Criminology 49(1)

The Big Picture: 2010 Presidential Address To The American Society Of Criminology
Richard Rosenfeld

Microanalysis holds sway over macroanalysis in contemporary criminology. All of criminology would be better off if greater attention were devoted to the big picture—the relationship between crime and the interplay of institutions in the social systems of whole societies. Microlevel researchers often assume that the reduction of individual criminal propensities leads ipso facto to reductions in aggregate crime rates, but the implied connection is illusive, has not been demonstrated, and is belied by the macroanalysis of crime. The perspectives, methods, and data of macrocriminology also need to be developed, however, if they are to advance our understanding of crime at the level of social systems. Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, Karl Polanyi, and C. Wright Mills have contributed essential building blocks for the study of the big picture of crime. Improvements in the quality and timeliness of aggregate crime data, finally, are necessary to bolster the policy relevance of macrocriminology

The Predictive Value Of Criminal Background Checks: Do Age And Criminal History Affect Time To Redemption?
Shawn D. Bushway, Paul Nieuwbeerta And Arjan Blokland

Criminal record checks are being used increasingly by decision makers to predict future unwanted behaviors. A central question these decision makers face is how much time it takes before offenders can be considered “redeemed” and resemble nonoffenders in terms of the probability of offending. Building on a small literature addressing this topic for youthful, first-time offenders, the current article asks whether this period differs across the age of last conviction and the total number of prior convictions. Using long-term longitudinal data on a Dutch conviction cohort, we find that young novice offenders are redeemed after approximately 10 years of remaining crime free. For older offenders, the redemption period is considerably shorter. Offenders with extensive criminal histories, however, either never resemble their nonconvicted counterparts or only do so after a crime-free period of more than 20 years. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Fighting Over Trivial Things: Explaining The Issue Of Contention In Violent Altercations
Elizabeth Griffiths, Carolyn Yule And Rosemary Gartner

Violent altercations can lead to serious injury and death, and yet some interpersonal disputes that prompt physical violence originate over what are seemingly trivial issues. This study evaluates the theoretical premise that violence stemming from what typically are defined as trivial altercations can be explained by what is at stake in these conflicts; trivial altercations, or fights about “nothing,” actually represent symbolic contests of dominance and deference. These status contests are necessary primarily when the social relationship between opponents is symmetrical—when a dominance hierarchy is not clearly established. Data from interviews with incarcerated women in Ontario, Canada, show that relationship symmetry strongly predicts the issue of contention in their physically violent altercations. These findings suggest that, when violence erupts over trivial issues, both parties to the altercation essentially are locked in a battle for social rank.

Delinquency And The Structure Of Adolescent Peer Groups
Derek A. Kreager, Kelly Rulison And James Moody

Gangs and group-level processes were once central phenomena for criminological theory and research. By the mid-1970s, however, gang research primarily was displaced by studies of individual behavior using randomized self-report surveys, a shift that also removed groups from the theoretical foreground. In this project, we return to the group level to test competing theoretical claims about delinquent group structure. We use network-based clustering methods to identify 897 friendship groups in two ninth-grade cohorts of 27 Pennsylvania and Iowa schools. We then relate group-level measures of delinquency and drinking to network measures of group size, friendship reciprocity, transitivity, structural cohesion, stability, average popularity, and network centrality. We find significant negative correlations between group delinquency and all of our network measures, suggesting that delinquent groups are less solidary and less central to school networks than nondelinquent groups. Additional analyses, on the one hand, reveal that these correlations are explained primarily by other group characteristics, such as gender composition and socioeconomic status. Drinking behaviors, on the other hand, show net positive associations with most of the network measures, suggesting that drinking groups have a higher status and are more internally cohesive than nondrinking groups. Our findings shed light on a long-standing criminological debate by suggesting that any structural differences between delinquent and nondelinquent groups are likely attributable to other characteristics coincidental with delinquency. In contrast, drinking groups seem to provide peer contexts of greater social capital and cohesion.

A Heavy Thumb On The Scale: The Effect Of Victim Impact Evidence On Capital Decision Making
Ray Paternoster And Jerome Deise

The past several decades have seen the emergence of a movement in the criminal justice system that has called for a greater consideration for the rights of victims. One manifestation of this movement has been the “right” of victims or victims' families to speak to the sentencing body through what are called victim impact statements about the value of the victim and the full harm that the offender has created. Although victim impact statements have been a relatively noncontroversial part of regular criminal trials, their presence in capital cases has had a more contentious history. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned previous decisions and explicitly permitted victim impact testimony in capital cases in Payne v. Tennessee (1991). The dissenters in that case argued that such evidence only would arouse the emotions of jurors and bias them in favor of imposing death. A body of research in behavioral economics on the “identifiable victim effect” and the “identifiable wrongdoer effect” would have supported such a view. Using a randomized controlled experiment with a death-eligible sample of potential jurors and the videotape of an actual penalty trial in which victim impact evidence (VIE) was used, we found that these concerns about VIE are perhaps well placed. Subjects who viewed VIE testimony in the penalty phase were more likely to feel negative emotions like anger, hostility, and vengeance; were more likely to feel sympathy and empathy toward the victim; and were more likely to have favorable perceptions of the victim and victim's family as well as unfavorable perceptions of the offender. We found that these positive feelings toward the victim and family were in turn related to a heightened risk of them imposing the death penalty. We found evidence that part of the effect of VIE on the decision to impose death was mediated by emotions of sympathy and empathy. We think our findings open the door for future work to put together better the causal story that links VIE to an increased inclination to impose death as well as explore possible remedies.

Tough Love? Crime And Parental Assistance In Young Adulthood
Sonja E. Siennick

Although informal social reactions to crime are key to many criminological theories, we know little about how readily offenders’ significant others reject and withdraw support from them. I explore the limits of others’ willingness to help offenders by studying parents’ financial assistance of grown offending and nonoffending offspring. I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to show that, despite their strained relationships with their parents, young adult offenders receive more parental assistance than do their nonoffending peers and even their own nonoffending siblings. This is not because offenders have fewer financial resources, but it is partly because they tend to have a variety of other life circumstances that trigger parental assistance. I suggest that parents’ reactions to offending offspring are limited by role obligations and norms of familial duty.

Reassessing Trends In Black Violent Crime, 1980–2008: Sorting Out The “Hispanic Effect” In Uniform Crime Reports Arrests, National Crime Victimization Survey Offender Estimates, And U.S. Prisoner Counts
Darrell Steffensmeier, Ben Feldmeyer, Casey T. Harris And Jeffery T. Ulmer

Recent studies suggest a decline in the relative Black effect on violent crime in recent decades and interpret this decline as resulting from greater upward mobility among African Americans during the past several decades. However, other assessments of racial stratification in American society suggest at least as much durability as change in Black social mobility since the 1980s. Our goal is to assess how patterns of racial disparity in violent crime and incarceration have changed from 1980 to 2008. We argue that prior studies showing a shrinking Black share of violent crime might be in error because of reliance on White and Black national crime statistics that are confounded with Hispanic offenders, whose numbers have been increasing rapidly and whose violence rates are higher than that of Whites but lower than that of Blacks. Using 1980–2008 California and New York arrest data to adjust for this “Hispanic effect” in national Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, we assess whether the observed national decline in racial disparities in violent crime is an artifact of the growth in Hispanic populations and offenders. Results suggest that little overall change has occurred in the Black share of violent offending in both UCR and NCVS estimates during the last 30 years. In addition, racial imbalances in arrest versus incarceration levels across the index violent crimes are both small and comparably sized across the study period. We conclude by discussing the consistency of these findings with trends in economic and social integration of Blacks in American society during the past 50 years.

Delinquent Peers In Context: A Longitudinal Network Analysis Of Selection And Influence Effects
Frank M. Weerman

In this article, longitudinal social network data are analyzed to get a better understanding of the interplay between delinquent peers and delinquent behavior. These data contain detailed information about the social networks of secondary school students from the same grade, their delinquent behavior, and many relevant correlates of network formation and delinquency. To distinguish selection and influence processes, a method (Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analyses, SIENA) is used in which network formation and changes in delinquency are simulated simultaneously within the context of other network processes and correlates of delinquency. The data and the method used make it possible to investigate an unusually wide array of effects on peer selection and delinquent behavior. The results indicate that similarity in delinquency has no significant effect on the selection of school friends when other network dynamics are taken into account. However, the average delinquency level of someone's friends in the school network does have a significant, although relatively small, effect on delinquent behavior of the respondents, beyond significant effects of changes in the level of self-control and morality. Another peer-related change, leaving or joining informal street-oriented youth groups, also appears to have a substantial effect on changes in delinquency.

Criminology, February 2011: Volume 49, Issue 1

Sociological Theory 29(1)

Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields (pages 1–26)
Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam

In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement studies and organizational theory. While we are generally in sympathy with this work, we think it implies a far more radical rethinking of structure and agency in modern society than has been realized to date. In this article, we offer a brief sketch of a general theory of strategic action fields (SAFs). We begin with a discussion of the main elements of the theory, describe the broader environment in which any SAF is embedded, consider the dynamics of stability and change in SAFs, and end with a respectful critique of other contemporary perspectives on social structure and agency.

Ubiquity and Legitimacy: Disentangling Diffusion and Institutionalization (pages 27–53)
Jeannette A. Colyvas and Stefan Jonsson

Diffusion and institutionalization are of prime sociological importance, as both processes unfold at the intersections of relations and structures, as well as persistence and change. Yet they are often confounded, leading to theoretical and methodological biases that hinder the development of generalizable arguments. We look at diffusion and institutionalization distinctively, each as both a process and an outcome in terms of three dimensions: the objects that flow or stick; the subjects who adopt or influence; and the social settings through which an innovation travels. We offer examples to flesh out these dimensions, and formulate testable propositions from our analytic framework that could lead to further theoretical refinement and progress.

Multiple Levels of Analysis and the Limitations of Methodological Individualisms (pages 54–73)
Ronald Jepperson and John W. Meyer

This article discusses relations among the multiple levels of analysis present in macro-sociological explanation—i.e., relations of individual, structural, and institutional processes. It also criticizes the doctrinal insistence upon single-level individualistic explanation found in some prominent contemporary sociological theory. For illustrative material the article returns to intellectual uses of Weber's “Protestant Ethic thesis,” showing how an artificial version has been employed as a kind of proof text for the alleged scientific necessity of individualist explanation. Our alternative exposition renders the discussion of Protestantism and capitalism in an explicitly multilevel way, distinguishing possible individual-level, social-organizational, and institutional linkages. The causal processes involved are distinct ones, with the more structural and institutional forms neither captured nor attainable by individual-level thinking. We argue more generally that “methodological individualisms” confuse issues of explanation with issues about microfoundations. This persistent intellectual conflation may be rooted in the broader folk models of liberal individualism.

Sociological Theory, March 2011: Volume 29, Issue 1

Journal of Quantitative Criminology 27(1)

Thoughtfully Reflective Decision Making and the Accumulation of Capital: Bringing Choice Back In
Ray Paternoster, Greg Pogarsky & Gregory Zimmerman

In this paper we relate a particular type of decision making, thoughtfully reflective decision making (TRDM) in adolescence, to successful and unsuccessful life outcomes in young adulthood. Those who are thoughtfully reflective in their decision making are more likely to consider possible alternative routes to goal attainment, weigh the costs and benefits of those alternatives, and critically revisit the decision once made to examine what went well and what went wrong. We also argue that what mediates the effect of TRDM on later life outcomes is the accumulation of capital. Those who use better decision making practices are more likely to recognize the resources provided by and make the necessary investments to accumulate human, social and cultural capital. These notions are theoretically linked to conceptions of criminal offenders as both rational planners and decision makers and as fully human agents. Using data from the Add Health data set, our hypotheses are largely confirmed. Those who are higher in TRDM as adolescents were more likely to have enrolled in or graduated from college, to be in better physical health, are more involved in civic and community affairs, less likely to commit criminal acts, use illegal drugs and be involved in heavy drinking as adults. TRDM is also positively related to the accumulation of human, social and cultural capital. Finally, a substantial part of the effect of TRDM on young adult outcomes was mediated by capital accumulation. The implications of these findings for future theory and research are discussed.

A New Twist on an Old Approach: A Random-Interaction Approach for Estimating Rates of Inter-Group Interaction
John R. Hipp, George E. Tita & Lyndsay N. Boggess

There are numerous instances in which researchers wish to measure the rate of intra- or inter-group interactions (whether positive or negative). When computing such measures as rates there is great uncertainty regarding the appropriate denominator: we analytically illustrate how the choice of the denominator when calculating such rates is not trivial and that some existing strategies create a built-in relationship between the computed rate and the group composition within the entity. Another strand of prior work only focused on the relative occurrence of intra- versus inter-group events, which does not account for the important theoretical possibility that both types of events might increase in certain social contexts. Our approach provides an advance over these earlier strategies as it allows one to take into account the relative frequency of interaction between members of different groups, but then translates this into per capita rates. We also provide an empirical example using data on inter- and intra-group robbery and aggravated assault events for block groups in a section of the city of Los Angeles to illustrate how our procedure works and to illustrate how other approaches can lead to dramatically different conclusions.

Something Old, Something New: Revisiting Competing Hypotheses of the Victimization-Offending Relationship Among Adolescents
Graham C. Ousey, Pamela Wilcox & Bonnie S. Fisher

This study revisits a familiar question regarding the relationship between victimization and offending. Using longitudinal data on middle- and high-school students, the study examines competing arguments regarding the relationship between victimization and offending embedded within the “dynamic causal” and “population heterogeneity” perspectives. The analysis begins with models that estimate the longitudinal relationship between victimization and offending without accounting for the influence of time-stable individual heterogeneity. Next, the victimization-offending relationship is reconsidered after the effects of time-stable sources of heterogeneity, and time-varying covariates are controlled. While the initial results without controls for population heterogeneity are in line with much prior research and indicate a positive link between victimization and offending, results from models that control for time-stable individual differences suggest something new: a negative, reciprocal relationship between victimization and offending. These latter results are most consistent with the notion that the oft-reported victimization-offending link is driven by a combination of dynamic causal and population heterogeneity factors. Implications of these findings for theory and future research focusing on the victimization-offending nexus are discussed.

The Effects of Genetics, the Environment, and Low Self-Control on Perceived Maternal and Paternal Socialization: Results from a Longitudinal Sample of Twins
Kevin M. Beaver

The association between parental socialization and antisocial behavior is central to much criminological theory and research. For the most part, criminologists view parental socialization as reflecting a purely social process, one that is not influenced by genetic factors. A growing body of behavioral genetic research, however, has cast doubt on this claim by revealing that environments are partially shaped by genetic factors. The current study used these findings as a springboard to examine the genetic and environmental underpinnings to various measures of perceived paternal and maternal parenting. Analysis of twin pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health revealed that between 16 and 31% of the variance in perceptions of maternal attachment, maternal involvement, maternal disengagement, and maternal negativity was the result of genetic factors. Additionally, between 46 and 63% of the variance in perceptions of paternal attachment, paternal involvement, and paternal negativity was accounted for by genetic factors. The implications that these results have for criminologists are explored.

Asymmetric Loss Functions for Forecasting in Criminal Justice Settings
Richard Berk

The statistical procedures typically used for forecasting in criminal justice settings rest on symmetric loss functions. For quantitative response variables, overestimates are treated the same as underestimates. For categorical response variables, it does not matter in which class a case is inaccurately placed. In many criminal justice settings, symmetric costs are not responsive to the needs of stakeholders. It can follow that the forecasts are not responsive either. In this paper, we consider asymmetric loss functions that can lead to forecasting procedures far more sensitive to the real consequences of forecasting errors. Theoretical points are illustrated with examples using criminal justice data of the kind that might be used for “predictive policing.”

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2011: Volume 27, Issue 1

American Sociological Review 76(1)

2010 Presidential Address
Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion, Subordination, and Resistance
Evelyn Nakano Glenn

This Presidential Address develops a sociological concept of citizenship, particularly substantive citizenship, as fundamentally a matter of belonging, including recognition by other members of the community. In this conception, citizenship is not simply a fixed legal status, but a fluid status that is produced through everyday practices and struggles. Historical examples illustrate the way in which boundaries of membership are enforced and challenged in everyday interactions. The experience of undocumented immigrant college students is particularly illuminating. These students occupy a position of liminal legality, which transcends fixed categories such as legal and illegal. As they go about their daily lives, their standing is affirmed in some settings and denied in others. Furthermore, the undocumented student movement, which asserts that education is a human and social right, represents a form of insurgent citizenship, one that challenges dominant formulations and offers an alternative and more inclusive conception.

Neighborhood Immigration and Native Out-Migration
Kyle Crowder, Matthew Hall, and Stewart E. Tolnay

This study combines data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with data from four censuses to examine the effects of foreign-born populations in the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods of residence on native-born black and white householders’ residential mobility decisions. We find that the likelihood of out-mobility for native householders is significantly and positively associated with the relative size of, and increases in, the immigrant population in a neighborhood. Consistent with theoretical arguments related to the distance dependence of mobility, large concentrations of immigrants in surrounding areas reduce native out-mobility, presumably by reducing the attractiveness of the most likely mobility destinations. A sizable share of local immigration effects can be explained by the mobility-related characteristics of native-born individuals living in immigrant-populated areas, but the racial composition of a neighborhood (for native whites) and local housing-market conditions (for native blacks) are also important mediating factors. We discuss the implications of these patterns for processes of neighborhood change and broader patterns of residential segregation.

Status Struggles: Network Centrality and Gender Segregation in Same- and Cross-Gender Aggression
Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee

Literature on aggression often suggests that individual deficiencies, such as social incompetence, psychological difficulties, or troublesome home environments, are responsible for aggressive behavior. In this article, by contrast, we examine aggression from a social network perspective, arguing that social network centrality, our primary measure of peer status, increases the capacity for aggression and that competition to gain or maintain status motivates its use. We test these arguments using a unique longitudinal dataset that enables separate consideration of same- and cross-gender aggression. We find that aggression is generally not a maladjusted reaction typical of the socially marginal; instead, aggression is intrinsic to status and escalates with increases in peer status until the pinnacle of the social hierarchy is attained. Over time, individuals at the very bottom and those at the very top of a hierarchy become the least aggressive youth. We also find that aggression is influenced not so much by individual gender differences as by relationships with the other gender and patterns of gender segregation at school. When cross-gender interactions are plentiful, aggression is diminished. Yet these factors are also jointly implicated in peer status: in schools where cross-gender interactions are rare, cross-gender friendships create status distinctions that magnify the consequences of network centrality.

Who Does More Housework: Rich or Poor?: A Comparison of 33 Countries
Jan Paul Heisig

This article studies the relationship between household income and housework time across 33 countries. In most countries, low-income individuals do more housework than their high-income counterparts; the differences are even greater for women’s domestic work time. The analysis shows that the difference between rich and poor women’s housework time falls with economic development and rises with overall economic inequality. I use a cross-national reinterpretation of arguments from the historical time-use literature to show that this is attributable to the association between economic development and the diffusion of household technologies and to the association between economic inequality and the prevalence of service consumption among high-income households. Results for a direct measure of technology diffusion provide striking evidence for the first interpretation. The findings question the widespread notion that domestic technologies have had little or no impact on women’s housework time. On a general level, I find that gender inequalities are fundamentally conditioned by economic inequalities. A full understanding of the division of housework requires social scientists to go beyond couple-level dynamics and situate households and individuals within the broader social and economic structure.

The Limit of Equality Projects: Public-Sector Expansion, Sectoral Conflicts, and Income Inequality in Postindustrial Economies
Cheol-Sung Lee, Young-Bum Kim, and Jae-Mahn Shim

In this study, we investigate how structural economic changes constrain an equality project, the public-sector expansion strategy. First, we describe a three-stage process in which a growing productivity gap between the private-manufacturing and public-service sectors disrupts traditional class solidarity. We contend that emerging conflicts between private and public sectors due to public-sector expansion and a growing inter-sectoral productivity gap eventually lead to employment and budget crises, as well as the weakening of coordinated wage-setting institutions. Furthermore, political, institutional, and economic transformations originating from sectoral cleavages and imbalance lead to increased income inequality. We test this argument using an unbalanced panel dataset on 16 advanced industrial democracies from 1971 to 2003. We find that public-sector employment has a strong negative effect on income inequality when the productivity gap between sectors is low. In such situations, public-sector employment fulfills its promise of equality and full employment. However, as the inter-sectoral productivity gap increases, the negative effect of public-sector expansion on income inequality evaporates. The findings suggest that severely uneven productivity gaps due to different degrees of technological innovations significantly weaken and limit the effectiveness of left-wing governments’ policy interventions through public-service expansion.

A Social Movement Generation: Cohort and Period Trends in Protest Attendance and Petition Signing
Neal Caren, Raj Andrew Ghoshal, and Vanesa Ribas

This project explores cohort and period trends in political participation in the United States between 1973 and 2008. We examine the extent to which protest attendance and petition signing have diffused to different kinds of actors across multiple generations; we test claims central to understanding trends in social movement participation. Using aggregated, cross-sectional survey data on political involvement from 34,241 respondents, we examine changes in the probability of ever having attended a protest or signed a petition over time periods and across cohorts using cross-classified, random-effects models. We find a strong generational effect on the probability of ever having attended a protest, which explains much of the observed change in self-reports of protest behavior. More than half of this generational effect is a result of compositional change, but we find little evidence that protest attendance diffused to new types of actors. We compare these findings with a less confrontational form of protesting, petition signing, which shows more period than cohort effects. We argue that social movement activities have not become a widespread means of civic engagement.

Protesting While Black?: The Differential Policing of American Activism, 1960 to 1990
Christian Davenport, Sarah A. Soule, and David A. Armstrong, II

How does the race of protesters affect how police respond to protest events? Drawing on the protest policing literature and on theories of race and ethnic relations, we explore the idea that police view African American protesters as especially threatening and that this threat leads to a greater probability of policing. We examine more than 15,000 protest events that took place in the United States between 1960 and 1990 and find that in many years, African American protest events are more likely than white protest events to draw police presence and that once at events, police are more likely to take action at African American protest events. Additional analyses complicate these findings by showing that they vary over time. In many years, for example, African American protest events are no more likely than white protest events to be policed. While there is support for a “Protesting While Black” phenomenon, it is not invariant across the entire period of inquiry.

American Sociological Review, February 2011: Volume 76, Issue 1

Journal of Criminal Justice 39(1)

How general is general strain theory?
Matt DeLisi

ADHD and criminality: A primer on the genetic, neurobiological, evolutionary, and treatment literature for criminologists
Catrina M. Schilling, Anthony Walsh, Ilhong Yun

Assessing the effectiveness of mental health courts: A quantitative review
Christine M. Sarteschi, Michael G. Vaughn, Kevin Kim

We used quantitative analysis to examine mental health court interventions. Eighteen published and unpublished studies were analyzed. Our findings suggest they are effective but this assertion is not definitive.

Physical health and crime among low-income urban women: An application of general strain theory
Ryan D. Schroeder, Terrence D. Hill, Stacy Hoskins Haynes, Christopher Bradley

Explores the relationship between physical health and criminal offending. Poorer physical health increases the odds of offending onset. The loss of physical health reduces the odds of decreased offending. Anxiety and depression partially mediate the impact of physical health on crime. Findings provide support for General Strain Theory. Policies that address crime must integrate public health approaches.

Correlates and consequences of pre-incarceration gang involvement among incarcerated youthful felons
Sean P. Varano, Beth M. Huebner, Timothy S. Bynum
The findings indicate that among youthful incarcerated felons, approximately two thirds report not being part of gangs at the point of incarceration.

Among the felons reporting gang involvement, half reported being involved in unorganized gangs and the remainder in organized gangs. Delinquent peers and delinquent values are significant predictors of pre-incarceration involvement in organized gangs. Pre-incarceration involvement in organized gangs is a significant predictor of serious prison misconduct net other risk factors; pre-incarceration involvement in unorganized gangs is not a significant predictor of serious prison misconduct.

Is stalking a learned phenomenon? An empirical test of social learning theory
Kathleen A. Fox, Matt R. Nobles, Ronald L. Akers

The current study is the first to examine social learning theory among stalking behavior. Results suggest that there are responses, attitudes, and behaviors that are learned, modified, or reinforced primarily through interaction with peers that predict stalking victimization and perpetration.

Understanding the relationship between violent victimization and gang membership
Charles M. Katz, Vincent J. Webb, Kate Fox, Jennifer N. Shaffer

Rival gangs in respondents’ neighborhood was associated with victimization. Current gang members were more likely to be a victim of a violent crime. After controlling for gang crime gang status was unrelated to victimization.

Developmental trajectories of nonsocial reinforcement and offending in adolescence and young adulthood: An exploratory study of an understudied part of social learning theory
George E. Higgins, Wesley G. Jennings, Catherine D. Marcum, Melissa L. Ricketts, Margaret Mahoney

Nonsocial reinforcement has three distinct groups. Nonsocial reinforcement and delinquency has a reciprocal effect. Nonsocial reinforcement complements Akers’s and Moffitt’s theories.

The effect of low self-control on perceived police legitimacy
Scott E. Wolfe

Level of self-control affects peoples’ perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy. Procedural justice mediates the effect of self-control on perceptions of legitimacy. Self-control conditions the effect of procedural justice on perceived legitimacy. The process-based model of policing is affected by individuals’ levels of self-control.

The Severe 5%: A Latent Class Analysis of the Externalizing Behavior Spectrum in the United States
Michael G. Vaughn, Matt DeLisi, Tracy Gunter, Qiang Fu, Kevin M. Beaver, Brian E. Perron, Matthew O. Howard

Four-classes of respondents from a nationally representative study were identified. A severe (5% of sample) class was found. Results show that a small subset of individuals are extreme in their antisociality.

No change is a good change? Restrictive deterrence in illegal drug markets
Owen Gallupe, Martin Bouchard, Jonathan P. Caulkins

No prior research has assessed the effect of restrictive deterrence on survival time. Altering drug market behavior appears to place offenders at risk for rapid rearrest. Cannabis growers that change location and increase plant numbers survive longer. Subtle post-arrest behavioral changes seem to increase time to rearrest.

Toward a biosocial theory of offender rehabiltiation: Why does cognitive-behavioral therapy work?
Jamie Vaske, Kevan Galyean, Francis T. Cullen

CBT programs that promote prosocial skills may improve brain functioning. CBT programs for may improve functioning in PFC regions, ACC/PCC, insula, and the TPJ. Improvements in brain functioning may be both compensatory and normalizing.

Journal of Criminal Justice, January 2011; Volume 31, Issue 1