Todd R. Clear
Normalization and Legitimation: Modeling Stigmatizing Attitudes Toward Ex-Offenders
Paul J. Hirschfield, Alex R. Piquero
Successful community reentry and the criminological impact of incarceration may depend in part on the attitudes (and consequent reactions) that prisoners encounter after release. Theories of social stigma suggest that such attitudes depend, in turn, on the levels of familiarity with the stigmatized group (the normalization thesis) as well as on the credibility and trust they accord to sanctioning agents (the legitimation thesis). To assess these two hypotheses, we present the first multivariate analysis of public attitudes toward ex-offenders. Data from a four-state, random-digit telephone survey of more than 2,000 individuals indicate that, net of controls, personal familiarity with ex-offenders may soften attitudes, whereas confidence in the courts may harden them. As expected, non-Hispanic Whites, conservatives, and southern residents hold more negative views of ex-offenders. Our findings lend indirect support to concerns that incarceration is becoming "normalized", and we suggest strategies for reducing the stigma of incarceration.
Proactive Policing and Robbery Rates Across U.S. Cities
Charis E. Kubrin, Steven F. Messner, Glenn Deane, Kelly Mcgeever, Thomas D. Stucky
In recent years, criminologists, as well as journalists, have devoted considerable attention to the potential deterrent effect of what is sometimes referred to as "proactive" policing. This policing style entails the vigorous enforcement of laws against relatively minor offenses to prevent more serious crime. The current study examines the effect of proactive policing on robbery rates for a sample of large U.S. cities using an innovative measure developed by Sampson and Cohen (1988). We replicate their cross-sectional analyses using data from 2000 to 2003, which is a period that proactive policing is likely to have become more common than that of the original study—the early 1980s. We also extend their analyses by estimating a more comprehensive regression model that incorporates additional theoretically relevant predictors. Finally, we advance previous research in this area by using panel data, The cross-sectional analyses replicate prior findings of a negative relationship between proactive policing and robbery rates. In addition, our dynamic models suggest that proactive policing is endogenous to changes in robbery rates. When this feedback between robbery and proactive policing is eliminated, we find more evidence to support our finding that proactive policing reduces robbery rates.
The Social Sources of Americans' Punitiveness: A Test of Three Competing Models
James D. Unnever, Francis T. Cullen
The sustained movement to "get tough" on crime, especially through mass imprisonment, has prompted several prominent efforts to explain the public's harshness toward crime. From the extant literature, we demarcate the following three competing theories of public punitiveness: the escalating crime-distrust model, the moral decline model, and the racial animus model. Controlling for other known predictors of crime-related opinions, we test the explanatory power of these perspectives to account for support for the death penalty and for a punitive crime-control approach. Our analysis of a national sample of respondents surveyed in the 2000 National Election Study reveals partial support for each model. Racial animus, however, seems to exert the most consistent effect on public sentiments. This finding suggests that racial resentments are inextricably entwined in public punitiveness and thus should be incorporated into any complete theory of this phenomenon.
Reporting Crime to the Police, 1973–2005: A Multivariate Analysis of Long-Term Trends in the National Crime Survey (NCS) and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
Eric P. Baumer, Janet L. Lauritsen
Although many efforts have been made during the past several decades to increase the reporting of crime to the police, we know little about the nature of long-term crime-reporting trends. Most research in this area has been limited to specific crime types (e.g., sexual assault), or it has not taken into account possible changes in the characteristics of incidents associated with police notification. In this article, we advance knowledge about long-term trends in the reporting of crime to the police by using data from the National Crime Survey (NCS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and methods that take into account possible changes in the factors that affect reporting at the individual and incident level as well as changes in survey methodology. Using data from 1973 to 2005, our findings show that significant increases have occurred in the likelihood of police notification for sexual assault crimes as well as for other forms of assault and that these increases were observed for violence against women and violence against men, stranger and nonstranger violence, as well as crimes experienced by members of different racial and ethnic groups. The reporting of property victimization (i.e., motor vehicle theft, burglary, and larceny) also increased across time. Overall, observed increases in crime reporting account for about half of the divergence between the NCVS and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) in the estimated magnitude of the 1990s crime decline—a result that highlights the need to corroborate findings about crime trends from multiple data sources.
Influence and Selection Processes in Weapon Carrying During Adolescence: The Roles of Status, Aggression, and Vulnerability
Jan Kornelis Dijkstra, Siegwart Lindenberg, René Veenstra, Christian Steglich, Jenny Isaacs, Noel A. Card, Ernest V. E. Hodges
The role of peers in weapon carrying (guns, knives, and other weapons) inside and outside the school was examined in this study. Data stem from a longitudinal study of a high-risk sample of male students (7th to 10th grade; N = 167) from predominantly Hispanic low-socio-economic-status schools in the United States. Longitudinal social-network models were used to test whether similarity in weapon carrying among friends results from peer influence or selection. From a goal-framing approach, we argue that weapon carrying might function as a status symbol in friendship networks and, consequently, be subject to peer influence. The findings indicate that weapon carrying is indeed a result of peer influence. The role of status effects was supported by findings that weapon carrying increased the number of friendship nominations received by peers and reduced the number of given nominations. In addition, peer-reported aggressiveness predicted weapon carrying 1 year later. These findings suggest that adolescent weapon carrying emerges from a complex interplay between the attraction of weapon carriers for affiliation, peer influence in friendship networks, and individual aggression.
Motherhood and Criminal Desistance in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods
Derek A. Kreager, Ross L. Matsueda, Elena A. Erosheva
Evidence from several qualitative studies has suggested that the transition to motherhood has strong inhibitory effects on the delinquency and drug use trajectories of poor women. Quantitative studies, however, typically have failed to find significant parenthood or motherhood effects. We argue that the latter research typically has not examined motherhood in disadvantaged settings or applied the appropriate statistical method. Focusing on within-individual change, we test the motherhood hypothesis using data from a 10-year longitudinal study of more than 500 women living in disadvantaged Denver communities. We find that the transition to motherhood is associated significantly with reductions in delinquency, marijuana, and alcohol behaviors. Moreover, we find that the effect of motherhood is larger than that of marriage for all outcomes. These results support the qualitative findings and suggest that the transition to motherhood—and not marriage—is the primary turning point for disadvantaged women to exit delinquent and drug-using trajectories.
The Interplay of Moral Norms and Instrumental Incentives in Crime Causation
Clemens Kroneberg, Isolde Heintze, Guido Mehlkop
Rational choice theories (RCTs) of crime assume actors behave in an instrumental, outcome-oriented way. Accordingly, individuals should weight the costs and benefits of criminal acts with subjective probabilities that these outcomes will occur. Previous studies either do not directly test this central hypothesis or else yield inconsistent results. We show that a meaningful test can be conducted only if a broader view is adopted that takes into account the interplay of moral norms and instrumental incentives. Such a view can be derived from the Model of Frame Selection (Kroneberg, 2005) and the Situational Action Theory of Crime Causation (Wikström, 2004). Based on these theories, we analyze the willingness to engage in shoplifting and tax fraud in a sample of 2,130 adults from Dresden, Germany. In line with our theoretical expectations, we find that only respondents who do not feel bound by moral norms show the kind of instrumental rationality assumed in RCTs of crime. Where norms have been strongly internalized, and in the absence of neutralizations, instrumental incentives are irrelevant.
Distinguishing Facts and Artifacts in Group-Based Modeling
Torbjørn Skardhamar
Group-based methodology (SPGM) has been presented as suitable to test for the existence of subpopulations not directly observable. Several criminological studies have used this methodology, and it is fair to say that typological theorizing has been spurred by its development. In particular, much of the empirical support for Moffitt's taxonomy (1993, 2006) is from studies using SPGM. In a small simulation experiment, I investigate whether SPGM is suitable for such tests, and I examine the extent to which similar trajectories might equally well result from mechanisms suggested by general theories. I conclude that, as it is usually applied, SPGM cannot provide evidence either for or against a taxonomy and that the usual findings can be explained by competing theories. I argue that this result is not only because of the methodology characteristics but also because of the modeling strategy applied.
[Research Note] Does Violence Involving Women and Intimate Partners Have a Special Etiology?
Richard B. Felson, Kelsea Jo Lane
We used data from a survey of inmates who have committed homicide or assault to examine whether men and women who have killed or assaulted their intimate partners are different from other violent offenders. A "gender perspective" implies that intimate partner violence and violence between the sexes have different etiologies than other types of violence, whereas a "violence perspective" implies that they have similar etiologies. Our evidence supports a violence perspective. In general, offenders who attack their partners are similar to other offenders in terms of their prior records, alcohol and drug use, and experiences of abuse. We observed some differences between men who attack women (including their female partners) and other male offenders, but the differences were opposite those predicted by a gender perspective. For example, men who attacked their partners were particularly likely to have been abused by their partners. In addition, men who attacked women were particularly likely to have experienced sexual abuse during childhood and to have been intoxicated at the time of the incident. These results suggest that some well-known predictors of violence are particularly strong predictors of male violence against women and female partners.
Criminology, February 2010: Volume 48, Issue 1
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