Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency 51(3)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, May 2014: Volume 51, Issue 3

Can the FIFA World Cup Football (Soccer) Tournament Be Associated with an Increase in Domestic Abuse?
Stuart Kirby, Brian Francis, and Rosalie O’Flaherty

Objectives: This study aims to establish whether empirical evidence exists to support the anecdotal view that the Fédération Internationale de Football Association world cup football (soccer) tournament can be associated with a rise in reported domestic abuse incidents, when viewed remotely via television. Method: A quantitative analysis, using Poisson and negative binomial regression models looked at monthly and daily domestic abuse incidents reported to a police force in the North West of England across three separate tournaments (2002, 2006, and 2010). Results: The study found two statistically significant trends. First, a match day trend showed the risk of domestic abuse rose by 26 percent when the English national team won or drew, and a 38 percent increase when the national team lost. Second, a tournament trend was apparent, as reported domestic abuse incidents increased in frequency with each new tournament. Conclusion: Although this is a relatively small study, it has significant ramifications due to the global nature of televised football (soccer) tournaments. If replicated, it presents significant opportunities to identify and reduce incidents of domestic abuse associated with televised soccer games.

Criminogenic Facilities and Crime across Street Segments in Philadelphia: Uncovering Evidence about the Spatial Extent of Facility Influence
Elizabeth R. Groff and Brian Lockwood

Objectives: Test whether the exposure of street segments to five different potentially criminogenic facilities is positively related to violent, property, or disorder crime counts controlling for sociodemographic context. The geographic extent of the relationship is also explored. Method: Facility exposure is operationalized as total inverse distance from each street segment in Philadelphia, PA, to surrounding facilities within three threshold distances of 400, 800, and 1,200 feet. All distances are measured using shortest path street distance. Census block group data representing ethnic heterogeneity, concentrated disadvantage, and stability are proportionally allocated to each street block. Negative binomial regression is used to model the relationships. Results: Exposure to bars and subway stations was positively associated with violent, property, and disorder crime at all distance thresholds from street segments. Schools were associated with disorder offenses at all distance thresholds. The effects of exposure to halfway houses and drug treatment centers varied by distance and by crime type. Conclusions: Facilities have a significant effect on crime at nearby places even controlling for sociodemographic variables. The geographic extent of a facility’s criminogenic influence varies by type of facility and type of crime. Future research should examine additional types of facilities and include information about place management.

The Contribution of Gang Membership to the Victim–Offender Overlap
David C. Pyrooz, Richard K. Moule, Jr, and Scott H. Decker

Objective: Although a vast literature has investigated the consequences of gang membership for offending and victimization, little is known about the contribution of gang membership to the victim–offender overlap. We advance a group process theoretical model and provide an empirical extension of the victim–offender overlap to gang membership. Method: Using data gathered from 621 respondents in five cities, the contribution of gang membership to the victim–offender overlap is determined by examining (1) a typology of four victim–offender arrangements using multinomial logistic regression modeling and (2) the latent propensity for violent offending and victimization using multilevel item response theory modeling. Results: Gang members were over twice as likely as nongang members to be both victims and offenders, even after adjusting for low self-control, adherence to street codes, and routine activities. Neither contemporary theoretical perspectives on the overlap nor the reciprocal relationship between violent outcomes eliminated the association of gang membership with violent victimization and violent offending. Conclusion: By theoretically and empirically integrating gang membership into current knowledge on the victim–offender overlap, the results suggest that there is much to be gained for research and practice by unpacking the features of criminal and deviant networks.

The Relative Impact of Gang Status Transitions: Identifying the Mechanisms of Change in Delinquency
Chris Melde and Finn-Aage Esbensen

Objectives: Explore the relative impact of transitions into and out of gangs on adolescent involvement in delinquency and determine the mechanisms associated with these changes in deviant behavior. Method: Hierarchical discontinuous regression models are utilized to examine changes in elevation and slope in outcomes associated with gang membership status transitions using six waves of panel data from a school-based sample of 512 gang-involved youth. Result: Results reveal the potential for gang membership to have an enduring impact on involvement in delinquent activity, but also on attitudes, emotions, and unstructured activities associated with a higher risk of offending. Heightened elevation in proximate postgang membership observations of offending was mediated by the mechanisms associated with a turning point. Conclusions: Gang membership, however brief, can have an impact on adolescent development after self-reported membership ends. While desistance from gang membership is a good first step in promoting better outcomes, youth remain more at risk of antisocial behavior after leaving the gang than they were prior to joining such groups. Research on the enduring impact of gang membership is needed, as well as programs and policies that might lessen the severity of the impact of gang membership on later life outcomes. 

Boundary Adherence during Place-based Policing Evaluations: A Research Note
Evan T. Sorg, Jennifer D. Wood, Elizabeth R. Groff, and Jerry H. Ratcliffe

Objectives: This note explores complications with standard methods to evaluate place-based policing interventions. It identifies and explains issues of boundary misspecification during evaluation as a result of boundary adjustment by police during an intervention. Method: Using geographic data gathered during post-experiment focus groups with officers involved in the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment, we highlight the practice of boundary adjustment on the part of officers and we explain why such adjustments occurred. Results: Officers involved in the focus groups who identified the active boundaries of their hot spot assignments (n = 124) all reported policing outside of their delineated beats. On average, their active beats were 0.13 square miles larger than the originally delineated treatment beats. Some active beats overlapped catchment and control locations. Conclusion: Boundary misspecification could cause researchers to (1) incorrectly label a direct benefit of receiving treatment as a diffusion of crime control benefits; (2) underestimate immediate spatial crime displacement; and (3) underestimate treatment effects. Future place-based experiments should take into account the various pressures on officers to adjust the boundaries of their assignments by incorporating measures that track boundary adherence over time (and reporting them) in order to optimize assessments of net effects, diffusion and displacement.

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 653

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2014: Volume 653

Human Trafficking: Recent Empirical Research

New Directions in Research on Human Trafficking
Ronald Weitzer

The Celebritization of Human Trafficking
Dina Francesca Haynes

Policing Human Trafficking: Cultural Blinders and Organizational Barriers
Amy Farrell and Rebecca Pfeffer

Estimating Labor Trafficking among Unauthorized Migrant Workers in San Diego
Sheldon X. Zhang, Michael W. Spiller, Brian Karl Finch, and Yang Qin

Labor Migration and Trafficking among Vietnamese Migrants in Asia
Danièle Bélanger

Trafficking, Scandal, and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Argentina and the United States
Denise Brennan

Teenage Labor Migration and Antitrafficking Policy in West Africa
Neil Howard

The Experiences of Migrants Trafficked from Bangladesh
Mohammad Abdul Munim Joarder and Paul W. Miller

Human Trafficking in Eastern Europe: The Case of Bulgaria
Georgi Petrunov

Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in South Africa
Chandré Gould

Human Trafficking and Moral Panic in Cambodia
Chenda Keo, Thierry Bouhours, Roderic Broadhurst, and Brigitte Bouhours

Conflict and Agency among Sex Workers and Pimps: A Closer Look at Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
Anthony Marcus, Amber Horning, Ric Curtis, Jo Sanson, and Efram Thompson

Coercion, Control, and Cooperation in a Prostitution Ring
Carlo Morselli and Isa Savoie-Gargiso

Crime & Delinquency 60(3)

Crime & Delinquency, April 2014: Volume 60, Issue 3

Modeling Isomorphism on Policing Innovation: The Role of Institutional Pressures in Adopting Community-Oriented Policing
George W. Burruss and Matthew J. Giblin

Recent research on innovation diffusion points to a number of key factors that stimulate the need for change or facilitate the adoption of innovations. Empirical studies examining the process of innovation—that is, how ideas are spread—are less common and often lack a theoretical foundation. The present study uses institutional theory to develop a model of community-policing adoption in municipal law enforcement agencies. The fit of the institutional model is assessed using secondary data and structural equation modeling. The results show that centrist forces—including publications, the professionalization of law enforcement, and other law enforcement agencies—shape the organizational adoption of community-policing reforms. The implications of the research for communicating innovations are addressed.

The Lost Cause? Examining the Southern Culture of Honor Through Defensive Gun Use
Heith Copes, Tomislav V. Kovandzic, J. Mitchell Miller, and Luke Williamson

This article reconsiders the “Southern culture of honor” thesis, which has enjoyed prevalence in the social sciences since the first half of the 20th century. The bulk of researchers investigating the link among Southern residence, culture of honor, and violence have focused on attitudinal measures of violence through surveys and ethnographic experiments indicating preferences and opinions toward engaging in hypothesized violence. The current research measures respondents’ actual violent behaviors in a national survey of defensive gun use (DGU). Although the results failed to support a relationship between Southern residence and defensive gun use, respondents’ age and victimization were significant. This finding is dissonant with the historical literature that suggests that the rural Southern White male is prone to a violent defense of honor; as such, the article orients discussion around the further theoretical advancement of the culture-of-honor perspective.

Shelter During the Storm: A Search for Factors That Protect At-Risk Adolescents From Violence
Marvin D. Krohn, Alan J. Lizotte, Shawn D. Bushway, Nicole M. Schmidt, and Matthew D. Phillips

Using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, the authors show that trajectories of past violence predict future violence better than other more traditional measures of risk. The authors then evaluate whether factors that can be manipulated during this time can both promote less violence for all individuals as well as protect against violence among those who are most at risk for more violence. This article finds that several factors protect youth from violent behavior but not from gun or weapon carrying. Implications of these findings for future research on risk and protective factors of youth violence and for strategies for preventing such behavior are discussed.

Do State Policies Matter in Prosecutor-Reported Juvenile Marijuana Case Disposition?
Yvonne M. Terry-McElrath, Jamie F. Chriqui, Hannalori Bates, and Duane C. McBride

This article examines outcomes for first-time juvenile marijuana possession offenders based on relationships between state policy and local prosecutor self-reported decision making. Specifically, relationships between state statutory penalty data for low-level marijuana possession offenses and prosecutor-reported case outcomes for first-offender juvenile marijuana possession cases are examined. A national sample of prosecutors was interviewed in 2000. Analyses included state statutory policy data in effect as of January 1, 1999, as well as community sociodemographic controls. Results indicated that state statutory policy significantly related to prosecutor-reported juvenile court processing as well as diversion and transfer to criminal court. State statutory policy appears to play a significant role among the legal, resource, and extralegal factors that affect prosecutorial discretion regarding juvenile substance offenders.

Policing Juveniles: Domestic Violence Arrest Policies, Gender, and Police Response to Child–Parent Violence
Kevin J. Strom, Tara D. Warner, Lisa Tichavsky, and Margaret A. Zahn

This study analyzed the National Incident Based Reporting System data from 2000 to 2004 to determine how domestic violence arrest policies, along with incident, offender, and victim characteristics, influence arrest outcomes in violent incidents committed by juveniles against their parents. The authors’ primary interest was to assess whether the enforcement of domestic violence arrest laws, coupled with increased police involvement in familial disputes, has contributed to the decreasing gender gap in juvenile arrests for violent offenses. Results indicated that domestic violence arrest policies had positive effects on arrest outcomes both for juvenile females and males accused of assaulting a parent, as juveniles were more likely to be arrested in states with mandatory or pro-arrest policies than in states with discretionary arrest policies. However, there was also evidence that, beyond the effects of the domestic arrest laws, girls became increasingly more likely to be arrested for assaults against parents over the 5-year study period relative to boys. The implications for these findings are discussed, including the importance of a better understanding of how police respond to domestic violence incidents involving juveniles.

A Systematic Review of the Juvenile Justice Intervention Literature: What It Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About What Works With Delinquent Youth
Michelle Evans-Chase and Huiquan Zhou

A pool of 141 juvenile justice intervention studies conducted in the United States, utilizing a control group, reporting quantitative outcomes and spanning the years 1996 to 2009 were identified via electronic searches. Study inclusion into the summary of best practices was based on the demonstrated equivalence of study groups (treatment and control) at the start of the study, the equivalence of the study groups at posttest, and the degree to which fidelity to treatment procedures was demonstrated. Of the 141 studies, 120 failed quality review, mostly due to fidelity issues. Of the 21 articles that passed, 76% used a therapeutic approach (vs. behavioral control) to behavioral change, with the treatment group outperforming the control group in 88% of the therapeutic intervention studies.

Demographic Patterns of Cumulative Arrest Prevalence by Ages 18 and 23
Robert Brame, Shawn D. Bushway, Ray Paternoster, and Michael G. Turner

In this study, we examine race, sex, and self-reported arrest histories (excluding arrests for minor traffic violations) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97; N = 7,335) for the period 1997 through 2008 covering cumulative arrest histories through ages 18 and 23. The analysis produces three key findings: (a) males have higher cumulative prevalence of arrest than females and (b) there are important race differences in the probability of arrest for males but not for females. Assuming that the missing cases are missing at random (MAR), about 30% of Black males have experienced at least one arrest by age 18 (vs. about 22% for White males); by age 23 about 49% of Black males have been arrested (vs. about 38% for White males). Earlier research using the NLSY97 showed that the risk of arrest by age 23 was 30%, with nonresponse bounds [25.3%, 41.4%]. This study indicates that the risk of arrest is not evenly distributed across the population. Future research should focus on the identification and management of collateral risks that often accompany arrest experiences.

Sociological Theory 32(1)

Sociological Theory, March 2014: Volume 32, Issue 1

The Problem of Excess
Andrew Abbott

This article argues for a new branch of theory based not on presumptions of scarcity—which are the foundational presumptions of most existing social theory—but on those of excess. The article first discusses the emergence of scarcity’s dominance in social theory. It then considers and rejects the idea that excess of one thing is simply scarcity of another. It discusses the mechanisms by which excess creates problems, noting three such mechanisms at the individual level (paralysis, habituation, and value contextuality) and two further mechanisms (disruption and misinheritance) at the social level. The article then considers four types of strategies with which we address excess: two reduction strategies (defensive and reactive) and two rescaling strategies (adaptive and creative). It closes with some brief illustrations of how familiar questions can be recast from terms of scarcity into terms of excess.

Harrison White as (Not Quite) Poststructuralist
J. Lotus Seeley

This paper explores the overlaps and divergences between network sociologist Harrison White’s second edition of Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (2008) and poststructuralist theories from the past three decades. Although poststructuralist thought is barely discussed in White’s work, comparing the approaches reveals significant convergence. I detail two major overlaps: White’s ideas of control compared to Foucault’s concept of discipline, and White’s conception of identity compared to that of feminist poststructuralists. Differences are apparent also, especially as regards treatment of categorical identities such as gender and race. Then, I turn to two ways poststructuralism and White can be put into productive conversation: how focusing on gender as discursive rather than attributional can help network analysts develop theories that better explain the gendered dimensions of social life, and how using blockmodeling methods can aid feminist poststructuralism in understanding what gender looks like without men’s and women’s bodies present.

Obfuscatory Relational Work and Disreputable Exchange
Gabriel Rossman

This article develops a model of how the structure of exchange can manage such disreputable exchanges as the commensuration of sacred for profane. Whereas existing research discusses the rhetorical reframing of exchange, I highlight structures that obfuscate whether an exchange is occurring and thereby mitigate exchange taboos. I identify three such exchange structures: bundling, brokerage, and gift exchange. Bundling uses cross-subsidization across multiple innocuous exchanges to synthesize a taboo exchange. Brokerage finds a third party to accept responsibility for exchange. Gift exchange delays reciprocity and reframes exchanges as expressions of friendship. All three strategies have alternative meanings and so provide plausible deniability to taboo commensuration. The article concludes by arguing that these sorts of exchange structures represent a synthesis of “nothing but” reductionism and “hostile worlds” moralism, rather than an alternative to them as Viviana Zelizer suggests.

Molds and Totems: Nonhumans and the Constitution of the Social Self
Colin Jerolmack and Iddo Tavory

The role of nonhumans in social life has recently generated significant scholarly interest. The two main paradigms for explaining the sociological significance of nonhumans are constructivism and actor-network theory. We propose a pragmatist synthesis inspired by George Herbert Mead, demonstrating how interactions with nonhumans help constitute the social self—that is, the identity one constructs by imaginatively looking upon oneself as others would. Drawing upon observations of humans interacting with objects, animals, and nature, we identify two complementary ways that nonhumans organize the social self and enable people to experience group membership in absentia: (1) by molding how one is perceived by others and constraining alternative presentations of self and (2) by acting as a totem that conjures up awareness of, and feelings of attachment to, a particular social group. This formulation moves beyond constructivist claims that nonhumans reflect people’s self-definitions, and it offers a corrective to actor-network theory’s neglect of sociality.

Journal of Marriage and Family 76(2)

Journal of Marriage and Family, April 2014: Volume 76, Issue 2

Brief Reports

Two Decades of Stability and Change in Age at First Union Formation
Wendy D. Manning, Susan L. Brown and Krista K. Payne

Intergenerational Exchange and Expected Support Among the Young-Old
I-Fen Lin and Hsueh-Sheng Wu

Intergenerational Relationships

Ambivalence in Older Parent–Adult Child Relationships: Mixed Feelings, Mixed Measures
Jessica P. Lendon, Merril Silverstein and Roseann Giarrusso

Perceptions of Equity, Balance of Support Exchange, and Mother–Adult Child Relations
Jori Sechrist, J. Jill Suitor, Abigail R. Howard and Karl Pillemer

Caregiving

The Transition to Parent Care: Costs, Commitments, and Caregiver Selection Among Children
Thomas Leopold, Marcel Raab and Henriette Engelhardt

Parenthood and Life Satisfaction: Why Don't Children Make People Happy?
Matthias Pollmann-Schult

Does Grandparenting Pay Off? The Effect of Child Care on Grandparents' Cognitive Functioning
Bruno Arpino and Valeria Bordone

Of General Interest

Age at Coresidence, Premarital Cohabitation, and Marriage Dissolution: 1985–2009
Arielle Kuperberg

Estimating the Effects of Parental Divorce and Death With Fixed Effects Models
Paul R. Amato and Christopher J. Anthony

“Where Have All the Good Men Gone?” Gendered Interactions in Online Dating
Derek A. Kreager, Shannon E. Cavanagh, John Yen and Mo Yu

Paternal Incarceration and the Housing Security of Urban Mothers
Amanda Geller and Allyson Walker Franklin

Family Policy and Fertility Intentions in 21 European Countries
Sunnee Billingsley and Tommy Ferrarini

The Long-Term Effects of Building Strong Families: A Program for Unmarried Parents
Robert G. Wood, Quinn Moore, Andrew Clarkwest and Alexandra Killewald

Journal of Quantitative Criminology 30(1)

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2014: Volume 30, Issue 1

Rational Misbehavior? Evaluating an Integrated Dual-Process Model of Criminal Decision Making
Jean-Louis van Gelder & Reinout E. de Vries

Objectives: Test the hypothesis that dispositional self-control and morality relate to criminal decision making via different mental processing modes, a ‘hot’ affective mode and a ‘cool’ cognitive one. Methods: Structural equation modeling in two studies under separate samples of undergraduate students using scenarios describing two different types of crime, illegal downloading and insurance fraud. Both self-control and morality are operationalized through the HEXACO model of personality (Lee and Ashton in Multivariate Behav Res 39(2):329–358, 2004). Results: In Study 1, negative state affect, i.e., feelings of fear and worry evoked by a criminal prospect, and perceived risk of sanction were found to mediate the relations between both dispositions and criminal choice. In Study 2, processing mode was manipulated by having participants rely on either their thinking or on their feelings prior to deciding on whether or not to make a criminal choice. Activating a cognitive mode strengthened the relation between perceived risk and criminal choice, whereas activating an affective mode strengthened the relation between negative affect and criminal choice. Conclusion: In conjunction, these results extend research that links stable individual dispositions to proximal states that operate in the moment of decision making. The results also add to dispositional perspectives of crime by using a structure of personality that incorporates both self-control and morality. Contributions to the proximal, state, perspectives reside in the use of a new hot/cool perspective of criminal decision making that extends rational choice frameworks.

“Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop”: Self-Control, Risky Lifestyles, and Repeat Victimization
Jillian J. Turanovic & Travis C. Pratt

Objectives: Drawing from lifestyle-routine activity and self-control perspectives, the causal mechanisms responsible for repeat victimization are explored. Specifically, the present study investigates: (1) the extent to which self-control influences the changes victims make to their risky lifestyles following victimization, and (2) whether the failure to make such changes predicts repeat victimization. Methods: Two waves of panel data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training program are used (N = 1,370) and direct measures of change to various risky lifestyles are included. Two-stage maximum likelihood models are estimated to explore the effects of self-control and changes in risky lifestyles on repeat victimization for a subsample of victims (n = 521). Results: Self-control significantly influences whether victims make changes to their risky lifestyles post-victimization, and these changes in risky lifestyles determine whether victims are repeatedly victimized. These changes in risky lifestyles are also found to fully mediate the effects of self-control on repeat victimization. Conclusions: Findings suggest that future research should continue to measure directly the intervening mechanisms between self-control and negative life outcomes, and to conceptualize lifestyles-routine activities as dynamic processes.

Bayesian Spatio-Temporal Modeling for Analysing Local Patterns of Crime Over Time at the Small-Area Level
Jane Law, Matthew Quick & Ping Chan

Objectives: Explore Bayesian spatio-temporal methods to analyse local patterns of crime change over time at the small-area level through an application to property crime data in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada. Methods: This research represents the first application of Bayesian spatio-temporal modeling to crime trend analysis at a large map scale. The Bayesian model, fitted by Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation using WinBUGS, stabilized risk estimates in small (census dissemination) areas and controlled for spatial autocorrelation (through spatial random effects modeling), deprivation, and scarce data. It estimated (1) (linear) mean trend; (2) area-specific differential trends; and (3) (posterior) probabilities of area-specific differential trends differing from zero (i.e. away from the mean trend) for revealing locations of hot and cold spots. Results: Property crime exhibited a declining mean trend across the study region from 2006 to 2007. Variation of area-specific trends was statistically significant, which was apparent from the map of (95 % credible interval) differential trends. Hot spots in the north and south west, and cold spots in the middle and east of the region were identified. Conclusions: Bayesian spatio-temporal analysis contributes to a detailed understanding of small-area crime trends and risks. It estimates crime trend for each area as well as an overall mean trend. The new approach of identifying hot/cold spots through analysing and mapping probabilities of area-specific crime trends differing from the mean trend highlights specific locations where crime situation is deteriorating or improving over time. Future research should analyse trends over three or more periods (allowing for non-linear time trends) and associated (changing) local risk factors.

Forecasts of Violence to Inform Sentencing Decisions
Richard Berk & Justin Bleich

Objectives: Recent legislation in Pennsylvania mandates that forecasts of "future dangerousness" be provided to judges when sentences are given. Similar requirements already exist in other jurisdictions. Research has shown that machine learning can lead to usefully accurate forecasts of criminal behavior in such setting. But there are settings in which there is insufficient IT infrastructure to support machine learning. The intent of this paper is provide a prototype procedure for making forecasts of future dangerousness that could be used to inform sentencing decisions when machine learning is not practical. We consider how classification trees can be improved so that they may provide an acceptable second choice. Methods: We apply an version of classifications trees available in R, with some technical enhancements to improve tree stability. Our approach is illustrated with real data that could be used to inform sentencing decisions. Results: Modest sized trees grown from large samples can forecast well and in a stable fashion, especially if the small fraction of indecisive classifications are found and accounted for in a systematic manner. But machine learning is still to be preferred when practical. Conclusions: Our enhanced version of classifications trees may well provide a viable alternative to machine learning when machine learning is beyond local IT capabilities.

Block Randomized Trials at Places: Rethinking the Limitations of Small N Experiments
David Weisburd & Charlotte Gill

Objectives: Place-based policing experiments have led to encouraging findings regarding the ability of the police to prevent crime, but sample sizes in many of the key studies in this area are small. Farrington and colleagues argue that experiments with fewer than 50 cases per group are not likely to achieve realistic pre-test balance and have excluded such studies from their influential systematic reviews of experimental research. A related criticism of such studies is that their statistical power under traditional assumptions is also likely to be low. In this paper, we show that block randomization can overcome these design limitations. Methods: Using data from the Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Experiment (N = 28 per group) we conduct simulations on three key outcome measures. Simulations of simple randomization with 28 and 50 cases per group are compared to simulations of block randomization with 28 cases. We illustrate the statistical modeling benefits of the block randomization approach through examination of sums of squares in GLM models and by estimating minimum detectable effects in a power analysis. Results: The block randomization simulation is found to produce many fewer significantly unbalanced samples than the naïve randomization approaches both with 28 and 50 cases per group. Block randomization also produced similar or smaller absolute mean differences across the simulations. Illustrations using sums of squares show that error variance in the block randomization model is reduced for each of the three outcomes. Power estimates are comparable or higher using block randomization with 28 cases per group as opposed to naïve randomization with 50 cases per group. Conclusions: Block randomization provides a solution to the small N problem in place-based experiments that addresses concerns about both equivalence and statistical power. The authors also argue that a 50 case rule should not be applied to block randomized place-based trials for inclusion in key reviews.

Deterring Gang-Involved Gun Violence: Measuring the Impact of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire on Street Gang Behavior
Anthony A. Braga, David M. Hureau & Andrew V. Papachristos

Objectives: The relatively weak quasi-experimental evaluation design of the original Boston Operation Ceasefire left some uncertainty about the size of the program’s effect on Boston gang violence in the 1990s and did not provide any direct evidence that Boston gangs subjected to the Ceasefire intervention actually changed their offending behaviors. Given the policy influence of the Boston Ceasefire experience, a closer examination of the intervention’s direct effects on street gang violence is needed. Methods: A more rigorous quasi-experimental evaluation of a reconstituted Boston Ceasefire program used propensity score matching techniques to develop matched treatment gangs and comparison gangs. Growth-curve regression models were then used to estimate the impact of Ceasefire on gun violence trends for the treatment gangs relative to comparisons gangs. Results: This quasi-experimental evaluation revealed that total shootings involving Boston gangs subjected to the Operation Ceasefire treatment were reduced by a statistically-significant 31 % when compared to total shootings involving matched comparison Boston gangs. Supplementary analyses found that the timing of gun violence reductions for treatment gangs followed the application of the Ceasefire treatment. Conclusions: This evaluation provides some much needed evidence on street gang behavioral change that was lacking in the original Ceasefire evaluation. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that jurisdictions should adopt focused deterrence strategies to control street gang violence problems.

A Bi-level Framework for Understanding Prisoner Victimization
John Wooldredge & Benjamin Steiner

Objectives: To present and test an opportunity perspective on prison inmate victimization. Methods:  Stratified random samples of inmates (n 1 = 5,640) were selected from Ohio and Kentucky prisons (n 2 = 46). Bi-level models of the prevalence of assaults and thefts were estimated. Predictors included indicators of inmate routines/guardianship, target antagonism, and target vulnerability at the individual level, and several indicators of guardianship at the facility level. Results: Assaults were more common among inmates with certain routines and characteristics that might have increased their odds of being victimized (e.g., less time spent in recreation; committed violence themselves during incarceration), and higher levels of assaults characterized environments with lower levels of guardianship (e.g., architectural designs with more “blind spots”, larger populations, and less rigorous rule enforcement as perceived by correctional officers). Similar findings emerged for thefts in addition to stronger individual level effects in prisons with weaker guardianship (e.g., ethnic group differences in the risk of theft were greater in facilities with larger populations and less rigorous rule enforcement). Conclusions: The study produced evidence favoring a bi-level opportunity perspective of inmate victimization, with some unique differences in the relevance of particular concepts between prison and non-prison contexts.

Journal of Criminal Justice 42(2)

Journal of Criminal Justice, March 2014: Volume 42, Issue 2

Adolescent self-image as a mediator between childhood maltreatment and adult sexual offending
Amy Reckdenwald, Christina Mancini, Eric Beauregard

Highlights • Self-image is an important intervening mechanism in the abuse-offending link • Self-image partially mediates the relationship between abuse and sex offending • 42.8% of the total abuse-offending effect is explained by poor self-image

Linking early ADHD to adolescent and early adult outcomes among African Americans
Monic P. Behnken, W. Todd Abraham, Carolyn E. Cutrona, Daniel W. Russell, Ronald L. Simons, Frederick X. Gibbons

Highlights • ADHD predicted exclusionary school discipline and juvenile arrest in adolescence. • ADHD predicted both arrests and lower educational attainment in young adulthood. • Lack of ADHD diagnosis predicted greater post-high-school education initiation. • Higher levels of parenting quality corresponded with better adult outcomes. • Higher levels of childhood poverty corresponded with worse adult outcomes.

Special issue: Sex Offenders and Sex Offenses

Sex offending: A criminological perspective  
Patrick Lussier, Eric Beauregard

Community re-entry and the path toward desistance: A quasi-experimental longitudinal study of dynamic factors and community risk management of adult sex offenders
Patrick Lussier, Carmen L.Z. Gress

Highlights • The study describes dynamic factors of adult male sex offenders. • Dynamic risk factors are associated with recidivism upon re-entry • Negative social influences and poor cooperation are associated with poor outcomes • Type of community risk management can moderate the impact of dynamic factors

Consistency in crime site selection: An investigation of crime sites used by serial sex offenders across crime series
Nadine Deslauriers-Varin, Eric Beauregard

Highlights • Identification of recurrent crime sites across sex crime series. • Limited diversity of victim encounter and release sites used by serial offenders. • Associations between encounter sites and offenders’ series progression. • Prevalence of encounter sites identified varies across offenders’ crime series. • Encounter sites more likely to be selected by offenders having longer crime series.

The Successful Onset of Sex Offending: Determining the Correlates of Actual and Official Onset of Sex Offending
Jeffrey Mathesius, Patrick Lussier

Highlights • Investigated actual onset, official onset and cost avoidance of adult sex offenders. • Most initiate in early adulthood but typically not arrested until late adulthood. • Wide variability in cost avoidance exists across sex offenders. • The correlates of actual age of onset are distinct from official age of onset. • Official onset occurs later for offenders more skilled at avoiding costs.

The juvenile sex offender: The effect of employment on offending
Chantal van den Berg, Catrien Bijleveld, Jan Hendriks, Irma Mooi-Reci

Highlights • Juvenile sex offenders (JSO) enter the labor market at relatively young ages • The JSO have short employment contracts interrupted by spells of unemployment. • Only regular employment is associated with a significant decline in offending. • Group offenders and peer abusers benefit from employment, child abusers do not. • Guidance towards employment may be effective in risk reduction for JSO.

The adolescence-adulthood transition and Robins’s continuity paradox: Criminal career patterns of juvenile and adult sex offenders in a prospective longitudinal birth cohort study
Patrick Lussier, Arjan Blokland

Highlights • Juvenile and adult sex offending are two distinct phenomenon. • Vast majority of juvenile sex offenders do not become adult sex offenders. • Vast majority of adult sex offenders were not juvenile sex offenders. • Heterogeneity is found in the criminal career outcomes of juvenile sex offenders. • Two patterns of adult-onset sex offending were found.

The long term recidivism risk of young sexual offenders in England and Wales– enduring risk or redemption?
Claire Hargreaves, Brian Francis

Highlights • We examine the long-term sexual recidivism risk of juvenile sex offenders. • At the end of the 35 yr follow-up 13% of sex offenders had a sexual re-conviction. • Sex offenders’ hazard converges with the never-convicted after 17 years. • The study has implications for the registration periods of juvenile sex offenders.

Community characteristics and child sexual assault: Social disorganization and age
Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine, Richard Tewksbury, Lin Huff-Corzine, Jay Corzine, Hollianne Marshall

Highlights • We find that the sources of sexual assault differ between preteen and teen victims. • More registered sex offenders in a community increases only teen sexual assault. • Social disorganization adds moderately to explaining preteen & teen sexual assault.

Considering specialization/versatility as an unintended collateral consequence of SORN
Wesley G. Jennings, Kristen M. Zgoba, Christopher M. Donner, Brandy B. Henderson, Richard Tewksbury

Highlights • Specialization thresholds illustrated that sex offenders were diverse. • Sex offenders who were released post-SORN were more specialized. • Post-SORN sex offenders’ specialization was a function of drug offenses.

To what extent does civil commitment reduce sexual recidivism? Estimating the selective incapacitation effects in Minnesota
Grant Duwe

Highlights • Study examined 105 sex offenders civilly committed between 2004 and 2006. • MnSOST-3 used to estimate effects of civil commitment on sex offense recidivism. • Estimated four-year sexual recidivism rate was 9 percent for civil commits. • Civil commitment reduced four-year sexual recidivism rate by 12 percent. • Estimated lifetime sexual recidivism rate was 28 percent.

Employing mixed methods to explore motivational patterns of repeat sex offenders
Joan A. Reid, Eric Beauregard, Karla M. Fedina, Emily N. Frith

Highlights • Identified two motivational constructs underlying sex offenses by repeat offenders • One motivation driven by desire for sexual gratification and one by anger/aggression • Five types of sex offenders emerged from two underlying motivations driving offenses • Stability in motivation observed across sex offenses committed by same offender • Proportional influence of offense/victim specifics did not vary by type of motivation

No body, no crime? The role of forensic awareness in avoiding police detection in cases of sexual homicide
Eric Beauregard, Melissa Martineau

Highlights • Victim characteristics are related to sexual murderers’ police detection • Use of precautions does not increase the offender’s chance of avoiding detection; • Offenders’ modus operandi help to delay the discovery of the victim • Offenders exhibit rational thinking in order to delay body recovery; • Number of days until body recovery is a better measure of detection avoidance

Notes on a (sex crime) scandal: The impact of media coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on public opinion
Christina Mancini, Ryan T. Shields

Highlights • Media exposure detailing sexual abuse affects views about the Catholic Church. • Catholics who followed the coverage were more confident in the Church. • Catholics who viewed the coverage as biased expressed more positive views about the Church. • Non-Catholics who perceived media bias believed the Church could prevent sex crime. • Religiosity mediated media exposure effects among Catholics.

Social Psychology Quarterly 77(1)

Social Psychology Quarterly, March 2014: Volume 77, Issue 1

Introduction of Gary Alan Fine: 2013 Recipient of the Cooley-Mead Award
Tim Hallett

The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Culture, and the Interaction Order
Gary Alan Fine

The Threat of War and Psychological Distress Among Civilians Working in Iraq and Afghanistan
Alex Bierman and Ryan Kelty

Interminority Attitudes: The Roles of Ethnic and National Identification, Contact, and Multiculturalism
Paul Hindriks, Maykel Verkuyten, and Marcel Coenders

The Positive Consequences of Negative Stereotypes: Race, Sexual Orientation, and the Job Application Process
David S. Pedulla

Social Forces 92(3)

Social Forces, March 2014: Volume 92, Issue 3

Life Course

Marriage, Gender, and Class: The Effects of Partner Resources on Unemployment Exit in Germany
Marita Jacob, Corinna Kleinert

Are Conceptions of Adulthood Universal and Unisex?: Ages and Social Markers in 25 European Countries
Zsolt Spéder, Lívia Murinkó, Richard A. Settersten Jr.

Gender

Are They Acculturating?: Europe’s Immigrants and Gender Egalitarianism
Antje Röder, Peter Mühlau

Hierarchical Structure and Gender Dissimilarity in American Legal Labor Markets
Ronit Dinovitzer, John Hagan

Work

Discrimination of Arabic-Named Applicants in the Netherlands: An Internet-Based Field Experiment Examining Different Phases in Online Recruitment Procedures
Lieselotte Blommaert, Marcel Coenders, Frank van Tubergen

Double Time: Is Health Affected by a Spouse’s Time at Work?
Sibyl Kleiner, Eliza K. Pavalko

Religion

Testing the Veracity of Self-Reported Religious Practice in the Muslim World
Philip S. Brenner

Religion, Stress, and Suicide Acceptability in South Korea
Jong Hyun Jung, Daniel V. A. Olson

Social Networks

Friends as a Bridge to Parental Influence: Implications for Adolescent Alcohol Use
Daniel T. Ragan, D. Wayne Osgood, Mark E. Feinberg

Welfare

Material Welfare and Changing Political Preferences: The Case of Support for Redistributive Social Policies
Lindsay A. Owens, David S. Pedulla

To Build an Extended Family: Feminist Organizational Design and Its Dilemmas in Women-Led Non-Governmental Elder Homes in China
Haijing Dai

Economic Sociology

Supervision, Pay, and Effort
Charles N. Halaby

Political Economy

Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: New Evidence from Post-Socialist Transition Countries
Kevin D. Curwin, Matthew C. Mahutga

Environment

Unequal Trajectories: Racial and Class Differences in Residential Exposure to Industrial Hazard
Jeremy Pais, Kyle Crowder, Liam Downey

Collective Action

Legitimizing Collective Action and Countervailing Power
Henry A. Walker, David Willer

Theory and Society 43(2)

Theory and Society, March 2014: Volume 43, Issue 2

Where in the world does neoliberalism come from?
Raewyn Connell, Nour Dados

Neoliberalism is generally understood as a system of ideas circulated by a network of right-wing intellectuals, or as an economic system mutation resulting from crises of profitability in capitalism. Both interpretations prioritize the global North. We propose an approach to neoliberalism that prioritizes the experience of the global South, and sees neoliberalism gaining its main political strength as a development strategy displacing those hegemonic before the 1970s. From Southern perspectives, a distinct set of issues about neoliberalism becomes central: the formative role of the state, including the military; the expansion of world commodity trade, including minerals; agriculture, informality, and the transformation of rural society. Thinkers from the global South who have foregrounded these issues need close attention from the North and exemplify a new architecture of knowledge in critical social science.

The political process of the revolutionary samurai: a comparative reconsideration of Japan’s Meiji Restoration
Mark Cohen

In the 1860s and 1870s, the feudal monarchy of the Tokugawa shogunate, which had ruled Japan for over two centuries, was overthrown, and the entire political order it had commanded was dismantled. This immense political transformation, comparable in its results to the great social revolutions of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries in the West, was distinctive for lacking a major role for mass political mobilization. Since popular political action was decisive elsewhere for both providing the force for social revolutions to defeat old regimes and for pushing revolutionary leaders to more radical policies, the Meiji Restoration’s combination of revolutionary outcomes with conservative personnel and means is puzzling. This article argues that previous accounts fail to explain why a group of relatively low-status samurai—administrative functionaries with some hereditary political privileges but in fact little secure power within the old regime—was able to overcome far more deeply entrenched political actors. To explain this, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between two political processes: the long-standing political relations of feudal monarchy and magnate lords and the unprecedented emergence of independent samurai political action and organizations cutting across domain boundaries. It was the interaction of these two processes that produced the overthrow of the Tokugawa and enabled the revolutionary outcomes that followed it. This article’s revised explanation of the Meiji Restoration clearly places it within the same theoretical parameters as the major revolutions of the seventeenth century and later.

An opera house for the “Paris of South America”: pathways to the institutionalization of high culture
Claudio E. Benzecry

Who has the power to institutionalize culture? How is it that cultural forms become legitimated and appropriated by certain groups? And what are the organizational forms that guarantee the continuity of the interlocks among classifications, etiquette, and resources in the long run? This article explores these questions by observing the struggle over the institutionalization of opera as high culture during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in Buenos Aires, a region of the world understudied by cultural sociologists. It contends that to answer these questions we need to observe the contested dynamics though which the process of institutionalization happens. It also shows how this contestation affects, in the long-term, the processes of evaluation and legitimation of the classification upheld, and the consequences it has in terms of audience stratification. In the Discussion section, I present a novel framework for the study of pathways to high culture institutionalization that highlights how the role of the state and competing stakeholders can introduce variable relationships among the elites, the arts, and social closure.

Reflections on the revolutionary wave in 2011
Colin J. Beck

The “Arab Spring” was a surprising event not just because predicting revolutions is a difficult task, but because current theories of revolution are ill equipped to explain revolutionary waves where interactive causal mechanisms at different levels of analysis and interactions between the units of analysis predominate. To account for such dynamics, a multidimensional social science of revolution is required. Accordingly, a meta-framework for revolutionary theory that combines multiple levels of analysis, multiple units of analysis, and their interactions is offered. A structured example of theory building is then given by detailing how the development of world cultural models and practices challenge existing political structures, affect mobilization processes, and make diffusion more likely. A structured example of study design using qualitative comparative analysis of 16 Middle Eastern and North African countries provides support for the interaction of subnational conditions for mobilization, state-centered causes, and transnational factors, including a country’s linkage to world society, as one explanation of the Revolutions of 2011.

Social Science Research 45

Social Science Research, May 2014: Volume 45

Structural and cultural sources of community in American congregations
Samuel Stroope, Joseph O. Baker

How states can reduce the dropout rate for undocumented immigrant youth: The effects of in-state resident tuition policies
Stephanie Potochnick

Link between unemployment and crime in the US: A Markov-Switching approach
Firouz Fallahi, Gabriel Rodríguez

Delinquent behavior, the transition to adulthood, and the likelihood of military enlistment
Jay Teachman, Lucky Tedrow

Collective pedagogical teacher culture, teacher–student ethno-racial mismatch, and teacher job satisfaction
Elizabeth Stearns, Neena Banerjee, Roslyn Mickelson, Stephanie Moller

Modeling time-series count data: The unique challenges facing political communication studies
Brian J. Fogarty, James E. Monogan

Using population screening for recruitment of young adults engaged in illicit drug use: Methodological issues and sampling outcomes
Andrew Smirnov, Robert Kemp, Helene Wells, Margot Legosz, Jake M. Najman

Hierarchical Bayesian analysis of outcome- and process-based social preferences and beliefs in Dictator Games and sequential Prisoner’s Dilemmas
Ozan Aksoy, Jeroen Weesie

Identities in flux: Cognitive network activation in times of change
Tanya Menon, Edward Bishop Smith

Power-use in cooperative competition: A power-dependence model and an empirical test of network structure and geographic mobility
Blaine Robbins, Howard T. Welser, Maria Grigoryeva, Eric Gleave

Pushed, pulled, or blocked? The elderly and the labor market in post-Soviet Russia
Theodore P. Gerber, Jonas Radl

Residential hierarchy in Los Angeles: An examination of ethnic and documentation status differences
David A. Cort, Ken-Hou Lin, Gabriela Stevenson

Personal traits, cohabitation, and marriage
Michael T. French, Ioana Popovici, Philip K. Robins, Jenny F. Homer

Beyond English proficiency: Rethinking immigrant integration
Ilana Redstone Akresh, Douglas S. Massey, Reanne Frank

You don’t have to be well-educated to be an aversive racist, but it helps
Toon Kuppens, Russell Spears