Theory and Society 39(3-4), Special Issue

Cities, States, Trust, and Rule

Special Issue in Memory of Charles Tilly, 1929-2008.

Guest Edited by Michael Hanagan and Chris Tilly


Cities and states in geohistory
Edward W. Soja

Cities, states, and trust networks: chapter 1 of Cities and States in World History
Charles Tilly

Cities, states, trust, and rule: new departures from the work of Charles Tilly
Michael Hanagan and Chris Tilly

Colonial legacy of ethno-racial inequality in Japan
Hwaji Shin

From city club to nation state: business networks in American political development
Elisabeth S. Clemens

Inclusiveness and exclusion: trust networks at the origins of European cities
Wim Blockmans

Industrial welfare and the state: nation and city reconsidered
Smita Srinivas

Institutions and the adoption of rights: political and property rights in Colombia
Carmenza Gallo

Irregular armed forces, shifting patterns of commitment, and fragmented sovereignty in the developing world
Diane E. Davis

Is there a moral economy of state formation? Religious minorities and repertoires of regime integration in the Middle East and Western Europe, 600–1614
Ariel Salzmann

Legacies of empire?
Miguel Angel Centeno and Elaine Enriquez

Taking Tilly south: durable inequalities, democratic contestation, and citizenship in the Southern Metropolis
Patrick Heller and Peter Evans

The forms of power and the forms of cities: building on Charles Tilly
Peter Marcuse

Unanticipated consequences of “humanitarian intervention”: The British campaign to abolish the slave trade, 1807–1900
Marcel van der Linden

Was government the solution or the problem? The role of the state in the history of American social policy
Michael B. Katz


Theory and Society, May 2010: Volume 39, Issue 3-4

Justice Quarterly 27(3)

Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Is it Associated with Recidivism?
Jill Levenson; Elizabeth Letourneau; Kevin Armstrong; Kristen Marie Zgoba

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between failure to register (FTR) as a sex offender and subsequent recidivism (N = 2,970). No significant differences were found between the sexual recidivism rates of those who failed to register and compliant registrants (11% vs. 9%, respectively). There was no significant difference in the proportion of sexual recidivists and nonrecidivists with registration violations (12% vs. 10%, respectively). FTR did not predict sexual recidivism, and survival analyses revealed no significant difference in time to recidivism when comparing those who failed to register (2.9 years) with compliant registrants (2.8 years). Results fail to support the supposition that sexual offenders who fail to register are more sexually dangerous than those who comply with registration requirements. The punitive emphasis on registration enforcement may not be justified and might divert limited resources away from strategies that would better facilitate public protection from sexual violence.

Lethal Outcome in Sexual Assault Events: A Conjunctive Analysis
Tom Mieczkowski; Eric Beauregard

This paper examines violent sexual assaults and the factors associated with those assaults with lethal outcomes. It utilizes a criminal events perspective in conceptualizing the nature of these assaults and divides the event into three domains: victim characteristics, situational characteristics, and crime characteristics. Using a method developed by Miethe, Hart, and Regoeczi, conjunctive analysis of case configurations, we find that certain characteristics of the crime itself and certain characteristics of the victim appear strongly associated with fatal outcomes in sexual assaults, while situational characteristics appear relatively weakly associated with lethality.

Lawlessness in the Federal Sentencing Process: A Test for Uniformity and Consistency in Sentence Outcomes
Amy L. Anderson; Cassia Spohn

One of the important goals of the federal sentencing guidelines was to reduce inter-judge disparity in sentencing. In this paper, we test the assumption that structuring discretion produced uniformity in federal sentencing and consistency in the process by which judges arrive at the appropriate sentence. We also examine whether background characteristics of judges affect the sentences they impose on similarly situated offenders. We used hierarchical linear modeling, nesting the offenders in the judges that sentenced them in order to examine the sentencing decisions of federal judges in three U.S. District Courts. While we found that significant variation between judges in sentencing is largely accounted for by our level 1 characteristics, we also found that judges arrive at decisions regarding the appropriate sentence in different ways, by attaching differential weights to several of the legally relevant case characteristics and legally irrelevant offender characteristics.

Criminal Prosecutions: Examining Prosecutorial Discretion and Charge Reductions in U.S. Federal District Courts
Lauren O'Neill Shermer; Brian D. Johnson

The role of the prosecutor in criminal punishments remains a fervent topic of criminal justice discourse, yet it has received limited empirical attention, particularly for U.S. Attorneys in federal district courts. The present study examines charging and sentencing outcomes in federal courts by combining charging data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts with sentencing data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The merger of these data sources overcomes limitations of each and provides for an investigation of the causes and consequences of federal prosecutorial charging decisions. Our investigation focuses on the subtle but important influences that extralegal offender characteristics exert in this process. Results indicate that some extralegal characteristics are intricately tied to the likelihood of charge reductions. Moreover, these effects sometimes interact to produce compound disadvantages for some groups of offenders. Our analyses are guided by contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision-making.

The Pragmatic American: Attributions of Crime and the Hydraulic Relation Hypothesis
James D. Unnever; John K. Cochran; Francis T. Cullen; Brandon K. Applegate

Attribution theory argues that a “hydraulic relation” exists between dispositional and situational attribution styles, causing people to endorse one style at the expense of the other. That is, attribution theorists predict that there should be a strong negative relationship between attribution styles. We test this prediction using data collected in Hillsborough County (Tampa), Florida, and two national polls. Our investigation shows that, rather than a bifurcated view of crime causation, Americans manifest a complex attributional style that views crime emerging from multiple sources. We discuss how these findings reveal that the American public tends to be not ideological but pragmatic in its view of crime causation and, ultimately, in the crime control policies it is willing to endorse.

Contemporary Regional Differences in Support by Whites for the Death Penalty: A Research Note
Steven E. Barkan; Steven F. Cohn

Despite good theoretical reasons to expect strong differences between Southern whites and non-Southern whites in death penalty support, prior research with 1990 General Social Survey (GSS) data found only a small difference that lacked statistical significance. This paper investigates the possibilities that this null result was a statistical anomaly due to sampling vagaries or that a regional difference has emerged since 1990. Examining GSS data from 1974 through 2006, we initially found that a South/non-South regional difference among whites did not exist before 1993 but has existed since then. However, further analysis revealed that a Northeast/non-Northeast difference among whites has also existed during this same period. These findings suggest that future research on death penalty opinion should use both such differences as regional controls rather than just the customary South/non-South division.

Justice Quarterly, June 2010: Volume 27, Issue 3

Journal of Marriage and Family 72(2)

Parents, Children, and Adolescents

Partnership Transitions and Maternal Parenting
Audrey N. Beck, Carey E. Cooper, Sara McLanahan, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Race/Ethnic Differences in Effects of Family Instability on Adolescents' Risk Behavior
Paula Fomby, Stefanie Mollborn, Christie A. Sennott

Adolescent Triangulation Into Parental Conflicts: Longitudinal Implications for Appraisals and Adolescent-Parent Relations
Gregory M. Fosco, John H. Grych

The Nature and Correlates of Sibling Influence in Two-Parent African American Families
Shawn D. Whiteman, Julia M. Becerra Bernard, Susan M. McHale

The Interactive Effects of Marital Conflict and Divorce on Parent – Adult Children's Relationships
Tianyi Yu, Gregory S. Pettit, Jennifer E. Lansford, Kenneth A. Dodge, John E. Bates

Happy Spouses, Happy Parents? Family Relationships Among Finnish and Dutch Dual Earners
Kaisa Malinen, Ulla Kinnunen, Asko Tolvanen, Anna Rönkä, Hilde Wierda-Boer, Jan Gerris

Mothering, Fathering, and Externalizing Behavior in Toddler Boys
Marjolein Verhoeven, Marianne Junger, Chantal van Aken, Maja Dekovic, Marcel A. G. van Aken

Families and Adult Health

The Importance of Parenting and Financial Contributions in Promoting Fathers' Psychological Health
Holly S. Schindler

Mothers' Differentiation and Depressive Symptoms Among Adult Children
Karl Pillemer, J. Jill Suitor, Seth Pardo, Charles Henderson Jr.

Buffers of Racial Discrimination: Links With Depression Among Rural African American Mothers
Erica C. Odom, Lynne Vernon-Feagans

Of General Interest

Intimate Partner Violence in Young Adult Dating, Cohabitating, and Married Drinking Partnerships
Jacquelyn D. Wiersma, H. Harrington Cleveland, Veronica Herrera, Judith L. Fischer

Gender Asymmetry in Family Migration: Occupational Inequality or Interspousal Comparative Advantage?
Kimberlee A. Shauman


Journal of Marriage and Family, April 2010: Volume 72, Issue 2

Criminology and Public Policy 9(2)

Identifying Human Trafficking Victims

Improving our approach to human trafficking
Mohamed Mattar, Shanna Van Slyke

Where are all the victims?: Understanding the determinants of official identification of human trafficking incidents
Amy Farrell, Jack McDevitt, Stephanie Fahy

The passage of new laws that criminalize the trafficking of persons for labor and sexual services has raised public awareness about the problem of human trafficking. In response, police must understand the problem, identify human trafficking victims, and make arrests. The numbers of victims identified to date, however, has paled in comparison with official estimates, which leads some to question the existence of a human trafficking problem. Missing from this debate is information about how frequently police encounter human trafficking and how well prepared officers are to handle these cases. Analyzing survey responses from a national sample of police agencies in the United States, we found that less than 10% of police agencies identified human trafficking cases from 2000 to 2006. Larger agencies were more likely to identify cases of human trafficking but the agency leader perception about the problem in their local communities as well as taking steps to prepare officers to identify and respond were the most important factors to increasing human trafficking identification by police.

This study provides much needed information about why U.S. officials have identified so few human trafficking victims. By understanding how often and under what conditions police find, investigate, and prosecute cases of human trafficking we will be in a better position to identify and overcome barriers to police responses to trafficking and understand the limitations of official statistics about human trafficking. Data from a national survey also provide a baseline measure of police identification of human trafficking against which we can gauge the progress of future anti-trafficking efforts.

Building the infrastructure of anti-trafficking: Information, funding, responses1
Fiona David

Identifying child victims of trafficking: Toward solutions and resolutions
Elzbieta M. Gozdziak

Measuring the immeasurable: Can the severity of human trafficking be ranked?
Kristiina Kangaspunta

Human trafficking: Policy
Barbara Ann Stolz

Crime Costs across Offender Trajectories

Finding the path to optimal deterrence by tracking the path that leads to crime: An introduction to "Studying the costs of crime across offender trajectories"
David A. Anderson

Studying the costs of crime across offender trajectories
Mark A. Cohen, Alex R. Piquero, Wesley G. Jennings

Longitudinal studies of delinquency and crime have generated an important source of descriptive information regarding patterns of offending across the life course, and have helped inform and spur theoretical and methodological contributions. One particular method that has received considerable attention is based on offending trajectories, but applications of this method have not extended much beyond descriptive accounts of offending. This study links offender trajectories to monetary costs associated with criminal offending by members of the Second Philadelphia Birth Cohort. Results indicate that chronic offenders who frequently commit crimes when they are young turn to more serious crimes when they are adults and impose far greater costs than low-frequency chronic offenders and those whose offending peaks during adolescence.

Preventing individuals from becoming high-rate chronic offenders would yield significant cost savings of more than $200 million. In terms of overall costs, offending frequency accounts for the bulk of costs in the juvenile years, whereas the seriousness of individual crimes drives total costs in the adult years. Moreover, because some trajectory groups impose higher costs in their juvenile years, whereas others impose higher costs in their adult years, policies that target particular (high-rate chronic) trajectory groups as opposed to all at-risk youth, for example, have the potential to provide significantly greater benefits at lower costs. These findings suggest that the allocation of prevention and intervention efforts should be targeted differentially across the offender population, with those individuals exhibiting early, frequent, and chronic offending deserving the most attention. Promising programs aimed at such individuals include early childhood prevention programs, such as those based on family–parent training, self-control improvement, and cognitive therapies.

The costs of crime
Jens Ludwig

Offender trajectories, crime trends, and costs: An invited policy essay on studying the costs of crime across offender trajectories
Robert M. O'Brien

Juveniles' Right to Counsel

Juvenile law reform: Ensuring the right to counsel
Donna M. Bishop

The right to counsel in juvenile court: Law reform to deliver legal services and reduce justice by geography
Barry C. Feld, Shelly Schaefer

The U.S. Supreme Court in In re Gault granted delinquents the right to counsel in juvenile courts. Decades after Gault, efforts to provide adequate defense representation in juvenile courts have failed in most states. Moreover, juvenile justice administration varies with structural context and produces justice-by-geography. In 1995, Minnesota enacted juvenile law reforms, which include mandatory appointment of counsel. This pre- and post-reform legal impact study compares how juvenile courts processed youths before and after the statutory changes. We assess how legal changes affected the delivery of defense services and how implementation varied with urban, suburban, and rural context.

We report inconsistent judicial compliance with the mandate to appoint counsel. Despite unambiguous legislative intent, rates of representation improved for only one category of offenders. However, we find a positive reduction in justice by geography, especially in rural courts. Given judicial resistance to procedural reforms, states must find additional strategies to provide counsel in juvenile courts.

Does having an attorney provide a better outcome?: The right to counsel does not mean attorneys help youths
Kimberly Kempf-Leonard

When a "right" is not enough: Implementation of the right to counsel in an age of ambivalence
Robert G. Schwartz, Marsha Levick

Forensic Evidence Processing

Forensic identification evidence: Utility without infallibility
Simon A. Cole

Unanalyzed evidence in law-enforcement agencies: A national examination of forensic processing in police departments
Kevin J. Strom, Matthew J. Hickman

This study investigated forensic evidence processing in a nationally representative sample of state and local law-enforcement agencies (n = 3,153). For a 5-year period, agencies reported that 14% of all unsolved homicides (an estimated 3,975 cases) and 18% of all unsolved rapes (an estimated 27,595 cases) contained forensic evidence that had not been submitted to a forensic crime laboratory for analysis. Approximately 40% of these unanalyzed homicide and rape cases were reported to have contained DNA evidence. The lack of a suspect in the case was the most frequently cited reason for not submitting forensic evidence for analysis.

Despite an increased diffusion of knowledge regarding the value of forensic evidence in the prosecution and defense of criminal cases, the investigative capabilities of forensic science are not being realized by law enforcement. Additional training for law enforcement on the use of forensic science to develop investigative leads is critical, as is the creation of departmental policies that prioritize and streamline the analysis of forensic evidence for homicide and rape cases—even in "no-suspect" cases. Ensuring adequate resources and information sharing for forensic processing especially of violent crimes, is also critical.

The promises and pitfalls of forensic evidence in unsolved crimes
Kevin M. Beaver

An economic perspective on "Unanalyzed evidence in law-enforcement agencies"
E. James Cowan, Roger Koppl

Database-driven investigations: The promise—and peril—of using forensics to solve "no-suspect" cases
Andrea Roth

Criminology and Public Policy, May 2010: Volume 9, Issue 2

Journal of Criminal Justice 38(2)

Evaluating the Juvenile Breaking the Cycle Program's impact on recidivism
Christopher P. Krebs, Pamela K. Lattimore, Alexander J. Cowell, Phillip Graham

This article presents findings from an evaluation of the Juvenile Breaking the Cycle (JBTC) Program, an intervention that was designed to provide criminal justice system monitoring and individualized treatment and services to substance-using youth who were assessed as high recidivism risks following an initial police encounter. Results from logistic and negative binomial regression models, using repeated data measures, indicated that JBTC participants, relative to baseline and a sample of comparison youth, were significantly less likely to be arrested and had significantly fewer arrests in the six to twelve months after entering the program. The JBTC Program appears to be one that jurisdictions should consider replicating in an effort to address the needs of juveniles who are at risk for delinquency and substance use in their communities.

Cross-agency coordination of offender reentry: Testing collaboration outcomes
Brenda J. Bond, Jody Hoffer Gittell

Successful offender reentry is arguably one of the most challenging contemporary issues, with policymakers calling for more effective coordination between criminal justice and social service agencies. Evidence linking cross-agency coordination to reentry outcomes is limited and underdeveloped. The theory of relational coordination was used to develop hypotheses regarding the impact of cross-agency coordination on reentry outcomes in “reentry hot spots” and to test those hypotheses. Results pointed to some differences in cross-agency coordination between cities that were part of reentry policy efforts and those that were not. Results also revealed that relationships between criminal justice agencies were relatively strong, while their relationships with employment providers were comparatively weaker, but the impacts of these relationships on reentry outcomes were limited at best. Findings support using relational coordination to understand reentry collaboration, to identify strengths and weaknesses of collaborative ties, and to measure their impact on reentry outcomes.

The organizational structure of international drug smuggling
Jana S. Benson, Scott H. Decker

While most group offending is not well organized, it is generally assumed that high levels of organization can be found in group offending that generates revenue, such as white-collar crime, drug sales, and smuggling drugs or humans. The organizational structure of international drug smuggling has typically been viewed as highly rational and formally structured. Employing interviews with thirty-four federal prisoners convicted of smuggling large volumes of cocaine into the United States, this study explored the organizational structure of high level international drug smuggling. The subjects described a general lack of formal structure and depicted the drug smuggling operations as composed of isolated work groups without formal connections among each other. These findings bring into question the idea that these groups are rationally organized around pursuing efficiency and support recent research that suggests network security or minimizing risk are key organizing principles of drug trading organizations.

Take this job and shove it: An exploratory study of turnover intent among jail staff
Eric Lambert, Eugene A. Paoline III

The success of any organization usually rests on the shoulders of its employees. As such, voluntary personnel turnover presents administrative challenges that have substantial and far reaching effects. Understanding the factors that lead to staff turnover intentions can assist organizational leaders in possibly altering the work environment to address employee concerns. Among correctional organizations, the few studies that have been conducted on turnover intent have focused, as most correctional research in general, on prisons. The exclusion of jail turnover intent is puzzling given the unique challenges that jail staff face. The current study attempted to fill this empirical void by using survey data to examine the antecedents (i.e., personal characteristics, perceptions of the work environment, and job attitudes) of turnover intent among staff at a large southern jail. Based on a multivariate analysis, the most powerful predictors of jail staff turnover intent were job attitudes (i.e., job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment). The findings suggested that administrators should concentrate on improving the work environment to boost employee job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

Physically forced, alcohol-induced, and verbally coerced sexual victimization: Assessing risk factors among university women
Cortney A. Franklin

Using survey responses from a sample of 185 college women enrolled at a large northwestern university, this study identified the various risk factors related to three different forms of verbally and physically coercive sexual victimization. Three logistic regression models were estimated and findings indicated that (1) more sexual partners and delays in responding to danger in sexual settings significantly increased the odds of experiencing unwanted sex as a result of verbal coercion, (2) an increased number of sex partners significantly increased the odds of experiencing alcohol-induced sexual assault, and (3) an increased number of sex partners and affiliation with the university Greek system significantly increased the odds of experiencing completed rape. Future research directions and policy implications are discussed.

Risk factors for victimization of younger and older persons: Assessing differences in isolation, intra-individual characteristics, and health factors
Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, Brian K. Payne

Researchers have examined whether different risk factors predict elder abuse and victimization. Among the more commonly cited risk factors are social isolation, intra-individual characteristics, and various health factors. While some studies confirmed that certain risk factors help to explain elder abuse, few researchers have compared how these risk factors address the victimization of older and younger persons. To fill this void, the current study surveyed 746 residents of southeast Virginia by telephone. Measures assessing isolation, health, and intra-individual characteristics were included on the survey. Results of bivariate and multivariate analyses showed that different risk factors exist for younger and older persons.

Reconceptualizing organizational change in the Comprehensive Gang Model
Erika Gebo, Carolyn Boyes-Watson, Sayra Pinto-Wilson

Organizational change and development is one of the cornerstones of successful crime prevention and intervention efforts, yet it has received little empirical attention in the areas of crime and justice. This lack of empirical attention extends to the national Comprehensive Gang Model, which explicitly states that organizational change and development is a key strategy. Borrowing concepts from the management field, the authors argue that the Comprehensive Gang Model should be reconceptualized so that organizational change and development is the foundation upon which other strategies are built. Application of this re-specified model is demonstrated through a case study in central Massachusetts utilizing learning communities as a vehicle to obtain sustainable change. Assessment of the organizational change and development is also discussed.

Fear of crime among citizens of Turkey
Onder Karakus, Edmund F. McGarrell, Oguzhan Basibuyuk

Most fear of crime research has occurred in Western countries. The following analysis presents an integrated model of fear of crime for a randomly selected sample of 6,713 individuals from urban and rural parts of Turkey. Consistent with previous research, the victimization model, disorder model, and community concern/social control model predicted fear of crime among Turkish citizens. The integrated model of fear of crime, however, functioned differently in the Turkish context based on gender and residential locale. Increased age lowered the level of fear for women but not for men, and the positive impact of previous victimization on fear of crime was significantly more pronounced among females. Increased education reduced fear for urban dwellers, but not for rural residents. While age did not have a significant impact on fear for rural residents, in contrast to the vulnerability hypothesis, it reduced the level of fear for urban residents.

The intersection of defendants' race, gender, and age in prosecutorial decision making
Travis W. Franklin

A growing body of research examined the ways in which various legal and extralegal factors influence prosecutors' charging decisions. Though the results of these studies were mixed, some researchers reported that extralegal factors had little or no effect on important decisions such as case rejection and dismissal. The majority of this research, however, suffered from a considerable shortcoming—that is, most studies considered the direct effects of measures such as age, race, and gender, but failed to consider the potential interactions that might occur between these factors. Consequently, the present research employed a nationally representative sample of felony drug defendants to address this issue by examining whether or not age and gender condition the effect of race on prosecutors' decisions to dismiss criminal charges. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of theory, research, and policy.

Organizational factors that contribute to police deadly force liability
Hoon Lee, Michael S. Vaughn

Police use of deadly force is a significant concern for municipal policymakers and law enforcement agencies. Following U.S. Supreme Court case law, police agencies and municipal entities may be held civilly liable under Section 1983 for force that is not objectively reasonable; for failure to train; and for policies, customs, and practices that cause constitutional injury. This article analyzes eighty-six cases from the U.S. District Courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals on Section 1983 liability regarding police use of deadly force. The article focuses specifically on police firearm use in deadly force situations, highlighting how managerial disorganization and administrative breakdown impacts departmental decision making. Principles of management, such as division of labor, hierarchy of authority, span of control, unity of command, and communication are used to explain bad shootings that lead to potential police liability.

Where juvenile serious offenders live: A neighborhood analysis of Wayne County, Michigan
Irene Y.H. Ng

This study investigated the relationship between neighborhood factors and juvenile serious offenders in Wayne County, Michigan. Wayne County is home to Detroit, a city with a glorious past but a bleak future. Administrative data were linked to tract-level census characteristics that proxy for social disorganization structural factors. Results by negative binomial regressions found significant associations in the expected direction with concentrated disadvantage, concentrated affluence, and inequality. Concentrated immigration, however, was insignificantly related to juvenile serious offending, and residential stability increased rather than decreased offending. These counter-theoretical results might be due to the presence of homes inhabited by students and young professionals and the vibrant Latino immigrant communities. The stark contrasts this analysis documented, combined with the high correlation of economic conditions to juvenile crime, demand urgent and radical responses to completely transform impoverished neighborhoods in Wayne County.

Problem officers? Analyzing problem behavior patterns from a large cohort
Christopher J. Harris

This study explored varying patterns of police problem behaviors as officers gain experience. The policing literature offered little guidance for exploring problem behaviors over the course of officers' careers; therefore, the criminal career paradigm was employed as a means for framing and analyzing this phenomenon. Using a retrospective, longitudinal data set gathered from a large police department in the northeastern United States, patterns of citizen complaints for a large cohort of officers were examined using a semiparametric, group-based approach. Results indicated that multiple trajectories underlie the aggregate relationship between experience and misconduct, and varying demographic characteristics impact the likelihood that officers will belong to each trajectory. Descriptions of each trajectory and their profiles are presented, and theoretical and practical implications for policing are discussed.

Journal of Criminal Justice, March 2010: Volume 38, Issue 2

Social Problems 57(2)

Union Threat, Countermovement Organization, and Labor Policy in the States, 1944–1960
Marc Dixon

This article evaluates social movement perspectives on repression and movement-countermovement organization relative to the wave of policy setbacks that unions experienced in the pivotal two decades following the New Deal. An event history analysis of the adoption of right-to-work laws across states between 1944 and 1960 supports social movement perspectives that emphasize the relative threat posed by challenging groups, but the impact of threat is uneven. The findings advance a more contextualized and historically grounded understanding, demonstrating how union threat takes on greater meaning in contexts where authorities side with employers relative to labor. This study improves upon prior labor scholarship by including data on both union and employer organization, each of which are shown to be influential for right-to-work outcomes independent of notable political opportunities. I conclude by discussing the implications of the findings for scholarship on labor and social movements more generally. Keywords: labor unions, labor politics, social movements, political repression, protest.

 
Shared Visions? Diversity and Cultural Membership in American Life
Penny Edgell, Eric Tranby

Sociological theory and public discourse raise concerns about division, fragmentation, or attenuation in our collective life rooted in, among other things, racial or religious differences, but we know very little about how ordinary Americans imagine themselves as similar to and different from their fellow citizens. In a recent, nationally representative telephone survey (2003, N = 2081) we asked over 2,000 Americans whether the members of ten different racial/ethnic, religious, or social groups "share your vision of America." We used cluster analysis and found three patterns of responses to this set of questions, patterns that reflect differences in social location and correspond to different views of diversity, group stereotypes, and understandings of American society. We argue that what we find reveals different dimensions along which Americans draw symbolic boundaries in public life, and that how these boundaries are drawn is rooted in three different visions of America. Optimistic pluralists believe in the positive value of diversity and are unwilling to exclude people on the basis of religion, ethnicity, or lifestyle; critics of multiculturalism are critical of diversity and are wary about contemporary social changes and political and social "out-groups;" and cultural preservationists imagine an America with a moral order underpinned by shared values and a history of a unified white, Christian culture. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for scholarship on multiculturalism and the "culture wars," and we call for more research on how ordinary Americans interpret the meanings and implications of social differences in public life.

 
A Dynamic View of Neighborhoods: The Reciprocal Relationship between Crime and Neighborhood Structural Characteristics
John R. Hipp

Prior research frequently observes a positive cross-sectional relationship between various neighborhood structural characteristics and crime rates, and attributes the causal explanation entirely to these structural characteristics. We question this assumption theoretically, proposing a household-level model showing that neighborhood crime might also change these structural characteristics. We test these hypotheses using data on census tracts in 13 cities over a ten-year period, and our cross-lagged models generally find that, if anything, crime is the stronger causal force in these possible relationships. Neighborhoods with more crime tend to experience increasing levels of residential instability, more concentrated disadvantage, a diminishing retail environment, and more African Americans ten years later. Although we find that neighborhoods with more concentrated disadvantage experience increases in violent and property crime, there is no evidence that residential instability or the presence of African Americans increases crime rates ten years later.

 
Morality and Health: News Media Constructions of Overweight and Eating Disorders
Abigail C. Saguy, Kjerstin Gruys

This article examines how widely shared cultural values shape social problem construction and, in turn, can reproduce social inequality. To do so, we draw on a comparative case study of American news reporting on eating disorders and overweight/obesity between 1995 and 2005. In the contemporary United States, thinness is associated with high social status and taken as evidence of moral virtue. In contrast, fatness is linked to low status and seen as a sign of sloth and gluttony. Drawing on an original data set of news reports, we examine how such social and moral meanings of body size inform news reporting on eating disorders and overweight. We find that the news media in our sample typically discuss how a host of complex factors beyond individual control contribute to anorexia and bulimia. In that anorexics and bulimics are typically portrayed as young white women or girls, this reinforces cultural images of young white female victims. In contrast, the media predominantly attribute overweight to bad individual choices and tend to treat binge eating disorder as ordinary and blameworthy overeating. In that the poor and minorities are more likely to be heavy, such reporting reinforces social stereotypes of fat people, ethnic minorities, and the poor as out of control and lazy. While appreciation for bigger female bodies among African Americans is hailed as protecting against thinness-oriented eating disorders, this same cultural preference is partially blamed for overweight and obesity among African American women and girls.

 
Are Some Emotions Marked "Whites Only"? Racialized Feeling Rules in Professional Workplaces
Adia Harvey Wingfield

Much of the research on emotion work in organizations has focused on the ways in which emotional performance reproduces gender inequality. Yet, most of these studies overlook the racial character of professional workplaces and how emotion work is experienced by racial/ethnic minorities. In this article, I examine how the normative feeling rules that guide emotional performance in professional workplaces are racialized rather than neutral or objective criteria. Based on 25 semistructured interviews with black professionals, I contend that feeling rules have different implications for black workers and ultimately reinforce racial difference. This research contributes to the sociological literature on emotion work by further developing the racial components of emotional performance.

 
Race and Ethnic Representations of Lawbreakers and Victims in Crime News: A National Study of Television Coverage

Research on racial-ethnic portrayals in television crime news is limited and questions remain about the sources of representations and how these vary for perpetrators versus victims. We draw from power structure, market share, normal crimes, racial threat, and racial privileging perspectives to further this research. The reported race or ethnicity of violent crime perpetrators and victims are modeled as functions of: (1) situational characteristics of crime stories and (2) contextual characteristics of television market areas. The primary data are from a stratified random sample of television newscasts in 2002–2003 (Long et al. 2005). An important innovation of our work is the use of a national, more generalizeable, sample of local news stories than prior researchers who tended to focus on single market areas. Results indicate that both the context of the story itself and the social structural context within which news stories are reported are relevant to ethnic and racial portrayals in crime news. We find limited support for power structure, market share, normal crimes, and racial threat explanations of patterns of reporting. Racial privileging arguments receive more extensive support.

 
Talking Race, Marketing Culture: The Racial Habitus In and Out of Apartheid
Jeffrey J. Sallaz

This article uses the concept of habitus to address the puzzle of past-in-present racial formations. Although formal ideologies of white supremacy may be suddenly overturned, the embodied dispositions of the habitus should prove durable and may even improvise new practices that transpose old racial schemata into new settings. Evidence for these propositions derives from an ethnography of marketing practices inside a leisure firm in postapartheid South Africa. In the organizational backstage, veteran white managers routinely categorize consumers as desired "whities" versus denigrated "darkies." But a second discourse of marketing, found in the frontstage, uses survey data to divide the market into "blue-collar" and "jazz" types. By structuring marketing strategy to attract the former and repel the latter, managers exclude black consumers and euphemize such exclusion vis-à-vis the state and other public audiences. Findings extend not only racial formation theory, but also U.S.-based understandings of discrimination.

Social Problems, May 2010: Volume 57, Issue 2

Law & Society Review 44(1)

Demography of the Legal Profession and Racial Disparities in Sentencing
Ryan D. King, Kecia R. Johnson, Kelly McGeever

The demography of the legal profession has changed rather dramatically in recent decades, yet the consequences of a more racially and ethnically diverse pool of lawyers for the administration of justice have not received significant attention. The present research examines how the racial composition of the local legal profession affects one facet of criminal law: the sentencing of convicted defendants. Building on prior work in the fields of law, stratification, and mobility, we hypothesize that racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing are mitigated where the legal profession is more diverse. In line with this hypothesis, analysis of data from a sample of large urban counties taken between 1990 and 2002 shows that the black-white racial disparity in sentencing attenuates as the number of black attorneys in the county increases, net of the percent black in the county and other possible confounding variables. Comparable results are found for Hispanics. The findings are discussed in the context of a demographically changing legal profession and prior work on racial disparities in the justice system.

Failure to Update: An Institutional Perspective on Noncompliance With the Family and Medical Leave Act
Erin L. Kelly

At least one-quarter of covered workplaces violated the parental leave requirements of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) when surveyed in 1997. What explains this noncompliance? Using a survey of 389 U.S. workplaces and qualitative interviews with managers in 40 organizations, I demonstrate that noncompliance comes in distinct forms. Some forms of noncompliance result from a failure to update institutionalized—and gendered—policies, practices, and norms. This form of noncompliance (indicated by illegally short leaves) is better explained by the institutional perspective, while outright noncompliance (as evidenced by a lack of leaves) is best explained by rational choice and deviant culture theories.

Modest Expectations: Gender and Property Rights in Urban Mexico
Ann Varley

This article examines gender and property in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the light of debates that oppose formal title to the social embeddedness of rights in customary law and assert that titling is bad for women. The article focuses on urban homes, private property, and civil law but finds that qualities regarded as characterizing customary property relations also shape popular understandings of property in urban Mexico. Discussion groups and social surveys in four low-income neighborhoods addressed two aspects of family law and property: whose name should appear on titles, and who should inherit the home. The results show that women, as wives, sisters, and daughters, have a secondary relationship to property. They also suggest that the opposition of individual title to socially embedded rights is a false dichotomy and that generalizing arguments about formalization and especially the negative gender implications of titling risks replicating the universalizing tendencies of Western property models.

Law From Below: Women's Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City
Sally Engle Merry, Peggy Levitt, Mihaela Serban Rosen, Diana H. Yoon

Despite the ambivalent history of the domestic application of human rights in the United States, human rights increasingly offer important resources for American grassroots activists. Within the constraints of U.S. policy toward human rights, they provide social movements a kind of global law "from below": a form of cosmopolitan law that subalterns can use to challenge their subordinate position. Using a case study from New York City, we argue that in certain contexts, human rights can provide important political resources to U.S. social movements. However, they do so in a diffuse way far from the formal system of human rights law. Instead, activists adopt some of the broader social justice ideas and strategies embedded within human rights practice.

The Nature of Circuit Court Gatekeeping Decisions
Erin B. Kaheny

This article provides an analysis of the nature of circuit court threshold decisions. Specifically, a model sensitive to the institutional context of the circuits is developed and tested across all threshold decisions in the sample and in more limited samples of proper party and proper forum votes. The results suggest that circuit court gatekeeping is a function of multiple factors, including circuit court law, litigant status, the lower court decision, and, at times, the ideological preferences of the circuit judge or that of his or her circuit.

Street as Courtroom: State Accommodation of Labor Protest in South China
Yang Su, Xin He

Drawing on data collected from district-level governments, this article studies how the Chinese state responds to labor protests in South China. It examines both the internal logic and operational patterns of the state response involving the local courts and an assortment of government agencies. Internal documents and interviews reveal an emerging mode of state reaction. In the context of protest, the courts and related government agencies engage protesters on the street, which often grants a favorable resolution. This "street as courtroom" is a result of the weak capacity of the legal system coupled with a government-wide campaign to build a "harmonious society." These findings compel researchers to reconsider the institutional boundaries of the prototypical court, the outcome of social protest, and the appropriate role of the courts in China.

Law & Society Review, March 2010: Volume 44, Issue 1

British Journal of Criminology 50(3)

Globalization, Frontier Masculinities and Violence: Booze, Blokes and Brawls
Kerry Carrington, Alison McIntosh, and John Scott

Over the last two decades, two new trajectories have taken hold in criminology—the study of masculinity and crime, after a century of neglect, and the geography of crime. This article brings both those fields together to analyse the impact of globalization in the resources sector on frontier cultures of violence. This paper approaches this issue through a case study of frontier masculinities and violence in communities at the forefront of generating resource extraction for global economies. This paper argues that the high rates of violence among men living in work camps in these socio-spatial contexts cannot simply be understood as individualized expressions of psycho-pathological deficit or social disorganization. Explanations for these patterns of violence must also consider a number of key subterranean convergences between globalizing processes and the social dynamics of male-on-male violence in such settings.

Responding TO Gun Crime in Ireland
Liz Campbell

From stereotypical views of Ireland as a peaceful and ‘low crime’ society, the media and policy makers now report the worsening of gun crime, in particular crimes of homicide committed by firearm. Despite this sometimes hyperbolic popular commentary, serious and fatal gun crime has indeed increased. In reacting through extraordinary legal measures, the Irish state adopts an unduly narrow perspective, predicated on a rational actor model; what this paper seeks to do is put forward two more profitable and persuasive means of analysis, by focusing on social deprivation and the expression of masculinity.

Studying the Microdynamics of the Rwandan Genocide
Alette Smeulers and Lotte Hoex

The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 stands out for the enormous number of people killed in a relatively short period of time; the mass involvement of the civilian population and the extreme and violent nature of the killings: victims were hunted down, beaten, raped and mutilated before being killed by machetes. This article describes how, within a politically explosive situation, many otherwise non-violent and law-abiding citizens became involved in genocide. It also explains how it was social interaction—rather than pure ethnic hatred—between various types of perpetrators and group dynamics, in which some fanatics managed to induce and force many others to join in, that were instrumental in the genocidal process in Rwanda.

'Securing' the Past: Policing and the Contest over Truth in Northern Ireland
Cheryl Lawther

The question of whether Northern Ireland should have a formal truth recovery process has been amplified by the recent Report of the Consultative Group on the Past. Compared to the volume at which the truth recovery debate has been played out, relatively little is known about policing attitudes to this form of dealing with the past. This paper analyses the ways in which the history and context of policing in Northern Ireland have shaped attitudes towards truth recovery. It will be argued that differing opinions on the need for truth recovery are part of a debate over ‘ownership of the past’ between the ardent supporters of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the new post-Patten managers and modernizers.

Reporting Crime to the Police
Roger Tarling and Katie Morris

This paper examines how crime reporting has changed over time by comparing findings from the 2007/08 British Crime Survey with the results obtained from the last major enquiry reported in 1994. International research conducted since that date is also reviewed. The paper finds that seriousness of the offence is still the most important factor influencing victims’ decisions. But reporting rates have changed: broadly, property crime is less likely to be reported whereas violent crime is more likely to be reported. As property crime predominates, the overall trend has been downward. There has been a very notable shift in that crimes committed by family members and others well known to the victim are much more likely to be reported than previously.

Influencing Trust and Confidence in the London Metropolitan Police: Results from an Experiment Testing the Effect of Leaflet Drops on Public Opinion
Katrin Hohl, Ben Bradford, and Elizabeth A. Stanko

Enhancing trust and confidence has moved to the centre of policing policy in England and Wales. The association between direct encounters with police officers and confidence in the police is well-established. But is it possible for the police to increase confidence among the general population including those people who do not routinely come into direct contact with police officers? This paper presents the findings from a quasi-randomised experiment conducted on population representative samples in seven London wards that assessed the impact of a leaflet drop on public perceptions of policing. The results provide strong evidence of an improvement in overall confidence, and in perceptions of police–community engagement, specifically. The leaflets also appear to have had a buffering effect against declines in public assessments of police effectiveness. The findings support the idea that public trust and confidence can be enhanced by direct police communication of this type.

Serendipity in Robbery Target Selection
Bruce A. Jacobs

Drawing from interviews with active robbers (drug robbers and carjackers), this paper explores the role of serendipity in the robbery target selection process. Serendipity is defined as the art of finding something valuable while engrossed in something different (Roberts 1989). The discovery is unanticipated, unexpected and anomalous (Merton and Barber 2006) and may result from decidedly negative experiences. The extent to which robbery targets emerge through ‘pure’ serendipity or a more ‘manufactured’ variety sheds light on the conceptual interface between perception, need, opportunity and rational choice.

Are There Any True Adult-Onset Offenders?
Tara Renae McGee and David P. Farrington

In the extant literature, adult-onset offending has usually been identified using official sources. It is possible, however, that many of the individuals identified would have had unofficial histories of prior offending. To investigate this issue, the men from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) were examined. The CSDD is a prospective longitudinal study of men from inner-city London, followed from age 8 to age 48. Onset of offending was identified using official records and then the self-reported offending of the adult-onset offender group (with a first conviction at age 21 or later) was compared to others. All the adult-onset offenders self-reported some previous offending in childhood and adolescence but most of this offending was not sufficiently frequent or serious to lead to a conviction in practice. About one-third of adult-onset offenders were considered to be self-reported delinquents who were realistically in danger of being convicted because of the frequency of their offending. For some, the adjudication by the criminal justice system was simply the first time that their ongoing pattern of offending had been detected. Their lack of detection was because the types of offences they were committing had lower detection rates.

Not so Tough on Crime?: Why Weren't the Thatcher Governments More Radical in Reforming the Criminal Justice System?
Stephen Farrall and Colin Hay

Despite becoming almost synonymous in the public's imagination with ‘law and order’ and toughness on crime, the Thatcher years (1979–90) would not be characterized by many criminologists as a period of radical reform of the criminal justice system. Thatcherism, it seems, was far less radical in the criminal policy field than it was in housing, the economy or local government finance. This paper explores the reasons for this seeming paradox. Our argument is that Thatcherite thinking came late to this policy realm and only started to inform policy in any consistent and radical way after Thatcher had left office. This we attribute to: (1) the precedence accorded other issue domains more closely associated with the ‘crisis’ to which Thatcherism claimed to provide a response; (2) the power-sharing that Thatcher had to engage in with the more paternalist wing of her party during much of her time in office; and (3) a series of time-lag effects. Crime, being the expression of social and economic forces, did not rise dramatically during the early phase of Thatcherite restructuring. In crime and criminal justice policy, radical Thatcherism post-dated Thatcher. It should be seen as a knock-on effect of the steep rise in unemployment and the social polarization resulting from policy radicalism in other issue domains exacerbated by the slide into recession from 1990.

Problematizing Carceral Tours
Justin Piché and Kevin Walby

Tours of operational prisons and jails have been advocated by some academics as one way of conducting observational research inside carceral institutions and have also been employed as a university-level pedagogical tool for teaching students about the realities of imprisonment. Though the merits of carceral tours as a knowledge-producing practice have been discussed in criminology and related social scientific disciplines, accounts of their limitations supported by empirical evidence remain sparse. Based on previously unpublished Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) penitentiary tour materials obtained through Access to Information requests, this article argues that carceral tours can be highly scripted and regulated in ways that obscure many of the central aspects of incarceration and, in particular, the experiences of prisoners. On the basis of our findings, we argue that, as presently organized, such tours afford little insight into the nature of imprisonment.

British Journal of Criminology, May 2010: Volume 50, Issue 3

American Sociological Review 75(2)

American Exceptionalism Revisited: The Military-Industrial Complex, Racial Tension, and the Underdeveloped Welfare State
Gregory Hooks and Brian McQueen

This article investigates how experiences with public policies affect levels of civic and political engagement among the poor. Studies of "policy feedback" investigate policies not just as political outcomes, but also as factors that set political forces in motion and shape political agency. To advance this literature, we take up three outstanding questions related to selection bias, the distinction between universal and targeted programs, and the types of authority relations most likely to foster engagement among the poor. Using a longitudinal dataset from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which follows a cohort of low-income parents and their newborn children in 20 U.S. cities, we estimate effects associated with three types of means-tested public assistance. We find that these policies’ effects are not an illusion created by selection bias; the effects of targeted programs can both promote and discourage engagement; and such effects tend to be more positive when a policy’s authority structure reflects democratic rather than paternalist principles.

From Policy to Polity: Democracy, Paternalism, and the Incorporation of Disadvantaged Citizens
Sarah K. Bruch, Myra Marx Ferree, and Joe Soss

We examine Democrats’ decline in the House of Representatives from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s. Debates over American exceptionalism in the realm of social policy pay surprisingly little attention to a profound transformation that occurred during and after World War II: on the international stage, the United States emerged as the hegemon; at home, the Pentagon became the largest and most powerful agency in the federal bureaucracy. In modeling electoral losses suffered by Democrats, we show that World War II mobilization played an important role. First, Democrats lost ground in congressional districts where the nascent military-industrial complex was created, specifically in aircraft manufacturing centers. Second, the impact of aircraft manufacturing intersected with wartime in-migration of non-whites. Democrats suffered significantly greater losses where both non-white population  and aircraft manufacturing employment increased. Our findings corroborate accounts of the social welfare state that stress partisan control and path dependence. Conservative congresses of the immediate postwar years left an imposing legacy, making it difficult to establish social welfare reforms for decades to come. Whereas most accounts of the rise and fall of the New Deal emphasize different aspects of domestic processes, we demonstrate that militarism and expansion of national security agencies undermined congressional support at a critical juncture. This intersection of wartime mobilization and social policy—and not an inherent and enduring institutional impediment to social welfare—contributed to underdevelopment of the welfare state and abandonment of universal social welfare programs in the United States.

Rival Unionism and Membership Growth in the United States, 1900 to 2005: A Special Case of Inter-organizational Competition
Judith Stepan-Norris and Caleb Southworth

This article uses time-series data from 1900 to 2005 to explore the effects of rivalry between labor unions as a special case of inter-organizational competition. Holding constant economic and political factors that typically account for changes in union density, we investigate how competition from rival labor federations and from independent unions affect both union density and a measure for the density of the dominant federation (AFL/AFL-CIO), adjusted for membership changes from mergers and splits. We measure competition by the number of unions and the size of rivals. While much existing literature measures state regulation with categorical coding for specific periods, we measure the effect of state enforcement directly with counts of pro-labor and pro-management unfair labor practice cases adjudicated by the National Labor Relations Board. We assess the effect of left-wing political culture using the popular vote for socialist and communist candidates in presidential elections. Both the number of members in rival unions and the total number of rival unions positively impact the rate of change in overall union density and in AFL density. The size of independent unions has a negative impact on AFL/AFL-CIO density but no effect on overall union density. Unfair labor practices cases adjudicated for employers negatively affect union density but positively affect AFL/AFL-CIO density, while cases adjudicated for unions negatively affect AFL/AFL-CIO density.

Threat, Resistance, and Collective Action: The Cases of Sobibór, Treblinka, and Auschwitz
Thomas V. Maher

How and why do movements transition from everyday resistance to overt collective action? This article examines this question taking repressive environments and threat as an important case in point. Drawing on primary and secondary data sources, I offer comparative insights on resistance group dynamics and perceptions of threat in three Nazi death camps—Sobibór, Treblinka, and Auschwitz—between 1941 and 1945. Prisoners formed resistance groups at each camp, but collective revolt occurred in only certain cases: when the collective perception of threat at a given camp was viewed as both immediate and lethal. The  interpretation of changing, threatening conditions, and an understanding of structural and interactional opportunities for group identity and tactical strategizing, are vital for understanding collective action in repressive environments. I conclude by discussing these lessons pertaining to threat and their implications for repressive contexts and broader social movement theorizing.

Who Benefits Most from College?: Evidence for Negative Selection in Heterogeneous Economic Returns to Higher Education
Jennie E. Brand and Yu Xie

In this article, we consider how the economic return to a college education varies across members of the U.S. population. Based on principles of comparative advantage, scholars commonly presume that positive selection is at work, that is, individuals who are most likely to select into college also benefit most from college. Net of observed economic and noneconomic factors influencing college attendance, we conjecture that individuals who are least likely to obtain a college education benefit the most from college. We call this theory the negative selection hypothesis. To adjudicate between the two hypotheses, we study the effects of completing college on earnings by propensity score strata using an innovative hierarchical linear model with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. For both cohorts, for both men and women, and for every observed stage of the life course, we find evidence suggesting negative selection. Results from auxiliary analyses lend further support to the negative selection hypothesis.

Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men's and Women's Employment in Dual-Earner Households
Youngjoo Cha

This study examines whether long work hours exacerbate gender inequality. As working long hours becomes increasingly common, a normative conception of gender that prioritizes men’s careers over women’s careers in dual-earner households may pressure women to quit their jobs. I apply multilevel models to longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation  to show that having a husband who works long hours significantly  increases a woman’s likelihood of quitting, whereas having a wife who works long hours does not appear to increase a man’s likelihood of quitting. This gendered pattern is more prominent among workers in professional and managerial occupations, where the norm of overwork and the culture of intensive parenting are strong. Furthermore, the effect is stronger among workers who have children. Findings suggest that overwork can reintroduce the separate spheres arrangement, consisting of breadwinning men and homemaking women, to many formerly dual-earner households.

American Sociological Review, April 2010: Volume 75, Issue 2