Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Law & Society Review 44(2)

The Relative Resilience of Property: First Possession and Order Without Law in East Timor
Daniel Fitzpatrick, Susana Barnes
Much of the recent literature on customary property relations in sub-Saharan Africa has highlighted underlying characteristics of negotiability and indeterminacy. Custom is prone to reinvention as resource claimants manipulate customary references across multiple forums for property legitimation and authority. This article focuses on the resilience of customary property relations in East Timor. Based on a study of customary authority in the village of Babulo, we conclude that traditional Timorese narratives of first possession, where land authority is claimed by groups that trace descent to a mythic first settler, have acted as adaptive and resilient focal points for the reproduction of customary property relations in historical circumstances of war, colonization, and occupation. While a finding of customary resilience is not new to postcolonial contexts, the relative novelty of our study lies in its structured explanation for resilience in circumstances of war and displacement, based on the social ordering capacity of first possession principles themselves. This explanation, which derives from focal point theories for cooperative property relations, also takes into account a number of limits on the ordering capacity of first possession principles, which support a conclusion of relative or constrained resilience, particularly in terms of contested interpretations of possessory authority in contemporary East Timor.

Tales of Deviance and Control: On Space, Rules, and Law in Squatter Settlements
Jean-Louis Van Gelder
In Latin American cities, around a third of the urban population lives in tenure situations that can be designated as informal, yet variation in the ways and extent to which these arrangements do not comply with law is extensive. Furthermore, informal dwellers often employ a variety of strategies to legitimize and ultimately legalize their tenure, implying a dynamic rather than a static relationship between illegality and legality. Conceiving of land tenure in dichotomous terms, as simply being either legal or illegal, therefore, fails to reflect this diversity, nor does it capture the evolving nature of the relationship between informal settlements and the state system. Drawing from the development of squatter settlements in Buenos Aires, this article proposes an alternative perspective and shows how settlements alternate strategies of noncompliance with adaptation to the state legal system to gradually increase their legality.

Perceiving Discrimination on the Job: Legal Consciousness, Workplace Context, and the Construction of Race Discrimination
Elizabeth Hirsh, Christopher J. Lyons
Despite the continued importance of discrimination for racial labor market inequality, little research explores the process by which workers name potentially negative experiences as race discrimination. Drawing on the legal consciousness literature and organizational approaches to employment discrimination, we assess the effect of social status, job characteristics, and workplace context on the likelihood that workers perceive race discrimination at work. Analyzing data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, we find that ascriptive status is associated with perceptions of discrimination, with African Americans, Hispanics, and women more likely to perceive racial discrimination, net of job and organizational controls. Results also suggest that workers with a greater sense of entitlement (as indicated by job authority, promotion experience, and union membership) and knowledge of legal entitlements (as indicated by education level and age) are more likely to perceive workplace racial discrimination. Other workplace conditions can signal fairness and decrease perceptions of racial bias, such as formalized screening practices and having nonwhite supervisors, whereas working among predominantly nonwhite coworkers increases the likelihood of perceiving discrimination. These findings suggest that personal attributions of discrimination vary across social groups and their environments, and demonstrate the importance of workplace context for understanding how individuals apply legal concepts, such as discrimination, to their experiences.

Old Habits Are Hard to Change: A Case Study of Israeli Real Estate Contracts
Doron Teichman
This article presents a case study on the persistent dollarization norm in the Israeli real estate market. For many years Israeli real estate contracts have been denominated in American dollars. This contracting norm has remained surprisingly stable despite tremendous changes in the structure of the Israeli foreign currency market that severed the connection between the dollar and local inflation and added significant risks to exchange rates. Using an array of theoretical tools, I explain this puzzling phenomenon and demonstrate the centrality of social norms to the design of high-stakes contracts. Finally, I explore the interaction between social norms and the law and highlight the potential obstacles to regulating contracting norms.

The Effects of National and Local Funding on Judicial Performance: Perceptions of Russia's Lawyers
Vanessa A. Baird, Debra Javeline
Courts that perform well are the cornerstone of the rule of law and democratic development. When courts are perceived as legalistic, fair, impartial, and independent of the influence of extrajudicial actors, aggrieved individuals are more likely to pursue litigation over other, potentially unlawful, alternatives. Using original data from surveys of more than 1,800 randomly sampled lawyers in 12 Russian cities, we investigate the effects of perceived government funding and power diversification on a variety of indicators of perceived judicial performance. We find that, according to lawyers, financial dependence on the national government has no independent effect on judicial performance, but financial dependence on local governments has consistently significant negative effects. We also find that diversified political power has consistently significant positive effects on perceived judicial performance, probably because the diversification makes courts seem less vulnerable to unified pressure from political actors.

Legitimacy and Deterrence Effects in Counterterrorism Policing: A Study of Muslim Americans
Tom R. Tyler, Stephen Schulhofer, Aziz Z. Huq
This study considers the circumstances under which members of the Muslim American community voluntarily cooperate with police efforts to combat terrorism. Cooperation is defined to include both a general receptivity toward helping the police in antiterror work and the specific willingness to alert police to terror-related risks in a community. We compare two perspectives on why people cooperate with law enforcement, both developed with reference to general policing, in the context of antiterror policing and specifically among members of the Muslim American community. The first is instrumental. It suggests that people cooperate because they see tangible benefits that outweigh any costs. The second perspective is normative. It posits that people respond to their belief that police are a legitimate authority. On this view we link legitimacy to the fairness and procedural justice of police behavior. Data from a study involving interviews with Muslim Americans in New York City between March and June 2009 strongly support the normative model by finding that the procedural justice of police activities is the primary factor shaping legitimacy and cooperation with the police.

Law & Society Review, July 2010: Volume 44, Issue 2

Journal of Criminal Justice 38(4)

No mistake here - this issue of the Journal of Criminal Justice contains 62 articles in 500 pages.

Criminal career progression among serious youthful offenders in Australia
Robert Brame, Paul Mazerolle, Alex R. Piquero

Inmate homicides: Killers, victims, motives, and circumstances
Mark D. Cunningham, Jon R. Sorensen, Mark P. Vigen, S.O. Woods

Bad moon on the rise? Lunar cycles and incidents of crime
Joseph A. Schafer, Sean P. Varano, John P. Jarvis, Jeffrey M. Cancino

Intensive supervision programs: Does program philosophy and the principles of effective intervention matter?
Christopher T. Lowenkamp, Anthony W. Flores, Alexander M. Holsinger, Matthew D. Makarios, Edward J. Latessa

Offender military enlistment as an emotionally intelligent justice system intervention
J. Mitchell Miller, J. Eagle Shutt, Barry Bernstein

A partial assessment of South Carolina's Project Safe Neighborhoods strategy: Evidence from a sample of supervised offenders
J.C. Barnes, Megan C. Kurlychek, Holly Ventura Miller, J. Mitchell Miller, Robert J. Kaminski

An investigation of reporting violence to the police: A focus on Hispanic victims
Callie Marie Rennison

Methodological artifacts in tests of rational choice theory
Jeffrey A. Bouffard, M. Lyn Exum, Peter A. Collins

Dangerous work and name disclosure
An Tien Hsieh, Shu-Hui Hsieh

Cents and sensibility: A case study of corrections reform in Kansas and Michigan
Andres F. Rengifo, Don Stemen, Brendan D. Dooley, Ethan Amidon, Amanda Gendon

Hot corridors, deterrence, and guardianship: An assessment of the Omaha metro safety initiative
John Crank, Connie Koski, Michael Johnson, Eric Ramirez, Andrew Shelden, Sandra Peterson

Delinquency and alcohol-impaired driving among young males: A longitudinal study
Lening Zhang, William F. Wieczorek, John W. Welte, Craig Colder, Thomas H. Nochajski

Modeling violent crime rates: A test of social disorganization in the city of Tshwane, South Africa
Gregory Dennis Breetzke

Who is better for handling domestic violence? A comparison between Taiwanese female and male Officers
Ivan Y. Sun, Doris C. Chu

Correlates of informal social control in Guangzhou, China neighborhoods
Shanhe Jiang, Jin Wang, Eric Lambert

Criminological theory in the digital age: The case of social learning theory and digital piracy
Robert G. Morris, George E. Higgins

Social ecology and police discretion: The influence of district crime, cynicism, and workload on the vigor of police response
James J. Sobol

The role of broken homes in the development of self-control: A propensity score matching approach
Brian B. Boutwell, Kevin M. Beaver

Experienced and vicarious victimization: Do social support and self-esteem prevent delinquent responses?
Lisa A. Kort-Butler

Is blue going green?
John L. Worrall

Reducing intimate partner homicides: The effects of federally-funded shelter service availability in California
William Wells, Ling Ren, William DeLeon-Granados

Motivations for becoming a police officer: Re-assessing officer attitudes and job satisfaction after six years on the street
Michael D. White, Jonathon A. Cooper, Jessica Saunders, Anthony J. Raganella

Exploring terra incognita: Family values and prostitution acceptance in China
Liqun Cao, Steven Stack

Race, concentrated disadvantage, and recidivism: A test of interaction effects
Michael M. Wehrman

Supermax housing: Placement, duration, and time to reentry
Daniel P. Mears, William D. Bales

The sex ratio and male-on-female intimate partner violence
Stewart J. D'Alessio, Lisa Stolzenberg

Adult child-parent bonds and life course criminality
Ryan D. Schroeder, Peggy C. Giordano, Stephen A. Cernkovich

Juvenile arrest rates for burglary: A routine activities approach
Wendi Pollock, Hee-Jong Joo, Brian Lawton

Attitudes about rehabilitating sex offenders: Demographic, victimization, and community-level influences
Brian K. Payne, Richard Tewksbury, Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine

Citizen perceptions of the legitimacy of traffic stops
John Allen, Elizabeth Monk-Turner

Perceptions of gangs among prosecutors in an emerging gang city
Kathleen A. Fox, Jodi Lane

A half century of parole rules: Conditions of parole in the United States, 2008
Lawrence F. Travis III, James Stacey

The job in the joint: The impact of generation and gender on work stress in prison
Kelly Cheeseman Dial, Ragan A. Downey, Wendi Elizabeth Goodlin

Child-to-parent violence: Profile of abusive adolescents and their families
Izaskun Ibabe, Joana Jaureguizar

Listening to law enforcement officers: The promises and problems of police – adult probation partnerships
Bitna Kim, Jurg Gerber, Dan Richard Beto

Strength in numbers? A test of Kanter's theory of tokenism
Amy J. Stichman, Kimberly D. Hassell, Carol A. Archbold

A comparison of Chinese and the U.S. police cadets’ occupational attitudes
Ivan Y. Sun, James J. Sobol, Michael Cretacci, Scott W. Phillips

Investigating mobility patterns for repetitive sexual contact in adult child sex offending
Benoit Leclerc, Richard Wortley, Stephen Smallbone

Driving racial profiling research forward: Learning lessons from sentencing research
Rob Tillyer, Richard D. Hartley

Institutional attachments and self-control: Understanding deviance among Hispanic adolescents
Lorna L. Alvarez-Rivera, Kathleen A. Fox

The effect of gender on violent and nonviolent recidivism: A meta-analysis
Rachael E. Collins

The impact of race/ethnicity, neighborhood context, and police/citizen interaction on residents' attitudes toward the police
Yung-Lien Lai, Jihong Solomon Zhao

Community influence on prosecutorial dismissals: A multilevel analysis of case- and county-level factors
Travis W. Franklin

Toward a systematic foundation for identifying evidence-based criminal justice sanctions and their relative effectiveness
Daniel P. Mears, J.C. Barnes

Do cities influence co-offending?
Stewart J. D'Alessio, Lisa Stolzenberg

Do perceptions of neighborhood disorganization predict crime or victimization? An examination of gang member versus non-gang member jail inmates
Kathleen A. Fox, Jodi Lane, Ronald L. Akers

Managing prison gangs: Results from a survey of U.S. prison systems
John Winterdyk, Rick Ruddell

The ineffective police leader: Acts of commission and omission
Joseph A. Schafer

Sentencing disparities for juvenile offenders sentenced to adult prisons: An individual and contextual analysis
Jason T. Carmichael

Revisiting Broken Windows Theory: Examining the Sources of the Discriminant Validity of Perceived Disorder and Crime
Jacinta M. Gau, Travis C. Pratt

A general theory of crime and computer crime: An empirical test
Byongook Moon, John D. McCluskey, Cynthia Perez McCluskey

College Students' Evaluation of Police Performance: A Comparison of Chinese and Americans
Yuning Wu

Ethnic identity and attitudes toward the police among African American juvenile offenders
Joanna M. Lee, Laurence Steinberg, Alex R. Piquero

Don't help victims of crime if you don't have the time: Assessing support for Good Samaritan laws
Victoria Time, Brian K. Payne, Randy R. Gainey

Deprivation, importation, and prison suicide: Combined effects of institutional conditions and inmate composition
Meredith Huey Dye

Organizational stressors and police performance
Jon M. Shane

Assessing the relationship between individual characteristics, neighborhood context, and fear of crime
Brittney K. Scarborough, Toya Z. Like-Haislip, Kenneth J. Novak, Wayne L. Lucas, Leanne F. Alarid

Acculturation and mental health: Response to a culturally-centered delinquency intervention
Jill D. Sharkey, Janay B. Sander, Shane R. Jimerson

Criminal justice involvement and service need among men on methadone who have perpetrated intimate partner violence
Elwin Wu, Nabila El-Bassel, Louisa Gilbert, Bright Sarfo, Randy Seewald

Journal of Criminal Justice, July 2010: Volume 38, Issue 4

Social Problems 57(3)

Legitimacy, Strategy, and Resources in the Survival of Community-Based Organizations
Edward T. Walker, John D. McCarthy
Organizations active in mobilizing low- and moderate-income communities make considerable efforts to combat inequalities and build voice for citizens, despite inherent challenges of obtaining resources, maintaining member interest, and retaining staff. How, then, do such groups remain viable—even thriving—organizations? Building upon research on organizational theory and social movements, we examine patterns of survival among a sample of community-based organizations (CBOs) between 1990 and 2004, thus providing the first systematic study of their long-term mortality processes. More specifically, we test how organizations' sociopolitical legitimacy and resources (and strategies for cultivating both) influence survival, finding that the legitimacy of organizations in low-income areas is a double-edged sword, as embeddedness in resource-deprived local environments confers both benefits and disadvantages. In particular, we find the strongest support for the notion that, beyond the considerable effects of externally obtained resources, CBOs also benefit considerably by engaging in even a small amount of grassroots fundraising. Further, although we find significant effects of extra-local legitimacy in the baseline models—through organizations' affiliation with national or regional organizing networks—we find evidence in additional analyses that the survival benefits of network affiliation are largely mediated by resources. We also find sizable but marginally significant effects of local legitimacy, and significant positive effects of organizational age and urban location. Overall, our findings suggest that although cultivating resources is the surest path to survival, organizations that build their legitimacy will be in a better position to compensate for structural resource deficits.

Structural Identity Theory and the Post-Recruitment Activism of Irish Republicans: Persistence, Disengagement, Splits, and Dissidents in Social Movement Organizations
Robert W. White
This research adopts a structural identity theory framework to examine post-recruitment activism in the Irish Republican Movement. The data are from members of Provisional Sinn Féin who were first interviewed in the mid-1980s and subsequently reinterviewed in the mid-1990s and the late 2000s. Ten and 20 years after their initial interviews, some respondents were still involved in Provisional Sinn Féin while others had: helped create a rival organization, Republican Sinn Féin, in 1986; helped create another rival organization, the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, in 1997; withdrawn from activism; and withdrawn from and then reentered activism. The interviews show that the decision to exit from activism was primarily motivated by changes in the respondents' personal lives and not for political reasons. For some respondents, life changes brought with them new relationships and new identities that limited their availability for activism and also forced respondents to choose between competing identities. The decision to remain an activist but to create a rival organization was influenced by interaction among subgroups of activists in Provisional Sinn Féin and by the respondents' perception of what is important for Irish Republicanism.

Perceiving Glass Ceilings? Meritocratic versus Structural Explanations of Gender Inequality among Women in Science and Technology
Erin A. Cech, Mary Blair-Loy
Americans often rely on meritocratic ideologies rather than structural factors to explain unequal labor market outcomes, but we know little about how such beliefs are contingent upon individuals' social locations. Taking advantage of unique survey data, this article examines how gender inequality in professional advancement is explained among successful women professionals in science, technology, and allied fields—an employment arena potentially characterized simultaneously by potent meritocratic ideologies and persistent gendered barriers. Using multinomial logistic regressions comparing structural and meritocratic frames for explaining the paucity of women at high levels, we show how respondents in different career and family circumstances use these conflicting perceptual lenses. We find that married women, those with business education, and those in the top levels of their organizations are more likely to account for gender inequality by invoking deficiencies in women's human capital or motivation, whereas mothers, primary breadwinners, sellers of professional services, and those working in unsupportive organizations are more likely to invoke structural explanations. This research has implications for social action. Successful women's beliefs about gender inequality may influence whether they help remove structural obstacles for other women, or whether, through adherence to the meritocratic ideology, they help reconstruct the glass ceilings they have cracked.

Schools Against AIDS: Secondary School Enrollment and Cross-National Disparities in AIDS Death Rates
Rebekah Burroway
Although AIDS is a leading cause of death worldwide, the consequences of the pandemic are remarkably unequally distributed cross-nationally. This unequal global distribution of AIDS deaths should be of interest to sociologists because of the potential role of structural forces in accounting for these disparities. Yet, there has been relatively little sociological research on this topic. Using underutilized cross-national data on AIDS deaths, this study examines the macro-level sources of variation in AIDS death rates across 115 countries. The analysis focuses on secondary school enrollment as a key structural factor in reducing AIDS deaths. After controlling for the prevalence of HIV infection, secondary school enrollment has the second largest and most robust effect on AIDS death rates. Economic development also reduces AIDS death rates, but this effect is mediated by secondary school enrollment. Schooling matters partly because it reduces HIV prevalence, but education still continues to have a significant negative effect on AIDS deaths even after controlling for prevalence. The education effect is robust in a variety of sensitivity analyses. Ultimately, this study underscores the role of structural factors, particularly education, for understanding the AIDS crisis.

Neo-Taylorism at Work: Occupational Change in the Post-Fordist Era
Martha Crowley, Daniel Tope, Lindsey Joyce Chamberlain, Randy Hodson
The last quarter of the twentieth century saw an erosion of job security in both manual and professional occupations. In this article, we investigate how the proliferation of employee involvement schemes in manual production and the growth of layoffs, temporary outsourcing, and project-based teams in the professions have influenced working conditions in both manual and professional settings. We argue that these practices represent not a departure from scientific management as is often presumed, but rather adoption of Taylorist principles not fully manifested in Fordist-era mass production. Flexible practices have thus expanded the influence of scientific management in manual work, and extended the scope of its application into the professions in an era perhaps more aptly termed neo-Taylorist than post-Fordist. Using data derived from the population of workplace ethnographies, we evaluate historical shifts in the organization of manual and professional work and outcomes for employees. Our findings support accounts critical of the nature and degree of change in manual jobs and suggest that post-Fordist shifts in the professions have successfully ushered in intensification analogous to what Fordist strategies accomplished in manual work—with unintended negative consequences for workers. Our conclusions point to a general deterioration of conditions in both manual and professional occupations due at least in part to an increasingly rigorous application of the principles of scientific management to both types of work.

The Impact of Incarceration on Employment during the Transition to Adulthood
Robert Apel, Gary Sweeten
The research findings with respect to the relationship between incarceration and employment are consistent enough that it is tempting to conclude that incarceration causes deterioration in ex-inmates' employment prospects. Yet, causality remains tenuous for several reasons. For one, studies frequently rely on samples of nonincarcerated subjects that are not truly "at risk" of incarceration, which undermines their use as comparison samples and potentially biases estimates of the impact of incarceration on life outcomes. Additionally, even with confidence about causal identification, the field remains ignorant about the precise mechanism by which incarceration erodes employment and earnings. To address these gaps, this study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to estimate the impact of incarceration during late adolescence and early adulthood on short- and long-term employment outcomes. The subjects of interest are all individuals who are convicted of a crime for the first time, some of whom receive a sentence of incarceration following their conviction. Broad measures of legal and illegal employment are used to explore possible avenues by which incarceration affects individual work histories.

Immigration and Intimate Partner Violence: Exploring the Immigrant Paradox
Emily M. Wright, Michael L. Benson
Recent evidence indicates that contrary to some criminological theories, immigrants are less violent than native-born Americans. The relationship between immigrant status and reduced violence appears to hold at both the individual and neighborhood levels of analysis. This phenomenon has been referred to as the immigrant or Latino paradox. It has been suggested, although rarely examined, that cultural differences and strong social networks among immigrants account for their lower violence rates. These factors even appear strong enough to counterbalance the crime-promoting effects of economic disadvantage. This study investigates whether such patterns extend to intimate partner violence. Consistent with research on other forms of violence, we find that neighborhoods with greater concentrations of immigrants have lower levels of intimate partner violence. This relationship appears to be partially mediated by cultural norms and social ties.


Social Problems, August 2010: Volume 57, Number 3
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

White-collar crime and the Great Recession
Neal Shover, Peter Grabosky

WALLS OF SECRECY AND SILENCE

Walls of secrecy and silence: The Madoff case and cartels in the construction industry
Henk van de Bunt
Most analysts of the causes of the contemporary credit crunch have concluded that the supervising agencies failed in their duties. The same is true for studies of several major fraud scandals, including the Madoff affair and the Dutch construction fraud. The remedy seems immediately obvious: more and better regulation and supervision. However, this line of reasoning seems somewhat simplistic by ignoring the question of how illegal activities can remain hidden for many years from supervising agencies, victims, and bystanders. This research article argues that the problem also lies in the successful concealment of illegal activities by the perpetrators and in the presence of silence in their social environment.
The cases analyzed in this article suggest that financial misconduct also could be controlled by breaking the conspiracies of silence. The strengthening of supervision is unlikely to be effective without simultaneous efforts to encourage people to speak out and to give them incentives to want to know and to tell the truth.

Secrecy, silence, and corporate crime reforms
William S. Laufer

Silent or invisible?: Governments and corporate financial crimes
John Minkes

How to effectively get crooks like Bernie Madoff in Dutch1
Henry N. Pontell, Gilbert Geis

Getting our attention
Nancy Reichman

SERIOUS TAX FRAUD AND NONCOMPLIANCE

Serious tax fraud and noncompliance: A review of evidence on the differential impact of criminal and noncriminal proceedings
Michael Levi
This article reviews what international evidence exists on the impact of civil and criminal sanctions upon serious tax noncompliance by individuals. This construct lacks sharp definitional boundaries but includes large tax fraud and large-scale evasion that are not dealt with as fraud. Although substantial research and theory have been developed on general tax evasion and compliance, their conclusions might not apply to large-scale intentional fraudsters. No scientifically defensible studies directly compared civil and criminal sanctions for tax fraud, although one U.S. study reported that significantly enhanced criminal sanctions have more effects than enhanced audit levels. Prosecution is public, whereas administrative penalties are confidential, and this fact encourages those caught to pay heavy penalties to avoid publicity, a criminal record, and imprisonment.
Although it has yet to be proven that prosecution has a greater or lesser impact on these offenders, increased prosecution might be justified for purposes of moral retribution as well as perceived social fairness.

Criminal prosecution within responsive regulatory practice
Valerie Braithwaite

Fairness matters—more than deterrence: Class bias and the limits of deterrence
Paul Leighton

Serious tax noncompliance: Motivation and guardianship
Benno Torgler

TRANSNATIONAL WHITE-COLLAR CRIME AND RISK

Transnational white-collar crime and risk: Lessons from the global trade in electronic waste
Carole Gibbs, Edmund F. McGarrell, Mark Axelrod
Business transactions have increasingly been crossing national borders, thereby presenting greater opportunities for white-collar crime and for the externalization of risk. The global economic crisis, resulting in part from the subprime mortgage scandal, is a prime example of this potential. To develop theoretical perspectives and practical interventions to prevent and respond to the global financial crisis, we consider similar issues of risk and white-collar crime associated with global transactions in electronic waste (E-waste).
Smart (or responsive) regulation is a promising approach for addressing both E-waste and the current economic crisis. This response includes crime prevention, third-party- and self-regulation, and the threat of strong state intervention. Future research should explore the extent to which smart regulation reduces specific forms of white-collar crime and risk, as well as whether these interventions generalize to other transnational problems.

Global E-waste trade: The need for formal regulation and accountability beyond the organization
Dawn L. Rothe

Framing E-waste regulation: The obfuscating role of power
Laureen Snider

Smart regulation and enforcement of illegal disposal of electronic waste
Judith van Erp, Wim Huisman

MORTGAGE ORIGINATION FRAUD

Mortgage origination fraud and the global economic crisis: A criminological analysis
Tomson H. Nguyen, Henry N. Pontell
The study outlined in this article analyzed the responses of 23 subjects previously and currently employed in the subprime lending industry to understand the implications and role of white-collar crime in the contemporary subprime mortgage crisis and to document the rationalizations that offenders use to explain their involvement in mortgage-related crimes. The subjects represented five sectors of the primary mortgage market, including brokerage, lender, escrow, title, and appraisal offices. Secondary sources of data for the study included media accounts, government reports, and industry studies. The research findings detail accounts of mortgage frauds in the subprime lending industry that resulted from inadequate regulation, the indiscriminate use of alternative loan products, and the lack of accountability in the industry.
The study results suggest that the problem of mortgage origination fraud would be prevented best by major reform of financial policies and lending practices that characterize the subprime mortgage industry. Several broad recommendations are proposed in this article that highlight the need to recognize the potential for insider fraud, to enhance government regulation and oversight, to tighten loan qualification requirements, and to increase standards of underwriting. Observations are offered concerning the need to highlight white-collar crime in understanding the global financial crisis and to preventing future debacles.

Echo epidemics: Control frauds generate "white-collar street crime" waves
William K. Black

Diagnostics of white-collar crime prevention
John Braithwaite

Mortgage origination fraud and the global economic crisis: Incremental versus transformative policy initiatives
David O. Friedrichs

Mortgage origination fraud: The missing links
M. Cary Collins, Peter J. Nigro

EDITORIAL CONCLUSION

Forestalling the next epidemic of white-collar crime: Linking policy to theory
Peter Grabosky, Neal Shover

Criminology & Public Policy, July 2010: Volume 9, Issue 3

Journal of Marriage and Family 72(4)

Research Reviews
 
Religion in Families, 1999–2009: A Relational Spirituality Framework
Annette Mahoney

Capital at Home and at School: A Review and Synthesis
Toby L. Parcel, Mikaela J. Dufur, Rena Cornell Zito

Work and Family
 
Coping With Overload and Stress: Men and Women in Dual-Earner Families
Chris A. Higgins, Linda E. Duxbury, Sean T. Lyons

Nonstandard Work Schedules and Partnership Quality: Quantitative and Qualitative Findings
Melinda Mills, Kadri Täht

Migration Decisions Within Dual-Earner Partnerships: A Test of Bargaining Theory
Martin Abraham, Katrin Auspurg, Thomas Hinz

Divorce and Family Structure
 
Are Divorce Studies Trustworthy? The Effects of Survey Nonresponse and Response Errors
Colter Mitchell

The Timing of Cohabitation and Engagement: Impact on First and Second Marriages
Scott M. Stanley, Galena K. Rhoades, Paul R. Amato, Howard J. Markman, Christine A. Johnson

Work-Related Health Limitations, Education, and the Risk of Marital Disruption
Jay Teachman

Psychosocial Well-Being and the Relationship Between Divorce and Children's Academic Achievement
Daniel Potter

Poverty and Material Hardship in Grandparent-Headed Households
Lindsey A. Baker, Jan E. Mutchler

Of General Interest
 
The Couple That Prays Together: Race and Ethnicity, Religion, and Relationship Quality Among Working-Age Adults
Christopher G. Ellison, Amy M. Burdette, W. Bradford Wilcox

Educational Progress and Parenting Among Mexican Immigrant Mothers of Young Children
Robert Crosnoe, Ariel Kalil

Conflict Resolution in Mexican-Origin Couples: Culture, Gender, and Marital Quality
Lorey A. Wheeler, Kimberly A. Updegraff, Shawna M. Thayer

Older Parent–Child Relationships in Six Developed Nations: Comparisons at the Intersection of Affection and Conflict
Merril Silverstein, Daphna Gans, Ariela Lowenstein, Roseann Giarrusso, Vern L. Bengtson

Parent–Child Coresidence: Who Moves in With Whom and for Whose Needs?
Annika Smits, Ruben I. van Gaalen, Clara H. Mulder

Annual Review of Sociology 36

Prefatory Chapter

World Society, Institutional Theories, and the Actor
John W. Meyer

Theory and Methods

Causal Inference in Sociological Research
Markus Gangl

Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences
Peter Hedström and Petri Ylikoski

Social Processes

A World of Standards but not a Standard World: Toward a Sociology of Standards and Standardization
Stefan Timmermans and Steven Epstein

Dynamics of Dyads in Social Networks: Assortative, Relational, and Proximity Mechanisms
Mark T. Rivera, Sara B. Soderstrom, and Brian Uzzi

From the Sociology of Intellectuals to the Sociology of Interventions
Gil Eyal and Larissa Buchholz

Social Relationships and Health Behavior Across the Life Course
Debra Umberson, Robert Crosnoe, and Corinne Reczek

Partiality of Memberships in Categories and Audiences
Michael T. Hannan

Institutions and Culture

What Is Sociological about Music?
William G. Roy and Timothy J. Dowd

Cultural Holes: Beyond Relationality in Social Networks and Culture
Mark A. Pachucki and Ronald L. Breiger

Formal Organizations

Organizational Approaches to Inequality: Inertia, Relative Power, and Environments
Kevin Stainback, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, and Sheryl Skaggs

Political and Economic Sociology

The Contentiousness of Markets: Politics, Social Movements, and Institutional Change in Markets
Brayden G King and Nicholas A. Pearce

Conservative and Right-Wing Movements
Kathleen M. Blee and Kimberly A. Creasap

The Political Consequences of Social Movements
Edwin Amenta, Neal Caren, Elizabeth Chiarello, and Yang Su

Comparative Analyses of Public Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Immigration Using Multinational Survey Data: A Review of Theories and Research
Alin M. Ceobanu and Xavier Escandell

Differentiation and Stratification

Income Inequality: New Trends and Research Directions
Leslie McCall and Christine Percheski

Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Behaviors
Fred C. Pampel, Patrick M. Krueger, and Justin T. Denney

Gender and Health Inequality
Jen'nan Ghazal Read and Bridget K. Gorman

Incarceration and Stratification
Sara Wakefield and Christopher Uggen

Achievement Inequality and the Institutional Structure of Educational Systems: A Comparative Perspective
Herman G. Van de Werfhorst and Jonathan J.B. Mijs

Historical Studies of Social Mobility and Stratification
Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas

Individual and Society

Race and Trust
Sandra Susan Smith

Three Faces of Identity
Timothy J. Owens, Dawn T. Robinson, and Lynn Smith-Lovin

Policy

The New Homelessness Revisited
Barrett A. Lee, Kimberly A. Tyler, and James D. Wright

The Decline of Cash Welfare and Implications for Social Policy and Poverty
Sandra K. Danziger

Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Annals of the AAPSS 630

Continental Divides: International Migration in the Americas

Migration in the Americas: Mexico and Latin America in Comparative Context
Katharine M. Donato, Jonathan Hiskey, Jorge Durand, and Douglas S. Massey

New World Orders: Continuities and Changes in Latin American Migration
Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey

Pioneers and Followers: Migrant Selectivity and the Development of U.S. Migration Streams in Latin America
David P. Lindstrom and Adriana López Ramírez

U.S. Migration from Latin America: Gendered Patterns and Shifts
Katharine M. Donato

Gender Differences between Mexican Migration to the United States and Paraguayan Migration to Argentina
Marcela Cerrutti and Magalí Gaudio

Transition Shocks and Emigration Profiles in Latin America
Jonathan Hiskey and Diana Orces

Search of Peace: Structural Adjustment, Violence, and International Migration
Steven Elías Alvarado and Douglas S. Massey

The Cumulative Causation of International Migration in Latin America
Elizabeth Fussell

Determinants of Emigration: Comparing Migrants’ Selectivity from Peru and Mexico
Ayumi Takenaka and Karen A. Pren

Assessing Human Capital Transferability into the U.S. Labor Market among Latino Immigrants to the United States
Nadia Y. Flores

To Send or Not to Send: Migrant Remittances in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico
Jorge Duany

Migration, Remittances, and Children’s Schooling in Haiti
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Annie Georges, and Susan Pozo

Occupational Mobility among Returned Migrants in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis
Salvador D. Cobo, Silvia E. Giorguli, and Francisco Alba

Policy Shocks: On the Legal Auspices of Latin American Migration to the United States
Fernando Riosmena

Undocumented Migration from Latin America in an Era of Rising U.S. Enforcement
Douglas S. Massey and Fernando Riosmena

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 2010: Volume 630