Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 49(2)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, May 2012: Volume 49, Issue 2

The Effects of Corporation- and Industry-Level Strain and Opportunity on Corporate Crime
Xia Wang and Kristy Holtfreter

Although recent corporate crime studies have made important advances by investigating how individuals decide to offend, they have paid limited attention to a corporation’s organizational structures. Yet, the extant organizational studies have generated inconclusive evidence when assessing the relationship between financial performance and corporate crime, and few studies have combined organizational and industrial factors in models of corporate crime. Building on strain and opportunity theories and prior research, the authors develop hypotheses about the direct and interactive effects of corporation- and industry-level strains and opportunity structures. The authors test these hypotheses using Clinard and Yeager’s Illegal Corporate Behavior data. In short, the results indicate that the effect of corporation-level strain is more pronounced for corporations marked by lower levels of diversification and corporations that operate in industries experiencing higher levels of strain. The authors discuss the implications of the findings for theory, research, and policy.

Patterns of Near-Repeat Gun Assaults in Houston
William Wells, Ling Wu, and Xinyue Ye

The study assesses the extent to which gun assaults are clustered in space and time using crime data from Houston, Texas. The analysis examines patterns of gun assaults at the city-level as well as more localized levels in order to understand the spatial distribution of near-repeats within the city. Consistent with prior research, the city-level analysis shows significant and meaningful near-repeat patterns. The localized analysis indicates that the risk of near-repeats is not evenly distributed across space within the city, but is concentrated among a small portion of incidents and four relatively small spatial clusters. In addition, an examination of crime types, locations, and gang involvement shows slight differences between gun assaults with and without near-repeat follow-up shootings.

Local Businesses as Attractors or Preventers of Neighborhood Disorder
Wouter Steenbeek, Beate Völker, Henk Flap, and Frank van Oort

While businesses may attract potential offenders and thus be conducive to disorder, the number of employees could offset this by exercising social control on offenders. This study uses data from different sources to test this expectation across 278 Dutch neighborhoods in the four largest cities of the Netherlands, using multivariate multilevel analysis to disentangle individual perception differences of disorder and neighborhood effects. Attention is paid to traditional explanations of disorder (i.e., poverty, residential mobility, and ethnic heterogeneity). Results show a positive relationship between business presence and neighborhood disorder. We do not find consistent results of the number of employees (i.e., bigger businesses are not always better or worse). Our research demonstrates that the presence of neighborhood businesses could rival the effects of social disorganization theory.

Getting the Upper Hand: Scripts for Managing Victim Resistance in Carjackings
Heith Copes, Andy Hochstetler, and Michael Cherbonneau

Increasing theoretical and empirical interest has turned to the process and dynamics of offender decision making and to how offenders commit discrete acts of crime. One outcome is attention to how offenders manage risks they view as significant. Here, the authors examine how carjackers script and manage victim resistance—the foremost obstacle in the accomplishment of robbery. Using semi-structured interviews with 30 carjackers, the authors explore their perspectives on the ramifications of victim resistance and their strategies to forestall and control it. The authors find that offenders are cognizant that resistance interferes with their goals and that mistakes in managing their victims not only lead to unsuccessful carjackings but also threaten their safety. Much of the scripting of criminal opportunity and the enactment of carjacking are explained, therefore, by strategies offenders use to minimize the chances that victims can resist. Discussion focuses on the implications of findings for theories of offender decision making.

The Offenders’ Perspective on Prevention: Guarding Against Victimization and Law Enforcement
Scott Jacques and Danielle M. Reynald

Law-abiding citizens are concerned with deterring and preventing crime. One strategy to accomplish this goal is to increase the costs and reduce the benefits that particular situations present to offenders. This form of crime control is known as situational crime prevention. Like law-abiding persons, offenders must concern themselves with being victimized. Differently, however, offenders must also worry about being detected and punished by formal agents. Thus, situational prevention from the offenders’ perspective is relatively complex, encompassing efforts to block not only opportunities for victimization but also for law enforcement. Building on the work of Clarke, the present study uses qualitative data from drug dealers to illustrate how and why offenders use situational strategies and techniques to evade their adversaries. The article concludes by discussing implications for future work.

Unsafe at Any Age: Linking Childhood and Adolescent Maltreatment to Delinquency and Crime
Joshua P. Mersky, James Topitzes, and Arthur J. Reynolds

Objectives. This study compares the effects of childhood maltreatment and adolescent maltreatment on delinquency and crime, including violent and nonviolent offending. Methods. Data were derived from the Chicago Longitudinal Study, a prospective investigation of 1,539 underprivileged, minority subjects. Results. Results confirmed that rates of overall delinquency, along with violent, drug, and property offending specifically, were elevated among childhood and adolescent maltreatment victims compared to their nonmaltreated peers. Childhood maltreatment was associated with delinquency independent of adolescent maltreatment, and strong connections between adolescent maltreatment and delinquency were present independent of prior victimization. Childhood maltreatment was also significantly related to a panel of adult crime measures, while the effects of adolescent maltreatment on adult crime were less robust. Conclusions. The study findings suggest that maltreatment at any age increases the risk of future offending, implying that investments in prevention and intervention strategies throughout childhood and adolescence may reduce delinquency and crime.