Justice Quarterly 28(3)

Street Youths and the Proximate and Contingent Causes of Instrumental Crime: Untangling Anomie Theory
Stephen W. Baron

Utilizing a sample of 300 homeless street youths, the research examines the individual-level sub-model of Baumer's interpretation of Merton's anomie theory. The paper explores the role the interaction between monetary goals and weak commitment to legitimate means plays in the generation of instrumental crime and the manner in which this interaction is itself moderated by blocked opportunities, monetary dissatisfaction, social modeling, cultural support, and the perceived risk of punishment. The findings reveal that a weak commitment to legitimate means, but not monetary goals, has a lower order impact on the willingness to commit instrumental crime. These two variables, however, do not interact to predict intentions to offend. Instead the findings reveal that blocked opportunities and higher levels of monetary dissatisfaction moderate the relationship between the monetary goals and weak commitment to legitimate means interaction and the willingness to offend. Findings are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered.

How Much is the Public Willing to Pay to be Protected from Identity Theft?
Nicole Leeper Piquero; Mark A. Cohen; Alex R. Piquero

Identity theft has become one of the most ubiquitous crimes in the USA with estimates of the number of households being victimized annually ranging between 5% and 25%, resulting in direct losses totaling hundreds of billions of dollars over the past few years. Government efforts to combat identity theft have included legislation criminalizing and increasing penalties as well as regulatory efforts designed to protect individual identifying information held by financial and other business organizations. At the same time, individuals are taking their own preventive actions and purchasing private protection such as credit monitoring and identity theft insurance services. We use data from a large sample of residents from four states (Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington) in order to assess the public's willingness to pay (WTP) for a government program designed to reduce identify theft under two separate conditions, one promising a 25% reduction in identity theft and the other promising a 75% reduction in identity theft. Results indicate that: (1) between 40% and 66% of the public is willing to pay an additional tax for identity theft prevention, more so when the promise of a reduction is highest (75% compared to 25%) with an average WTP of $87, and (2) WTP is highest among individuals who carry many credit cards, who subscribe to an identity theft protection service, and who take active steps in preventing fraud by shredding bills and paying with cash, but is lowest among individuals who believe that taxes are too high. Converted into a “per crime” cost and combined with the portion of identity theft costs that are borne directly by business, we estimate the average cost per identity theft to range from approximately $2,800 to $5,100.

Juvenile Justice Decision-Making Before and After the Implementation of the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Mandate
Michael Leiber; Donna Bishop; Mitchell B. Chamlin

The disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) mandate was included in the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1988 and required states to assess the extent DMC was evident and to develop strategies to address the issue. The DMC mandate was designed to achieve equal treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system. In the present study, we analyzed the predictors of juvenile justice decision-making before and after the mandate to determine the impact of possible changes in the relative influence of legal criteria and extralegal considerations, especially race, on case outcomes in one juvenile court. The findings indicate that the factors impacting decision-making, for the most part, did not change in significance or relative impact though some unanticipated race effects were found at judicial disposition following the mandate.

Looking Inside the Black Box of Drug Courts: A Meta-Analytic Review
Deborah Koetzle Shaffer

There has been a rapid proliferation of drug courts over the past two decades. Empirical research examining the effectiveness of the model has generally demonstrated reduced rates of recidivism among program participants. However, relatively little is known about the structure and processes associated with effective drug courts. The current study seeks to address the issues by exploring the moderating influence of programmatic and non-programmatic characteristics on effectiveness. The methodology goes beyond previous meta-analyses by supplementing published (and unpublished) findings with a survey of drug court administrators. Consistent with previous research, the results revealed drug courts reduce recidivism by 9% on average. Further analyses indicated target population, program leverage and intensity, and staff characteristics explain the most variability in drug court effectiveness. These findings are discussed within the context of therapeutic jurisprudence and effective interventions.

Broken Windows or Window Breakers: The Influence of Physical and Social Disorder on Quality of Life
Allison T. Chappell; Elizabeth Monk-Turner; Brian K. Payne

The relationship between neighborhood disorder and fear of crime is well established. According to Wilson and Kelling's broken windows theory, physical and social disorder lead to fear and cause citizens to retreat into their homes. This breaks down informal social control mechanisms and may lead to more serious crime. Insofar as fear is related to quality of life, an implication of broken windows theory is that disorder may impact quality of life, but that relationship has not yet been examined in the research literature. The present study seeks to fill a void in the literature by investigating the relationship between neighborhood disorder and quality of life. Results indicate that disorder is related to quality of life. In particular, physical disorder is negatively associated with quality of life, but social disorder loses significance when controlling for physical disorder. Policy implications of the findings and direction for future research are discussed.

Justice Quarterly, June 2011: Volume 28, Issue 3