Sunday, November 30, 2014

Social Science Research 49

Social Science Research, January 2015: Volume 49

Response of sensitive behaviors to frequent measurement
William G. Axinn, Elyse A. Jennings, Mick P. Couper

Variation in trajectories of women’s marital quality
Spencer L. James

Adult non-response bias from a child perspective. Using child reports to estimate father’s non-response
Kim Bastaits, Inge Pasteels, Koen Ponnet, Dimitri Mortelmans

Chinese people’s intended and actual use of the court to resolve grievance/dispute
Shanhe Jiang, Yuning Wu

Long-term health and socioeconomic consequences of early-life exposure to the 1959–1961 Chinese Famine
Wen Fan, Yue Qian

The skill-divide in job quality: A cross-national analysis of 28 countries
Haya Stier

Immigration and earnings inequality in America’s new small-town destinations
Allen Hyde, Jeremy Pais, Michael Wallace

School ethnic diversity and White students’ civic attitudes in England
Jan Germen Janmaat

Feminists wrestle with testosterone: Hormones, socialization and cultural interactionism as predictors of women’s gendered selves
Shannon N. Davis, Barbara J. Risman

The downside of marketization: A multilevel analysis of housing tenure and types in reform-era urban China
Qiang Fu, Yushu Zhu, Qiang Ren

Languages, communication potential and generalized trust in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence based on the Afrobarometer Survey
Katalin Buzasi

Business structure, ethnic shifts in labor markets, and violence: The link between company size, local labor markets, and non-Latino homicide
Raymond E. Barranco, Edward S. Shihadeh

The joint effect of ethnicity and gender on occupational segregation. An approach based on the Mutual Information Index
Daniel Guinea-Martin, Ricardo Mora, Javier Ruiz-Castillo

Explaining the subjective well-being of urban and rural Chinese: Income, personal concerns, and societal evaluations
Chunping Han

Explaining the Muslim employment gap in Western Europe: Individual-level effects and ethno-religious penalties
Phillip Connor, Matthias Koenig

Unemployment among Mexican immigrant men in the United States, 2003–2012
Jennifer Laird

Getting support in polarized societies: Income, social networks, and socioeconomic context
Natalia Letki, Inta Mieriņa

Variable links within perceived police legitimacy?: Fairness and effectiveness across races and places
Ralph B. Taylor, Brian R. Wyant, Brian Lockwood

Occupational conditions, self-care, and obesity among clergy in the United States
Todd W. Ferguson, Brita Andercheck, Joshua C. Tom, Brandon C. Martinez, Samuel Stroope

Transforming wealth: Using the inverse hyperbolic sine (IHS) and splines to predict youth’s math achievement
Terri Friedline, Rainier D. Masa, Gina A.N. Chowa

The spatial extent of the effect of foreclosures on crime
Seth B. Payton, Thomas D. Stucky, John R. Ottensmann

Network effects across the earnings distribution: Payoffs to visible and invisible job finding assistance
Steve McDonald

Exposure to violence, substance use, and neighborhood context
Abigail A. Fagan, Emily M. Wright, Gillian M. Pinchevsky

Intergenerational transmission of homeownership in Europe: Revisiting the socialisation hypothesis
Philipp M. Lersch, Ruud Luijkx

Three experimental approaches to measure the social context dependence of prejudice communication and discriminatory behavior
Heiko Beyer, Ulf Liebe

We trust in government, just not in yours: Race, partisanship, and political trust, 1958–2012
Rima Wilkes

Social Psychology Quarterly 77(4)

Social Psychology Quarterly, December 2014: Volume 77, Issue 4

Control in the Face of Uncertainty: Is Job Insecurity a Challenge to the Mental Health Benefits of Control Beliefs?
Paul Glavin and Scott Schieman

Trust, Cohesion, and Cooperation After Early Versus Late Trust Violations in Two-Person Exchange: The Role of Generalized Trust in the United States and Japan
Ko Kuwabara, Sonja Vogt, Motoki Watabe, and Asuka Komiya

Rationalizing Delinquency: A Longitudinal Test of the Reciprocal Relationship Between Delinquent Attitudes and Behavior
Cesar J. Rebellon, Michelle E. Manasse, Karen T. Van Gundy, and Ellen S. Cohn

Emotions and Identity Nonverification
Jan E. Stets and Peter J. Burke

Sunday, November 23, 2014

American Sociological Review 79(6)

American Sociological Review, December 2014: Volume 79, Issue 6

Medical Adaptation to Academic Pressure: Schooling, Stimulant Use, and Socioeconomic Status
Marissa D. King, Jennifer Jennings, and Jason M. Fletcher
Despite the rise of medical interventions to address behavioral issues in childhood, the social determinants of their use remain poorly understood. By analyzing a dataset that includes the majority of prescriptions written for stimulants in the United States, we find a substantial effect of schooling on stimulant use. In middle and high school, adolescents are roughly 30 percent more likely to have a stimulant prescription filled during the school year than during the summer. Socioeconomically advantaged children are more likely than their less advantaged peers to selectively use stimulants only during the academic year. These differences persist when we compare higher and lower socioeconomic status children seeing the same doctors. We link these responses to academic pressure by exploiting variation between states in educational accountability system stringency. We find the largest differences in school year versus summer stimulant use in states with more accountability pressure. School-based selective stimulant use is most common among economically advantaged children living in states with strict accountability policies. Our study uncovers a new pathway through which medical interventions may act as a resource for higher socioeconomic status families to transmit educational advantages to their children, either intentionally or unwittingly.

Suspending Progress: Collateral Consequences of Exclusionary Punishment in Public Schools
Brea L. Perry and Edward W. Morris
An influential literature in criminology has identified indirect “collateral consequences” of mass imprisonment. We extend this criminological perspective to the context of the U.S. education system, conceptualizing exclusionary discipline practices (i.e., out-of-school suspension) as a manifestation of intensified social control in schools. Similar to patterns of family and community decline associated with mass incarceration, we theorize that exclusionary discipline policies have indirect adverse effects on non-suspended students in punitive schools. Using a large hierarchical and longitudinal dataset consisting of student and school records, we examine the effect of suspension on reading and math achievement. Our findings suggest that higher levels of exclusionary discipline within schools over time generate collateral damage, negatively affecting the academic achievement of non-suspended students in punitive contexts. This effect is strongest in schools with high levels of exclusionary discipline and schools with low levels of violence, although the adverse effect of exclusionary discipline is evident in even the most disorganized and hostile school environments. Our results level a strong argument against excessively punitive school policies and suggest the need for alternative means of establishing a disciplined environment through social integration.

Network Ecology and Adolescent Social Structure
Daniel A. McFarland, James Moody, David Diehl, Jeffrey A. Smith, and Reuben J. Thomas
Adolescent societies—whether arising from weak, short-term classroom friendships or from close, long-term friendships—exhibit various levels of network clustering, segregation, and hierarchy. Some are rank-ordered caste systems and others are flat, cliquish worlds. Explaining the source of such structural variation remains a challenge, however, because global network features are generally treated as the agglomeration of micro-level tie-formation mechanisms, namely balance, homophily, and dominance. How do the same micro-mechanisms generate significant variation in global network structures? To answer this question we propose and test a network ecological theory that specifies the ways features of organizational environments moderate the expression of tie-formation processes, thereby generating variability in global network structures across settings. We develop this argument using longitudinal friendship data on schools (Add Health study) and classrooms (Classroom Engagement study), and by extending exponential random graph models to the study of multiple societies over time.

Protest on the Fly: Toward a Theory of Spontaneity in the Dynamics of Protest and Social Movements
David A. Snow and Dana M. Moss
This article reexamines spontaneity as an important, albeit neglected, mechanism in collective action dynamics, and elaborates on its operation and effects in protest events and social movements. We do not presume that spontaneity is routinely at play in all collective actions. Rather, based on our grounded analysis of historical and ethnographic data, we contend that spontaneity is triggered by certain conditions: nonhierarchical organization; uncertain/ambiguous moments and events; behavioral/emotional priming; and certain ecological/spatial factors. We conclude by elaborating why the activation of spontaneous actions matters in shaping the course and character of protest events and movements, and we suggest that spontaneity be resuscitated in the study of collective action and everyday life more generally.

Political Polarization as a Social Movement Outcome: 1960s Klan Activism and Its Enduring Impact on Political Realignment in Southern Counties, 1960 to 2000
Rory McVeigh, David Cunningham, and Justin Farrell
Radical social movements can exacerbate tensions in local settings while drawing attention to how movement goals align with political party agendas. Short-term movement influence on voting outcomes can endure when orientations toward the movement disrupt social ties, embedding individuals within new discussion networks that reinforce new partisan loyalties. To demonstrate this dynamic, we employ longitudinal data to show that increases in Republican voting, across several different time intervals, were most pronounced in southern counties where the Ku Klux Klan had been active in the 1960s. In an individual-level analysis of voting intent, we show that decades after the Klan declined, racial attitudes map onto party voting among southern voters, but only in counties where the Klan had been active.

Formal Rights and Informal Privileges for Same-Sex Couples: Evidence from a National Survey Experiment
Long Doan, Annalise Loehr, and Lisa R. Miller
Attitudes toward gay rights have liberalized over the past few decades, but scholars know less about the extent to which individuals in the United States exhibit subtle forms of prejudice toward lesbians and gays. To help address this issue, we offer a conceptualization of formal rights and informal privileges. Using original data from a nationally representative survey experiment, we examine whether people distinguish between formal rights (e.g., partnership benefits) and informal privileges (e.g., public displays of affection) in their attitudes toward same-sex couples. Results show that heterosexuals are as willing to extend formal rights to same-sex couples as they are to unmarried heterosexual couples. However, they are less willing to grant informal privileges. Lesbians and gays are more willing to extend formal rights to same-sex couples, but they too are sometimes more supportive of informal privileges for heterosexual couples. We also find that heterosexuals’ attitudes toward marriage more closely align with their attitudes toward informal privileges than formal rights, whereas lesbians and gays view marriage similarly to both formal rights and informal privileges. Our findings highlight the need to examine multiple dimensions of sexual prejudice to help understand how informal types of prejudice persist as minority groups receive formal rights.

Racial Inequality Trends and the Intergenerational Persistence of Income and Family Structure
Deirdre Bloome
Racial disparity in family incomes remained remarkably stable over the past 40 years in the United States despite major legal and social reforms. Previous scholarship presents two primary explanations for persistent inequality through a period of progressive change. One highlights continuity: because socioeconomic status is transmitted from parents to children, disparities created through histories of discrimination and opportunity denial may dissipate slowly. The second highlights change: because family income results from joining individual earnings in family units, changing family compositions can offset individuals’ changing economic chances. I examine whether black-white family income inequality trends are better characterized by the persistence of existing disadvantage (continuity) or shifting forms of disadvantage (change). I combine cross-sectional and panel analysis using Current Population Survey, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Census, and National Vital Statistics data. Results suggest that African Americans experience relatively extreme intergenerational continuity (low upward mobility) and discontinuity (high downward mobility); both helped maintain racial inequality. Yet, intergenerational discontinuities allow new forms of disadvantage to emerge. On net, racial inequality trends are better characterized by changing forms of disadvantage than by continuity. Economic trends were equalizing but demographic trends were disequalizing; as family structures shifted, family incomes did not fully reflect labor-market gains.

House of Green Cards: Statistical or Preference-Based Inequality in the Employment of Foreign Nationals
Ben A. Rissing and Emilio J. Castilla
Racial disparity in family incomes remained remarkably stable over the past 40 years in the United States despite major legal and social reforms. Previous scholarship presents two primary explanations for persistent inequality through a period of progressive change. One highlights continuity: because socioeconomic status is transmitted from parents to children, disparities created through histories of discrimination and opportunity denial may dissipate slowly. The second highlights change: because family income results from joining individual earnings in family units, changing family compositions can offset individuals’ changing economic chances. I examine whether black-white family income inequality trends are better characterized by the persistence of existing disadvantage (continuity) or shifting forms of disadvantage (change). I combine cross-sectional and panel analysis using Current Population Survey, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Census, and National Vital Statistics data. Results suggest that African Americans experience relatively extreme intergenerational continuity (low upward mobility) and discontinuity (high downward mobility); both helped maintain racial inequality. Yet, intergenerational discontinuities allow new forms of disadvantage to emerge. On net, racial inequality trends are better characterized by changing forms of disadvantage than by continuity. Economic trends were equalizing but demographic trends were disequalizing; as family structures shifted, family incomes did not fully reflect labor-market gains.

Comment and Reply

Trust Radius versus Trust Level: Radius of Trust as a Distinct Trust Construct
André van Hoorn
In their October 2011 ASR article, “How General Is Trust in ‘Most People’? Solving the Radius of Trust Problem,” Delhey, Newton, and Welzel pioneer the measurement of trust radius, defined as the width of the circle of people among whom a certain trust level exists. One key finding of their study is that trust radius correlates so strongly with out-group trust level that the two are essentially identical constructs; this clashes with standard theory’s finding that trust level and trust radius are distinct trust constructs. This result proves to be erroneous, however, due to a mistaken label. I seek to correct this labeling error and find that trust radius is, in fact, a separate trust construct. Trust radius differs from established trust level constructs such as level of trust in most people and level of out-group trust, not only theoretically but empirically as well.

The Radius of Trust Problem Remains Resolved
Jan Delhey, Kenneth Newton, and Christian Welzel

Criminology 52(4)

Criminology, November 2014: Volume 52, Issue 4

Impact Of Victimization On Residential Mobility: Explaining Racial And Ethnic Patterns Using The National Crime Victimization Survey
Min Xie And David Mcdowall
Criminal victimization is known to influence households’ moving decisions, but theories suggest that the processes leading to a moving decision can vary across racial and ethnic groups. Drawing from current literature, we hypothesized that victimization would have a stronger effect on moving decisions for Whites than for Blacks or Hispanics, and that racial/ethnic residential segregation would moderate the impact of victimization on mobility. Using a longitudinal sample of 34,134 housing units compiled from the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the United States (1995–2003), we found results that both support and contradict the hypotheses. Specifically, White residents display consistent evidence that victimization is a significant predictor of household mobility. Blacks and Hispanics, in contrast, are more varied in their moving behavior after victimization. In addition, significant differences exist among these groups in responses to victimization and in how mobility is influenced by residential segregation. Higher levels of residential segregation play a part in the victimization–mobility relationship among Blacks in a way that is more complex than we hypothesized.

Demonstrating The Validity Of Twin Research In Criminology
J. C. Barnes, John Paul Wright, Brian B. Boutwell, Joseph A. Schwartz, Eric J. Connolly, Joseph L. Nedelec And Kevin M. Beaver
In a recent article published in Criminology, Burt and Simons (2014) claimed that the statistical violations of the classical twin design render heritability studies useless. Claiming quantitative genetics is “fatally flawed” and describing the results generated from these models as “preposterous,” Burt and Simons took the unprecedented step to call for abandoning heritability studies and their constituent findings. We show that their call for an “end to heritability studies” was premature, misleading, and entirely without merit. Specifically, we trace the history of behavioral genetics and show that 1) the Burt and Simons critique dates back 40 years and has been subject to a broad array of empirical investigations, 2) the violation of assumptions in twin models does not invalidate their results, and 3) Burt and Simons created a distorted and highly misleading portrait of behavioral genetics and those who use quantitative genetic approaches.

The Edge Of Stigma: An Experimental Audit Of The Effects Of Low-Level Criminal Records On Employment
Christopher Uggen, Mike Vuolo, Sarah Lageson, Ebony Ruhland And Hilary K. Whitham
Ample experimental evidence shows that the stigma of a prison record reduces employment opportunities (Pager, 2007). Yet background checks today uncover a much broader range of impropriety, including arrests for minor crimes never resulting in formal charges. This article probes the lesser boundaries of stigma, asking whether and how employers consider low-level arrests in hiring decisions. Matched pairs of young African American and White men were sent to apply for 300 entry-level jobs, with one member of each pair reporting a disorderly conduct arrest that did not lead to conviction. We find a modest but nontrivial effect, with employer callback rates about 4 percentage points lower for the experimental group than for the matched control group. Interviews with the audited employers suggest three mechanisms to account for the lesser stigma of misdemeanor arrests relative to felony convictions: 1) greater employer discretion and authority in the former case; 2) calibration of the severity, nature, and timing of the offense; and 3) a deeply held presumption of innocence, which contrasts the uncertainty of arrest with the greater certainty represented by convictions. In addition, personal contact and workplace diversity play important roles in the hiring process.

Incorporating Routine Activities, Activity Spaces, And Situational Definitions Into The Social Schematic Theory Of Crime
Ronald L. Simons, Callie H. Burt, Ashley B. Barr, Man-Kit Lei And Eric Stewart
Simons and Burt's (2011) social schematic theory (SST) of crime posits that adverse social factors are associated with offending because they promote a set of social schemas (i.e., a criminogenic knowledge structure) that elevates the probability of situational definitions favorable to crime. This study extends the SST model by incorporating the role of contexts for action. Furthermore, the study advances tests of the SST by incorporating a measure of criminogenic situational definitions to assess whether such definitions mediate the effects of schemas and contexts on crime. Structural equation models using 10 years of panel data from 582 African American youth provided strong support for the expanded theory. The results suggest that childhood and adolescent social adversity fosters a criminogenic knowledge structure as well as selection into criminogenic activity spaces and risky activities, all of which increase the likelihood of offending largely through situational definitions. Additionally, evidence shows that the criminogenic knowledge structure interacts with settings to amplify the likelihood of situational definitions favorable to crime.

Gender, Friendship Networks, And Delinquency: A Dynamic Network Approach
Dana L. Haynie, Nathan J. Doogan And Brian Soller
Researchers have examined selection and influence processes in shaping delinquency similarity among friends, but little is known about the role of gender in moderating these relationships. Our objective is to examine differences between adolescent boys and girls regarding delinquency-based selection and influence processes. Using longitudinal network data from adolescents attending two large schools in AddHealth (N = 1,857) and stochastic actor-oriented models, we evaluate whether girls are influenced to a greater degree by friends’ violence or delinquency than boys (influence hypothesis) and whether girls are more likely to select friends based on violent or delinquent behavior than boys (selection hypothesis). The results indicate that girls are more likely than boys to be influenced by their friends’ involvement in violence. Although a similar pattern emerges for nonviolent delinquency, the gender differences are not significant. Some evidence shows that boys are influenced toward increasing their violence or delinquency when exposed to more delinquent or violent friends but are immune to reducing their violence or delinquency when associating with less violent or delinquent friends. In terms of selection dynamics, although both boys and girls have a tendency to select friends based on friends’ behavior, girls have a stronger tendency to do so, suggesting that among girls, friends’ involvement in violence or delinquency is an especially decisive factor for determining friendship ties.

An Explicit Test Of Plea Bargaining In The “Shadow Of The Trial”
Shawn D. Bushway, Allison D. Redlich And Robert J. Norris
Bargaining in the “shadow of the trial,” which hinges on the expectations of trial outcomes, is the primary theory used by noncriminologists to explain variation in the plea discount given to defendants who plead guilty. This study develops a formal mathematical representation of the theory and then presents an empirical test of the theory using an innovative online survey with responses to a hypothetical case from 1,585 prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. The key outcomes are the probability that the defendant will be convicted at trial, the sentence for the defendant if convicted, and the best plea that the respondent would accept or offer. Variation in the outcomes is created through experimental variation in the information presented to the respondents. Structural regression models are estimated to fit the formal theoretical models, and the instrumental variables method is used to correct for measurement error in the estimate for probability of conviction. The data support the basic shadow model, with minor modifications, for only prosecutors and defense attorneys. Controlling for the characteristics of the individual actors and their jurisdictions adds explanatory value to the model, although these control variables did not affect the key coefficients from the shadow model.

Correction: Pulling Back The Curtain On Heritability Studies: Biosocial Criminology In The Postgenomic Era 
Callie H. Burt And Ronald L. Simons

Journal of Quantitative Criminology 30(4)

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, December 2014: Volume 30, Issue 4

Validating Self-Nomination in Gang Research: Assessing Differences in Gang Embeddedness Across Non-, Current, and Former Gang Members
Scott H. Decker, David C. Pyrooz, Gary Sweeten, Richard K. Moule Jr.
Objective: The study of gang members is closely linked to the self-nomination method. It is timely to revisit the criterion validity of self-nomination, as recent theoretical and empirical advancements in gang disengagement necessitate further differentiating current from former gang members. This study assessed differences in gang embeddedness—a construct that taps individual immersion within deviant social networks—across three groups: current gang members, former gang members, and those individuals who have never joined a gang. Methods: Data gathered in 2011 from a high-risk sample of 621 individuals in five cities were used to assess the validity of the self-nomination method. Standardized differences in a mixed graded response model of gang embeddedness were evaluated across the three statuses of gang membership. Results: Self-nomination was strongly related to embeddedness in gangs, even after controlling for demographic, theoretical, and gang-related factors. The strongest predictor of gang embeddedness was self-nomination as a current or a former gang member, although current gang members maintained levels of gang embeddedness about one standard deviation greater than former gang members. Self-nomination was also the primary determinant of gang embeddedness for males, females, whites, blacks, and Hispanics. Conclusion: The results of this study provide strong evidence in support of the use of self-nomination to differentiate between non-gang and gang members as well as current and former gang members, adding to a body of research demonstrating that self-nomination is a valid measure of gang membership.


The Salience of Social Contextual Factors in Appraisals of Police Interactions with Citizens: A Randomized Factorial Experiment
Anthony A. Braga, Christopher Winship, Tom R. Tyler, Jeffrey Fagan, Tracey L. Meares
Objectives: Prior research indicates that public assessments of the manner in which the police exercise their authority are a key antecedent of judgments about the legitimacy of the police. In this study, the importance of context in influencing people’s assessment of police wrongdoing is examined. Methods: A randomized factorial experiment was used to test how respondents perceive and evaluate police–citizens interactions along a range of types of situations and encounters. 1,361 subjects were surveyed on factors hypothesized to be salient influences on how citizens perceive and evaluate citizen interactions with police. Subjects viewed videos of actual police–citizen encounters and were asked for their evaluations of these observed encounters. Contextual primes were used to focus subjects on particular aspects of the context within which the encounter occurs. Results: Structural equation models revealed that social contextual framing factors, such as the climate of police–community relations and the legality of the stop that led to the encounter, influence citizen appraisals of police behavior with effects comparable in size to and even larger than demographic variables such as education, race, and income. Conclusions: These results suggest that the understandings and perceptions that people bring to a situation are important determinants of their assessment of police fairness. The police can positively influence citizen interpretations of police actions by striving to create a climate of positive police–community relationships in cities.

Accounting for Racial Disparities in the Nature of Violent Victimization
Mark T. Berg
Objectives: Prior research suggests racial differences in violent victimization reflect differences in severity and not frequency. The current study proposes and tests hypotheses regarding the sources of racial variation in the nature of violent victimization. Methods: A person-incident data file is employed to examine theoretical mechanisms that purportedly explain the effects of race on the nature of violent victimization. Data are analyzed with multinomial logistic regression models. Mediation processes are examined using a decomposition model that simultaneously adjusts for parameter rescaling and confounding. Results: Descriptive statistics reveal larger proportions of black males compared to whites experience gun violence, yet higher percentages of white males suffer unarmed violence. Differential exposure variables explain a larger quantity of racial differences in the likelihood of gun versus unarmed violence compared to behavioral attributes variables. Still, race remains a robust predictor of firearm victimization controlling for the full array of study variables. Conclusions: It appears that black males are more likely than whites to suffer serious forms of violence and not minor forms due more to their exposure to risky settings than to their behavioral characteristics. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that stereotypes also partially account for the higher rates of gun victimization among black males. This study advances research on race and interpersonal violence. Moreover, the study demonstrates the importance of specifying the proper dependent variable when testing theories of interpersonal violence and victimization.

The Impact of Leadership Removal on Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations
Matthew Dickenson
Objectives: Has the Mexican government’s policy of removing drug-trafficking organization (DTO) leaders reduced or increased violence? In the first 4 years of the Calderón administration, over 34,000 drug-related murders were committed. In response, the Mexican government captured or killed 25 DTO leaders. This study analyzes changes in violence (drug-related murders) that followed those leadership removals. Methods: The analysis consists of cross-sectional time-series negative binomial modeling of 49 months of murder counts in 32 Mexican states (including the federal district). Results: Leadership removals are generally followed by increases in drug-related murders. A DTO’s home state experiences more subsequent violence than the state where the leader was removed. Killing leaders is associated with more violence than capturing them. However, removing leaders for whom a $30m peso bounty was offered is associated with a smaller increase than other removals. Conclusion: DTO leadership removals in Mexico were associated with an estimated 415 additional deaths during the first 4 years of the Calderón administration. Reforming Mexican law enforcement and improving career prospects for young men are more promising counter-narcotics strategies. Further research is needed to analyze how the rank of leaders mediates the effect of their removal.

Incentivizing Responses to Self-report Questions in Perceptual Deterrence Studies: An Investigation of the Validity of Deterrence Theory Using Bayesian Truth Serum
Thomas A. Loughran, Ray Paternoster, Kyle J. Thomas
Objective: Criminological researchers want people to reveal considerable private information when utilizing self-report surveys, such as involvement in crime, subjective attitudes and expectations, and probability judgments. Some of this private information is easily accessible for subjects and all that is required is for individuals to be honest, while other information requires mental effort and cognitive reflection. Though researchers generally provide little or no incentive to be honest and thoughtful, it is generally assumed that subjects do provide honest and accurate information. We assess the accuracy of deterrence measures by employing a scoring rule known as the Bayesian truth serum (BTS)—that incentivizes honesty and thoughtfulness among respondents. Method: Individuals are asked to report on self-report offending and estimates of risk after being assigned to one of two conditions: (1) a group where there is a financial incentive just for participation, and (2) a BTS financial incentive group where individuals are incentivized to be honest and thoughtful. Results: We find evidence that there are some important differences in the responses to self-reporting offending items and estimates of the probability of getting arrested between the groups. Individuals in the BTS condition report a greater willingness to offend and lower estimates of perceived risk for drinking and driving and cheating on exams. Moreover, we find that the negative correlation between perceived risk and willingness to offend that is often observed in scenario-based deterrence research does not emerge in conditions where respondents are incentivized to be accurate and thoughtful in their survey responses. Conclusion: The results raise some questions about the accuracy of survey responses in perceptual deterrence studies, and challenge the statistical relationship between perceived risk and offending behavior. We suggest further exploration within criminology of both BTS and other scoring rules and greater scrutiny of the validity of criminological data.

Investigating the Functional Form of the Self-control–Delinquency Relationship in a Sample of Serious Young Offenders
Christopher J. Sullivan, Thomas Loughran
Objective: This work further examines the functional form of the self-control–delinquency relationship as an extension of recent work by Mears et al. (J Quant Criminol, 2013). Given the importance of the authors’ conclusions regarding the nonlinear relationship between these two variables and the recognition that there are some potential limitations in the sample and assumptions required for the analytic methods used, we apply both similar and alternative techniques with a data set comprised of serious youthful offenders to determine whether key findings can be replicated. Methods: Data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which comprise extensive individual and social history interviews with 1,354 offenders over multiple waves spread out over 84 months, is utilized in this analysis. These data are well-suited to investigating the questions of interest as the target population comprises youth with offending histories that are more extensive than those likely to be found in general surveys of adolescents. The analyses consider the self-control–delinquency relationship in an alternative sample with the previously used Generalized Propensity Score (GPS) procedure, which requires strong assumptions, as well as nonparametric regression which requires far weaker assumptions to consider the functional form of the self-control–delinquency relationship. Results: The results generally show that the identified functional form of the self-control–delinquency relationship seems to be at least partly dependent on aspects of the modeling of dose–response associated with GPS procedures. When nonparametric general additive models are used with the same data, the relationship between self-control and delinquency seems to be approximately linear. Conclusions: Identifying functional form relationships has importance for many criminological theories, but it is a task that requires that the balance of model assumptions to exploratory data analysis falls toward the latter. Nonparametric approaches to such questions may be a necessary first step in learning about the nature of mechanisms presumed to be at work in important explanations for crime and criminality.

Enhancing Consistency in Sentencing: Exploring the Effects of Guidelines in England and Wales
J. Pina-Sánchez, R. Linacre
Objectives: The development and application of methods to assess consistency in sentencing before and after the 2011 England and Wales assault guideline came into force. Methods: We use the Crown Court Sentencing Survey to compare the goodness of fit of two regression analyses of sentence length on a set of legal factors before and after the assault guideline came into force. We then monitor the dispersion of residuals from these regressions models across time. Finally, we compare the variance in sentence length of equivalent types of offences using exact matching. Results: We find that legal factors can explain a greater portion of variability in sentencing after the guideline was implemented. Furthermore, we detect that the unexplained variability in sentencing decreases steadily during 2011, while results from exact matching point to a statistically significant average reduction in the variance of sentence length amongst same types of offences. Conclusions: We demonstrate the relevance of two new methods that can be used to produce more robust assessments regarding the evolution of consistency in sentencing, even in situations when only observational non-hierarchical data is available. The application of these methods showed an improvement in consistency during 2011 in England and Wales, although this positive effect cannot be conclusively ascribed to the implementation of the new assault guideline.

Social Forces 93(2)

Social Forces, December 2014: Volume 93, Issue 2

Economic Inequality

Increasing Returns to Education, Changing Labor Force Structure, and the Rise of Earnings Inequality in Urban China, 1996–2010
Xiang Zhou

Self-Made Wealth or Family Wealth?: Changes in Intergenerational Wealth Mobility
Marianne Nordli Hansen

Sexuality

Casual Contraception in Casual Sex: Life-Cycle Change in Undergraduates’ Sexual Behavior in Hookups
Jonathan Marc Bearak

Sexual Subjectivity among Adolescent Girls: Social Disadvantage and Young Adult Outcomes
Simon Cheng, Laura Hamilton, Stacy Missari, Josef (Kuo-Hsun) Ma

Gender and Family

Single Mothers and Poverty in Japan: The Role of Intergenerational Coresidence
Sawako Shirahase, James M. Raymo

Gender Equality Perceptions, Division of Paid and Unpaid Work, and Partnership Dissolution in Sweden
Livia Sz. Oláh, Michael Gähler

Gender and Labor Markets

Globally Themed Organizations as Labor Market Intermediaries: The Rise of Israeli-Palestinian Women’s Employment in Retail
Erez Aharon Marantz, Alexandra Kalev, Noah Lewin-Epstein

Are Asian American Women Advantaged?: Labor Market Performance of College Educated Female Workers
ChangHwan Kim, Yang Zhao

Education

The Scarring Effects of Primary-Grade Retention?: A Study of Cumulative Advantage in the Educational Career
Megan Andrew

Maternal Education and the Unequal Significance of Family Structure for Children’s Early Achievement
Jennifer March Augustine

Birth Cohort Changes in the Association Between College Education and Religious Non-Affiliation
Philip Schwadel

Testing the Oppositional Culture Explanation in Desegregated Schools: The Impact of Racial Differences in Academic Orientations on School Performance
John B. Diamond, James P. Huguley

Political Sociology

The Asymmetry of Legitimacy: Analyzing the Legitimation of Violence in 30 Cases of Insurgent Revolution
Eric W. Schoon

Social Networks

The Power of Integration: Affiliation and Cohesion in a Diverse Elite Network
Benjamin Cornwell, Fedor A. Dokshin

Volunteering

Volunteering over the Life Course
Bram Lancee, Jonas Radl

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Journal of Criminal Justice 42(6)

Journal of Criminal Justice, November 2014: Volume 42, Issue 6

Antisocial Traits Murdered the Code of the Street in a Battle for Respect 
Matt DeLisi

Implementing Intelligence-Led Policing: An Application of Loose-Coupling Theory
Jeremy G. Carter, Scott W. Phillips, S. Marlon Gayadeen
Purpose: This research is intended to inform a knowledge gap in the literature and present the first national findings related to intelligence-led policing adoption among state and local agencies. Specific practices are identified to inform scholars and practitioners regarding intelligence-led policing behaviors. Methods: Original survey research from a federally-funded project is gleaned to explore intelligence-led policing adoption through a loose-coupling theoretical perspective. Negative binomial and logistic regression models are employed to identify predictive relationships. Results: Agencies nationwide appear to be closely following the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan recommendations to enhance information sharing. Consistent with the Department of Homeland Security’s Target Capabilities List is also observed. Agency size appears to have a significant effect on key organizational information sharing behaviors. The findings are tempered due to limitations in the research design. Conclusions: Local agencies appear to be tightly-coupled with the recommendations put forth in the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan in their efforts to adopt intelligence-led policing. Agency size appears to enhance adoption across most dependent metrics. This research progresses the limited evidence base and progress regarding this emerging policing philosophy.

The influence of strain on law enforcement legitimacy evaluations
Frank V. Ferdik
Purpose: While law enforcement officers have the state-sanctioned authority to use force as a way to ensure citizen obedience with the law, research has found that when private citizens evaluate the police as legitimate, they are more likely to comply with legal demands and cooperate with the police. Although procedural justice has shown to be a highly significant predictor of perceived police legitimacy, research has found other correlates of this outcome, including ethnic identity, low self-control and structural economic disadvantage. To date, no study has explored whether strain influences perceptions of the legitimacy of law enforcement. Methods: A series of linear regression equations was estimated using survey data collected from a convenience sample of college students to determine the effect of strain on perceived police legitimacy. Results: Even after controlling for procedural justice, strain exerted a negative and statistically significant influence on law enforcement legitimacy evaluations. Conclusions: Police officers are encouraged to interact with citizens in procedurally just manners and to also consider people's strain levels when enforcing the law.

A biosocial analysis of the sources of missing data in criminological research
Joseph A. Schwartz, Kevin M. Beaver
Purpose: Failing to deal with missing data patterns effectively may result in biased parameter estimates and ultimately may produce inaccurate results and conclusions. The vast majority of criminological research has addressed this issue with listwise deletion (LD) and multiple imputation (MI) techniques. Identifying the specific covariates that directly contribute to patterns of missingness is highly important in deciding which technique to use. One of the more surprising omissions from the identified list of covariates is the potential role of genetic influences in the development of missingness. Methods: The current study addresses this gap in the literature by estimating genetic (A), shared environmental (C), and the nonshared environmental (E) influences on missingness across measures of delinquency and self-control within a longitudinal sample of twin and sibling pairs. Results: The results indicated that genetic influences explain a significant portion of the variance in missing values related to both delinquency and self-control. Conclusions: Current methodological techniques aimed at addressing missing data should be amended to take genetic influences into account. Such modifications and the implications of the findings for future research are discussed.

Causes and correlates of prison inmate misconduct: A systematic review of the evidence
Benjamin Steiner, H. Daniel Butler, Jared M. Ellison
Purpose: Inmate rule violations or “misconducts” reflect offending within a prison, and this study involved a systematic review of studies of the causes/correlates of inmate misconduct published between 1980 and 2013. Methods: An exhaustive search of relevant high impact journals yielded 98 studies of causes/correlates of inmates misconduct published between 1980 and 2013. The final models from these studies were examined to assess the impact of the predictor variables on misconduct. Results: Findings revealed that predictor variables reflecting inmates’ background characteristics (e.g., age, prior record), their institutional routines and experiences (e.g., prior misconducts), and prison characteristics (e.g., security level) all impact misconduct. Conclusions: Researchers should apply general theories of crime and deviance (e.g., control) that can incorporate all of the empirically relevant inmate and prison characteristics to the study of offending in prison (misconduct). Researchers should also examine the sources of variability in the effects of predictor variables across studies.

On the consequences of ignoring genetic influences in criminological research
J.C. Barnes, Brian B. Boutwell, Kevin M. Beaver, Chris L. Gibson, John P. Wright
Purpose: Many criminological scholars explore the social causes of crime while giving little consideration to the possibility that genetic factors underlie the observed associations. Indeed, the standard social science method (SSSM) assumes genetic influences do not confound the association between X and Y. Yet, a nascent stream of evidence has questioned the validity of this approach by revealing many criminological variables are at least partially affected by genetic influences. As a result, a substantial proportion of the literature may be misspecified due to uncontrolled genetic factors. No effort has been made to directly estimate the extent to which genetic confounding has biased the associations presented in criminological studies. Methods: The present study seeks to address this issue by drawing on simulated datasets. Results: clusions Results: gest genetic confounding may account for a negligible portion of the relationship between X and Y when their correlation (ryx) is larger than the correlation between genetic factors and Y (i.e., ryx > ryg). Genetic confounding appears to be much more problematic when the correlation between X and Y is in the moderate-to-small range (e.g., ryx = .20) and the genetic effect is in the moderate-to-large range (e.g., ryg ≥ .30).

Criminal epidemiology and the immigrant paradox: Intergenerational discontinuity in violence and antisocial behavior among immigrants
Michael G. Vaughn, Christopher P. Salas-Wright, Brandy R. Maynard, Zhengmin Qian, Lauren Terzis, Abdi M. Kusow, Matt DeLisi
Purpose: A growing number of studies have examined the immigrant paradox with respect to antisocial behavior and crime in the United States. However, there remains a need for a comprehensive examination of the intergenerational nature of violence and antisocial behavior among immigrants using population-based samples. Methods: The present study, employing data from Wave I and II data of the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), sought to address these gaps by examining the prevalence of nonviolent criminal and violent antisocial behavior among first, second, and third-generation immigrants and compare these to the prevalence found among non-immigrants and each other in the United States. Results: There is clear evidence of an intergenerational severity-based gradient in the relationship between immigrant status and antisocial behavior and crime. The protective effect of nativity is far-and-away strongest among first-generation immigrants, attenuates substantially among second-generation immigrants, and essentially disappears among third-generation immigrants. These patterns were also stable across gender. Conclusion: The present study is among the first to examine the intergenerational nature of antisocial behavior and crime among immigrants using population-based samples. Results provide robust evidence that nativity as a protective factor for immigrants wanes with each successive generation.

The impact of neighborhood crime levels on police use of force: An examination at micro and meso levels
Hoon Lee, Michael S. Vaughn, Hyeyoung Lim
Purpose: Neighborhood contextual factors have gained a considerable amount of attention, relating neighborhood crime levels to police force. Prior research mainly examined the relationship either at the police district level or at the city level. The current study intends to investigate the relationship at lower levels of geographic aggregation. Methods: Using Geographic Information System techniques, the current study utilized four radial buffer zones around each use of force incident location to measure the impact of neighborhood violent criminal activities at the micro level on the level of police force used. In addition, hierarchical linear modeling using neighborhood crime rates within police command areas allowed for a comparison study to measure the impact of neighborhood criminal activities at the meso level on police force. Results: The current study found that neighborhood crime levels have a significant and positive effect of increasing the level of police force used at the micro level. Conclusions: The current study supports the work of Black and Smith, concluding that more training and supervision are required for officers working in high crime areas.

Correctional destabilization and jail violence: The consequences of prison depopulation legislation
Jonathan W. Caudill, Chad R. Trulson, James W. Marquart, Ryan Patten, Matthew O. Thomas, Sally Anderson
Purpose: This study explored the effects of prison depopulation on local jail violence through a general systems perspective – where an abrupt shift in the processing of offenders had the potential to create ripple effects through other organizations – of the criminal justice system. Methods: In 2011, California passed the Criminal Justice Realignment legislation aimed to reduce prison population by making low-level felony offenders ineligible for state incarceration and diverting those already in state prison for the included offenses from state to county-level community supervision once paroled. This study incorporated bivariate and negative binomial regression analyses to model officially-recorded county jail panel data to estimate the effects of state prison depopulation on California county jails. Results: Findings demonstrated support for the general systems framework as there was a significant decrease in jail utility in the bivariate analysis and a significant increase in jail violence in the multivariate analysis associated with passage of California’s prison depopulation legislation. Conclusions: The results supported the notion of an interconnected criminal justice system. Policy implications include the consequences of increased violence on jail operations, the potential for a cadre of habitual offenders, and generalizing these findings to the community.

Sex industry exposure over the life course on the onset and frequency of sex offending
Christina Mancini, Amy Reckdenwald, Eric Beauregard, Jill S. Levenson
Purpose: Research has examined pornography use on the extent of offending. However, virtually no work has tested whether other sex industry experiences affect sex crime. By extension, the cumulative effect of these exposures is unknown. Social learning theory predicts that exposure should amplify offending. Separately, the developmental perspective highlights that the timing of exposure matters. Methods: Drawing on retrospective longitudinal data, we first test whether exposure during adolescence is associated with a younger age of onset; we also examine whether adulthood exposure is linked with greater frequency of offending. Results: Findings indicate that most types of adolescent exposures as well as total exposures were related to an earlier age of onset. Exposure during adulthood was also associated with an overall increase in sex offending, but effects were dependent on “type.” Conclusion: There are nuances in the effect of sex industry exposure on offending patterns. Implications of results are discussed.

Do the adult criminal careers of African Americans fit the “facts”?
Elaine Eggleston Doherty, Margaret E. Ensminger
Purpose: A major gap in the criminal career research is our understanding of offending among African Americans, especially beyond early adulthood. In light of this gap, this study describes the criminal career patterns of a cohort of African American males and females. Methods: This paper uses official criminal history data spanning ages 17 to 52 from the Woodlawn Study, a community cohort of 1,242 urban African American males and females. We use basic descriptive statistics as well as group-based modeling to provide a detailed description of the various dimensions of their adult criminal careers. Results: We find cumulative prevalence rates similar to those for African Americans from national probability sample estimates, yet participation in offending extends farther into midlife than expected with a substantial proportion of the cohort still engaged in offending into their 30s. Conclusions: The descriptive analyses contribute to the larger body of knowledge regarding the relationship between age and crime and the unfolding of the criminal career for African American males and females. The applicability of existing life course and developmental theories is discussed in light of the findings.

Dissecting the relationship between mental illness and return to incarceration
James A. Wilson, Peter B. Wood
Purpose: We examine all releases to parole supervision in a single state over a period of four years to consider how a diagnosis of mental illness is associated with return to incarceration. Methods: We use survival methods and Cox regression to understand patterns of and influences on return to prison. Our measure of mental illness is based on in-prison clinical diagnoses. Data include a rich set of administrative variables with demographic, criminal history and institutional controls. Results: Our findings suggest that (1) there is a statistically significant relationship between having a DSM diagnosis and reincarceration, (2) substance-related disorders account for most of that relationship, and (3) there are some important variations among types of disorders examined. Conclusions: Research that examines mental illness and recidivism without controlling for substance use disorders/problems is likely to be uninformative and misleading. Findings provide qualified support for the notion that programming addressing criminogenic risks and needs may be as important, or more so, than therapeutic programming focusing on mental illness when recidivism reduction is the goal.

General strain theory, exposure to violence, and suicide ideation among police officers: A gendered approach
Stephen A. Bishopp, Denise Paquette Boots
Purpose: A wide body of research has demonstrated that police officers are profoundly affected by their exposure to violence and the traumatic events viewed commonly as part of their job duties. Faced with stress, officers learn to adapt by incorporating coping techniques. Methods: The current study utilizes Agnew's general strain theory to explain occurrences of the most dangerous maladaptive coping technique: suicide ideation. Male and female police officers from three large cities in Texas were surveyed (n = 1,410). Results: The present study utilizes logistic regression techniques, finding that strain has a positive and direct effect on male officers suicide ideation risk, but not for female police. Moreover, depression has a mediating effect on strain and suicide ideation for both genders. Conclusions: Some critical differences in suicide ideation outcomes between male and female police officers are reported. Policy implications concerning retention and recruiting are also discussed.

Cops and cameras: Officer perceptions of the use of body-worn cameras in law enforcement
Wesley G. Jennings, Lorie A. Fridell, Mathew D. Lynch
Purpose: There has been a recent surge in the adoption of and media attention to the use of body-worn cameras in law enforcement. Despite this increase in use and media attention, there is little to no research on officer perceptions of body-worn cameras. Methods: This study relies on baseline data of officer perceptions toward body-worn cameras collected from surveys administered to Orlando Police officers who are participants in a randomized experiment evaluating the impact of body-worn cameras (Taser AXON Flex) in law enforcement. Results: Results suggest that police officers are, by and large, open to and supportive of the use of body-worn cameras in policing, they would feel comfortable wearing them, and that they perceive a potential for benefits of body-worn cameras in improving citizen behavior, their own behavior, and the behavior of their fellow officers. Conclusions: Officers are generally supportive of body-worn cameras, and they hold perceptions that these devices can be beneficial in positively affecting relevant outcomes. Study limitations and implications are also discussed.

Assessing stereotypes of adolescent rape
Monica Williams, Bill McCarthy
Purpose: This study examined adolescent rape in light of two popular stereotypes of young rapists. The “deficit” view emphasizes various sexual, psychological, or social problems, whereas the “entitlement” perspective highlights instrumental motivation, confidence, and gender-based privileges. Methods: The study analyzed data on adolescent males from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We used rare events logistic regression analysis to test the associations between rape and sexual abuse, sexual activity, personality and social attributes, and control variables. Results: Findings indicated notable associations between adolescent rape and variables emphasized by both stereotypes: net of a range of controls, a history of sexual abuse and low sexual self-control were associated with rape, but rape was also positively associated with self-esteem. We found no significant relationships between adolescent rape and sexual precociousness, number of sexual partners, using sex as a coping mechanism, social isolation, impulsivity, or narcissism. Conclusions: These findings suggest that both the deficit and entitlement stereotypes hold some merit for understanding why some young men rape.

In the eye of the beholder? An examination of the inter-rater reliability of the LSI-R and YLS/CMI in a correctional agency
Michael Rocque, Judy Plummer-Beale
Purpose: To examine the inter-rater reliability of two risk assessment tools: The Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) and the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI). Methods: Two identical experiments are reported. For both studies, a random sample of 10 offenders were interviewed and videotaped with each tool (totaling 20 offenders). The tapes were then shown to a random selection of 20 raters (for a total of 40 raters) employed at a state agency. The fully-crossed design allowed each of the raters to rate the each of the cases, resulting in 200 total risk score observations for each tool. Inter-rater reliability analyses were then conducted. Results: The LSI-R demonstrated adequate to fair reliability, with certain domains showing lower reliability. Overall, the LSI-R had an ICC of .65. The YLS/CMI demonstrated higher reliability (ICC of .78). In addition, for the LSI-R study, comparisons were made between staff raters who work in a facility versus those in the community (e.g., probation officers). For the YLS/CMI study, comparisons were made between incarcerated offenders versus probationers. Neither comparison yielded consistent differences. Conclusions: The YLS/CMI is generally reliable. The LSI-R showed less reliability. However, each study showed certain domains with less than ideal reliability.

Revisiting broken windows theory: A test of the mediation impact of social mechanisms on the disorder–fear relationship
Jacinta M. Gau, Nicholas Corsaro, Rod K. Brunson
Purpose: Broken windows theory predicts that disorder signals a lack of neighborhood control, sparks fear of crime, and sets off a chain reaction ultimately resulting in crime. Support has been found for the disorder–fear link, but the present study argues that this link is actually intended to be indirect—perceived loss of control is what should cause fear. Methods: Hierarchical linear models and structural equation models test four hypotheses regarding whether social cohesion and expectations for social control mediate the disorder–fear relationship. Results: Results support partial mediation. Conclusion: Results suggest confirmation of a portion of broken windows theory, in that disorder may inspire fear partially as a result of its detrimental impact on neighborhood cohesion and shared expectations for social control.

The Effects of Suspect Characteristics on Arrest: A Meta-Analysis
Daniel J. Lytle
Purpose: Synthesis research on the correlates of arrest has had a long history of analysis in police decision making research. Yet, much of this line of synthesis research has found mixed results and has been unable to definitively state whether relationships exist between suspect demographic characteristics, race, gender, age, and ethnicity, and arrest. This research attempts to clear this confusion created by previous synthesis attempts particularly. Methods: Meta-analysis was used to generate weighted mean effect sizes of the effect of race, gender, age, and ethnicity on arrest. Effect sizes were weighted using the inverse variance method and random effects modeling was also used. Moderator analyses were also performed. Results: Black individuals, males, and Hispanic individuals were significantly more likely to be arrested than white individuals, females, and non-Hispanic individuals. These effects persisted across the majority of moderator categories. Age was not a significant predictor of arrest. Conclusions: The results here bring some degree of order to a large amount of arrest decision making literature. The findings confirm the results of a previous meta-analysis on race and arrest and also expand upon that research. These results expand “what we know” about the effect of race on arrest.

Crime & Delinquency 60(8)

Crime & Delinquency, December 2014: Volume 60, Issue 8

Restorativeness, Procedural Justice, and Defiance as Predictors of Reoffending of Participants in Family Group Conferences
Natalie Kroovand Hipple, Jeff Gruenewald, and Edmund F. McGarrell
Prior research has suggested that family group conferences (FGCs), a particular form of restorative justice, hold promise in reducing reoffending among youths, at least for some types of offenses. Most prior research, however, has simply assessed whether participation in a FGC resulted in reduced rates of reoffending compared with control or comparison groups in court or diversion programs. These prior recidivism studies have largely left unaddressed the characteristics of the FGCs that may produce differences in reoffending. The exceptions are two studies, from New Zealand and Australia, respectively, that relied on variation analyses to assess whether differences in the FGC processes affected future offending. This research builds on these two studies and tests as to whether FGC characteristics derived from reintegrative shaming, procedural justice, and defiance theory account for variations in reoffending. The data have been obtained from a sample of youths (N = 215) who participated in a FGC as part of the Indianapolis Juvenile Restorative Justice Experiment (IJRJE). The findings suggest that the more the FGC appeared to follow principles of restorativeness and procedural fairness and avoided defiance, the less reoffending occurred. Specifically, offense type and conference restorativeness influenced the probability of recidivism at 6 months, whereas offense type and race influenced the probability of recidivism at 24 months.

Toward a Comprehensive Model on Stalking Acknowledgment: A Test of Four Models
Fawn T. Ngo
Using a sample of national stalking victims, this study draws from four general models applied in previous works on sexual harassment acknowledgment to propose a comprehensive model of stalking acknowledgment. The results indicate that the type of stalking behaviors, personal characteristics of victims, negative emotions experienced by victims, and changes in perceptions due to the intrusive behaviors are significant correlates of stalking acknowledgment. Implications of findings relating to the qualification of legal definitions of stalking and stalking reportage are also discussed.

Things Change: An Intergenerational Examination of the Correlates of Police Contact
Wendi Pollock
From demographics, to technology, to attitudes, the U.S. population has changes since the 1970s. Over the past 40 years, policing has also changed to include more individuals who are female and non-White. Despite all of the changes, no study has yet been conducted to determine whether predictors of police contact, including factors such as race and gender, are consistent over time. The current study used multilevel Bernoulli models and logistic regression to examine two generations of respondents from the National Youth Survey Family Study. Results indicate some consistency in predictors of police contact between the two generations, with two notable exceptions: gender and socioeconomic status. Implications for police policy and practice are discussed.

Criminality and Family Formation: Effects of Marriage and Parenthood on Criminal Behavior for Men and Women
Mioara Zoutewelle-Terovan, Victor van der Geest, Aart Liefbroer, and Catrien Bijleveld
In this article, the authors study the effects of family formation on criminal careers for 540 high-risk men and women in the Netherlands. In a prospective design, spanning 21 years, the authors analyzed complete data on offending, marriage, parenthood, and a large set of background information. Random effects were used to model the relation between family-life events and offending, controlling for possible confounders. Findings for men support the hypothesis that marriage promotes desistance from serious offending. Males additionally benefit from parenthood, and from having a first child in particular. Furthermore, although parenthood reduces offending more strongly than marriage, the “full family package” brings the most benefit. Female offending patterns were not significantly influenced by marital status or motherhood.

Probation Supervision and the Control of Crime Opportunities: An Empirical Assessment
Joel Miller
Mainstream accounts of community corrections supervision emphasize rehabilitation on the one hand, and surveillance and control on the other.This article, however, examines whether probation supervision is used to reduce the exposure of offenders to crime opportunities. Using data from a national community corrections survey, it finds that opportunity-focused supervision (OFS) practices are, to varying degrees, common. Most OFS activities coalesce around a distinct strategy that involves harnessing efforts of potential handlers, place managers, and capable guardians to help steer offenders away from crime opportunities, deployed somewhat independently of conventional supervision strategies. Predictors of the OFS strategy are different from other supervision approaches, and include low caseloads, juvenile supervision, and working in an office serving a rural area.

The Effect of Sanctions on Police Misconduct
Christopher J. Harris and Robert E. Worden
Police disciplinary systems are predicated on the notion of deterrence, particularly that officers more severely sanctioned for misconduct will be less likely to repeat those behaviors compared with less severely or unsanctioned officers. Using retrospective, longitudinal data from a large police department in the northeastern United States, we explore whether this fundamental assumption of police disciplinary systems is supported. Specifically, we examine both the likelihood and timing of complaints filed against officers who had obtained at least one complaint in their career that was sustained (i.e., upheld in an investigation), and compare outcomes of sanction severity on future sustained complaints. The results demonstrate that while a few demographic and complaint characteristics significantly affect the likelihood and timing of future misconduct in expected ways, officers who received more severe sanctions were actually more likely to obtain an additional sustained complaint when compared with nonsanctioned officers. Why this is the case is unclear from the data, but the most plausible explanation is that the perceived injustice of the disciplinary system may actually promote officer deviance.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Theoretical Criminology 18(4)

Theoretical Criminology, November 2014: Volume 18, Issue 4

Special Section: In Intellectual Honor Of Jock Young

Introduction: In intellectual and emotional honor of Jock Young
Lynn S Chancer

Criminology and responsibility: Enduring themes in the work of Jock Young
Elliott Currie

See also Young, 1971: Marshall McLuhan, moral panics and moral indignation
Eugene McLaughlin

New deviancy, Marxism and the politics of left realism: Reflections on Jock Young’s early writings
John Lea

Jock Young and social bulimia: Crime and the contradictions of capitalism
David C Brotherton and Laura Naegler

Troubling the psychosocial: Jock Young’s late modern subjectivity from Sartre to Marcuse
Sara Salman

Doing quantitative work differently: Jock Young’s criminological imagination
Kevin Moran

Articles

The moral economy of security
Ian Loader, Benjamin Goold, and Angélica Thumala
In this article we draw upon our recent research into security consumption to answer two questions: first, under what conditions do people experience the buying and selling of security goods and services as morally troubling? Second, what are the theoretical implications of understanding private security as, in certain respects, tainted trade? We begin by drawing on two bodies of work on morality and markets (one found in political theory, the other in cultural sociology) in order to develop what we call a moral economy of security. We then use this theoretical resource to conduct an anatomy of the modes of ambivalence and unease that the trade in security generates. Three categories organize the analysis: blocked exchange; corrosive exchange; and intangible exchange. In conclusion, we briefly spell out the wider significance of our claim that the buying and selling of security is a morally charged and contested practice of governance.

There is an alternative: Challenging the logic of neoliberal penality
Emma Bell
This article seeks to sketch out alternatives to neoliberal penality by seeking to undermine the four institutional logics of neoliberalism as identified by Loïc Wacquant (2009). It begins by critically analysing the potential value of public criminology as an exit strategy, suggesting that whilst this approach has much value, popular versions of it are in fact rather limited on account of their exclusion of offenders themselves from the debate and their optimism about the capacity of existing institutions to challenge the current punitive consensus. It suggests that a genuinely ‘public’ criminology should be informed by an abolitionist stance to both current penal policies and the neoliberal system as a whole. This may be the best means of truly democratizing penal politics.

The walking dead and killing state: Zombification and the normalization of police violence
Travis Linnemann, Tyler Wall, and Edward Green
In May 2012, police shot Rudy Eugene, a black man of Haitian decent, dead as he ‘ate the face’ of a homeless man on a deserted Miami causeway. Because of the strange gruesomeness of the attack and other similar violent acts, some in the media declared that a terrifying pandemic—the ‘zombie apocalypse’—had arrived. While this particular case may be yet another instance of mediated panic, we suggest cries of ‘zombies’ and ‘cannibals’ should not be dismissed as simply sensationalistic, irresponsible journalism. Rather, we see this case as a powerful example of the cultural production of a spectral sort of monstrosity that obscures and justifies police violence and state killing. As such, we argue that all of the contemporary ‘zombie talk’, usefully reveals how the logics of security, state violence and punitive disposability are imagined and reproduced as livable parts of late-capitalism.

Repositioning sovereignty? Sovereign encounters with organized crime and money laundering in the realm of accountants
Magnus Hörnqvist
This article repositions sovereignty on the basis of a study of recent regulatory approaches to organized crime and money laundering. The spread of techniques across administrative domains is traced through organizational documents and interviews with practitioners, and related to an observed trend toward integration between policing research and regulation research. The same trend, however, assigns sovereignty to the periphery. A richer notion of sovereignty is recovered through a reading of the classical theorists, and used to tease out the articulation of sovereignty in current state strategies. Theorizing ‘sovereignty at the center’ as opposed to ‘sovereignty at the periphery’ challenges basic assumptions about the relationship between the state and economic activity, and in particular about the utility-oriented character of state violence.

Studying the community corrections field: Applying neo-institutional theories to a hidden element of mass social control
Matthew DeMichele
The growth in US incarcerated populations has produced unintended negative consequences for other justice system agencies. The community corrections field is faced with two related problems stemming from prison growth: (1) significant growth in populations under supervision and (2) populations with higher needs for service. I apply a theoretical framework adapted from organizational sociological research to address change and stasis as isomorphic processes. Criminologists rarely situate the community corrections field within broader theoretical perspectives. Instead, correctional researchers have studied the emergence, adjustment, and use of prisons in modern society, with community supervision considered a part of institutional corrections. I argue that contemporary explanations for correction policies need to be refined to account for specific trends within the community corrections field.

Law & Society Review 48(4)

Law & Society Review, December 2014: Volume 48, Issue 4

The Humdrum of Legality and the Ordering of an Ethic of Care
Prashan Ranasinghe
This paper provides an ethnographic analysis of the ways that employees of an emergency shelter create and maintain order. The paper applies the framework of legal consciousness to explicate the practices of the employees that amount to “private ordering.” The employees administer the rules of the shelter in the context of an “ethic of care,” but one that is outside the purview of formal law. This ethic, however, is polysemic, and the employees, therefore, must adopt diverse styles based on their understandings of their professional roles regarding the needs of the clients. The practices of two employees are highlighted in detail, whose strategies in applying and maintaining adherence to shelter rules are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Both make decisions in a somewhat spontaneous and, more importantly, inconsistent, fashion. Despite the complications that arise from applying the rules as such, the employees tolerate, even laud and celebrate, these methods. While this system of private ordering has little resemblance to the ordered, consistent, and rigid application of formal law, it allows the employees to administer diverse strategies of ethics of care and shape practices to fit their professional roles and the complex exigencies of an emergency shelter. The paper locates the extant private ordering not in the law, nor in its shadow—assumed to be preconditions—but outside or beyond them. Given that this ordering is founded against the law—it is not law, nor law-like and has no desire to so be—the paper suggests that it can be thought of as private ordering proper and lays the framework for theorization that accounts for its instrumental and symbolic dimensions.

Trapped in Resistance: Collective Struggle through Welfare Fraud in Israel
Shiri Regev-Messalem
This paper offers a qualitative empirical examination of the noncompliance of Israeli female welfare recipients with welfare laws and authorities. The paper demonstrates that their behavior, defined as “welfare fraud” by the law, is a limited form of collective resistance to the Israeli welfare state. Although the acts of welfare fraud that the women in my study engaged in entail a political claim against the state, the relationship between these acts and notions of collectivity is very constricted in form. The women's collectivity is shown to be constrained by the welfare authorities' invasive and pervasive investigation practices and methods. Due to fear of disclosure to the authorities, the women emerged as deliberately isolating themselves from their immediate environment and potential members of their like-situated collective. This weakens the connection between the women's acts of resistance and their collectivity, and prevents their acts of resistance from driving social change, trapping them in their harsh conditions and existence.

The Loss of Property Rights and the Construction of Legal Consciousness in Early Socialist Romania (1950–1965)
Mihaela Şerban
What happens to legal and rights consciousness when rights previously protected are taken away? In this article, I investigate the process of contesting urban housing nationalization in Romania in the early 1950s in order to understand how the loss of property rights led to new hybrid types of legal consciousness. I find that the construction of socialist legal consciousness was grounded in the interaction between the legally constituted selves of former owners and state bureaucrats who drew from distinct legal and property rights ideologies. This process underscores continuities in legal consciousness even under drastic regime changes, which in turn has implications for the construction of new hegemonic legalities and power regimes. The article is based on extensive document and archival research.

Justice, Context, and Violence: Law Enforcement Officers on Why They Torture
Rachel Wahl
How do police explain their support for torture? Findings from 12 months of fieldwork with police in India complicate previous researchers’ claims that violence workers tend to morally disengage and blame circumstances for their actions. The officers in this study engage in moral reflection on torture, drawing on their beliefs about human nature and justice to explain their support for it. They admit that they use torture more widely than their own conceptions of justice allow, but see this as an imperfect implementation of their principles rather than as a violation of them. Previous research on the spread of human rights norms has focused on how these norms can be adapted to the local beliefs that support them, rather than on understanding the beliefs that conflict with human rights. I argue that illuminating the self-understanding of state actors who support or engage in torture is crucial to building theory on why such violence occurs, as well as to designing interventions to prevent it.

Losing, but Accepting: Legitimacy, Positivity Theory, and the Symbols of Judicial Authority
James L. Gibson, Milton Lodge and Benjamin Woodson
How is it that the U.S. Supreme Court is capable of getting most citizens to accept rulings with which they disagree? This analysis addresses the role of the symbols of judicial authority and legitimacy—the robe, the gavel, the cathedral-like court building—in contributing to this willingness of ordinary people to acquiesce to disagreeable court decisions. Using an experimental design and a nationally representative sample, we show that exposure to judicial symbols (1) strengthens the link between institutional support and acquiescence among those with relatively low prior awareness of the Supreme Court, (2) has differing effects depending upon levels of preexisting institutional support, and (3) severs the link between disappointment with a disagreeable Court decision and willingness to challenge the ruling. Since symbols influence citizens in ways that reinforce the legitimacy of courts, the connection between institutional attitudes and acquiescence posited by Legitimacy Theory is both supported and explained.

Enforcing Desegregation: A Case Study of Federal District Court Power and Social Change in Macon County Alabama
Brian K. Landsberg
This case study of Lee v. Macon County Board of Education demonstrates that a federal district court in Alabama, enforcing Brown v. Board of Education, brought about significant social change despite constraints on the courts. The court's application of Brown played a decisive role in ending the racial caste system in this Alabama Black Belt county. The court, by adding the U.S. Department of Justice as a party, overcame constraints that had precluded the executive branch from pursuing school desegregation. Change came through the courts before Congress legislated against school segregation. Seekers of social change must evaluate the constraints on the courts relative to the constraints on the other branches and levels of government.

Scientizing Food Safety: Resistance, Acquiescence, and Localization in India
Jessica Epstein
Since the mid-1990s, formal scientific risk management has been codified at all levels of food safety governance in affluent states: firm-level standards, national regulation, and international law. Developing countries' access to affluent importers and power in international standard-setting fora now hinges on their scientific capacity. This article explores the consequences of these developments in India, which moved quickly from resistance to acquiescence, and then later to mobilization around narratives of scientific risk management's local benefits. The case suggests a two-stage model of scientization among developing countries: (1) coercive and competitive mechanisms drive adoption of science-based governance models, and (2) as local actors mobilize to meet foreign demands, they attach their own interests and agendas to science-based reforms. The outcome is a set of rational myths about the benefits of scientization. The article draws on content analysis of organizational, policy, and news documents and a small set of interviews with highly placed pubic officials and industry representatives.

The Influence of Congressional Preferences on Legislative Overrides of Supreme Court Decisions
Alicia Uribe, James F. Spriggs II and Thomas G. Hansford
Studies of Court–Congress relations assume that Congress overrides Court decisions based on legislative preferences, but no empirical evidence supports this claim. Our first goal is to show that Congress is more likely to pass override legislation the further ideologically removed a decision is from pivotal legislative actors. Second, we seek to determine whether Congress rationally anticipates Court rejection of override legislation, avoiding legislation when the current Court is likely to strike it down. Third, most studies argue that Congress only overrides statutory decisions. We contend that Congress has an incentive to override all Court decisions with which it disagrees, regardless of their legal basis. Using data on congressional overrides of Supreme Court decisions between 1946 and 1990, we show that Congress overrides Court decisions with which it ideologically disagrees, is not less likely to override when it anticipates that the Court will reject override legislation, and acts on preferences regardless of the legal basis of a decision. We therefore empirically substantiate a core part of separation-of-powers models of Court–Congress relations, as well as speak to the relative power of Congress and the Court on the ultimate content of policy.

Public Perceptions of the Legitimacy of the Law and Legal Authorities: Evidence from the Caribbean
Devon Johnson, Edward R. Maguire and Joseph B. Kuhns
Research on procedural justice and legitimacy has expanded greatly across the social sciences in recent years. The process-based model of regulation, which links people's assessments of procedural justice and legitimacy to their compliance with the law and legal authorities, has become particularly influential in criminology and sociolegal studies. A review of the previous research on perceived legitimacy highlights two important features. First, legitimacy has been conceptualized and measured in many different ways. Second, most of the research on legitimacy has focused on only a handful of developed nations. Using survey data from Trinidad and Tobago, this article examines the conceptualization and measurement of the perceived legitimacy of the law and legal authorities. The findings indicate that some of the prominent conceptual and measurement models used in previous research are not empirically valid in the Trinidadian context. The implications of the results for conceptualization, theory, and future research are discussed.