Sunday, June 27, 2010

Justice Quarterly 27(4)

If Your Friends Jumped Off of a Bridge, Would You Do It Too? Delinquent Peers and Susceptibility to Peer Influence
Author: Holly Ventura Miller
Association with delinquent peer groups is one of the most salient predictors of delinquent behavior. Despite the widespread documentation of these effects, little is known about whether the delinquent peer effect is conditioned by individual-level characteristics. Using data from a multi-wave survey of Mexican-American adolescents, this study explored the interactive effect of susceptibility to peer influence and differential association with delinquent peers on delinquent outcomes. Results suggested that the delinquent peer effect on self-reported delinquency is amplified when an adolescent is highly susceptible to peer influence. Analyses also indicated that this moderating effect varies according to offense seriousness. Specifically, the conditioning effect is most important when considering acts of serious delinquency.

“That's Not Who I Am:” How Offenders Commit Violent Acts and Reject Authentically Violent Selves
Andy Hochstetler; Heith Copes; J. Patrick Williams
Participation in contemporary street cultures often exposes individuals to a world characterized by violence. The participants in this study admitted to frequent experience with violence and regular use of it. Many viewed violence as an appropriate response to some situations, though they often worked to avoid negative connotations of such behavior, especially ascriptions of an “authentically” violent self. Using an interactionist framework, we explore the processes by which offenders who engage in violent crimes resist being labeled as authentically violent. Drawing from data from semi-structured interviews with 30 offenders who engaged in carjackings, we analyze contrastive statements they employed to resist a violent self-concept and label. Offenders differentiated their own violent behaviors, as situational and excusable, from behaviors that characterize authentically violent others. Understanding these processes sheds light on criminal identities and gives insights into attempts to change offender behavior by altering self-conceptions.

Alcohol and Drug Mitigation in Capital Murder Trials: Implications for Sentencing Decisions
Beth Bjerregaard; M. Dwayne Smith; Sondra J. Fogel; Wilson R. Palacios
Analyses of the impact on sentencing when alcohol and drug-related mitigation is used in the sentencing phases of capital murder trials is virtually absent from the existing literature. The present study addresses this by exploring the effect of having mitigation with alcohol and drug themes accepted in a large sample (n = 804) of capital murder trials in North Carolina. Logistic regression analyses that include a number of relevant control variables reveal no substantive impacts of having alcohol mitigation accepted by capital murder juries, but drug mitigators that were either accepted or rejected by juries were associated with an increased risk of receiving a death sentence. Possible reasons for the results and their implications are discussed and suggestions are made for further study of the effects of alcohol/drug mitigation in capital trials.

Cognitive Skills, Adolescent Violence, and the Moderating Role of Neighborhood Disadvantage
Paul E. Bellair; Thomas L. McNulty
Numerous studies uncover a link between cognitive skills and adolescent violence. Overlooked is whether the relationship changes at varying levels of neighborhood disadvantage. We examine the issue by contrasting two models that place individual difference in cognitive skill within a social-structural framework. Using five waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a three-level hierarchical model, results indicate that cognitive skill is inversely associated with violence and that the relationship is strongest in non-disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, the cognitive skills-violence relationship is indistinguishable from zero in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The findings are therefore consistent with the hypothesis that social expression of developed ability is muted in disadvantaged contexts.

Trial Penalties in Federal Sentencing: Extra-Guidelines Factors and District Variation
Jeffery T. Ulmer; James Eisenstein; Brian D. Johnson
The guarantee of the right to a jury trial lies at the heart of the principles that underlie the American criminal justice system's commitment to due process of law. We investigate the differential sentencing of those who plead guilty and those convicted by trial in U.S. District Courts. We first investigate how much of any federal plea/trial sentencing differences are accounted for by substantial assistance to law enforcement, acceptance of responsibility, obstruction of justice, and other Guideline departures. Second, we investigate how such differences vary according to offense and defendant characteristics, as well as court caseloads and trial rates. We use federal sentencing data for fiscal years 2000-02, along with aggregate data on federal district court caseload features. We find that meaningful trial penalties exist after accounting for Guidelines-based rationales for differentially sentencing those convicted by guilty plea versus trial. Higher district court caseload pressure is associated with greater trial penalties, while higher district trial rates are associated with lesser trial penalties. In addition, trial penalties are lower for those with more substantial criminal histories, and black men. Trial penalties proportionately increase, however, as Guideline minimum sentencing recommendations increase. We also supplement our analysis with interview and survey data from federal district court participants, which provide insights into the plea reward/trial penalty process, and also suggest important dimensions of federal court trial penalties that we cannot measure.

Private Military Contractors, Crime, and the Terrain of Unaccountability
Dawn L. Rothe; Jeffrey Ian Ross
Criminological research has traditionally attempted to explain the etiological factors of crime and then suggest appropriate controls. More often than not, the foci of this kind of work have remained on “street crime.” Since the 1990s, however, some scholars have turned their attention to the causal factors of corporate crime, state crime, crimes of globalization, supranational crimes, and their various permutations and interconnections. Clearly missing from this literature is the growing phenomenon of private military contractors (PMCs) and the crimogenic culture of and atmosphere within which they operate. Specifically, while the use of PMCs is rapidly growing, the increasing propensity for PMC's crimogenic culture and the unregulated nature of what has become a global industry is rarely studied by social scientists. Further, few criminologists have examined this area of research by applying criminological theory to explain the growth and emergence of PMCs. Our goal is to help fill this gap. Through the process of theory building and refinement we identify factors that facilitate the criminogenic environment within which PMCs operate. Additionally, without attempting to expand explanatory and causal mechanisms, policies aimed at reducing PMC criminality and social justice for their victims cannot be developed. As such, we draw from theoretical developments in state and state-corporate crime, social disorganization, and anomie literature to shed light on key factors associated with PMCs, namely, the crimogenic atmosphere within which they operate.

Justice Quarterly, August 2010: Volume 27, Issue 4

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