Social Forces 88(4)

Culture, Emotions & Networks

The Durability of Collective Memory: Reconciling the "Greensboro Massacre"
David Cunningham, Colleen Nugent, Caitlin Slodden

While the general dynamics governing collective memory processes are well developed theoretically, our tool kit for systematically assessing how collective memory changes over time remains limited. Here, we focus on a particular tragic event - the killing of five participants in an anti-KKK march in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Nov. 3, 1979 - to assess continuity and change across accounts presented as part of a 1980 federally-sponsored investigation and a 2005 truth and reconciliation commission. Specifically, we employ a block modeling methodology to describe the structure of narrative themes shared across multiple accounts in each time period. We then analyze the sources of temporal variation in these narratives, and show how shifts in the range of actors participating in the 1980 and 2005 initiatives, as well as the institutional contexts within which accounts were offered, shaped how themes were strategically deployed to increase the resonance of specific positions. We find that, in the Greensboro case, the contours of these demographic and institutional dimensions resulted in a decrease in the polarization of competing narratives and an increased emphasis on key themes that contested elite "institutional" accounts.

Sex, Anger and Depression
Robin W. Simon, Kathryn Lively

A social problem that has preoccupied sociologists of gender and mental health is the higher rate of depression found among women. Although a number of hypotheses about this health disparity between men and women have been advanced, none consider the importance of subjectively experienced anger. Drawing on theoretical and empirical insights from the sociology of emotion, we hypothesize that: (1. intense and persistent anger are associated with more symptoms of depression, and (2. sex differences in the intensity and persistence of anger are involved in the sex difference in depressed affect. Analyses of data from the 1996 GSS Emotions Module provide support for these two hypotheses and strongly suggest that women's intense and persistent anger play a pivotal role in their high rate of depression. We discuss the extent to which sex differences in these emotions are a function of social factors, biological factors, or a complex interaction between them. We also comment on the implications of our findings for future theory and research on gender, emotion and mental health.

The Economics and Sociology of Religious Giving: Instrumental Rationality or Communal Bonding?
Jared L. Peifer

Religious individuals commonly make sizable monetary sacrifices by contributing to their congregations. This social action resides in the overlap of religious and economic realms of behavior, creating a certain tension. Following a Weberian approach to social inquiry, I treat religious giving as social action whereby individuals direct their value-rational and instrumental-rational behavior towards others. Using data from the American Congregational Giving Survey and the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, I test hypotheses derived from a rational choice perspective, the sense of solidarity one feels, and from the religious meaning of the giver. Rational choice hypotheses produce mixed results, the solidarity impact is confirmed, and high levels of religiosity have a strong impact on giving.

Can Cultural Worldviews Influence Network Composition?
Stephen Vaisey, Omar Lizardo

Most sociological research assumes that social network composition shapes individual beliefs. Network theory and research has not adequately considered that internalized cultural worldviews might affect network composition. Drawing on a synthetic, dual-process theory of culture and two waves of nationally-representative panel data, this article shows that worldviews are strong predictors of changes in network composition among U.S. youth. These effects are robust to the influence of other structural factors, including prior network composition and behavioral homophily. By contrast, there is little evidence that networks play a strong proximate role in shaping worldviews. This suggests that internalized cultural dispositions play an important role in shaping the interpersonal environment and that the dynamic link between culture and social structure needs to be reconsidered.

Cross-National & Comparative

Multidimensionality and Gravity in Global Trade, 1950-2000
Min Zhou

The expansion of global trade in the post-war period is subject to various interpretations. Some stress the trade-promoting role of the novel features in the world economy; some insist on the role of traditional factors, such as geographic distance, political difference and cultural dissimilarity, in continuously depressing trade flows; others even argue that the importance of these traditional factors has been on the rise. To adjudicate the divergence, this article applies the gravity model to a large data set on global bilateral trade from 1950 through 2000. Although the global institutional factor does promote bilateral trade and global economic activity indeed becomes more trade-generating, the trade-depressing effects of geographic distance, political difference and cultural dissimilarity remain strong. Moreover, geographic and cultural proximity actually generates greater gravity over time that draws countries together, which may trigger fragmentation in global trade along geo-cultural lines.

Effects of Inequality, Family and School on Mathematics Achievement: Country and Student Differences
Ming Ming Chiu

Inequality, family and school characteristics were linked to student achievement as shown by multi-level analyses of 107,975 15 year olds' mathematics tests and questionnaires in 41 countries. Equal distribution of country and school resources were linked to higher mathematics scores. Students scored higher in families or schools with more resources (SES, native born, two parents, more educational materials, higher SES schoolmates, female schoolmates, class time, educated teachers) or beneficial intangible processes (communication, discipline, teacher-student relationships). Students living with grandparents or siblings (especially older ones) scored lower. Physical family resource variables showed similar results across countries, supporting the social reproduction hypothesis for physical resources. In richer countries, intangible processes had stronger links with mathematics achievement, suggesting that greater availability of public physical resources raises the value of complementary intangible processes, which can help explain the Heyneman-Loxley effect of stronger family effects in richer countries.

Understanding Economic Justice Attitudes in Two Countries: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Azamat K. Junisbai

Analyzing data from the 2007 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Inequality Survey, I identify and compare the determinants of economic justice attitudes in two formerly similar majority-Muslim nations that are now distinguished almost exclusively by their dissimilar economic circumstances following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Kazakhstan, where the economy is growing rapidly, the important factors predicting economic egalitarianism are connected to people's perceived ability to do well in the future. In contrast, in Kyrgyzstan, which has stagnated in the post-Soviet era, people's immediate economic vulnerability predicts egalitarianism, while their economic prospects are irrelevant. Finally, the effect of several factors on support for egalitarianism appears impervious to the prevailing economic winds: religious orthodoxy, the urban vs. rural divide, and membership in a historically privileged ethnic group. These patterns reflect both the commonalities in the two countries' histories, demography, and religion and their divergent economic trajectories since the collapse of the USSR.

Survivalism and Public Opinion on Criminality: A Cross-National Analysis of Prostitution
Steven Stack, Amy Adamczyk, Liqun Cao

Explanations of variability in public opinion on crime have drawn disproportionately from the literature on specific symbolic orientations including religious fundamentalism and racial prejudice. In contrast, this article hypothesizes that public opinion is linked to the strength of a general cultural axis of nations: survivalism vs. self-expressionism. Data are from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey. Hierarchical modeling techniques are used to sort out the bi-level effects of survivalist culture on the approval of prostitution. Controlling for all other predictors, the personal survivalism index was the most powerful predictor of prostitution acceptability, followed by the country-level survivalism index. Unlike previous investigations, which relied on specific symbolic orientations, the present results suggest that attitudes about criminality are linked to a generalized cultural axis.

Military Spending and Economic Well-Being in the American States: The Post-Vietnam War Era
Casey Borch, Michael Wallace

Using growth curve modeling techniques, this research investigates whether military spending improved or worsened the economic well-being of citizens within the American states during the post-Vietnam War period. We empirically test the military Keynesianism claim that military spending improves the economic conditions of citizens through its use by politicians as a countercyclical tool to reduce the negative effects of economic downturns. However, due to deindustrialization and the emergence of the "new military," there are reasons to believe that military spending will not effectively improve economic well-being during the post-Vietnam War era. Using longitudinal data we find that states with high levels of military spending are better equipped to stave off the deleterious effects of economic recession than are states with lower levels of military spending.

Social Stratification & Mobility

Is the United States Experiencing a "Matrilineal Tilt?": Gender, Family Structures and Financial Transfers to Adult Children
Shelley Clark, Catherine Kenney

Furstenberg et al. (1995) suggested that one unanticipated consequence of current high levels of divorce might be a "matrilineal tilt" in intergenerational wealth flows. This research uses six waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (1992 to 2002) to investigate this possibility with respect to financial transfers from parents to their adult children. We find that although divorced single fathers continue to make transfers to their adult biological children, remarriage substantially reduces fathers' transfers while it increases mothers' transfers to their biological children. Our findings are consistent with both socio-evolutionary and exchange theories predicting women's vs. men's investments in biological vs. stepchildren.

The Skinny on Success: Body Mass, Gender and Occupational Standing Across the Life Course
Christy M. Glass, Steven A. Haas, Eric N. Reither

Several studies have analyzed the impact of obesity on occupational standing. This study extends previous research by estimating the influence of body mass on occupational attainment over three decades of the career using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. In a series of covariance structure analyses, we considered three mechanisms that may alter the career trajectories of heavy individuals: (1. employment-based discrimination, (2. educational attainment, and (3. marriage market processes. Unlike previous studies, we found limited evidence that employment-based discrimination impaired the career trajectories of either men or women. Instead, we found that heavy women received less post-secondary schooling than their thinner peers, which in turn adversely affected their occupational standing at each point in their careers.

Stymied Mobility or Temporary Lull?: The Puzzle of Lagging Hispanic College Degree Attainment
Sigal Alon, Thurston Domina, Marta Tienda

We assess the intergenerational educational mobility of recent cohorts of high school graduates to consider whether Hispanics' lagging post-secondary attainment reflects a temporary lull due to immigration of low education parents or a more enduring pattern of unequal transmission of social status relative to whites. Using data from three national longitudinal studies, a recent longitudinal study of Texas high school seniors and a sample of students attending elite institutions, we track post-secondary enrollment and degree attainment patterns at institutions of differing selectivity. We find that group differences in parental education and nativity only partly explain the Hispanic-white gap in college enrollment, and not evenly over time. Both foreign-and native-born college-educated Hispanic parents are handicapped in their abilities to transmit their educational advantages to their children compared with white parents. We conclude that both changing population composition and unequal ability to confer status advantages to offspring are responsible for the growing Hispanic-white degree attainment gap.

The Declining Relative Status of Black Women Workers, 1980-2002
Raine Dozier

During the 1980s and 1990s, industrial restructuring led to a marked increase in wage inequality. Women, however, were not as negatively affected by declining manufacturing employment because their pay was relatively low within the industry, and their already high representation in the service sector provided access to newly created opportunities. However, black and white women did not fare equally and the black-white wage gap more than doubled. As both black and white women increased their representation as professionals and managers, black women became more likely to earn low wages within these occupations. Black degree holders also lost ground as they were unable to keep pace with the remarkable gains made by white women degree holders. The growth in black-white wage inequality, then, was not due to black women's relegation to "bad jobs." Instead, as women increased their share of "good jobs," white women disproportionately benefitted.

Other Articles

Societal Responses to Endemic Terror: Evidence from Driving Behavior in Israel
Guy Stecklov, Joshua R. Goldstein

In this article, using data on traffic volume and fatal accident rates in Israel from 2001 to 2004–a period spanning much of the Second Intifada–we examine the population-level responses to endemic terror to uncover whether societies become habituated so that the response weakens following repeated attacks or whether they become increasingly sensitized so subsequent attacks have a greater impact. Our analysis, using distributed-lag time series models, supports earlier findings while highlighting the persistence of the response to terror attacks even several years into the violence. There are, however, signs that the reaction to terror has accelerated. This shift, which is not naturally seen as evidence for either habituation or sensitization, is suggestive of social learning of norms over time.

Explaining Late Life Urban vs. Rural Health Discrepancies in Beijing
Zachary Zimmer, Toshiko Kaneda, Zhe Tang, Xianghua Fang

Social characteristics that differ by place of residence are consequential for health. To study implications of this among older adults in rural vs. urban China, this study employs data from the Beijing municipality, a region that has witnessed growth and gaps in development. Life and active life expectancy is assessed using a multistate life table technique that estimates hazard rates and subsequent expected years in various health states. Hazards are estimated for a model that adjusts regional differences for age and sex and for a series of other models including additional covariates. Results indicate urban residents have an advantage. Specific factors show socio-economic status and access to health service account for a large part, social support and health behaviors for little, while disease is a suppressor.

Social Forces, June 2010: Volume 88, Issue 4

Crime & Delinquency 56(4)

Manipulating Public Opinion About Trying Juveniles as Adults: An Experimental Study
Laurence Steinberg and Alex R. Piquero

Public attitudes about juvenile crime play a significant role in fashioning juvenile justice policy; variations in the wording of public opinion surveys can produce very different responses and can result in inaccurate and unreliable assessments of public sentiment. Surveys that ask about policy alternatives in vague terms are especially problematic. The authors conducted an experiment in which a large sample of respondents were presented with a crime scenario in which the offender’s age and prior record, the type of crime, and the inclusiveness of the policy in question were varied. Respondents were asked about the extent to which they support trying juveniles in adult court. Responses varied significantly as a function of the offender’s age, criminal record, and offense but not as a function of inclusiveness. For legislators using public opinion polls to guide their decisions, blanket statements describing the results of vaguely worded surveys items can be misleading and can lead to poorly informed policy making.

The Recidivism Patterns of Previously Deported Aliens Released From a Local Jail: Are They High-Risk Offenders?
Laura J. Hickman and Marika J. Suttorp

Previously deported aliens are a group about which numerous claims are made but very few facts are known. Using data on male deportable aliens released from a local jail, the study sought to test the ubiquitous claim that they pose a high risk of recidivism. Using multiple measures of recidivism and propensity score weighting to account for preexisting group differences, the authors find consistent support for the assertion that previously deported aliens are a high recidivism risk. Relative to similarly situated deportable aliens with no record of deportation, previously deported aliens are more likely to be rearrested, to be rearrested more quickly, and to be rearrested more frequently in a 1-year follow-up period.

Practitioner Views of Priorities, Policies, and Practices in Juvenile Justice
Daniel P. Mears, Tracey L. Shollenberger, Janeen B. Willison, Colleen E. Owens, and Jeffrey A. Butts

Dramatic changes in juvenile justice have occurred in recent decades. One result has been the emergence of new policies and practices, many of which remain largely unexamined. One avenue for gaining insight into whether such policies and practices are needed or effective, as well as into how the juvenile justice system might be improved, is to tap into the perceptions of people who work within this system. Drawing on a national survey of juvenile court practitioners, the authors investigate key questions about the effectiveness of juvenile justice and discuss the implications of the study’s findings for research, policy, and practice.

Understanding Community Policing as an Innovation: Patterns of Adoption
Melissa Schaefer Morabito

In the 1980s and 1990s, community policing was viewed by many as a radical innovation in the field of policing, with the vast majority of police agencies reporting to have adopted the approach. Despite its overwhelming popularity, most police agencies did not adopt the central elements of community policing. This study examines patterns of community policing adoption of 474 police departments across the United States. Using an innovations framework, a model was developed that measures the extent to which community characteristics, organizational complexity, and organizational commitment can explain differences in the adoption of community policing. Findings suggest that the innovations approach can explain some variation in the adoption of community policing and should be considered in future police research.

Social Support and Feelings of Hostility Among Released Inmates
Andy Hochstetler, Matt DeLisi, and Travis C. Pratt

There is broad consensus that the strains of imprisonment and unsupported release affect offenders’ mental health and operate to the detriment of their chances of successful reintegration. Drawing on data from 208 male inmates, the authors examine the mediating and moderating influences of social support on the links between inmates’ perceptions of prison conditions and other background variables on parolees’ feelings of hostility—a factor theoretically linked to reoffending—upon release. The results demonstrate that social support partially or completely mediates background characteristics and conditions the influence of prison perceptions on released inmates’ levels of hostility.

Is a Risky Lifestyle Always "Risky"? The Interaction Between Individual Propensity and Lifestyle Risk in Adolescent Offending: A Test in Two Urban Samples
Robert Svensson and Lieven Pauwels

This study examines the effects on adolescent offending of lifestyle risk and the individual propensity to offend. It is assumed that lifestyle risk will have a more important effect on offending for those individuals with high levels of individual propensity, whereas for individuals with low levels of individual propensity it is assumed that a risky lifestyle will not, or will only marginally, influence their involvement in offending. The data are drawn from two different samples of young adolescents in Antwerp, Belgium (N = 2,486), and Halmstad, Sweden (N = 1,003). The data provide strong support for the hypothesis that the effect of lifestyle risk is dependent on the strength or weakness of individual propensity, indicating that lifestyle risk has a stronger effect on delinquency for individuals with a high propensity to offend. The similarity of the results across two independent samples suggests the findings are stable.

Completely Out of Control or the Desire to Be in Complete Control? How Low Self-Control and the Desire for Control Relate to Corporate Offending
Nicole Leeper Piquero, Andrea Schoepfer, and Lynn Langton

Whereas Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime asserts that individuals with low self-control are more likely to engage in all types of crime as well as analogous acts, some research has recently questioned the generality of the theory, particularly with regard to its explanation of corporate crime. In addition, recent research has shown that another individual characteristic—the desire for control, or the general wish to be in control over everyday life events—may help shed greater light on understanding corporate criminality. Based on data from a factorial survey administered to working adults enrolled in business classes, the relationship between these two concepts was examined, with attention paid to the ability of each to explain corporate crime. Results indicate that neither an attitudinal nor a behavioral measure of low self-control relates to corporate offending but that the desire for control does. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.

Crime & Delinquency, October 2010: Volume 56, Issue 4

Criminology 48(3)

Destination Effects: Residential Mobility and Trajectories of Adolescent Violence in a Stratified Metropolis
Patrick Sharkey and Robert J. Sampson

Two landmark policy interventions to improve the lives of youth through neighborhood mobility—the Gautreaux program in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiments in five cities—have produced conflicting results and have created a puzzle with broad implications: Do residential moves between neighborhoods increase or decrease violence, or both? To address this question, we analyze data from a subsample of adolescents ages 9–12 years from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a longitudinal study of children and their families that began in Chicago—the site of the original Gautreaux program and one of the MTO experiments. We propose a dynamic modeling strategy to separate the effects of residential moving across three waves of the study from dimensions of neighborhood change and metropolitan location. The results reveal countervailing effects of mobility on trajectories of violence; whereas neighborhood moves within Chicago lead to an increased risk of violence, moves outside the city reduce violent offending and exposure to violence. The gap in violence between movers within and outside Chicago is explained not only by the racial and economic composition of the destination neighborhoods but also by the quality of school contexts, adolescents' perceived control over their new environment, and fear. These findings highlight the need to simultaneously consider residential mobility, mechanisms of neighborhood change, and the wider geography of structural opportunity.

The Role of Crime in Housing Unit Racial/Ethnic Transition
John R. Hipp

Previous research frequently has observed a positive cross-sectional relationship between racial/ethnic minorities and crime and generally has posited that this relationship is entirely because of the effect of minorities on neighborhood crime rates. This study posits that at least some of this relationship might be a result of the opposite effect—neighborhood crime increases the number of racial/ethnic minorities. This study employs a unique sample (the American Housing Survey neighborhood sample) focusing on housing units nested in microneighborhoods across three waves from 1985 to 1993. This format allows one to test and find that such racial/ethnic transformation occurs because of the following effects: First, White households that perceive more crime in the neighborhood or that live in microneighborhoods with more commonly perceived crime are more likely to move out of such neighborhoods. Second, Whites are significantly less likely to move into a housing unit in a microneighborhood with more commonly perceived crime. And third, African American and Latino households are more likely to move into such units.

Juvenility and Punishment: Sentencing Juveniles in Adult Criminal Court
Megan C. Kurlychek and Brian D. Johnson

The study outlined in this article addressed a key limitation of prior research on the punishment of juveniles transferred to adult court by employing propensity score matching techniques to create more comparable samples of juvenile and young adult offenders. Using recent data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy, it tested competing theoretical propositions about the salience of juvenile status in adult court. Findings indicate that even after rigorous statistical matching procedures, juvenile offenders are punished more severely than their young adult counterparts. We found no evidence that this “juvenile penalty” is exacerbated by an offender's race or gender, but it does vary starkly across offense type and mode of transfer, being driven primarily by drug crimes and discretionary waivers. The import of these findings is discussed as they relate to the future of juvenile justice policy regarding the continued use of juvenile transfer to adult court.

"Back-end Sentencing" and Reimprisonment: Individual, Organizational, and Community Predictors of Parole Sanctioning Decisions
Jeffrey Lin, Ryken Grattet and Joan Petersilia

An understudied contributor to the massive growth of American incarceration is an increase in the practice of reimprisoning parolees through parole board revocations—now referred to as “back-end sentencing.” To conduct the analyses outlined in this article, we use data from the California Parole Study to analyze the effects of three clusters of factors (parolees' characteristics, organizational pressures, and community conditions) on these sentences. Our analyses are informed by theories that have been used to explain “front-end” (court) sentences, which center on the focal concerns of social-control agents, labeling, and racial threat. Our results indicate that status characteristics—race/ethnicity and gender—affect the likelihood that criminal parole violators are reimprisoned. Moreover, certain “pivotal categories” of parolees—registered sex offenders and those who have committed “serious” or “violent” offenses—are much more likely to be returned to prison than others. Organizational pressure (prison crowding) also affects the likelihood of reimprisonment. Communities' political punitiveness affects the likelihood that technical violators are reimprisoned and that serious or violent offenders are reimprisoned for criminal violations. In this article, we use these findings to consider ways that mass incarceration is driven by both top-down policies as well as bottom-up organizational and community forces.

Immigration and Crime in an Era of Transformation: A Longitudinal Analysis of Homicides in San Diego Neighborhoods, 1980–2000
Ramiro Martinez Jr., Jacob I. Stowell and Matthew T. Lee

Emerging research associated with the “immigration revitalization” perspective suggests that immigration has been labeled inaccurately as a cause of crime in contemporary society. In fact, crime seems to be unexpectedly low in many communities that exhibit high levels of the following classic indicators of social disorganization: residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, and immigration. But virtually all research conducted to date has been cross-sectional in nature and therefore unable to demonstrate how the relationship between immigration and crime might covary over time. This limitation is significant, especially because current versions of social disorganization theory posit a dynamic relationship between structural factors and crime that unfolds over time. The current study addresses this issue by exploring the effects of immigration on neighborhood-level homicide trends in the city of San Diego, California, using a combination of racially/ethnically disaggregated homicide victim data and community structural indicators collected for three decennial census periods. Consistent with the revitalization thesis, results show that the increased size of the foreign-born population reduces lethal violence over time. Specifically, we find that neighborhoods with a larger share of immigrants have fewer total, non-Latino White, and Latino homicide victims. More broadly, our findings suggest that social disorganization in heavily immigrant cities might be largely a function of economic deprivation rather than forms of “neighborhood” or “system” stability.

Racial–ethnic Intolerance and Support For Capital Punishment: A Cross-national Comparison
James D. Unnever and Francis T. Cullen

This article tests cross-nationally the minority group threat thesis that public sentiments toward repressive crime-control policies reflect conflicted racial and ethnic relations. Using multiple data sets representing France, Belgium, the Netherlands, East and West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Canada, Ireland, and Portugal, we examine whether racial and ethnic intolerance—animus, resentments, or negative sentiments toward minorities—predicts greater support for the death penalty. Our results reveal that the respondents were significantly more likely to express support for capital punishment if they were racially or ethnically intolerant while controlling for other covariates of public opinion. These findings indicate that the link between support for capital punishment and racial and ethnic animus may occur universally in countries with conflicted racial and ethnic relations.

The Reproduction of Racial Inequality: How Crime Affects Housing Turnover
Min Xie and David Mcdowall

This study examines the microlevel process of housing turnover between Blacks and Whites to assess whether crime plays an important role in the racial transition of neighborhoods. The study uses a unique, longitudinal version of the National Crime Survey in which each dwelling's close neighbors are identified. After controlling for household characteristics and the characteristics of their close neighbors, crime occurring in nearby areas is found to increase the chances of White-to-Black turnover while decreasing the chances of Black-to-White turnover. This change occurs even though the directly victimized houses do not necessarily have a probability of racial turnover different than that of other houses nearby. The findings suggest the presence of structural constraints that limit the housing opportunities for Blacks and constrain their choice of residence to comparatively unsafe neighborhoods. They also indicate that “White avoidance,” in which Whites systematically bypass high-crime neighborhoods, is important in maintaining the relationship between race and crime.

All Offenders Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal than Others: Variation in Journeys to Crime Between of fenders
Michael Townsley and Aiden Sidebottom

The results of this study reveal a major methodological problem with an established body of criminological literature—the journey to crime. The dominant finding of such research is that most crimes occur close to an offender's home. Consequently, journeys to crime typically display a distance-decay function that is assumed to exist between and within offenders. However, most journey-to-crime studies use nested data—individual offenders contributing multiple crime trips—yet employ analytic methods that fail to account for this property, leading to inference and aggregation concerns. In the study outlined in this article, we demonstrated the implications of using nested data for analyzing the journey to crime. We showed that once controlling for nesting, only a few (prolific) offenders display a distance decay pattern. Implications of the findings for theory and future research are discussed.

Criminology, August 2010: Volume 48, Issue 3

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 47(3)

Routine Online Activity and Internet Fraud Targeting: Extending the Generality of Routine Activity Theory

Travis C. Pratt, Kristy Holtfreter, and Michael D. Reisig

Routine activity theory predicts that changes in legitimate opportunity structures (e.g., technology) can increase the convergence of motivated offenders and suitable targets in the absence of capable guardianship. The Internet has fundamentally changed consumer practices and has simultaneously expanded opportunities for cyber-fraudsters to target online consumers. The authors draw on routine activity theory and consumer behavior research to understand how personal characteristics and online routines increase people’s exposure to motivated offenders. Using a representative sample of 922 adults from a statewide survey in Florida, the results of the regression models are consistent with prior research in that sociodemographic characteristics shape routine online activity (e.g., spending time online and making online purchases). Furthermore, indicators of routine online activity fully mediate the effect of sociodemographic characteristics on the likelihood of being targeted for fraud online. These findings support the routine activity perspective and provide a theoretically informed direction for situational crime prevention in a largely unexplored consumer context.

The Correlates of Crime and Deviance: Additional Evidence

Olena Antonaccio, Charles R. Tittle, Ekaterina Botchkovar, and Maria Kranidiotis

Comparable survey data collected simultaneously in major cities in Greece, Russia, and Ukraine indicate that the usual correlates of self-reported criminal/deviant behavior derived from research in well-studied, mostly Western societies, do not necessarily hold cross-nationally. The data confirm only two of six potential correlates of self-reported criminal/deviant behavior—age and deviant peer association. Two widely assumed correlates of criminal propensity—gender and marital status—prove to be somewhat unreliable and sensitive to these cultural contexts. Religiosity is generally negatively linked to crime/deviance in bivariate but not multivariate analyses. In bivariate analysis socioeconomic status (SES) proves to be highly sensitive to the investigated cultural contexts whereas in multivariate analysis SES is not significantly related in any consistent fashion to criminality in any of the three countries. These results show the value of cross-cultural research and suggest that effective explanation of criminal and deviant behavior may require more attention to cultural variations.

Commercial Density, Residential Concentration, and Crime: Land Use Patterns and Violence in Neighborhood Context

Christopher R. Browning, Reginald A. Byron, Catherine A. Calder, Lauren J. Krivo, Mei-Po Kwan, Jae-Yong Lee, and Ruth D. Peterson

Drawing on Jacobs’s (1961) and Taylor’s (1988) discussions of the social control implications of mixed land use, the authors explore the link between commercial and residential density and violent crime in urban neighborhoods. Using crime, census, and tax parcel data for Columbus, Ohio, the authors find evidence of a curvilinear association between commercial and residential density and both homicide and aggravated assault, consistent with Jacobs’s expectations. At low levels, increasing commercial and residential density is positively associated with homicide and aggravated assault. Beyond a threshold, however, increasing commercial and residential density serves to reduce the likelihood of both outcomes. In contrast, the association between commercial and residential density and robbery rates is positive and linear. The implications of these findings for understanding the sources of informal social control in urban neighborhoods are discussed.

Guardians on Guardianship: Factors Affecting the Willingness to Supervise, the Ability to Detect Potential Offenders, and the Willingness to Intervene

Danielle M. Reynald

Within criminology, much attention has been given to the processes of offending and victimization, but comparatively few studies have focused on the processes underlying guardianship. The current study turns the spotlight toward the capable guardian as the critical actor within the crime event model with the power to prevent crime. This study interviews residential guardians to examine key factors that render them capable of disrupting opportunities for crime. Results reveal three critical dimensions of capable guardianship at micro-places: (1) the willingness to supervise, (2) the ability to detect potential offenders, and (3) the willingness to intervene when necessary.

The Cumulative Effect of Race and Ethnicity in Juvenile Court Outcomes and Why Preadjudication Detention Matters

Nancy Rodriguez

Despite federal and state legislation aimed at producing equitable treatment of youth in the juvenile court system, studies continue to find that race and ethnicity play a significant role in juvenile court outcomes. To date, few studies have examined the cumulative effects of race and ethnicity in juvenile court outcomes. In this study, a random sample of youth processed in Arizona during 2000 (N = 23,156) was used to examine how race and ethnicity influence diversion, petition, detention, adjudication, and disposition decisions. Analyses show that black, Latino, and American Indian youth were treated more severely in juvenile court outcomes than their white counterparts. Also, youth who were detained preadjudication were more likely to have a petition filed, less likely to have petitions dismissed, and more likely to be removed from the home at disposition. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, August 2010: Volume 47, Issue 3

British Journal of Criminology 50(5)

Simulated Justice: Risk, Money and Telemetric Policing
Pat O'Malley

New forms of ‘simulated’ justice and policing are emerging at the convergence of telemetric regulation with two linked trends: the monetization of justice and the development of risk-based technologies of governance. A definitive example is the traffic fine, where, increasingly, the offence is electronically monitored, calibrated, monetized into a fine, the fine issued and expiated in simulated space—that point at which the real and the virtual converge. While all of this is very ‘real’ (real money is primarily electronic and digitized), binary codes rather than liberal individuals are focal. Key forms of simulated justice operate beyond the reach of ‘individual rights’ as liberal individuals are fragmented into simulated ‘dividuals’ and commodified privileges rather than rights become critical to everyday life.

Are We Living in a More Violent Society?: A Socio-Historical Analysis of Interpersonal Violence in France, 1970s–Present
Laurent Mucchielli

This text suggests a general sociological model to interpret the development of violent behaviours in interpersonal relationships, based on the French case. An original synthesis of various types of data is used: police and judicial statistics, victimization and self-reported surveys, demographic and socio-economic data. The model links together five processes at work in French society: a societal process of pacification, a political and legal process of criminalization, a process of judiciarization of everyday life conflicts, a socio-economic process of competition for consumer goods, and a process of economic, social and spatial segregation. This model also attempts to link many theoretical contributions that have shaped the history of sociology and criminology.

A Case of Mixed Motives?: Formal and Informal Functions of Administrative Immigration Detention
Arjen Leerkes and Dennis Broeders

In most EU countries and the United States, immigration detention is defined as an administrative, non-punitive measure to facilitate expulsion. This paper argues that immigration detention in the Netherlands serves three informal functions in addition to its formal function as an instrument of expulsion: (1) deterring illegal residence, (2) controlling pauperism and (3) managing popular anxiety by symbolically asserting state control. These informal functions indicate that society has not found a definitive solution for the presence of migrants who are not admitted but are also difficult to expel. The analysis, which is placed against the background of the functions of penal detention, is based on policy documents, survey data, administrative data and fieldwork in a Dutch immigration detention centre.

Beyond Social Capital: Triad Organized Crime in Hong Kong and China
T. Wing Lo

In view of the smuggling out of democratic leaders after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 and China's resumption of sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, China applied a ‘united front’ tactic to recruit Hong Kong triad societies to the Communist camp. Consequently, triad leaders were able to set foot in China and bridge up with officials and state enterprises. Against this backdrop, this paper argues that when political dynamics is involved, both the traditional structural and social network approaches are insufficient to explain triad-organized crime. Therefore, social capital perspective is proposed. Using two case studies, it was discovered that the triad leaders converted the social capital they developed in mainland China into economic capital through illegitimate means in the stock market. The paper concludes by highlighting the similarities and differences between this triad-organized crime and other forms of Chinese organized crime.

Constructing Crime, Enacting Morality: Emotion, Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour in an Inner-City Community
John Cromby, Steven D. Brown, Harriet Gross, Abigail Locke, and Anne E. Patterson

Research into emotion, crime and anti-social behaviour has lacked psychological input and rarely considered the multi-directional associations between emotion, crime and morality. We present a study analysing audio recordings of two community groups meeting in a deprived inner-city area with high rates of crime, using conversation analytic and discursive psychological techniques to conduct an affective–textual analysis that draws out aspects of participants’ moral reasoning and identifies its emotional dimensions. Moral reasoning around crime and anti-social behaviour took three forms (invoking moral categories, developing moral hierarchies, invoking vulnerable others) and was bound up with a wide range of emotional enactments and emotion displays. Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary government policy and possible future research.

Self-Governance or Professionalized Paternalism?: The Police, Contractual Injunctions and the Differential Management of Deviant Populations
Daniel J. McCarthy

Contractual injunctions have emerged as key instruments of social control. They provide agencies such as the police with unique powers to manage deviant persons by forcing the recipients, via the threat of criminal sanction on breach of the injunction, to engage in self-control of their behaviour. This article develops understandings of how contractual injunctions are actually used in practice by the police. Analyses of the different ways contractual injunctions are directed at certain social groups are developed in relation to police occupational cultures that place limits and possibilities on their application. It concludes by locating the broader social effects of contractual injunctions with issues of urban marginality and growing powers to criminalize social predicaments.

Policing's New Visibility
Andrew John Goldsmith

This paper applies the concept of ‘new visibility’ (Thompson 2005) to recent developments around policing, particularly the prevalence of mobile phone cameras in the wider community and the capacity via video-sharing platforms such as YouTube, and social networking sites like Facebook, to share images of apparent police misconduct with mass audiences and to mobilize groups into taking action of some kind. Two case studies, the Ian Tomlinson case in London in April 2009 and the Robert Dziekanski case in Vancouver in October 2007, are used to illustrate the unprecedented power of this new capability and the challenges that it poses for police image management. The implications for police legitimacy and accountability of these developments are explored.

Post-Lawrence Policing in England and Wales: Guilt, Innocence and the Defence of Organizational Ego
Michael Shiner

One of the many reforms to have emerged from the Stephen Lawrence inquiry is that requiring the police to make a record of all stops (Recommendation 61). What might have been accepted as a fairly routine extension of the existing regulatory framework was widely resented by officers who considered it part of an ‘attack’ on the police service spearheaded by allegations of institutional racism. This ‘attack’, it is argued here, has been experienced as a form of collective trauma, giving rise to a series of defence mechanisms and allied forms of resistance that have distanced the new recording requirement from its intended purpose. Such defences, it is concluded, should be anticipated and addressed as part of the process of reform.

Stop and Search in England: A Reformed Tactic or Business as Usual?
Joel Miller

In 1999, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry heavily criticized ethnic disparities in stop and search (‘disproportionality’), triggering a national reform effort to make the tactic fairer and more effective. Analyses of searches under core powers using up to 12 years of annual data from 38 police force areas in England indicate that aggregate disparities showed no improvement following the reforms. However, this overall finding is heavily influenced by London and, to a lesser extent, Greater Manchester and West Midlands, which are out of step with most of the rest of the country. The average force showed reductions in disproportionality associated with the reforms, although did not see improvements in arrest rates of searches. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

British Journal of Criminology, September 2010: Volume 50, Issue 5

Theory and Society 39(5)

Of risk and pork: urban security and the politics of objectivity
Andrew Lakoff & Eric Klinenberg

Theory of practice, rational choice, and historical change
Ivan Ermakoff

Global and everyday matters of consumption: on the productive assemblage of pharmaceuticals and obesity
Scott Vrecko

The dialectics of health and social care: toward a conceptual framework
Paul Leduc Browne


Theory and Society, September 2010: Volume 39, Issue 5

American Journal of Sociology 116(1)

Redistributing toward the Rich: Strategic Policy Crafting in the Campaign to Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, 1938–1958
Isaac William Martin

Beginning in 1938, some American business groups campaigned to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment and limit the federal taxation of income and wealth. Although their proposed upward-redistributive policy would benefit few voters, it won the support of 31 state legislatures. To explain this outcome, this article offers a theory of strategic policy crafting by advocacy groups. Such groups may succeed even in otherwise unfavorable institutional environments if they craft their proposals to fit the salient policy context. Archival evidence and event history analysis support this hypothesis. Public opinion also helps explain legislative support for upward-redistributive policy.

Trouble in Store: Probes, Protests, and Store Openings by Wal-Mart, 1998–2007
Paul Ingram, Lori Qingyuan Yue, and Hayagreeva Rao

The authors consider how uncertainty over protest occurrence shapes the strategic interaction between companies and activists. Analyzing Wal-Mart, the authors find support for their theory that companies respond to this uncertainty through a “test for protest” approach. In Wal-Mart’s case, this consists of low-cost probes in the form of new store proposals. They then withdraw if they face protests, especially when those protests signal future problems. Wal-Mart is more likely to open stores that are particularly profitable, even if they are protested. This uncertainty-based account stands in sharp contrast to full-information models that characterize protests as rare miscalculations.

Changing to Win? Threat, Resistance, and the Role of Unions in Strikes, 1984–2002
Andrew W. Martin and Marc Dixon

Much of what we know about strikes is grounded in the context of postwar Fordism, a unique historical moment of relatively institutionalized labor-management relations. Yet the resurgence of corporate resistance over the past quarter century, coupled with an increasingly hostile political and economic climate, has fundamentally transformed the American industrial landscape. Drawing from this research and insights on social movements and formal organizations, we expect unions will vary considerably in their response to threats. Our analysis, based on a comprehensive data set of U.S. strikes from 1984 to 2002, reveals the importance of such intramovement cleavages for strike activity and for the prospects of organized labor in the contemporary United States. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for scholarship on threat and social movement challenges more generally.

The Civilizing Process and Its Discontents: Suicide and Crimes against Persons in France, 1825–1830
Hugh P. Whitt

A spatial analysis of data for French départements assembled in the 1830s by André-Michel Guerry and Adolphe d’Angeville examines the impacts of modernization and resistance to governmental “Frenchification” policies on measures of violence and its direction. In the context of Unnithan et al.’s integrated model of suicide and homicide, high suicide rates in the northern core and a predilection for violence against others in the southern periphery may be consistently interpreted in terms of theories of the civilizing process and internal colonialism. Alternative explanations of southern violence in 19th-century France are explored and rejected, and additional theoretical applications are suggested.

Racial Boundary Formation at the Dawn of Jim Crow: The Determinants and Effects of Black/Mulatto Occupational Differences in the United States, 1880
Aaron Gullickson

This article examines variation in the social position of mixed-race populations by exploiting county-level variation in the degree of occupational differentiation between blacks and mulattoes in the 1880 U.S. census. The role of the mixed-race category as either a “buffer class” or a status threat depended on the class composition of whites. Black/mulatto occupational differentiation was greatest where whites had high occupational prestige and thus little to fear from a mulatto group. Furthermore, differentiation increased the risk of lynching where whites had relatively low status and decreased the risk of lynching where whites had relatively high status.

Falling Short of the Promise: Poverty Vulnerability in the United States and Britain, 1993–2003
Diana Worts, Amanda Sacker, and Peggy McDonough

The welfare state promises to moderate the duration and concentration of poverty. The authors ask how well this promise has been fulfilled in the United States and Britain from 1993 to 2003. They examine two aspects of poverty vulnerability during this period of welfare reform: (1) its persistence and associated risk factors and (2) the efficacy of social transfers. After accounting for measurement error, sociodemographic characteristics, and the impact of redistributive programs, the authors find that poverty is often persistent and risk is concentrated, especially in the United States. Moreover, the British safety net appears to better protect those at risk.

American Journal of Sociology, July 2010: Volume 116, Issue 1

American Sociological Review 75(4)

Bringing the Polluters Back In: Environmental Inequality and the Organization of Chemical Production
Don Grant, Mary Nell Trautner, Liam Downey, and Lisa Thiebaud

Environmental justice scholars have suggested that because chemical plants and other hazardous facilities emit more pollutants where they face the least resistance, disadvantaged communities face a special health risk. In trying to determine whether race or income has the bigger impact on a neighborhood’s exposure to pollution, however, scholars tend to overlook the facilities themselves and the effect of their characteristics on emissions. In particular, how do the characteristics of facilities and their surrounding communities jointly shape pollution outcomes? We propose a new line of environmental justice research that focuses on facilities and how their features combine with communities’ features to create dangerous emissions. Using novel fuzzy-set analysis techniques and the EPA’s newly developed Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators, we test the influence of facility and community factors on chemical plants’ health-threatening emissions. Contrary to the idea that community characteristics have singular, linear effects, findings show that facility and community factors combine in a variety of ways to produce risky emissions. We speculate that as chemical firms experiment with different ways of producing goods and externalizing pollution costs, new “recipes of risk” are likely to emerge. The question, then, will no longer be whether race or income matters most, but in which of these recipes do they matter and how.

National and Global Origins of Environmental Association
Wesley Longhofer and Evan Schofer

We examine the origins of voluntary associations devoted to environmental protection, focusing on the divergent trajectories of industrialized versus developing countries. We consider a wide range of domestic economic, political, and institutional dynamics that give rise to environmental associations. Developing and extending neo-institutional world polity arguments, we characterize domestic association in the developing world as the product of global cultural models, legitimation, and resources. Using event history and dynamic panel models, we analyze the formation of domestic environmental associations for a large sample of countries in the contemporary period. Among highly industrialized countries, domestic factors—resources and political institutions that afford favorable opportunities—largely explain the prevalence of environmental associations. In contrast, global forces are a powerful catalyst for environmental organizing in the developing world. The environmental movement, which had domestic origins in the West, became institutionalized in the world polity, generating new associations on a global scale. We also find positive effects of democratic institutions and philanthropic foundations. Environmental degradation and societal affluence are not primary drivers of environmental association. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of globally-sponsored voluntary associations, which appear to be common in the developing world.

Effects of Prenatal Poverty on Infant Health: State Earned Income Tax Credits and Birth Weight
Kate W. Strully, David H. Rehkopf, and Ziming Xuan

This study estimates the effects of prenatal poverty on birth weight using changes in state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) as a natural experiment. We seek to answer two questions about poverty and child wellbeing. First, are there associations between prenatal poverty and lower birth weights even after factoring out unmeasured potential confounders? Because birth weight predicts a range of outcomes across the life course, lower birth weights that result from poverty may have lasting consequences for children’s life chances. Second, how have recent expansions of a work-based welfare program (i.e., the EITC) affected maternal and infant health? In recent decades, U.S. poverty relief has become increasingly tied to earnings and labor markets, but the consequences for children’s wellbeing remain controversial. We find that state EITCs increase birth weights and reduce maternal smoking. However, results related to AFDC/TANF and varying EITC effects across maternal ages raise cautionary messages.

The Things They Carry: Combat, Disability, and Unemployment among U.S. Men
Alair MacLean

Sociologists have long recognized that historical events, such as wars, depressions, and natural disasters, influence trajectories of people’s lives and reproduce or alter social structures. This article extends that line of research. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I test three accounts regarding how combat exposure in war affects men’s ability to work. The direct cumulative disadvantage account posits that war negatively affects servicemen who see combat, regardless of their pre-combat characteristics. The moderated cumulative disadvantage account suggests that combat most negatively affects men who had lower status before they fought. The turning point account suggests the reverse: combat most negatively affects men who had greater status before they fought. Findings suggest that with regard to disability and unemployment, the effects of combat exposure in war are most consistent with the direct cumulative disadvantage account.

Religious Economy or Organizational Field?: Predicting Bishops’ Votes at the Second Vatican Council
Melissa J. Wilde, Kristin Geraty, Shelley L. Nelson, and Emily A. Bowman

This article explores the national factors that predict bishops’ votes on two of the most contentious issues at the Second Vatican Council. Using data obtained from the Vatican Secret Archive, analyses demonstrate that rational choice oriented theory in the sociology of religion that focuses on competition is limited. While competition is important to religious leaders’ actions, its effects can be understood only in relation to other crucial characteristics of the social environment within which leaders operate. These characteristics, which we derive from Neo-Institutional Theory (NIT), shape leaders’ interests and often lead them to prioritize concerns about their institutions’ legitimacy over the concerns about efficiency and growth rational choice theorists assume are predominant. Most NIT studies examine the population of firms within one organizational field. Because we hold firm constant and examine how variation in the type of organizational field (supplied by the more than 100 countries in our analyses) predicts firm leaders’ actions, this study represents a unique test of NIT.

Activist Religion, Empire, and the Emergence of Modern Long-Distance Advocacy Networks
Peter Stamatov

Considering long-distance advocacy as a distinctive institution of European modernity, the article examines the genesis and history of networks engaged in political action on behalf of distant others. Ever since the beginnings of European expansion overseas in the sixteenth century, such networks have originated from a persistent pattern of radicalization of religious actors against rival networks within the context of empire. In the late eighteenth century, the very same processes led to the establishment of modern forms of long-distance advocacy, with the international movement against colonial slavery and the slave trade. Throughout, long-distance advocacy was initiated and carried out by distinctively reformist and activist religious organizations within Catholicism and Protestantism. These findings highlight the importance of religious organizations in the imperial context for the configuration of modern forms of political activism.

American Sociological Review, August 2010: Volume 75, Issue 4

Justice Quarterly 27(5)

Intimidation and Street Gangs: Understanding the Response of Victims and Bystanders to Perceived Gang Violence
Chris Melde; Callie Marie Rennison

While research routinely examines the influence of gang membership on the quantity of violent crime involvement, less is known about the influence of gang violence on the situational characteristics of violent victimization. Felson's discussion of street gangs highlights the possible functional role gang membership plays in the commission of violent crime; what he terms “the street gang strategy.” This study examines the functionality of gang membership during violent crimes by investigating the influence of perceived gang membership on the likelihood of victim resistance, bystander intervention, and police reporting using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Findings offer little support for the idea that gang members intimidate victims and bystanders to the extent that their behavior during and after violence differs systematically from responses resulting from non-gang violence. Results are discussed in terms of their policy relevance and implications for future research.

An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Community Notification and Registration: Do the Best Intentions Predict the Best Practices?
Kristen Zgoba; Bonita M. Veysey; Melissa Dalessandro

This research measures group differences in recidivism before and after implementation of Megan's Law. The pre-post study consists of a total of 550 male sex offenders released during the years 1990 and 2000, of which 250 offenders were released during 1990 and 1994 (i.e., the pre-Megan's Law group) and 300 offenders were released between 1995 and 2000 (i.e., the post-Megan's Law group). Offenders were released from a general population setting and a sex offender specific treatment facility. The main variables of concern include: (1) recidivism levels, (2) days to first re-arrest, and (3) level of harm (i.e., number of sex offenses, violent offenses, and number of child victims). Statistical findings from chi-square and survival analysis testing indicate significant group differences on levels of general recidivism; however, no significant differences were identified on measures of sex offense recidivism. Implications of these findings on sex offender specific policies are discussed.

The Darkest Figure of Crime: Perceptions of Reasons for Male Inmates to Not Report Sexual Assault
Kristine Levan Miller

Although sexual assault behind bars is recognized as problematic, very few of the sexual assaults that occur behind bars are officially reported. Many researchers have examined the individual and institutional variables which can help predict an inmate's probability of being victimized by his fellow inmates. With a sample obtained from a sample of eight Texas prisons, the current survey will disentangle the individual, institutional, and individual-institutional level variables which contribute to the rationales behind inmates choosing to report or not report sexually assaultive behavior. The findings somewhat mirror the findings of sexual assaults in the free community, with inmates indicating that the primary reasons to not report include embarrassment, fear of harassment, and retaliation from the perpetrator.

The Right to Counsel in Juvenile Court: The Conundrum of Attorneys as an Aggravating Factor at Disposition
Barry C. Feld; Shelly Schaefer

In re Gault provided procedural safeguards in juvenile courts, including the right to counsel. Decades later, judges continue to resist appointing lawyers. And, when they do appoint counsel, lawyers appear to be an aggravating factor when judges sentence youths. In 1995, Minnesota enacted law reforms, including mandatory appointment of counsel. As a cost-saving strategy, the law also converted most misdemeanors into status offenses and restricted judges' sentencing authority in order to deny juveniles a right to counsel. This study compares how juvenile courts processed 30,270 youths in 1994—the year before the changes—with how they processed 39,369 youths in 1999 after the amendments. We assess changes in appointment of counsel and their impact on sentencing practices. We report inconsistent judicial compliance with the mandate to appoint counsel and a positive decrease in the number of youths removed from home.

The Power to be Lenient: Examining New York Governors' Capital Case Clemency Decisions
Talia Roitberg Harmon; James R. Acker; Craig Rivera

This article examines the factors explaining New York governors' clemency decisions in capital cases between 1900 and 1963. It relies on a statistical analysis of 130 cases in which death sentences were commuted and a comparison sample of 146 cases resulting in execution. The analysis suggests that governors were more inclined to grant clemency to offenders younger than 21, when appellate court decisions included dissenting opinions, when mitigating factors outnumbered aggravating factors, and when death sentences were imposed pursuant to mandatory capital punishment provisions. The study failed to produce evidence that racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic variables were related to clemency decisions. The statistical analysis is complemented by discussion of the results of a qualitative study of New York capital clemency decisions. The article concludes by urging that a similar combined approach involving quantitative and qualitative techniques be employed to gain further insights into the exercise of clemency discretion in contemporary capital cases.

Justice Quarterly, October 2010: Volume 27, Issue 5

Journal of Quantitative Criminology 26(3)

Impulsivity, Offending, and the Neighborhood: Investigating the Person–Context Nexus
Gregory M. Zimmerman

The traditional trait-based approach to the study of crime has been challenged for its failure to acknowledge differences in the social environments to which individuals are exposed. Similarly, community-level explanations of crime have been criticized for failing to take into account important individual differences between criminals and non-criminals. Ultimately, a full understanding of crime requires the consideration of both individual and environmental differences, perhaps most importantly because they may interact to produce offending behavior. Yet little criminological research has examined if the effects of individual-level characteristics vary by the context in which they are embedded. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by using multivariate, multilevel item response models to examine if the influence of impulsivity on offending differs as a function of neighborhood context. Analyses using data from the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods reveals that the effects of impulsivity are amplified in neighborhoods with higher levels of socioeconomic status and collective efficacy, and lower levels of criminogenic behavior settings and moral/legal cynicism. Implications of these findings for research and policy are discussed.

Digital Analysis of Crime Statistics: Does Crime Conform to Benford’s Law?
Matthew J. Hickman & Stephen K. Rice

Benford’s law suggests that the distribution of leading (leftmost) digits in data of an anomalous nature (i.e., without relationship) will conform to a formula of logarithmic intervals known as the Benford distribution. Forensic auditors have successfully used digital analysis vis-à-vis the Benford distribution to detect financial fraud, while government investigators have used a corollary of the distribution (focused on trailing digits) to detect scientific fraud in medical research. This study explored whether crime statistics are Benford distributed. We examined crime statistics at the National, State, and local level in order to test for conformity to the Benford distribution, and found that National- and State-level summary UCR data conform to Benford’s law. When National data were disaggregated by offense type we found varying degrees of conformity, with murder, rape, and robbery indicating less conformity than other offense types. Some tentative implications of these findings are discussed, as are areas for further research.

Violent Crime, Residential Instability and Mobility: Does the Relationship Differ in Minority Neighborhoods?
Lyndsay N. Boggess & John R. Hipp

This study examines the reciprocal relationship between violent crime and residential stability in neighborhoods. We test whether the form of stability matters by comparing two different measures of stability: a traditional index of residential stability and a novel approach focusing specifically on the stability of homeowners. We also examine whether the racial/ethnic composition of the neighborhood in which this stability occurs affects the instability—violent crime relationship. To test the simultaneous relationship between residential mobility and crime we estimate a dual multivariate latent curve model of the change in the violent crime rate and the change in the rate of home sales while controlling for neighborhood socioeconomic and demographic characteristics using data from Los Angeles between 1992 and 1997. Results indicate that the initial level of violent crime increases the trajectory of residential instability in subsequent years, whether the instability is measured as homeowner turnover specifically, or based on an index of all residents. However, the effect of instability on violent crime is only apparent when measuring instability based on an index of general residential turnover and not when including the presence of owners in this measure, or when measuring it based on homeowner turnover. We consistently find that stable highly Latino communities exhibit a protective effect against violence.

When does the Apple Fall from the Tree? Static Versus Dynamic Theories Predicting Intergenerational Transmission of Convictions
Marieke Van de Rakt, Stijn Ruiter, Nan Dirk De Graaf & Paul Nieuwbeerta

Criminal behavior of parents substantially affects the criminal behavior of children. Little is known, however, about how crime is transmitted from one generation to the next. In order to test two possible explanations against each other, we pose the question whether the timing of the criminal acts of fathers is important for children’s chances of committing crime. Static theories predict that it is the number of delinquent acts performed by fathers that is important, and that the particular timing does not affect the child’s chance of committing crime. Dynamic theories state that the timing is important, and children have a greater chance of committing crime in the period after fathers have committed delinquent acts. Results show that the total number of convictions of a father is indeed very important, but also the exact timing is key to understanding intergenerational transmission of crime. In the year a father is convicted the chance his child is also convicted increases substantially and it decays in subsequent years. This decay takes longer the more crimes father has committed. Our results show that some of the assumptions of the static theories at least need to be adjusted.

Estimating Treatment Effects and Predicting Recidivism for Community Supervision Using Survival Analysis with Instrumental Variables
William Rhodes

Criminal justice researchers often seek to predict criminal recidivism and to estimate treatment effects for community corrections programs. Although random assignment provides a desirable avenue to estimating treatment effects, often estimation must be based on observational data from operating corrections programs. Using observational data raises the risk of selection bias. In the community corrections contexts, researchers can sometimes use judges as instrumental variables. However, the use of instrumental variable estimation is complicated for nonlinear models, and when studying criminal recidivism, researchers often choose to use survival models, which are nonlinear given right-hand-censoring or competing events. This paper discusses a procedure for estimating survival models with judges as instruments. It discusses strengths and weaknesses of this approach and demonstrates some of the estimation properties with a computer simulation. Although this paper’s focus is narrow, its implications are broad. A conclusion argues that instrumental variable estimation is valuable for a broad range of topics both within and outside of criminal justice.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, September 2010: Volume 26, Issue 3