Criminology 48(2)

SILENCE AND MEMORY IN CRIMINOLOGY—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2009 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS
NICOLE RAFTER

Two recent American Society of Criminology presidential addresses have identified as a key problem the fact that criminology lacks a history. In this address, I ask why criminology (in contrast to closely related fields) has generated so few studies of its past; I also identify some results of this failure and discuss why intellectual fields need a sense of their origins and development. History molds individual and collective identities; it lays a foundation for sociologies of knowledge; it encourages reflexivity, teaches us where our ideas came from, and gives us a sense of where we are going. To encourage historical work, I propose an overall framework for understanding the evolution of criminology, reaching back to the late eighteenth century and continuing into the present. My overall framework is that of scientific modernism, within which I identify the following three primary phases: exploratory modernism, confident modernism, and agonistic modernism. In conclusion, I suggest ways to stimulate histories of science in the field of criminology.

USING RANDOM JUDGE ASSIGNMENTS TO ESTIMATE THE EFFECTS OF INCARCERATION AND PROBATION ON RECIDIVISM AMONG DRUG OFFENDERS
DONALD P. GREEN, DANIEL WINIK

Most prior studies of recidivism have used observational data to estimate the causal effect of imprisonment or probation on the probability that a convicted individual is rearrested after release. Few studies have taken advantage of the fact that, in some jurisdictions, defendants are assigned randomly to judges who vary in sentencing tendencies. This study investigates whether defendants who are assigned randomly to more punitive judges have different recidivism probabilities than defendants who are assigned to relatively lenient judges. We track 1,003 defendants charged with drug-related offenses who were assigned randomly to nine judicial calendars between June 1, 2002 and May 9, 2003. Judges on these calendars meted out sentences that varied substantially in terms of prison and probation time. We tracked defendants using court records across a 4-year period after the disposition of their cases to determine whether they subsequently were rearrested. Our results indicate that randomly assigned variations in prison and probation time have no detectable effect on rates of rearrest. The findings suggest that, at least among those facing drug-related charges, incarceration and supervision seem not to deter subsequent criminal behavior.

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY TO CRIME: EFFECTS OF RESIDENTIAL HISTORY ON CRIME LOCATION CHOICE
WIM BERNASCO

Many offenses take place close to where the offender lives. Anecdotal evidence suggests that offenders also might commit crimes near their former homes. Building on crime pattern theory and combining information from police records and other sources, this study confirms that offenders who commit robberies, residential burglaries, thefts from vehicles, and assaults are more likely to target their current and former residential areas than similar areas they never lived in. In support of the argument that spatial awareness mediates the effects of past and current residence, it also is shown that areas of past and present residence are more likely to be targeted if the offender lived in the area for a long time instead of briefly and if the offender has moved away from the area only recently rather than a long time ago. The theoretical implications of these findings and their use for investigative purposes are discussed, and suggestions for future inquiry are made.

DETERRENCE AND DETERRABILITY
BRUCE A. JACOBS

The first forays into Western criminological theory came in the language of deterrence (Beccaria, 1963 [1764]). The paradigm itself is simple and straightforward, offering an explanation for crime that doubles as a solution (Pratt et al., 2006). Crime occurs when the expected rewards outweigh the anticipated risks, so increasing the risks, at least theoretically, will prevent most crimes in most circumstances. If deterrence describes the perceptual process by which would-be offenders calculate risks and rewards prior to offending, then deterrability refers to the offender's capacity and/or willingness to perform this calculation. The distinction between deterrence and deterrability is critical to understanding criminality from a utilitarian perspective. However, by attempting to answer "big picture" questions about the likelihood of offending relative to sanction threats, precious little scholarship has attended to the situated meaning of deterrability. This article draws attention to this lacuna in hopes of sensitizing criminology to an area of inquiry that, at present, remains only loosely developed.

UNSTRUCTURED SOCIALIZING, COLLECTIVE EFFICACY, AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOR AMONG URBAN YOUTH
DAVID MAIMON, CHRISTOPHER R. BROWNING

Relying on extensions of routine activities and social disorganization theories, we examine whether 1) neighborhood social characteristics shape opportunities for the development of unstructured socializing with peers among adolescents, 2) whether unstructured socializing leads to an increase in violent behavior within urban communities, and 3) whether neighborhood collective efficacy modifies the impact of unstructured socializing on violence. The study outlined in this article uses three waves of data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey and Longitudinal Cohort Study. Results from multilevel linear models suggest that neighborhood collective efficacy supports the development of unstructured socializing with peers. Multilevel Rasch models of violent behavior indicate that, consistent with previous research, unstructured socializing is a powerful predictor of violence. Collective efficacy exerts an independent influence on violent behavior and attenuates the effect of unstructured socializing on this outcome.

RESIDENT PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME AND DISORDER: HOW MUCH IS "BIAS", AND HOW MUCH IS SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT DIFFERENCES?
JOHN R. HIPP

This study attempted to disentangle the extent to which residents are systematically biased when reporting on the level of crime or disorder in their neighborhood. By using a unique sample of households nested in household clusters, this study teased out the degree of systematic bias on the part of respondents when perceiving crime and disorder. The findings are generally consistent with theoretical expectations of which types of residents will perceive more crime or disorder and contrast with the generally mixed results of prior studies that used an inappropriate aggregate unit when assuming that residents live in the same social context of crime or disorder. Estimating ancillary models on a sample of respondents nested in tracts produced mixed results that mirror the existing literature. This article shows that Whites consistently perceive more crime or disorder than their neighbors. It also shows that females, those with children, and those with longer residence in the neighborhood perceive more crime or disorder than their neighbors.

POVERTY, INFANT MORTALITY, AND HOMICIDE RATES IN CROSS-NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: ASSESSMENTS OF CRITERION AND CONSTRUCT VALIDITY
STEVEN F. MESSNER, LAWRENCE E. RAFFALOVICH, GRETCHEN M. SUTTON

This article assesses the extent to which the infant mortality rate might be treated as a "proxy" for poverty in research on cross-national variation in homicide rates. We have assembled a pooled, cross-sectional time-series data set for 16 advanced nations from the 1993–2000 period that includes standard measures of infant mortality and homicide and contains information on the following commonly used "income-based" poverty measures: a measure intended to reflect "absolute" deprivation and a measure intended to reflect "relative" deprivation. With these data, we assess the criterion validity of the infant mortality rate with reference to the two income-based poverty measures. Also, we estimate the effects of the various indicators of disadvantage on homicide rates in regression models, thereby assessing construct validity. The results reveal that the infant mortality rate is correlated more strongly with "relative poverty" than with "absolute poverty," although much unexplained variance remains. In the regression models shown here, the measure of infant mortality and the relative poverty measure yield significant positive effects on homicide rates, whereas the absolute poverty measure does not exhibit any significant effects. The results of our analyses suggest that it would be premature to dismiss relative deprivation in cross-national research on homicide, and that disadvantage is conceptualized and measured best as a multidimensional construct.

JUDGES' UNEQUAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO EXTRALEGAL DISPARITIES IN IMPRISONMENT
JOHN WOOLDREDGE

How do judges in the same court system contribute differentially to extralegal disparities in sentencing? Analyses of felony sentencing in an urban Ohio trial court uncovered two distinct but equal-sized groups of judges that differed in the magnitude of extralegal correlates to imprisonment. Within the group of judges reflecting substantive extralegal correlates to prison sentences, demographic correlates (based on defendants' race, sex, age, and the interaction between them) were more pervasive across judges relative to social demographic correlates (based on education, residence length, and means of financial support). The directions of significant relationships involving a defendant's race, age, and means of support also were inconsistent across judges. These interjudge differences suggest that analyses of cases pooled across judges at either the jurisdiction or the state level might over- or understate the relevance of particular attribution theories of sentencing disparities.

RACE, CODE OF THE STREET, AND VIOLENT DELINQUENCY: A MULTILEVEL INVESTIGATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD STREET CULTURE AND INDIVIDUAL NORMS OF VIOLENCE
ERIC A. STEWART, RONALD L. SIMONS

The study outlined in this article drew on Elijah Anderson's (1999) code of the street perspective to examine the impact of neighborhood street culture on violent delinquency. Using data from more than 700 African American adolescents, we examined 1) whether neighborhood street culture predicts adolescent violence above and beyond an adolescent's own street code values and 2) whether neighborhood street culture moderates individual-level street code values on adolescent violence. Consistent with Anderson's hypotheses, neighborhood street culture significantly predicts violent delinquency independent of individual-level street code effects. Additionally, neighborhood street culture moderates individual-level street code values on violence in neighborhoods where the street culture is widespread. In particular, the effect of street code values on violence is enhanced in neighborhoods where the street culture is endorsed widely.

PARTICIPATION AND FREQUENCY DURING CRIMINAL CAREERS ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN
HANNO PETRAS, PAUL NIEUWBEERTA, ALEX R. PIQUERO

Recent advances and debates surrounding general and developmental as well as static and dynamic theories of crime can be traced to the 1986 National Academy of Science's Report on criminal careers and the discussion it generated. A key point of contention has been regarding the interpretation of the age–crime curve. According to Gottfredson and Hirschi (1986), the decline in the age–crime curve in early adulthood reflects decreasing individual offending frequency (?) after the peak. Blumstein et al. (1986) claimed that the decline in the aggregate age–crime curve also could be attributable to the termination of criminal careers, and the average value of l could stay constant (or increase with age) for those offenders who remain active after that peak. Using data from the Criminal Career and Life Course Study—including information on criminal convictions across 60 years of almost 5,000 persons convicted in the Netherlands—and applying a two-part growth model that explicitly distinguishes between participation and frequency, the study outlined in this article assessed the participation–frequency debate. Results suggest that the decline in the age–crime curve in early adulthood reflects both decreasing individual offending participation and frequency after the peak, that the probabilities of participation and frequency are significantly related at the individual level, and that sex and marriage influence both participation and frequency.

Criminology, May 2010: Volume 48, Issue 2