths with quantile regression models allows for an examination of questions such as: Do offender characteristics, such as race or offense severity, have the same effect on sentence length for the 10% of offenders who receive the shortest sentences as they do for the 10% of offenders who receive the longest sentences? I illustrate the application and interpretation of these models using 1998 sentencing data from Pennsylvania. Key findings show that the effects of case and offender characteristics are variable across the distribution of sentence lengths, meaning that traditional linear models assuming a constant effect fail to capture important differences in how case and offender characteristics affect punishment decisions. I discuss the implications of these findings for understanding sentencing disparitites, as well as other possible applications of quantile regression models in the study of crime and the criminal justice system.

Disentangling the Crime-arrest Relationship: The Influence of Social Context
Mitchell B. Chamlin, Andrew J. Myer

Drawing on the economic and conflict perspectives of crime control, as well as insights from the tipping effect literature, the present investigation examines the extent to which the social context within which potential offenders operate tempers the macro-level, reciprocal relationship between crime and arrests. We use autoregressive integrated moving average techniques to assess the extent to which the April 2001 race-related riot in Cincinnati, Ohio conditions the reciprocal relationship between property crime and arrests for the entire city and disaggregated by police district. Consistent with a majority of prior longitudinal studies, our analyses for the entire length of the times series reveal no evidence of an association between our measures of crime and arrest, regardless of the level of spatial aggregation. In contrast to the results from our baseline models, the post-riot transfer function models indicate that there is a reciprocal association between crime and arrests that is contingent upon the social context. The implications of our findings for the further study of the reciprocal relationship between crime and arrests are discussed.

How Much Can We Trust Causal Interpretations of Fixed-Effects Estimators in the Context of Criminality?
David Bjerk

Researchers are often interested in estimating the causal effect of some treatment on individual criminality. For example, two recent relatively prominent papers have attempted to estimate the respective direct effects of marriage and gang participation on individual criminal activity. One difficulty to overcome is that the treatment is often largely the product of individual choice. This issue can cloud causal interpretations of correlations between the treatment and criminality since those choosing the treatment (e.g. marriage or gang membership) may have differed in their criminality from those who did not even in the absence of the treatment. To overcome this potential for selection bias researchers have often used various forms of individual fixed-effects estimators. While such fixed-effects estimators may be an improvement on basic cross-sectional methods, they are still quite limited when it comes to uncovering a true causal effect of the treatment on individual criminality because they may fail to account for the possibility of dynamic selection. Using data from the NSLY97, I show that such dynamic selection can potentially be quite large when it comes to criminality, and may even be exacerbated when using more advanced fixed-effects methods such as Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting (IPTW). Therefore substantial care must be taken when it comes to interpreting the results arising from fixed-effects methods.

Detecting Specialization in Offending: Comparing Analytic Approaches
Christopher J. Sullivan, Jean Marie McGloin, James V. Ray, Michael S. Caudy

Offending specialization continues to be a subject of empirical inquiry for scholars interested in criminal careers. Early research consistently spoke to the generality of offending profiles, but more recent work has revealed somewhat mixed findings. These results have emerged alongside newly developed and applied methods that detect and describe offending specialization. To what extent these methods shape divergent conclusions and/or provide overlapping insight remains unclear, however. Therefore, the degree to which more recent inquiries are actually studying the same operational definition of specialization is unknown. In order to consider this issue further, this study utilizes four frequently applied approaches with a single data set. The study indicates when and where findings converge and also describes any unique insights provided by each method. The work concludes with a discussion surrounding the utility of applying multiple strategies in assessing specialization in criminal offending.

Hot Spots of Juvenile Crime: A Longitudinal Study of Arrest Incidents at Street Segments in Seattle, Washington
David Weisburd, Nancy A. Morris, Elizabeth R. Groff

Recent studies have shown that crime is concentrated at micro level units of geography defined as hot spots. Despite this growing evidence of the concentration of crime at place, studies to date have dealt primarily with adult crime or have failed to distinguish between adult and juvenile offenses. In this paper, we identify crime incidents in which a juvenile was arrested at street segments in Seattle, Washington, over a 14-year period, to assess the extent to which officially recorded juvenile crime is concentrated at hot spots. Using group-based trajectory analysis, we also assess the stability and variability of crime at street segments over the period of the study. Our findings suggest that officially recorded juvenile crime is strongly concentrated. Indeed, just 86 street segments in Seattle include one-third of crime incidents in which a juvenile was arrested during the study period. While we do observe variability over time in trajectories identified in the study, we also find that high rate juvenile crime street segments remain relatively stable across the 14 years examined. Finally, confirming the importance of routine activity theory in understanding the concentration of juvenile crime in hot spots, we find a strong connection between high rate trajectory groups and places likely to be a part of juvenile activity spaces. Though place-based crime prevention has not been a major focus of delinquency prevention, our work suggests that it may be an area with great promise.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, December 2009: Volume 25, Issue 4

Journal of Criminal Justice 37(6)

The gender gap in death penalty support: An exploratory study
John K. Cochran, Beth A. Sanders

One of the more enduring observations in the study of death penalty support within the United States is the strong divide between males and females. Men have consistently shown significantly higher levels of support for capital punishment than women. This divide between males and females has appeared in nearly every survey, over time, and across a variety of methodological designs. Using data from the cumulative (1972-2002) data file for the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Surveys, this study attempted to understand the basis for this gender gap. It examined gender differences in socioeconomic status, gender inequality, gender socialization, religion/religiosity, political ideology, positions on right-to-life and other social issues, fear of crime and victimization experience, experience with the criminal justice system, philosophies of punishment, and attribution styles. The findings revealed that the effect of gender on capital punishment support continued to be robust despite controlling for the effects of all of these explanations.

The impact of race on criminal justice ideology: An examination of high school students
Yolander G. Hurst, Denise D. Nation

Research suggests that differences exist in the criminal justice ideology of Black and White Americans. For example, adult African Americans are more likely than their White counterparts to support criminal justice measures that address the root causes of crime. There has, however, been limited interest in exploring the criminal justice ideology of juveniles. Using survey data collected from 1,398 rural and suburban public high school students, the present study examined the influence of race on the criminal justice ideology of juveniles. The findings suggested that while Black teenagers are significantly more likely to hold a liberal crime control ideology and White teenagers are significantly more likely to hold a conservative ideology, confidence in the justice system to be fair strongly influences the beliefs of both groups.

The impact of agency context, policies, and practices on violence against police
Lorie Fridell, Don Faggiani, Bruce Taylor, Corina Sole Brito, Bruce Kubu

This study examined agency-level factors that impact the level of violence against police. The independent variables represented both agency context (e.g., violent crime rate, population characteristics) and agency policies and practices (e.g., backup and body armor policies) and were linked to constructs within routine activities theory. Information on agency policies and practices came from an agency survey. Data for the dependent variable?agency counts of officer killings and assaults over a three-year period?came from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Negative binomial regression was used to assess the impact of the independent variables on the dependent measure. Three of the independent variables—measuring body armor policies, agency accountability, and violent crime—had statistically significant relationships with violence against police.

Constructing crime: Neighborhood characteristics and police recording behavior
Sean P. Varano, Joseph A. Schafer, Jeffrey Michael Cancino, Marc L. Swatt

It has long been acknowledged that police officers have substantial levels of discretion in their day-to-day activities. There is a well developed body of literature that considers how this discretion is exercised across a broad array of situations including the decision to arrest, use force, and grant citizen requests for official action. Using both social disorganization and conflict theories as conceptual models, the purpose of this study was to determine if neighborhood characteristics affect police reporting behavior across a wide cross-section of reported call types. The findings indicated that reporting behavior widely varies across crime types with a greater percentage of more serious crimes translated into official crime. Neighborhood characteristics did affect reporting practices, but surprisingly only for more serious forms of disorder where discretion was perceived to be less. The findings lent support for both social disorganization and conflict theories. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Race, driving, and police organization: Modeling moving and nonmoving traffic stops with citizen self-reports of driving practices
Kirk Miller

A rapidly growing body of police scholarship has found evidence of racial disparities in traffic stop patterns using police-generated data. Despite the empirical consensus, the question of whether race inappropriately influences traffic stop patterns remains open, largely as a result of methodological weaknesses. The current article helps to address this issue by employing self-report data about citizens' driving practices and traffic stops. It presents a series of models that predict the likelihood of a self-reported traffic stop disaggregated by police organizational type and the reason for the stop. Results suggest that moving and nonmoving driving practices are associated with the likelihood of police stops for moving and nonmoving reasons, respectively. As expected, differences between local police and state police models emerge. Finally, Black drivers and younger drivers are especially vulnerable to traffic stop risk for nonmoving stops by local police, even after controlling for driving behaviors.

Structural correlates of female homicide: A cross-national analysis
Suzanne Agha

The present study went beyond previous cross-national homicide research, which has largely focused on combined (male and female) rates of homicide offending, by using gender-disaggregated homicide arrest figures. The study included controls for the clearance rate and the percentage of homicides that were attempts, and included data for forty-eight countries across multiple levels of development. The author compared the effects of development/modernization and opportunity on female homicide rates to their effects on male homicide rates. Results indicated that, overall, structural predictors had very similar effects on male and female homicide rates. Both rates were lower in countries with a higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and neither male nor female homicide rates were related to urbanization. Countries with a higher number of people per household had a lower rate of both male and female homicide offending; however, this relationship only held when percent young was excluded from the model.

The place of public fear in sentencing and correctional policy
Carrie L. Cook, Jodi Lane

Public opinion about sentencing and correctional issues has emerged in recent decades as a salient topic in criminology. Empirical studies have suggested that the public has dynamic perceptions about these criminal justice issues. Sentencing and correctional policy have become key issues confronting legislators and policymakers, as correctional budgets and public interest in these areas have increased. Despite the focus on public opinion about sentencing and corrections, previous research has largely ignored how the public feels about the role of policymakers regarding these issues, and what influences opinions about whether public fear should be an important consideration in policy decisions. The current study partly replicated the work of Cullen and colleagues by examining perceptions of crime salience, crime causation, goals of the criminal justice system, and attitudes towards imprisonment and rehabilitation. It uniquely examined perceptions about the importance of legislator consideration of a specific determinant, namely, public fear, in decision making about sentencing and correctional policy.

The assessment of risk to recidivate among a juvenile offending population
Michael T. Baglivio

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has implemented a new fourth-generation risk/need assessment to assess the risk to re-offend for juveniles referred to the department. The new assessment, the Positive Achievement Change Tool, or PACT, is adapted from the validated Washington State Juvenile Court Assessment, on which the Youth Assessment Screening Inventory (YASI) was also modeled. This study validated the PACT assessment, and examined whether the instrument is as predictive of female delinquency as it is of male delinquency, utilizing subsequent official delinquency referral as the dependent measure. Gender differences were explored and illustrated the instrument to be effective in predicting female and male delinquency, yet the factors predicting female delinquency did not mimic those predictive of male delinquency. Furthermore, for both male and female juveniles, a score of environmental and personal characteristics and situations had a stronger relationship with recidivism than did a score of official criminal history.

Differential effects of an offender-focused crime prevention media campaign
Jamie L. Flexon, Rob T. Guerette

Despite the widespread use of media crime prevention campaigns targeting both potential victims and offenders, there exists only superficial understanding about their effectiveness. Less is known about possible differential effects of such campaigns across those who consume them. Early research evaluating the effect of victim-focused campaigns found that they were effective, however, the influence varied across different citizen groups. Comparatively little is known about the impact of offender-focused campaigns, generally, and it remains uncertain whether the influence of these campaigns also varies across potential offending subpopulations. Using national survey data (N = 820) from the offender-focused “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving” campaign, this study used a series of binary logistic regression models to examine whether there were differential impact effects and to explore the relationship between beliefs and the behavior of drunk driving. The findings indicated that exposure to the media campaign did not alter beliefs or actions of drunk driving, although the relationship between cognitions and the overt behavior of driving drunk did vary across groups. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

The problem of human trafficking in the U.S.: Public frames and policy responses
Amy Farrell, Stephanie Fahy

Nine years after the passage of federal anti-trafficking legislation in the United States, fewer incidents of trafficking have been identified than original estimates of the problem predicted. Some scholars and commentators suggest that changes in the public framing of the trafficking problem aimed at advancing particular agendas are to blame. Yet no studies to date had measured such a reframing process and its attendant consequences. Using a natural history of social problems model (Spector & Kitsuse, 1973) as the theoretical framework to examine the framing of trafficking, this study analyzed text from U.S. newspaper articles about human trafficking from 1990 to 2006. Findings suggest the public framing of human trafficking has changed over time corresponding with the adoption of policies focused on national security and the identification, apprehension, and criminal prosecution of trafficking perpetrators. Challenges following such definitional shifts are discussed.

Immigrants, assimilation, and perceived school disorder: An examination of the “other” ethnicities
Adam M. Watkins, Chris Melde

Extant research on school disorder has largely ignored modern immigrant groups, or has lumped these groups in an “other” category. This was often done for pragmatic reasons, but it likely masked any unique experiences these groups had with regard to school disorder. The current study examined Latino and Asian immigrant students’ experiences with school disorder using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study. Findings indicated that Latino and Asian immigrant students report marked differences in school disorder. Current results revealed, in particular, that Asian immigrants report significantly higher levels of school disorder even though they outperform Latino studentsacademically. Assimilation variables, however, have little to do with such perceptions. Implications from these findings are discussed.

Journal of Criminal Justice, November–December 2009: Volume 37, Issue 6

Sociological Theory 27(4)

Global Labor: Algocratic Modes of Organization
A. Aneesh

Humans, Animals, and Play: Theorizing Interaction When Intersubjectivity is Problematic
Colin Jerolmack

The Evolved Actor in Sociology
Rosemary L. Hopcroft

Distinguishing the Power of Agency from Agentic Power: A Note on Weber and the "Black Box" of Personal Agency
Colin Campbell

Does Habitus Matter? A Comparative Review of Bourdieu's Habitus and Simon's Bounded Rationality with Some Implications for Economic Sociology
Francois Collet

Culture, Personality, and Emotion in George Herbert Mead: A Critique of Empiricism in Cultural Sociology
Mark Gould

Toward a General Theory of Institutional Autonomy
Seth Abrutyn

Fact-Totems and the Statistical Imagination: The Public Life of a Statistic in Argentina 2001
Martin de Santos

Sociological Theory, December 2009: Volume 27, Issue 4

Criminology and Public Policy 8(4)

GANG DATABASES

Gang databases : To be or not to be
Irving Spergel

Gangs and public policy : Constructing and deconstructing gang databases
Julie Barrows, C. Ronald Huff

Attention to gang issues has dramatically increased in the last several decades, both in the scholarly literature and in law enforcement. Despite widespread attention to the gang problem, researchers, police officers, and lawmakers have yet to agree on definitions used to characterize and understand the problem. This article summarizes the existing literature concerning the importance of accurately defining and classifying gang members, documents and analyzes state and federal gang legislation in the United States, and provides a detailed analysis of one state's system that might serve as a useful model for other states.
Serious risks to public safety and civil liberties are associated with Type 1 and Type 2 classification errors regarding gang membership. The wide variation in state statutory definitions of "gang member" and in the construction and administration of gang databases presents major challenges for policymakers and academic researchers. This article addresses these challenges and argues that a more rigorous and unified system, based on one state's existing model, might be possible and could offer significant advantages in our efforts to address the delinquent and criminal behavior of gangs throughout the United States.

Gang databases : Context and questions
James B. Jacobs

Gangs and public policy : Constructing and deconstructing gang databases
David M. Kennedy

Street gang databases : A view from the gang capitol of the United States
Malcolm W. Klein

Gangs, law enforcement, and the academy
James F. Short Jr.

POLICE MISCONDUCT

Conceptual, methodological, and policy considerations in the study of police misconduct
James Frank

Bad cops : A study of career-ending misconduct among New York City police officers
Robert J. Kane, Michael D. White

Police scholars and public policymakers throughout generations have sought to identify reliable correlates of police misconduct. Despite these efforts, general statements as to the etiology and epidemiology of police misconduct remain inconclusive, in part because of the inconsistent definitions of misconduct and the difficulty of obtaining the data required to make such statements. This research attempts to fill these gaps through a comparison of the personal and career histories of all 1,543 officers who were involuntarily separated from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for cause during 1975–1996 with a randomly selected sample of their police academy classmates who served honorably. The study uses confidential NYPD files as its major data sources, which include extensive biographical and career information. The study finds that career-ending misconduct rarely occurs in the NYPD and that the types of misconduct do not match well with existing definitions. Several factors emerge as significant predictors of misconduct, including officer race, minimal education, records of prior criminality and prior poor employment, failure to advance in the NYPD, and histories of citizen complaints.
This study shows that existing definitions of police misconduct are difficult to apply to actual cases of police malpractice, which leads the authors to create a new eight-category classification scheme. The rarity of misconduct, especially on-duty abuse, confirms prior research indicating that most police officers do their jobs without engaging in serious malpractice. These findings suggest that the NYPD has become better behaved as it has become more diverse along race and gender dimensions and that the link between black officers and misconduct might be explained by persistent "tokenism." The findings related to race have important implications for continued efforts to build racially representative police departments. Personal history findings highlight the importance of conducting background investigations that disqualify candidates with arrest records and employment disciplinary histories, whereas the inverse relationship between college education and misconduct provides strong support for continued emphasis on pre- and post-employment educational requirements.

Police officer misconduct as normal accidents : An organizational perspective
William R. King

Rotten apples, rotten branches, and rotten orchards : A cautionary tale of police misconduct
Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic

Bad cops
Peter K. Manning

DETERRENCE AND EXECUTIONS

The impact of the death penalty on murder
John J. Donohue III

Does the death penalty save lives? : New evidence from state panel data, 1977 to 2006
Tomislav V. Kovandzic, Lynne M. Vieraitis, Denise Paquette Boots

Economists have recently reexamined the "capital punishment deters homicide" thesis using modern econometric methods, with most studies reporting robust deterrent effects. The current study revisits this controversial question using annual state panel data from 1977 to 2006. Employing well-known econometric procedures for panel data analysis, our results provide no empirical support for the argument that the existence or application of the death penalty deters prospective offenders from committing homicide.
Although policymakers and the public can continue to base support for use of the death penalty on retribution, religion, or other justifications, defending its use based solely on its deterrent effect is contrary to the evidence presented here. At a minimum, policymakers should refrain from justifying its use by claiming that it is a deterrent to homicide and should consider less costly, more effective ways of addressing crime.

Can't tell : Comments on "Does the death penalty save lives?"
Richard Berk

Don't scrap the death penalty
Paul H. Rubin

TASERS IN THE MEDIA

Conducted energy devices and criminal justice policy
Steven Chermak

Examining fatal and nonfatal incidents involving the TASER : Identifying predictors of suspect death reported in the media
Michael D. White, Justin Ready

According to TASER International, nearly 10,000 police departments in the United States have deployed the TASER as a less lethal force alternative in some capacity. Despite the TASER's increasing popularity, serious questions have been raised about the device's physiological side effects; in particular, Amnesty International has reported that more than 300 people have died after being subjected to the TASER. Although a growing body of research has examined the physiological effects of the TASER on animals and healthy human volunteers in laboratory settings, there has been virtually no empirical analysis of "real-world" fatal and nonfatal TASER cases simultaneously. This article examines all media reports of TASER incidents from 2002 to 2006 through a comprehensive review of LexisNexis and New York Times archives. We compare TASER incidents in which a fatality occurred to TASER incidents in which a fatality did not occur and then employ multivariate analyses to identify the incident and suspect characteristics that are predictive of articles describing TASER-proximate deaths.
Several suspect factors were significantly associated with the reporting of a fatal TASER incident, including drug use (but not alcohol), mental illness, and continued resistance. Multiple deployments of the TASER against a suspect was also associated with the likelihood of the article describing a fatality—especially if the suspect was emotionally disturbed—which raises the possibility that the risk of multiple shocks might not be uniform for all suspects. More research is needed to explore the relationship between mental illness, drug use (illicit or therapeutic), continued resistance, and increased risk of death. In the meantime, police departments should develop specific policies and training governing the use of multiple TASER shocks against individuals who could be in these vulnerable physiological and psychological states.

Should police departments develop specific training and policies governing use of multiple TASER shocks against individuals who might be in vulnerable physiological states?
Robert J. Bunker

Research on conducted energy devices : Findings, methods, and a possible alternative
Robert J. Kaminski

Conducted energy weapons : Learning from operational discretion and encounter outcomes
Gregory B. Morrison

Criminology and Public Policy, November 2009: Volume 8, Issue 4

Critical Criminology 17(4)

Discounting Women: Context Matters in Risk and Need Assessment
Janet T. Davidson and Meda Chesney-Lind

Widely used risk/need assessment instruments assume that female offender risks for recidivism are essentially equivalent to those of male offenders. A look at the lives of female and male offenders reveals that there are important differences in the context of both offending and re-offending. This research draws on both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the effectiveness of a well known risk instrument to both predict recidivism and potentially direct intervention efforts. The results, particularly the in-depth interviews with offenders (both male and female) serving time on parole or felony probation reveal differences not detected by most contemporary risk and need assessment instruments. Ultimately, the gendered links among physical and sexual abuse, drugs, and crime are missed in risk and need assessments, thereby placing female offenders at risk for neglect and criminalization in an otherwise seemingly objective method of assessment.

The Value of Quantitative Analysis for a Critical Understanding of Crime and Society
Steven E. Barkan

The value of quantitative analysis for a critical understanding of crime and society has often been questioned. This paper joins the debate by reviewing quantitative evidence on key criminological topics: the causes of crime, public opinion on crime, and the operation and impact of the criminal justice system. This evidence highlights the importance of economic deprivation and racial prejudice and discrimination for understanding U.S. crime and justice and points to the ineffectiveness of the nation’s “get tough” approach to crime control. In these ways, quantitative analysis has already bolstered central propositions in critical criminology and promises to continue to do so.

Women’s Role in Serial Killing Teams: Reconstructing a Radical Feminist Perspective
Jennie Thompson & Suzanne Ricard

This article examines women’s roles in serial killing teams and reconsiders the traditional applications of radical feminist research on serial killers. These applications limit the utility of radical feminist theory for understanding female serial killers who kill in teams. An analysis of patriarchal power relations, which emphasizes the constitutive element of radical feminist theory, provides a useful framework to achieve insight into female serial killers who kill in teams. The advantage of this approach is demonstrated through three case studies of this type of female serial killer: Martha Beck, Myra Hindley, and Karla Homolka.

Methodology as a Knife Fight: The Process, Politics and Paradox of Evaluating Surveillance
Kevin D. Haggerty

This paper uses the analogy of an unregulated fight to examine the rhetorical politics of evaluation research pertaining to surveillance measures. It outlines how, in addition to being standard fare in social scientific debates, methodological issues have a parallel existence as part of the rhetorical politics of surveillance and crime control. After briefly sketching some of the ways that advocates try and accentuate methodological concerns in attempts to undermine the position of their adversary the paper considers how certain groups are comparatively advantaged and disadvantaged in such exchanges. The concluding section takes a larger view of these dynamics to address some of the risks inherent in engaging in this style of discursive politics.

Critical Criminology, December 2009: Volume 17, Issue 4

Journal of Marriage and Family 71(4)

Families of Color

Unpacking Racial Socialization: Considering Female African American Primary Caregivers' Racial Identity
Krista Maywalt Scottham, Ciara P. Smalls

Communicative Correlates of Satisfaction, Family Identity, and Group Salience in Multiracial/Ethnic Families
Jordan Soliz, Allison R. Thorson, Christine E. Rittenour

Positive Marital Quality, Acculturative Stress, and Child Outcomes Among Mexican Americans
Melinda S. Leidy, Ross D. Parke, Mina Cladis, Scott Coltrane, Sharon Duffy

Living Arrangements During Childrearing Years and Later Health of African American Mothers
Kate E. Fothergill, Margaret E. Ensminger, Kerry M. Green, Roland J. Thorpe, Judy Robertson, Judith D. Kasper, Hee-Soon Juon

Intergenerational Experiences of Discrimination in Chinese American Families: Influences of Socialization and Stress
Aprile D. Benner, Su Yeong Kim

Marriage

Effects of Welfare Participation on Marriage
Julien O. Teitler, Nancy E. Reichman, Lenna Nepomnyaschy, Irwin Garfinkel

The Link Between the Marital Bond and Future Triadic Family Interactions
Eve-Anne M. Doohan, Sybil Carrère, Chelsea Siler, Cheryl Beardslee

Stay for the Children? Husband Violence, Marital Stability, and Children's Behavior Problems
Clifton R. Emery

Marital Dissolution and Family Formation

Religious Influences on the Risk of Marital Dissolution
Margaret L. Vaaler, Christopher G. Ellison, Daniel A. Powers

Family Structure History: Links to Relationship Formation Behaviors in Young Adulthood
Suzanne Ryan, Kerry Franzetta, Erin Schelar, Jennifer Manlove

Stepfamily Formation: Implications for Adolescent Ties to Mothers, Nonresident Fathers, and Stepfathers
Valarie King

Sexuality

Parenting and Adolescents' Sexual Initiation
Monica A. Longmore, Abbey L. Eng, Peggy C. Giordano, Wendy D. Manning

Sexual Frequency and the Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions
Scott T. Yabiku, Constance T. Gager

Male Pregnancy Intendedness and Children's Mental Proficiency and Attachment Security During Toddlerhood
Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, Mindy E. Scott, Allison Horowitz

Of General Interest

The Role of Perceived Maternal Favoritism in Sibling Relations in Midlife
J. Jill Suitor, Jori Sechrist, Mari Plikuhn, Seth T. Pardo, Megan Gilligan, Karl Pillemer

National Context, Family Satisfaction, and Fairness in the Division of Household Labor
Theodore N. Greenstein

The Social Relations Model in Family Studies: A Systematic Review
Veroni I. Eichelsheim, Maja Dekovic, Kirsten L. Buist, William L. Cook

Economic Well-Being in Salvadoran Transnational Families: How Gender Affects Remittance Practices
Leisy Abrego

Household Composition Among Elders in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of HIV/AIDS
Zachary Zimmer

Journal of Marriage and Family, November 2009: Volume 71, Issue 4