Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 50(1)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, February 2013: Volume 50, Issue 1

The Effects of Security Threats on Antecedents of Police Legitimacy: Findings from a Quasi-Experiment in Israel
Tal Jonathan-Zamir and David Weisburd

Objectives: Examine the relative importance of “police performance” and “procedural justice” as antecedents of police legitimacy in situations of acute security threats, in comparison to situations of “no threat.” Method: A unique security situation in Israel allowed for a natural experiment. Using survey data and a multivariate regression approach, the authors compare the importance of “procedural justice” and “police performance” in “Sderot,” an Israeli town facing immediate security threats, with other Israeli communities that did not suffer from specific security threats at the time. Results: As expected, assessments of police performance did increase in importance for the public under threat. At the same time and contrary to the authors' hypothesis, evaluations of procedural justice did not decline in importance, and, what is more, procedural justice remained the primary antecedent of police legitimacy in both conditions. Conclusions: There does not seem to be a zero-sum game between “police performance” and “procedural justice” in predicting police legitimacy. Moreover, procedural justice is consistently the primary antecedent of police legitimacy, even when the public is faced with the stressful situation of immediate security threats. The authors encourage future research to replicate their analysis in different settings and particularly under different conditions of security threats.

Journey to Grow: Linking Process to Outcome in Target Site Selection for Cannabis Cultivation
Martin Bouchard, Eric Beauregard, and Margaret Kalacska

Objectives: To test whether there is a relationship between characteristics of the journey to an outdoor cannabis cultivation site and the total number of plants grown. Methods: Spatial data on the location of a sample of 132 cultivation sites derived from aerial detection policing efforts is used. TwoStep cluster analysis is employed to derive profiles of cultivation sites based on three measures of distance (i.e., distance to road, to water, and elevation) and regression analysis is used to examine their implications for the number of plants grown. Results: Four types of cultivation sites are found: prime, rugged, dry, and remote. Prime sites are fairly close to roads and water sources and are at relatively low elevation. They grow the greatest number of plants (mean = 171). Low elevation is the single most important factor correlate of operation size. Further, remote sites (both further from road and at higher elevation) tend to be larger. Conclusions: A majority of growers are capable of identifying “prime” locations in which the tradeoff between rewards and security appears to be maximized. This study is limited by the fact that there was no information available on the offenders themselves. Future research should employ interviews to clarify decision-making processes.

The Monetary Costs of Crime to Middle Adulthood: Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development
Alex R. Piquero, Wesley G. Jennings, and David Farrington

Objectives: Monetary cost estimates of criminal careers have been limited to specific samples, specific ages, and focused on the United States. This article is the first to examine the costs of a life course of crime in the United Kingdom. Method: This study uses longitudinal data from 411 South London males from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) to derive costs-of-crime estimates from childhood to middle adulthood (ages 10 to 50). Additional features include a calculation of cost estimates across distinct offending trajectories and centering on costs per offender. Results: Offending over the life course imposes a considerable amount of economic and social costs and these costs are differentially distributed across offending trajectories. The cost of high-rate chronic offending is nearly two and a half to ten times greater than the cost of high adolescence peaked offending, very low-rate chronic offending, and low adolescence peaked offending, respectively. It is estimated that a male high-rate chronic offender on average would impose an annual cost of £18 ($29) per U.K. citizen or a lifetime cost of £742 ($1,185) per U.K. citizen. Conclusions: As the average and total costs of crime were significantly different across offending trajectories, with high-rate chronics imposing the most financial burden, adopting prevention and intervention strategies aimed at reducing the number of high-rate chronics and/or speeding up their eventual desistance will offer many savings to the public and perhaps turn those negative costs into positive contributions.

Illegal Behavior, Neighborhood Context, and Police Reporting by Victims of Violence
Mark T. Berg, Lee Ann Slocum, and Rolf Loeber

Objectives. To assess (1) if robberies and assaults are less likely to be reported when the victim is engaged in crime and if this relationship can be explained by characteristics of the incident, victim, or the victim’s neighborhood and (2) if neighborhood context moderates the effects of offending on reporting. Methods. The data include 832 victimizations reported in the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS). All data are self-reported except neighborhood disadvantage and crime rates, which were measured using census data and police records, respectively. Data are analyzed using random intercept models. Findings. Victimizations are less likely to be reported when the victim is more involved in crime and this relationship is not fully explained by characteristics of the victim, incident, or the victim’s neighborhood. The effect of offending on reporting is stronger for incidents in which the victim resided in a high-crime or disadvantaged neighborhood. Conclusions. Victims' offending is an important correlate of reporting; however, the assumption that criminals are unwilling or unable to use formal social control seems to apply mainly to those who reside in disadvantaged or high-crime neighborhoods. Future research should explore why offenders' willingness to report varies by neighborhood context.

Marriage and Offending among a Cohort of Disadvantaged African Americans
Elaine Eggleston Doherty and Margaret E. Ensminger

Objectives: Drawing on Sampson and Laub’s age-graded theory of informal social control, this research tests the generalizability of the marriage effect on desistance from crime. Specifically, do urban African American men and women living in the United States benefit from marriage similarly to Whites? Methods: The authors use hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze the relationship between marriage and official arrest counts among African American male and female first graders from Woodlawn, an inner-city community in Chicago, first assessed in 1966 and followed up at three time points (ages 16, 32, and 42). Results: The authors find strong evidence of a marriage effect for the males across crime type, with a reduction in offending between 21 percent and 36 percent when in a state of marriage. The findings for females were less consistent across crime type, a 10 percent reduction in the odds of a property arrest and a 9 percent increase in the odds of a drug arrest when in a state of marriage. Conclusions: Their findings provide evidence in favor of the generality of Sampson and Laub’s theory, at least for males. However, the authors were not able to evaluate the mechanisms of desistance and identify this as an area of future research.

Alcohol Outlets and Community Levels of Interpersonal Violence: Spatial Density, Outlet Type, and Seriousness of Assault

This study examined the association between alcohol outlets and violence. Employing Cincinnati block groups as units of analysis, the authors estimated spatially lagged regression models to determine if the variation in spatial density of alcohol outlets is related to the spatial density of simple and aggravated assaults. The authors estimated separate models for off-premise outlets, bars, and restaurants. The results revealed a positive and significant association between outlet density and assault density. This association held for simple and aggravated assaults and for total outlet density and the density of each type of outlet. Further tests showed the outlet-violence association to be stronger for off-premise outlets relative to bars and restaurants and for simple relative to aggravated assaults. Estimation of attributable fractions (AFs) showed that off-premise outlets may account for approximately one-quarter and one-third of simple and aggravated assaults, respectively.