Criminology & Public Policy 14(3)

Criminology & Public Policy, August 2015: Volume 14, Issue 3

PATHWAYS TO PRISON

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Toward a Criminology of Prison Downsizing
Todd R. Clear

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pathways to Prison in New York State
Sarah Tahamont, Shi Yan, Shawn D. Bushway and Jing Liu

Research Summary: In this study, we use a novel application of group-based trajectory modeling to estimate pathways to prison for a sample of 13,769 first-time prison inmates in New York State. We found that 12% of the sample was heavily involved in the criminal justice system for 10 years prior to their first imprisonment. We also found that less than one quarter of the sample had little contact with the criminal justice system prior to the arrest that resulted in imprisonment.

Policy Implications: Slightly less than one quarter of first-time inmates are not known to the criminal justice system prior to the commitment arrest. For these inmates, crime-prevention interventions that identify participants through criminal justice processes will not be effective. However, the arrest rates for a substantial portion of the sample over the 10-year period before imprisonment suggest a staggering number of opportunities for intervention as these individuals churn through the system.

POLICY ESSAY
Altering Trajectories Through Community-Based Justice Reinvestment
Carlos E. Monteiro and Natasha A. Frost

FOCUSED DETERRENCE IN NEW ORLEANS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Focused Deterrence and the Promise of Fair and Effective Policing
Anthony A. Braga

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Most Challenging of Contexts
Nicholas Corsaro and Robin S. Engel

Research Summary: The use of focused deterrence to reduce lethal violence driven by gangs and groups of chronic offenders has continued to expand since the initial Boston Ceasefire intervention in the 1990s, where prior evaluations have shown relatively consistent promise in terms of violence reduction. This study focuses on the capacity of focused deterrence to impact lethal violence in a chronic and high-trajectory homicide setting: New Orleans, Louisiana. Using a two-phase analytical design, our evaluation of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) observed the following findings: (a) GVRS team members in the City of New Orleans closely followed model implementation; (b) homicides in New Orleans experienced a statistically significant reduction above and beyond changes observed in comparable lethally violent cities; (c) the greatest changes in targeted outcomes were observed in gang homicides, young Black male homicides, and firearms violence; and (d) the decline in targeted violence corresponded with the implementation of the pulling levers notification meetings. Moreover, the observed reduction in crime outcomes was not empirically associated with a complementary violence-reduction strategy that was simultaneously implemented in a small geographic area within the city.

Policy Implications: The findings presented in this article demonstrate that focused deterrence holds considerable promise as a violence prevention approach in urban contexts with persistent histories of lethal violence, heightened disadvantage, and undermined police (and institutional) legitimacy. The development of a multiagency task force, combined with unwavering political support from the highest levels of government within the city, were likely linked to high programmatic fidelity. Organizationally, the development of a program manager and intelligence analyst, along with the use of detailed problem analyses and the integration of research, assisted the New Orleans working group in identifying the highest risk groups of violent offenders to target for the GVRS notification sessions. The impacts on targeted violence were robust and consistent with the timing of the intervention.

POLICY ESSAYS

Focused Deterrence and Improved Police–Community Relations
Rod K. Brunson

Something That Works in Violent Crime Control
Kenneth C. Land

CHICAGO'S GROUP VIOLENCE REDUCTION STRATEGY
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
To Shoot or Not to Shoot; Gang Decisions, Decisions
James C. Howell

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Changing the Street Dynamic
Andrew V. Papachristos and David S. Kirk

Research Summary: This study uses a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the efficacy of Chicago's Group Violence Reduction Strategy (VRS), a gun violence reduction program that delivers a focused-deterrence and legitimacy-based message to gang factions through a series of hour-long “call-ins.” The results suggest that those gang factions who attend a VRS call-in experience a 23% reduction in overall shooting behavior and a 32% reduction in gunshot victimization in the year after treatment compared with similar factions.

Policy Implications: Gun violence in U.S. cities often is concentrated in small geographic areas and in small networks of group or gang-involved individuals. The results of this study suggest that focused intervention efforts such as VRS can produce significant reductions in gun violence, but especially gunshot victimization, among gangs. Focused programs such as these offer an important alternative to broad-sweeping practices or policies that might otherwise expand the use of the criminal justice system.

POLICY ESSAYS

With Great Methods Come Great Responsibilities
Jason Gravel and George E. Tita

Considering Focused Deterrence in the Age of Ferguson, Baltimore, North Charleston, and Beyond
Elizabeth Griffiths and Johnna Christian

Criminology & Public Policy 14(2)

Criminology & Public Policy, May 2015: Volume 14, Issue 2

DISADVANTAGE AND SENTENCING OF BLACK DEFENDANTS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Examining the “Life Course” of Criminal Cases
Brian D. Johnson

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Is the Impact of Cumulative Disadvantage on Sentencing Greater for Black Defendants?
John Wooldredge, James Frank, Natalie Goulette and Lawrence Travis III

Research Summary: We examined race-group differences in the effects of how felony defendants are treated at earlier decision points in case processing on case outcomes. Multilevel analyses of 3,459 defendants nested within 123 prosecutors and 34 judges in a large, northern U.S. jurisdiction revealed significant main and interaction effects of a defendant's race on bond amounts, pretrial detention, and nonsuspended prison sentences, but no significant effects on charge reductions and prison sentence length. Evidence of greater “cumulative disadvantages” for Black defendants in general and young Black men in particular was revealed by significant indirect race effects on the odds of pretrial detention via type of attorney, prior imprisonment, and bond amounts, as well as by indirect race effects on prison sentences via pretrial detention and prior imprisonment.
Policy Implications: The consideration of cumulative disadvantage is important for a more complete understanding of the overincarceration of Blacks in the United States. Toward the end of reducing racial disparities in the distribution of prison sentences, courts might (a) reduce reliance on money bail, (b) consider bail amounts for indigent defendants more carefully, and (c) increase the structure of pretrial decision making to reduce the stronger effects of imprisonment history and type of attorney on the odds of pretrial detention for Black suspects.

POLICY ESSAYS

Evolution of Sentencing Research
Cassia Spohn

Attenuating Disparities Through Four Areas of Change
Traci Schlesinger

POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Police Encounters with People with Mental Illness
Robin S. Engel

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Is Dangerousness a Myth? Injuries and Police Encounters with People with Mental Illnesses
Melissa Schaefer Morabito and Kelly M. Socia

Research Summary: This study examined all “use-of-force” reports collected by the Portland Police Bureau in Portland, Oregon, between 2008 and 2011, to determine whether their encounters with people with mental illnesses are more likely to result in injury to officers or subjects when force is used. Although several factors significantly predicted the likelihood of injury to either subjects or officers, mental illness was not one of them.
Policy Implications: Police consider interactions with people with mental illnesses to be extremely dangerous (Margarita, 1980). Our results question the accuracy of this belief. As such, this “dangerousness” assertion may result in unnecessary stigmatization that may prevent people with mental illnesses from accessing needed services (cf. Corrigan et al., 2005) as witnesses or victims of crime. Policies that reduce stigma may help increase police effectiveness. Furthermore, efforts should be made to increase the availability and accuracy of data on this issue.

POLICY ESSAYS

Police Use of Force and the Suspect with Mental Illness
Geoffrey P. Alpert

Building on the Evidence
Allison G. Robertson

OUTCOME EVALUATION PROGRAM FOR FEMALE OFFENDERS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Implementation and Outcomes in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Among Female Prisoners
Gary Zajac

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Importance of Program Integrity
Grant Duwe and Valerie Clark

Research Summary: We used a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of Moving On, a gender-responsive, cognitive-behavioral program designed for female offenders. Between 2001 and 2013, there were two distinct periods in which Moving On was administered with, and without, fidelity among female Minnesota prisoners. To determine whether program integrity matters, we examined the performance of Moving On across these two periods. By using multiple comparison groups, we found that Moving On significantly reduced two of the four measures of recidivism when it was implemented with fidelity. The program did not have a significant impact on any of the four recidivism measures, however, when it operated without fidelity.
Policy Implication: The growth of the “what works” literature and the emphasis on evidence-based practices have helped foster the notion that correctional systems can improve public safety by reducing recidivism. Given that Moving On's success hinged on whether it was delivered with integrity, our results show that correctional practitioners can take an effective intervention and make it ineffective. Providing offenders with evidence-based interventions that lack therapeutic integrity not only promotes a false sense of effectiveness, but also it squanders the limited supply of programming resources available to correctional agencies. The findings suggest that ensuring program integrity is critical to the efficient use of successful interventions that deliver on the promise of reduced recidivism.

POLICY ESSAYS

Program Integrity and the Principles of Gender-Responsive Interventions
Emily J. Salisbury

Rethinking Program Fidelity for Criminal Justice
J. Mitchell Miller and Holly Ventura Miller

FORGOTTEN PRISONERS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Changing the Knowledge Base and Public Perception of Long-Term Prisoners
Marc Mauer

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Imperative for Inclusion of Long Termers and Lifers in Research and Policy
Lila Kazemian and Jeremy Travis

Research Summary: Although numerous studies have highlighted the negative consequences of mass incarceration, life-course and criminal career research has largely failed to document psychological, social, and behavioral changes that occur during periods of incarceration. This oversight is particularly noteworthy in the case of individuals serving long sentences, as they spend a significant portion of the life course behind bars. The policies and programs targeting prisoners are seldom tailored to long termers and lifers, and we know little about effective interventions, or even how to measure effectiveness, for this population. By drawing on the relevant empirical research, this article underlines the importance of reorienting some research efforts and policy priorities toward individuals serving life or otherwise long prison sentences.
Policy Implications: During the last 20 years, the prevalence of life sentences has increased substantially in the United States. We argue that there are various benefits to developing policies that consider the challenges and issues affecting long termers and lifers. In addition to the ethical and human rights concerns associated with the treatment of this population, there are several pragmatic justifications for this argument. Long termers and lifers spend a substantial number of years in prison, but most are eventually released. These individuals can play a key role in shaping the prison community and potentially could contribute to the development of a healthier prison climate. Investment in the well-being of individuals serving long sentences may also have diffused benefits that can extend to their families and communities. It would be advantageous for correctional authorities and policy makers to consider the potentially pivotal role of long termers and lifers in efforts to mitigate the negative consequences of incarceration.

POLICY ESSAYS

Reducing Severe Sentences
Jessica S. Henry

Effects of Life Imprisonment and the Crisis of Prisoner Health
Benjamin Fleury-Steiner

TERRORISM TARGET SUITABILITY

SPECIAL ESSAY
Target Suitability and Terrorism Events at Places
Nancy A. Morris

Criminology & Public Policy 14(1)

Criminology & Public Policy, February 2015: Volume 14, Issue 1

DISPOSITION MATRIX FOR COURT RECOMENDATIONS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Disposition Matrix Effectiveness
Kelly Dedel

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessing the Implications of a Structured Decision-Making Tool for Recidivism in a Statewide Analysis
Michael T. Baglivio, Mark A. Greenwald and Mark Russell

Research Summary: The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has implemented a disposition matrix to guide recommendations made by juvenile probation officers to the court. This study examines whether recidivism rates for dispositions/placements made within the suggested range of this matrix differ from those outside of the suggested range. Using a sample of 38,117 juvenile offenders, we found that the dispositions/placements within the suggested range had an average recidivism rate of 19.4%, whereas those whose dispositions were outside the range had an average recidivism rate twice as high (38.7%). Furthermore, dispositions/placements that were the least restrictive option within the suggested range performed best. Dispositions above the suggested range (more restrictive) performed poorly, although those below the suggested range (less restrictive than suggested) performed the worst. These results held for males and females, across race/ethnicity, and across risk to reoffend levels. 

Policy Implications: Implementation of structured decision-making tools leads to questions from stakeholders and front-line staff charged with using those tools regarding their effectiveness. Research and theory-based justifications do not hold the weight actual data from the implementation population provide. These tools help control costs, facilitate planning, and can improve outcomes. Monthly monitoring of adherence rates, development of override and management oversight protocols, and regular feedback to front-line staff are critical components of success.

POLICY ESSAYS

Using a Decision Matrix to Guide Juvenile Dispositions
Gina M. Vincent and Brian Lovins

Structured Dispositional Matrix for Court Recommendations Made by Juvenile Probation Officers
Felicia Cotton and Jennifer Owen

CRIMINOGENIC NEEDS AND CORRECTIONAL PROGRAMMING

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Taking Risk Assessment to the Next Step
Edward J. Latessa

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Risk Tells Us Who, But Not What or How
Faye S. Taxman and Michael S. Caudy

Research Summary: The current study used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify profiles of criminogenic needs in a sample of 17,252 community-supervised individuals from one state's probation system. The purpose of this research was to illustrate the complexity of offender need profiles to inform the development and implementation of correctional interventions. The LCA analyses revealed four classes of dynamic needs. Conditional item probabilities were examined to label the four classes based on their likelihood of presenting with static risk, criminogenic needs, and destabilizing factors (i.e., factors that indirectly relate to recidivism). The four classes were characterized by the following: a low probability of both risks and destabilizers (LN-LD), a moderate probability of risk and criminogenic needs with a high probability of multiple destabilizers (MN-HD), a high probability of risk and needs with moderate probabilities of destabilizers (HN-MD), and a high probability of static and criminogenic needs and destabilizers (HN-HD). Finally, the relationship between latent class membership and three separate recidivism outcomes was assessed. Consistent with study hypotheses, individuals in latent classes characterized by a greater probability of criminogenic needs and lifestyle destabilizers were more likely to experience subsequent criminal justice involvement, regardless of risk level. 

Policy Implications: Simplifying the complexity of offender risk and need profiles through empirical classification has direct implications for policy and practice. First, it clarifies whether dynamic needs and/or risk should drive decision making. Second, the integration of dynamic risk factors into the case management process can inform strategies to mitigate static risk and inform the development of new and improved interventions. The current study findings provide insight into the clustering of dynamic risk factors within individuals. This classification structure has the potential to increase the precision of case management decisions by identifying targets for programming that are likely to co-occur for many offenders. Specifically, programs can be developed to tailor components to specific static risk and need profiles.

POLICY ESSAYS

Detection of Dynamic Risk Factors and Correctional Practice (pages 105–111)
Tony Ward

Needle in a Haystack
Kelly Hannah-Moffat

MATERNAL INCARCERATION AND CHILD WELLBEING

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Promoting Child Wellbeing Among Children Who Experience Maternal Incarceration
Michael E. Roettger

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Detrimental for Some? Heterogeneous Effects of Maternal Incarceration on Child Wellbeing
Kristin Turney and Christopher Wildeman

Research Summary: We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,197) to consider the heterogeneous effects of maternal incarceration on 9-year-old children. We find that maternal incarceration has no average effects on child wellbeing (measured by caregiver-reported internalizing problem behaviors, caregiver-reported externalizing problem behaviors, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition scores, and child-reported early juvenile delinquency) but that the effects vary by mothers’ propensities for experiencing incarceration. Maternal incarceration is deleterious for children of mothers least likely to experience incarceration but mostly inconsequential for children of mothers more likely to experience incarceration.

Policy Implications: It is important that public policies take into account the fact that not all children experience similar effects of maternal incarceration. For children of mothers who are unlikely to experience incarceration, the negative consequences of maternal incarceration could be driven by at least three factors, all of which may operate simultaneously and all of which potentially call for different policy interventions: (a) jail incarceration as opposed to prison incarceration, (b) incarceration for a crime that did minimal—or no—harm to their children, and (c) inadequate family supports for coping with maternal incarceration. We discuss these policy implications.

POLICY ESSAYS

“Packages” of Risk
Peggy C. Giordano and Jennifer E. Copp

Family Process Perspective on the Heterogeneous Effects of Maternal Incarceration on Child Wellbeing
Joyce A. Arditti

Criminology & Public Policy 13(4)

Criminology & Public Policy, November 2014: Volume 13, Issue 4

Special Issue: Remodeling American Sentencing

Editorial Introduction: Reinventing Sentencing in the United States
Daniel S. Nagin

Research Article

Remodeling American Sentencing: A Ten-Step Blueprint for Moving Past Mass Incarceration
Michael Tonry

When and if the will to roll back mass incarceration and to create just, fair, and effective sentencing systems becomes manifest, the way forward is clear.
First, three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentence, and comparable laws should be repealed.
Second, any three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentence, and comparable laws that are not repealed should be substantially narrowed in scope and severity.
Third, any three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentence, and comparable laws that are not repealed should be amended to include provisions authorizing judges to impose some other sentence “in the interest of justice.”
Fourth, life-without-possibility-of-parole laws should be repealed or substantially narrowed.
Fifth, truth-in-sentencing laws should be repealed.
Sixth, criminal codes should be amended to set substantially lower maximum sentences scaled to the seriousness of crimes.
Seventh, every state that does not already have one should establish a sentencing commission and promulgate presumptive sentencing guidelines.
Eighth, every state that does not already have one should establish a parole board and every state should establish a parole guidelines system.
Ninth, every state and the federal government should reduce its combined rate of jail and prison confinement to half its 2014 level by 2020.
Tenth, every state should enact legislation making all prisoners serving fixed terms longer than 5 years, or indeterminate terms, eligible for consideration for release at the expiration of 5 years, and making all prisoners 35 years of age or older eligible for consideration for release after serving 3 years.
These proposals are evidence-based and mostly technocratic. Those calling for prison population targets and reducing the lengths of sentences being served may seem bold to some. Relative to the problems they address, they are modest and partial. Decreasing rates of imprisonment by half in the United States, a country with comparatively low crime rates, to a level that will remain 3 to 3.5 times those of other developed Western countries, can hardly be considered overly ambitious.

Commentary

Twentieth-Century Sentencing Reform Movement: Looking Backward, Moving Forward
Cassia Spohn

Creating the Will to Change: The Challenges of Decarceration in the United States
Anthony N. Doob and Cheryl Marie Webster

Ending Mass Incarceration: Some Observations and Responses to Professor Tonry
Gerard E. Lynch

Assessing the State of Mass Incarceration: Tipping Point or the New Normal?
Jeremy Travis

How Do We Reduce Incarceration Rates While Maintaining Public Safety?
Steven Raphael

Criminology & Public Policy 13(2)

Criminology & Public Policy, May 2014: Volume 13, Issue 2

COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AND THE CONTROL OF STREET CRIME

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Reducing Crime Through Community Investment
Lauren J. Krivo

RESEARCH ARTICLE
New Parochialism, Sources of Community Investment, and the Control of Street Crime
David M. Ramey and Emily A. Shrider

Research Summary: We examined Seattle, Washington's Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF), a unique neighborhood improvement program that provides city funding for projects organized within neighborhoods. We found an inverse relationship between NMF funding and violent crime rates, a relationship that is stronger in poorer neighborhoods. The relationship also is stronger as funds accumulate within the neighborhoods over time. These findings suggest that investment and neighborhood participation can have both short-term and long-term crime reduction effects.

Policy Implications: The Neighborhood Matching Fund program is associated with significant reductions in crime, even though the program and its projects are not aimed specifically at crime reduction. This observation suggests that policies that encourage neighbors to interact with each other and that facilitate interactions and physical improvements can help reduce crime by improving neighborhood conditions and social relationships. Investments in neighborhoods by the city also can help counteract the negative effects of private disinvestment.

POLICY ESSAYS

New Parochialism and Community Dynamics
Andrea Leverentz

Making or Breaking Neighborhoods
María B. Vélez and Christopher J. Lyons

DOWNWARD DEPARTURES IN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SENTENCING

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Sentencing Policy Disputes
Melissa Hamilton

RESEARCH ARTICLE
“Fundamentally Flawed?”
Kimberly A. Kaiser and Cassia Spohn

Research Summary: Using U.S. Sentencing Commission data, this study assesses whether judicial downward departures are more prevalent among child pornography offenders compared with a matched sample of defendants convicted of other offenses. Additionally, we examine reasons given by judges when departing from the guidelines for these offenders. We found that child pornography defendants received significant reductions in sentences by way of judicial downward departures.

Policy Implications: In 2007, the Supreme Court considerably altered the federal sentencing process. In Kimbrough v. United States (2007), the Court held that judicial departures were permissible on grounds of a policy disagreement. Many circuit courts have authorized sentencing judges to depart from the guidelines in child pornography cases based on such a policy disagreement. The findings of this study suggest that judicial downward departures for these offenders cannot be explained by individual characteristics, such as race, gender, or age, and may be indicative of a specific disagreement with this particular sentencing policy. An examination of the reasons provided by judges supports the hypothesis that judges may be attempting to remedy what they perceive as unjustly harsh sentencing guidelines.

POLICY ESSAY
Mismatch of Guidelines and Offender Danger and Blameworthiness Departures as Policy Signals from the Courts
Jeffery T. Ulmer
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12083/abstract?campaign=woletoc

IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT, POLICING, AND CRIME

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
The Strange Career of Immigration in American Criminological Research
Richard Rosenfeld

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Immigration Enforcement, Policing, and Crime
Elina Treyger, Aaron Chalfin and Charles Loeffler

Research Summary: In 2008, the federal government introduced “Secure Communities,” a program that requires local law enforcement agencies to share arrestee information with federal immigration officials. We employed the staggered activation of Secure Communities to examine whether this program has an effect on crime or the behavior of local police. Supporters of the program argue that it enhances public safety by facilitating the removal of criminal aliens. Critics worry that it will encourage discriminatory policing. We found little evidence for the most ambitious promises of the program or for its critics’ greatest fears.

Policy Implications: Although a large body of evidence reports that municipal police can have an appreciable effect on crime, involving local police in federal immigration enforcement does not seem to offer measurable public safety benefits. Noncitizens removed through Secure Communities either would have been incapacitated even in the absence of the program or do not pose an identifiable risk to community safety.

POLICY ESSAYS

Secure or Insecure Communities?
Charis E. Kubrin

The Reality of the Secure Communities Program
Ramiro Martinez Jr. and Janice Iwama

Criminology & Public Policy 13(1)

Criminology & Public Policy, February 2014: Volume 13, Issue 1

VOLLMER AWARD

Interventions for Juvenile Offenders: A Serendipitous Journey
Mark W. Lipsey

This is a story of a concatenation of largely unplanned and unexpected events that propelled a line of research on the effectiveness of interventions for juvenile offenders along a trajectory that is more coherent in retrospect than at the time of any of those events. In the course of that serendipitous journey, insights were gained on the limitations of individual studies, the value of systematic analysis of a body of research, and the challenges of transporting evidence into evidence-based practice.

VOLLMER AWARD COMMENTARIES

Mark Lipsey's Contribution to Evidence-Based Services for Juvenile Offenders: What Works across Juvenile Justice Systems
James C. Howell

From Research Synthesis to Evidence-Based Policy and Practice: How Mark Lipsey Is Improving Juvenile Offender Treatment
Brandon C. Welsh

JUVENILE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Rehabilitative and Restorative Justice for Juvenile Offenders: How Might Economic Sanctions Help?
John W. Raine

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Juvenile Economic Sanctions: An Analysis of Their Imposition, Payment, and Effect on Recidivism
Stacy Hoskins Haynes, Alison C. Cares and R. Barry Ruback

Research Summary: Economic sanctions, particularly restitution, can help juvenile offenders both learn the extent of the harm they caused and assume responsibility for repairing that harm. If that assumption is true, then restitution should be imposed in every case for which it is appropriate, other factors should not affect imposition, and paying restitution should be negatively related to recidivism. This analysis of 921 juvenile cases in five Pennsylvania counties found that restitution was imposed in only 33% of cases for which it was appropriate, whereas fees were imposed in 66% of cases. Consistent with expectations, restitution was more likely to be imposed for property offenses, but contrary to expectations, restitution was more likely to be imposed for felonies and for males. Judges were less likely to revoke the sentences of juveniles who paid a greater percentage of their total economic sanctions and of juveniles whose violation of sentencing conditions was for nonpayment of economic sanctions.

Policy Implications: Given that support for both punitive and progressive policies exists, policy makers have a unique opportunity to pursue alternatives, like economic sanctions, that appeal to both perspectives. Economic sanctions are particularly important for juveniles because they are less likely to interfere with other financial obligations (in large part because juveniles have fewer financial obligations than do adults) and because they avoid the stigma associated with more punitive sentences, such as incarceration. The negative relationship between payment of economic sanctions and recidivism, found in this study and in other studies, also suggests that, in both the short and the long term, economic sanctions are more cost-effective. Furthermore, the restorative aspect of economic sanctions, particularly restitution, suggests that policy makers should consider how best to impose and collect economic sanctions, as they also are consistent with efforts to improve the treatment of crime victims.

POLICY ESSAYS

The Costs of Delinquency
Mark A. Greenwald, Sherry L. Jackson and Michael T. Baglivio

Juvenile Economic Sanctions: A Logical Alternative?
Tamara Walsh

SERIOUS, VIOLENT, AND CHRONIC JUVENILE OFFENDERS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Delinquency Referrals; Predictive and Protective Factors for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Offenders; and Juvenile Justice Interventions
Kenneth C. Land

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders: A Statewide Analysis of Prevalence and Prediction of Subsequent Recidivism Using Risk and Protective Factors
Michael T. Baglivio, Katherine Jackowski, Mark A. Greenwald and James C. Howell

Research Summary: The prevalence of serious, violent, and chronic offenders is assessed across 5 years of delinquency referrals to a centralized juvenile justice agency. Differences in prevalence by gender and race/ethnicity and by age at first referral are compared for these youth with the other juveniles referred. Analyses examine whether subsequent official reoffending of these juveniles is predicted by similar risk and protective factors as with other youth. Stability in the proportion of youth meeting the serious, violent, and chronic classification was found. Males were more than twice as likely to be serious, violent, and chronic offenders. Serious, violent, and chronic offenders were almost three times more likely to have been first referred when 12 years old or younger. Predictive risk and protective factors are substantively different for these serious, violent, and chronic youth. Policy implications regarding appropriate delinquency interventions to address significant risk and protective factors for different subgroups of youth are discussed.

Policy Implications: Our study examines the prevalence rates of juvenile offenders classified as serious, violent, and chronic, thereby necessitating an analysis of resource allocation strategies for a juvenile justice agency. In light of this and other empirical findings, agency policies have been adjusted and new policies implemented, including a reduction in the number of residential beds by more than 50% in the last 3 years and reallocation of “deep-end” resources to prevention and community-based programming.

POLICY ESSAYS
What are the Policy Implications of Our Knowledge on Serious, Violent, and Chronic Offenders?
Rolf Loeber and Lia Ahonen

Moving from Description to Implementation of Evidence-Based Research Findings
Alex R. Piquero

SEX OFFENDER RESIDENCE RESTRICTIONS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Evidence of Ineffectiveness: Advancing the Argument Against Sex Offender Residence Restrictions
Richard Tewksbury

RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Effect and Implications of Sex Offender Residence Restrictions
Beth M. Huebner, Kimberly R. Kras, Jason Rydberg, Timothy S. Bynum, Eric Grommon and Breanne Pleggenkuhle

Research Summary: We evaluated the efficacy of sex offender residence restrictions in Michigan and Missouri using a quasi-experimental design with propensity score matching. First, we examined the implementation of the laws and found that sex offenders in both states were less likely to live in restricted areas after the implementation of the laws than the prerestriction sample, but the differences were not statistically significant. In our outcome analysis, we find little evidence that residence restrictions changed the prevalence of recidivism substantially for sex offenders in the postrelease period. In Michigan, trends indicate that the implementation of the laws led to a slight increase in recidivism among the sex offender groups, whereas in Missouri, this effect resulted in a slight decrease in recidivism. Technical violations also declined for both groups in Missouri. The small effect sizes, inconsistent results across states, and the null results between sex offender and non–sex offender models cast doubt on the potential usefulness of the laws to influence individual patterns of recidivism broadly.

Policy Implications: The results caution against the widespread, homogenous implementation of residence restrictions. Instead, we advocate individualization in sex offender programming and call for the development of risk-centered models of residence restrictions that draw on the established literature. In addition, the research highlights the practical challenges in defining restricted areas, enforcing restrictions, and promoting successful returns to the community. Furthermore, a call for reframing the focus of sex offender reentry to include collaborative treatment groups and enhanced communication and services between key stakeholders is made. Finally, we close with a discussion of several best practice models that provide alternative housing sources for individuals sentenced under residence restrictions without a suitable home plan.

POLICY ESSAYS

Sex Offender Residency Restrictions : Successful Integration or Exclusion?
Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine

Residence Restrictions Are Ineffective, Inefficient, and Inadequate: So Now What?
Kelly M. Socia

Criminology & Public Policy 12(4)

Criminology & Public Policy, November 2013: Volume 12, Issue 4

SPECIAL ISSUE: CRIMINOLOGY, CAUSALITY, AND PUBLIC POLICY

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

Seeking Causality in a World of Contingency : Criminology, Research, and Public Policy
Thomas G. Blomberg, Julie Mestre and Karen Mann

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Translating Causal Claims : Principles and Strategies for Policy-Relevant Criminology
Robert J. Sampson, Christopher Winship and Carly Knight

POLICY APPLICATION ESSAYS

Family-Focused Interventions to Prevent Juvenile Delinquency : A Case Where Science and Policy Can Find Common Ground
Abigail A. Fagan

Evidence and Public Policy : The Example of Evaluation Research in Policing
Daniel S. Nagin and David Weisburd

Supermax Prisons : The Policy and the Evidence
Daniel P. Mears

AFTERWORD

Linking Evidence and Criminal Justice Policy
Alfred Blumstein

Criminology & Public Policy 12(2)

Criminology & Public Policy, May 2013: Volume 12, Issue 2

DUI RECIDIVISM

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
The Challenges of Screening DUI Offenders
Alan Cavaiola

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Moving beyond BAC in DUI
Karen L. Dugosh, David S. Festinger and Douglas B. Marlowe

POLICY ESSAYS

Criminal Justice and Public Health Policies to Reduce the Negative Impacts of DUI
William F. Wieczorek

Deterring DUI Behavior in the First Place
James C. Fell and Robert B. Voas

If I Had a Hammer, I Would Not Use it to Control Drunk Driving
Matthew DeMichele and Brian Payne

LOCAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
287(g) State and Local Enforcement of Immigration Law
Scott Akins

RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement on Crime and Disorder
Christopher S. Koper, Thomas M. Guterbock, Daniel J. Woods, Bruce Taylor and Timothy J. Carter

POLICY ESSAYS

The Need for Social Policies that Support the Revitalizing Effects of Immigration Rather than Law Enforcement Initiatives that Assume Disproportionate Immigrant Criminality
Matthew T. Lee

When Perception Is Reality
Terry Coonan

DEVELOPMENTAL CRIME PREVENTION

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Encouraging Policy Makers and Practitioners to Make Rational Choices about Programs Based on Scientific Evidence on Developmental Crime Prevention
David P. Farrington

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Valuing Developmental Crime Prevention
Matthew Manning, Christine Smith and Ross Homel

POLICY ESSAYS

Enhancing the Quality of Stakeholder Assessments of Evidenced-Based Prevention Programs
Abigail A. Fagan

Enhancing Translational Knowledge on Developmental Crime Prevention
Christopher J. Sullivan

Building Efficient Crime Prevention Strategies
D. Max Crowley

Criminology & Public Policy 12(1)

Criminology & Public Policy, February 2013: Volume 12, Issue 1

CIVIL GANG INJUNCTIONS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Civil Gang Injunctions
Finn-Aage Esbensen

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Improving Civil Gang Injunctions
Karen M. Hennigan and David Sloane

POLICY ESSAYS
The Practicalities of Targeted Gang Interventions
Chris Melde

The Importance of Cohesion for Gang Research, Policy, and Practice
Andrew V. Papachristos

LONER ATTACKS AND DOMESTIC EXTREMISM

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Lone-Offender Terrorists
Gary LaFree

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Distinguishing “Loner” Attacks from Other Domestic Extremist Violence
Jeff Gruenewald, Steven Chermak and Joshua D. Freilich

POLICY ESSAYS
Disaggregating Terrorist Offenders: Implications for Research and Practice
Paul Gill and Emily Corner

Informing Lone-Offender Investigations
Randy Borum

DAY REPORTING CENTERS FOR PAROLEES

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
Day Reporting Centers
Beth M. Huebner

RESEARCH ARTICLE
An Evaluation of Day Reporting Centers for Parolees
Douglas J. Boyle, Laura M. Ragusa-Salerno, Jennifer L. Lanterman and Andrea Fleisch Marcus

POLICY ESSAYS
What's Inside the “Black Box”?
Grant Duwe

Why Didn't They Work? Thoughts on the Application of New Jersey Day Reporting Centers
Benjamin Steiner and H. Daniel Butler

Using Day Reporting Centers to Divert Parolees from Revocation
Michael Ostermann

Criminology & Public Policy 11(4)

Criminology & Public Policy, November 2012: Volume 11, Issue 4

Race, Place, and Drug Enforcement

Editorial Introduction

Race, Policing, and Equity
Stephen D. Mastrofski

Research Article

Race, Place, and Drug Enforcement
Robin S. Engel, Michael R. Smith and Francis T. Cullen

Policy Essay

Back to Basics
David A. Klinger

Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement
Katherine Beckett

The Racial Dilemma in Urban Policing
Sudhir Venkatesh


NCAA Rule Infractions

Editorial Introduction

College Athletes and NCAA Violations
Jason A. Winfree

Research Article

Assessing the Extent and Sources of NCAA Rule Infractions
Francis T. Cullen, Edward J. Latessa and Cheryl Lero Jonson

Policy Essay

NCAA Rule Infractions
Brad R. Humphreys

Assessing the Extent and Sources of NCAA Rule Infractions
Alex R. Piquero


Young Adult Offenders

Editorial Introduction

Young Adults
Jennifer L. Woolard

Research Article

Young Adult Offenders
David P. Farrington, Rolf Loeber and James C. Howell

Policy Essay

Aligning Justice System Processing with Developmental Science
Elizabeth Cauffman

Raising the Age
Chris L. Gibson and Marvin D. Krohn

Criminology & Public Policy 11(3)

Criminology & Public Policy, August 2012: Volume 11, Issue 3

Fugitive Safe Surrender Program

Editorial Introduction

Fugitive Safe Surrender
John S. Goldkamp

Research Article

Fugitive Safe Surrender
Daniel J. Flannery and Jeff M. Kretschmar

Policy Essay

Fugitives, Outlaws, and the Lessons of Safe Surrender
Alexander Tabarrok

Focusing on the Individual in Warrant-Clearing Efforts
Meagan Cahill

Delinquency Prevention

Editorial Introduction

Evidence-Based Practice and Juvenile Justice
Donna M. Bishop

Research Article

Promoting Evidence-Based Practice in Delinquency Prevention at the State Level
Peter W. Greenwood and Brandon C. Welsh

Policy Essay

A Broader View of Evidence-Based Programs Reveals More Options for State Juvenile Justice Systems
Mark W. Lipsey and James C. Howell

Building Evidence for Evidence-Based Policy Making
Kenneth A. Dodge and Adam D. Mandel

Impacts Of Executions On Homicides

Editorial Introduction

Deterrence and the Death Penalty
Sonja E. Siennick

Research Article

The Differential Short-Term Impacts of Executions on Felony and Non-Felony Homicides
Kenneth C. Land, Raymond H. C. Teske Jr. and Hui Zheng

Policy Essay

Can Executions Have a Short-Term Deterrence Effect on Non-Felony Homicides?
Randi Hjalmarsson

The Death Penalty in Texas
Michael L. Radelet

The Texas Deterrence Muddle
Jeffrey Fagan, Amanda Geller and Franklin E. Zimring

Criminology & Public Policy 11(2)

Criminology & Public Policy, May 2012: Volume 11, Issue 2

Vollmer Award

On Behalf of Women Offenders: Women's Place in the Science of Evidence-Based Practice
Patricia Van Voorhis

Patricia Van Voorhis: Have vision, will travel
Emily J. Salisbury and Meda Chesney-Lind

“Every Time a Bell Rings an Angel Gets His Wings”: Commentary on Patricia Van Voorhis's Receipt of the 2011 Vollmer Award
Bonita M. Veysey

The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence: An Evaluation of the High Point Drug Market Intervention

Editorial Introduction
Philip J. Cook

The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence: An Evaluation of the High Point Drug Market Intervention
Nicholas Corsaro, Eleazer D. Hunt, Natalie Kroovand Hipple and Edmund F. McGarrell

Getting deterrence right?: Evaluation evidence and complementary crime control mechanisms
Anthony A. Braga

Good Markets Make Bad Neighbors: Regulating Open-Air Drug Markets
Peter Reuter and Harold A. Pollack

Getting the Law Involved: A Quasi-Experiment in Early Intervention Involving Collaboration Between Schools and the District Attorney's Office

Editorial Introduction
Alex R. Piquero

Getting the Law Involved: A Quasi-Experiment in Early Intervention Involving Collaboration Between Schools and the District Attorney's Office
John Paul Wright, Pamela M. McMahon, Claire Daly and J. Phil Haney

New Standards for Demonstrating Program Effectiveness
Peter W. Greenwood

The Case for Early Crime Prevention
Brandon C. Welsh

Should the Juvenile Justice System be Involved in Early Intervention?
David P. Farrington

Crime Place and Pollution: Expanding Crime Reduction Options Through a Regulatory Approach

Crime as Pollution: Lessons from Environmental Regulation (Editorial Introduction)
Daniel S. Nagin

Crime Place and Pollution: Expanding Crime Reduction Options Through a Regulatory Approach
John E. Eck and Emily B. Eck

Bringing Social Context Back Into the Equation: The Importance of Social Characteristics of Places in the Prevention of Crime
David Weisburd

Some Problems with Place-Based Crime Policies
Dan A. Black and Kyung Park

Crime, Place, and Pollution: Expanding Crime Reduction Options Through a Regulatory Approach
Lorraine Mazerolle and Janet Ransley

Joining the Regulatory Fold
Malcolm K. Sparrow

Crime Reduction: Responsibility, Regulation, and Research
Nick Tilley

Assessing the Earned Discharge Pilot Project: The Importance of Context, Capacity, and Content

Evidence-Based Policy and the Politics of Criminal Justice Reform (Editorial Introduction)
Heather Schoenfeld

Research Article
Assessing the earned discharge pilot project:: The Importance of Context, Capacity, and Content
Sarah M. Smith, Marisa K. Omori, Susan F. Turner and Jesse Jannetta

Perpetual “Crisis” and the Dysfunctional Politics of Corrections in California
Michael C. Campbell

Resisting “Evidence” in Challenging Correctional Environments
Jeffrey Lin

Criminology & Public Policy 11(1)

Criminology & Public Policy, February 2012: Volume 11, Issue 1

Editor's Preface

Continuing to Advance Criminology and Public Policy
Thomas G. Blomberg

A Signaling Perspective on Employment-Based Reentry

Editorial Introduction

Prisoner Reentry, Employment, Signaling, and the Better Identification of Desisters
Daniel P. Mears and Julie Mestre

Research Article

A Signaling Perspective on Employment-Based Reentry Programming
Shawn D. Bushway and Robert Apel

Policy Essays

Obeying Signals and Predicting Future Offending
Alex R. Piquero

Signaling and Meta-Analytic Evaluations in the Presence of Latent Offender Groups
Tim Brennan

Elements of Successful Desistance Signaling
Shadd Maruna

Why Work Is Important, and How to Improve the Effectiveness of Correctional Reentry Programs that Target Employment
Edward Latessa

A Signaling Approach to Criminal Desistance through Transitional Jobs Programs
Dan Bloom

Good Science, Good Sense: Making Meaningful Change Happen—A Practitioner's Perspective
Dora Schriro

Criminology & Public Policy 10(4)

Criminology & Public Policy, November 2011: Volume 10, Issue 4

MONTANA EARLY RELEASE PROGRAM

Good in theory
Beth M. Huebner

Too early is too soon
Kevin A. Wright and Jeffrey W. Rosky

What is my left hand doing?
Megan Kurlychek

More than just early release
Susan Turner

The cattle call of reentry
Faye S. Taxman

TRANSITIONAL JOBS PROGRAM

Transitional jobs program Putting employment-based reentry programs into context
Robert Apel

For whom does a transitional jobs program work?
Janine Zweig, Jennifer Yahner and Cindy Redcross

Why the risk and needs principles are relevant to correctional programs (even to employment programs)
Edward Latessa

Deconstructing the risk principle
Gerald G. Gaes and William D. Bales

COMMUNITY-DRIVEN VIOLENCE REDUCTION PROGRAMS

Community-based partnerships and crime prevention
Wesley G. Skogan

Community-driven violence reduction programs
Jeremy M. Wilson and Steven Chermak

Crime policy and informal social control
Megan Ferrier and Jens Ludwig

Comprehensive gang and violence reduction programs
Malcolm W. Klein

Whither streetwork?
David M. Kennedy

Too big to fail
Andrew V. Papachristos

RACIAL DISPARITY IN WAKE OF THE BOOKER/FANFAN DECISION

Racial disparity under the federal sentencing guidelines pre- and post-Booker
Raymond Paternoster

Racial disparity in the wake of the Booker/Fanfan decision
Jeffery T. Ulmer, Michael T. Light and John H. Kramer

Unwarranted disparity in the wake of the Booker/Fanfan decision
Cassia Spohn

Race disparity under advisory guidelines
Ryan W. Scott

Racial disparity in the wake of Booker/Fanfan Making sense of “messy” results and other challenges for sentencing research
Rodney Engen

Judicial discretion in federal sentencing
Celesta A. Albonetti

Criminology & Public Policy 10(3)

Special Issue on Mass Incarceration

The past, present, and future of mass incarceration in the United States
Marie Gottschalk

Monetary Sanctions As Misguided Policy

On cash and conviction
Katherine Beckett and Alexes Harris

Substantial fees and fines now are now routinely imposed by courts and other criminal justice agencies across the United States. This article summarizes research on the imposition of monetary sanctions in the United States and shows how they differ from European day fines. In the contemporary United States, court-imposed legal financial obligations supplement other criminal penalties in the majority of felony and misdemeanor cases. Judges impose many fees and fines at their discretion, and evidence from Washington State indicates that extralegal factors–including ethnicity–influence their assessment. Many states have also authorized jails, departments of correction, and probation offices to levy fees. In the United States, fees and fine amounts are determined by statute and are not tethered to defendants’ earnings. Recent studies suggest that the assessment of these penalties often generate long-term debts that are sizeable relative to expected earnings and impede reintegration.

This essay contends that the disadvantages of the widespread and discretionary imposition of substantial and supplementary financial penalties outweigh any benefits associated with this practice. Proponents of correctional and court fees argue that offenders—not taxpayers—should pay for the cost of punishing their misdeeds. The idea that offenders should foot the bill for criminal justice expenditures is a moral and political claim, one that likely has broad appeal. Nonetheless, this claim is in tension with at least two other important principles. First, public criminal law systems rest on the premise that crime is mainly a wrong against the state; violations of criminal law are thought to be significant enough to warrant the state's usurpation of the dispute resolution process. Compelling defendants to reimburse the state for its criminal justice expenditures is in tension with this principle. Moreover, unlike users of other services for which fees are assessed, penal targets are compelled to partake of these services; they cannot use fewer of them or look for an alternative provider of them. It can be argued that if the state compels penal targets to use (often expensive and ineffective) state “services,” then the government is obligated to pay for them. Indeed, this fiscal obligation is arguably an important check on government power.

Fixing the Broken System of Financial Sanctions
Traci R. Burch

Politicizing the case for fines
Pat O’Malley

A new punishment regime
Mary Fainsod Katzenstein and Mitali Nagrecha

The abolition of fines and fees
R. Barry Ruback

Justice Reinvestment

A private-sector, incentives-based model for justice reinvestment
Todd R. Clear

Justice reinvestment is a recent strategy designed to reduce the use of incarceration and divert the savings to improve the circumstances of communities that have high incarceration rates. More than a dozen states have mounted justice reinvestment projects. While support for justice reinvestment remains high, actual results have been mixed. In particular, the “community reinvestment” aspect of justice reinvestment has been disappointing. An approach that focuses on the private sector and creates incentives for private justice reinvestment could resolve some of these current limitations of the method.

Advocates for justice reinvestment would be able to address some of the problems in the approach by developing financial incentives that involve the private sector in justice reinvestment activity.

Encouraging innovation on the foundation of evidence
James H. Burch, II

Justice reinvestment and the use of imprisonment
Rob Allen

Making imprisonment unprofitable
James Austin

Making peace, not a desert
Michael Tonry

Justice reinvestment in community supervision
Mark A. R. Kleiman

Lessons for justice reinvestment from restorative justice and the justice model experience
Shadd Maruna

American Penal Overindulgence

Mass incarceration, legal change, and locale
Mona Lynch

In this article, I have three major aims. First, I examine in detail the role that changes to legal policies and practice have played in the rise of mass incarceration. I look at four distinct aspects of legal change and argue that the law (and legal change) in these varied forms is the engine that has driven prison growth and, therefore, must be addressed in explanations of this phenomenon. This discussion leads to my second major goal, which is to move beyond national-level explanations of American mass incarceration and call for a more unified empirically based understanding that highlights the localized social, cultural, and political factors that have contributed to the imprisonment explosion. I conclude by exploring how this kind of theorization provides a road map to a more localized policy reform strategy that aims to reduce our reliance on incarceration.

Addressing the political environment shaping mass incarceration
Marc Mauer

Leaving mass incarceration
Karol Lucken

Putting politics in penal policy reform
Heather Schoenfeld

The local and the legal (pages 725–732)
Lisa L. Miller

Prison Officer Unions

Prison Officer Unions and the Perpetuation of the Penal Status Quo
Joshua Page

An unintended consequence of mass imprisonment is the growth of prison officer unions. This article shows how successful corrections unions in states like California and New York obstruct efforts to implement sentencing reforms, shutter prisons, and slash corrections budgets. They impede downsizing-oriented reforms by generating or exacerbating fear among voters and politicians. Policy makers in key states must overcome resistance from prison officer unions to downscale prisons. Through a combination of accommodation and confrontation, policy makers can relax opposition from the officer organizations and undertake prison downsizing efforts without busting the unions.

Downsizing the carceral state
Heather Ann Thompson

American imprisonment and prison officers’ unions
Anthony N. Doob and Rosemary Gartner

Mass Imprisonment and Childhood Behavior Problems

Mass imprisonment and racial disparities in childhood behavioral problems
Sara Wakefield and Christopher Wildeman

This essay provides estimates of the influence of mass imprisonment on racial disparities in childhood well-being. To do so, we integrate results from three existing studies in a novel way. The first two studies use two contemporary, broadly representative data sets to estimate the effects of paternal incarceration on a range of child behavioral and mental health problems. The third study estimates changes in Black–White disparities in the risk of paternal imprisonment across the 1978 and 1990 American birth cohorts. Our research demonstrates the following: (1) The average effect of paternal incarceration on children is harmful, not helpful, and consistently in the direction of more mental health and behavioral problems. (2) The rapid increase in the use of imprisonment coupled with significant racial disparities in the likelihood of paternal (and maternal) imprisonment are linked to large racial disparities in childhood mental health and behavioral problems. (3) We find that mass imprisonment might have increased Black–White inequities in externalizing behaviors by 14–26% and in internalizing behaviors by 25–45%.

Our results add to a growing research literature indicating that the costs associated with mass imprisonment extend far beyond well-documented impacts on current inmates. The legacy of mass incarceration will be continued and worsening racial disparities in childhood mental health and well-being, educational attainment, and occupational attainment. Moreover, the negative effects of mass imprisonment for childhood well-being are likely to remain, even if incarceration rates returned to pre-1970s levels. Our results show that paternal incarceration exacerbates child behavioral and mental health problems and that large, growing racial disparities in the risk of imprisonment have contributed to significant racial differences in child well-being. The policy implications of our work are as follows: (1) Estimates of the costs associated with the current scale of imprisonment are likely to be severely underestimated because they do not account for the significant indirect effects of mass incarceration for children, for families, and for other social institutions such as the educational system and social service providers. (2) Policies that reduce incarceration rates for nonviolent offenders with no history of domestic violence will most dramatically reduce the effects of mass incarceration on childhood racial inequality. More research is needed to detail other important factors (e.g., crime type, criminal history, or gender of parent) that condition the effect of paternal incarceration on children. (3) Paternal incarceration effects target the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of children and are likely to result in long-term behavioral health problems. We propose a strengthening of the social safety net—especially as it applies to the poorest children—and programs that address the complicated needs of children of incarcerated parents.

The incarceration ledger
Robert J. Sampson

Is the devil in the details?
Candace Kruttschnitt

Taking children into account
Megan Comfort, Anne M. Nurse, Tasseli McKay and Katie Kramer

The consequences of incarceration
Michael Massoglia and Cody Warner

Countering the carceral continuum
Carla Shedd


Criminology & Public Policy, August 2011: Volume 10, Issue 3

Criminology & Public Policy 10(2)

VOLLMER AWARD ADDRESS

Socially responsible Criminology: Quality relevant research with targeted, effective dissemination
Howard N. Snyder

This address argues that some members of the criminology community must take upon themselves the responsibility of communicating the knowledge developed by the field to practitioners and decision makers. It is reasoned that only with such targeted dissemination will the full potential benefits from our work be realized.

VOLLMER AWARD COMMENTARY

The magic and power of data: A tribute to Howard Snyder
Shay Bilchik

Howard N. Snyder
David P. Farrington

IMPACTS OF SEX OFFENDER NOTIFICATION ON COMMUNITY BEHAVIOR

Measuring the impact of sex offender notification on community adoption of protective behaviors 
Rachel Bandy

Editorial Introduction: Sex offender policies in an era of zero tolerance
Jill S. Levenson

The need to debate the fate of sex offender community notification laws
Lisa L. Sample

What is smart sex offender policy?
Karen J. Terry

DECARCERATION IN CALIFORNIA

The past as prologue? 
Rosemary Gartner, Anthony N. Doob and Franklin E. Zimring

Editorial Introduction: Decarceration
Vanessa Barker

So policy makers drive incarceration– Now what?
Shawn D. Bushway

Penal moderation in the United States?
Mary Bosworth

IMPLICATIONS OF RESIDENCE RESTRICTIONS ON SEX OFFENDER HOUSING

The policy implications of residence restrictions on sex offender housing in Upstate NY 
Kelly M. Socia

Editorial Introduction: Policy implications of sex offender residence restrictions laws
Richard Tewksbury

Residence restriction buffer zones and the banishment of sex offenders
Kristen M. Zgoba

Place a moratorium on the passage of sex offender residence restriction laws
J. C. Barnes

Residence restrictions
Keri B. Burchfield

The contexts and politics of evidence-based sex offender policy
Chrysanthi Leon

INVESTIGATING THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF PAYDAY LENDING

Does fringe banking exacerbate neighborhood crime rates?
Charis E. Kubrin, Gregory D. Squires, Steven M. Graves and Graham C. Ousey

Editorial Introduction: Does fringe banking exacerbate neighborhood crime rates?
Steven F. Messner

Crime, local institutions, and structural inequality
Eric A. Stewart

Criminology of the unpopular
Pamela Wilcox and John E. Eck

Criminology & Public Policy, May 2011: Volume 10, Issue 2

Criminology & Public Policy 10(1)

Editorial Introduction

Confronting crime with science
Thomas G. Blomberg

Executive Summary

Overview of "Imprisonment and crime: Can both be reduced?"
Steven N. Durlauf and Daniel S. Nagin

Research Article

Imprisonment and crime : Can both be reduced?
Steven N. Durlauf and Daniel S. Nagin

Policy Essays

Thoughts from Pennsylvania on “Imprisonment and crime: Can both be reduced?”
Mark H. Bergstrom

Reducing crime through prevention not incarceration
William J. Bratton

The challenges of implementing research-based policies
Marc Mauer

More police, less prison, less crime? From peel to popper : The case for more scientific policing
Peter W. Neyroud

Exploring certainty and severity : Perspectives from a federal perch
Laurie O. Robinson

Approaches to reducing both imprisonment and crime
Alfred Blumstein

Coproduction in deterring crime
Philip J. Cook

On the pitfalls of spurious prudence
Elliott Currie

Optimistic deterrence theorizing : The role of timeliness, court dysfunction, and community alienation
John S. Goldkamp

Extraordinary sentences and the proposed police surge
Marie Gottschalk

Less imprisonment is no doubt a good thing : More policing is not
Michael Tonry

Shifting crime and justice resources from prisons to police : Shifting police from people to places
David Weisburd

Comment on Durlauf and Nagin
James Q. Wilson

Uncertainty about reduced severity, concerns about increased certainty, and alternative paths to lower rates of crime and imprisonment
Eric P. Baumer

Laudable goals: Practical hurdles
Dick Thornburgh

Deterrence, Economics, and the Context of Drug Markets
Shawn D. Bushway and Peter Reuter

Afterword

Al Capone, the Sword of Damocles, and the Police–Corrections Budget Ratio : Afterword to the Special Issue
Lawrence W. Sherman

Criminology & Public Policy, February 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1

Criminology & Public Policy 9(4)

VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

Economic Conditions and Minority Violence : An introduction
Alfred Blumstein

Violent victimization among males and economic conditions : The vulnerability of race and ethnic minorities
Janet L. Lauritsen and Karen Heimer

In this article, we use data from the 1973 to 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to estimate previously unknown trends in serious nonfatal violent victimization for Latino, non-Latino Black, and non-Latino White males in the United States. Past research has shown that Blacks and Latinos have been more susceptible than Whites to financial hardship during economic downturns and that economic disadvantage is an important correlate of violence in cross-sectional analyses. If significant declines in the national economy contribute to increases in violence, then crime trends disaggregated by race and ethnicity should show greater changes among minorities during periods of economic downturn. Although rates of violence have declined for all groups, we find that trends for Latino and Black males are similar and closely follow changes in consumer sentiment. In contrast, trends for White males display fewer fluctuations coinciding with changes in economic conditions. Continued disaggregation shows that these patterns appear primarily in stranger violence and not in violence by known offenders. The patterns also suggest that the association between changing economic conditions and male victimization trends might have weakened in recent years.

The findings raise concerns about the potential impact of recent economic changes on the risk for serious victimization, particularly among Blacks and Latinos. In light of the possible recent weakening of the relationship between economic changes and crime, future research should assess whether criminal justice policies and other factors moderate the relationship between economic conditions and victimization and use group-specific measures of violence so that important variability across race and ethnicity is not masked. These analyses also should be expanded to consider the potential effects on violence of government policies designed to alleviate poverty and unemployment.

Property crime—yes; violence—no : Comment on Lauritsen and Heimer
Philip J. Cook

Questions about the relationship of economic conditions to violent victimization
Kenneth C. Land and Hui Zheng

Economic conditions and racial/ethnic variations in violence : Immigration, the Latino paradox, and future research
Ramiro Martinez Jr.

Inequality by design : The connection between race, crime, victimization, and social policy
Patricia Y. Warren

PUBLIC CRIMINOLOGIES

Editorial Introduction to “Public Criminologies”
Todd R. Clear

Public criminologies
Christopher Uggen and Michelle Inderbitzin

Public scholarship aspires to bring social science home to the individuals, communities, and institutions that are its focus of study. In particular, it seeks to narrow the yawning gap between public perceptions and the best available scientific evidence on issues of public concern. Yet nowhere is the gap between perceptions and evidence greater than in the study of crime. Here, we outline the prospects for a public criminology, conducting and disseminating research on crime, law, and deviance in dialogue with affected communities. We present historical data on the media discussion of criminology and sociology, and we outline the distinctive features of criminology—interdisciplinary, a subject matter that incites moral panics, and a practitioner base actively engaged in knowledge production—that push the boundaries of public scholarship.

Discussions of public sociology have drawn a bright line separating policy work from professional, critical, and public scholarship. As the research and policy essays published in Criminology & Public Policy make clear, however, the best criminology often is conducted at the intersection of these domains. A vibrant public criminology will help to bring new voices to policy discussions while addressing common myths and misconceptions about crime.

Comment on “Public Criminologies”
Paul Rock

Who will be the public criminologists? How will they be supported?
Kenneth C. Land

What is to be done with public criminology?
Ian Loader and Richard Sparks

“Public criminology” and evidence-based policy
Michael Tonry

The role of research and researchers in crime and justice policy
Daniel P. Mears

REDUCING HOMELESS – RELATED CRIME

The Police, Disorder, and the Homeless
Anthony A. Braga

Policing the homeless : An evaluation of efforts to reduce homeless-related crime
Richard Berk and John MacDonald

Police officials across the United States are increasingly relying on place-based approaches for crime prevention. In this article, we examine the Safer Cities Initiative, a widely publicized place-based policing intervention implemented in Los Angeles's “Skid Row” that focused on crime and disorder associated with homeless encampments. Crime reduction was the goal. The police division in which the program was undertaken provides 8 years of time-series data serving as the observations for the treatment condition. Four adjacent police divisions in which the program was not undertaken provide 8 years of time-series data serving as the observations for the comparison condition. The data are analyzed using a generalized additive model. On balance, we find that this place-based intervention is associated with meaningful reductions in violent, property, and nuisance street crimes. There is no evidence of crime displacement.

This study provides further evidence that geographically targeted police interventions can lead to significant crime prevention benefits, with no evidence that crime is simply displaced to other areas. Criminologists and the media have given the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) little credit for major reductions in crime that have occurred during the past 5 years following a number of major policy reforms. We suggest that researchers should look more closely at the targeted interventions the LAPD has undertaken for evidence-based examples of effective policing. Importantly, this work suggests that crime associated with homeless encampments can be meaningfully reduced with targeted police actions. However, law enforcement actions do not address the roots of homelessness nor most of its consequences. Getting tough on the homeless should not be confused with policies or programs that respond fundamentally to the social and personal problems that homelessness presents.

Policy essay on “Policing the homeless...”
Alex R. Piquero

Tackling homelessness in Los Angeles' Skid Row : The role of policing strategies and the spatial deconcentration of homelessness
Dennis P. Culhane

Policy is in the details: Using external validity to help policy makers
John E. Eck

The Safer Cities Initiative and the removal of the homeless : Reducing crime or promoting gentrification on Los Angeles' Skid Row?
Alex S. Vitale

Policy essay on “Policing the Homeless : An Evaluation of Efforts to Reduce Homeless-Related Crime”
Michael Rowe and Maria O'Connell

Jim Longstreet, Mike Marshall, and the lost art of policing skid row
Michael D. White


Criminology & Public Policy, November 2010: Volume 9, Issue 4

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

White-collar crime and the Great Recession
Neal Shover, Peter Grabosky

WALLS OF SECRECY AND SILENCE

Walls of secrecy and silence: The Madoff case and cartels in the construction industry
Henk van de Bunt

Most analysts of the causes of the contemporary credit crunch have concluded that the supervising agencies failed in their duties. The same is true for studies of several major fraud scandals, including the Madoff affair and the Dutch construction fraud. The remedy seems immediately obvious: more and better regulation and supervision. However, this line of reasoning seems somewhat simplistic by ignoring the question of how illegal activities can remain hidden for many years from supervising agencies, victims, and bystanders. This research article argues that the problem also lies in the successful concealment of illegal activities by the perpetrators and in the presence of silence in their social environment.

The cases analyzed in this article suggest that financial misconduct also could be controlled by breaking the conspiracies of silence. The strengthening of supervision is unlikely to be effective without simultaneous efforts to encourage people to speak out and to give them incentives to want to know and to tell the truth.

Secrecy, silence, and corporate crime reforms
William S. Laufer

Silent or invisible?: Governments and corporate financial crimes
John Minkes

How to effectively get crooks like Bernie Madoff in Dutch1
Henry N. Pontell, Gilbert Geis

Getting our attention
Nancy Reichman

SERIOUS TAX FRAUD AND NONCOMPLIANCE

Serious tax fraud and noncompliance: A review of evidence on the differential impact of criminal and noncriminal proceedings
Michael Levi

This article reviews what international evidence exists on the impact of civil and criminal sanctions upon serious tax noncompliance by individuals. This construct lacks sharp definitional boundaries but includes large tax fraud and large-scale evasion that are not dealt with as fraud. Although substantial research and theory have been developed on general tax evasion and compliance, their conclusions might not apply to large-scale intentional fraudsters. No scientifically defensible studies directly compared civil and criminal sanctions for tax fraud, although one U.S. study reported that significantly enhanced criminal sanctions have more effects than enhanced audit levels. Prosecution is public, whereas administrative penalties are confidential, and this fact encourages those caught to pay heavy penalties to avoid publicity, a criminal record, and imprisonment.

Although it has yet to be proven that prosecution has a greater or lesser impact on these offenders, increased prosecution might be justified for purposes of moral retribution as well as perceived social fairness.

Criminal prosecution within responsive regulatory practice
Valerie Braithwaite

Fairness matters—more than deterrence: Class bias and the limits of deterrence
Paul Leighton

Serious tax noncompliance: Motivation and guardianship
Benno Torgler

TRANSNATIONAL WHITE-COLLAR CRIME AND RISK

Transnational white-collar crime and risk: Lessons from the global trade in electronic waste
Carole Gibbs, Edmund F. McGarrell, Mark Axelrod

Business transactions have increasingly been crossing national borders, thereby presenting greater opportunities for white-collar crime and for the externalization of risk. The global economic crisis, resulting in part from the subprime mortgage scandal, is a prime example of this potential. To develop theoretical perspectives and practical interventions to prevent and respond to the global financial crisis, we consider similar issues of risk and white-collar crime associated with global transactions in electronic waste (E-waste).

Smart (or responsive) regulation is a promising approach for addressing both E-waste and the current economic crisis. This response includes crime prevention, third-party- and self-regulation, and the threat of strong state intervention. Future research should explore the extent to which smart regulation reduces specific forms of white-collar crime and risk, as well as whether these interventions generalize to other transnational problems.

Global E-waste trade: The need for formal regulation and accountability beyond the organization
Dawn L. Rothe

Framing E-waste regulation: The obfuscating role of power
Laureen Snider

Smart regulation and enforcement of illegal disposal of electronic waste
Judith van Erp, Wim Huisman

MORTGAGE ORIGINATION FRAUD

Mortgage origination fraud and the global economic crisis: A criminological analysis
Tomson H. Nguyen, Henry N. Pontell

The study outlined in this article analyzed the responses of 23 subjects previously and currently employed in the subprime lending industry to understand the implications and role of white-collar crime in the contemporary subprime mortgage crisis and to document the rationalizations that offenders use to explain their involvement in mortgage-related crimes. The subjects represented five sectors of the primary mortgage market, including brokerage, lender, escrow, title, and appraisal offices. Secondary sources of data for the study included media accounts, government reports, and industry studies. The research findings detail accounts of mortgage frauds in the subprime lending industry that resulted from inadequate regulation, the indiscriminate use of alternative loan products, and the lack of accountability in the industry.

The study results suggest that the problem of mortgage origination fraud would be prevented best by major reform of financial policies and lending practices that characterize the subprime mortgage industry. Several broad recommendations are proposed in this article that highlight the need to recognize the potential for insider fraud, to enhance government regulation and oversight, to tighten loan qualification requirements, and to increase standards of underwriting. Observations are offered concerning the need to highlight white-collar crime in understanding the global financial crisis and to preventing future debacles.

Echo epidemics: Control frauds generate "white-collar street crime" waves
William K. Black

Diagnostics of white-collar crime prevention
John Braithwaite

Mortgage origination fraud and the global economic crisis: Incremental versus transformative policy initiatives
David O. Friedrichs

Mortgage origination fraud: The missing links
M. Cary Collins, Peter J. Nigro

EDITORIAL CONCLUSION

Forestalling the next epidemic of white-collar crime: Linking policy to theory
Peter Grabosky, Neal Shover

Criminology & Public Policy, July 2010: Volume 9, Issue 3

Criminology and Public Policy 9(2)

Identifying Human Trafficking Victims

Improving our approach to human trafficking
Mohamed Mattar, Shanna Van Slyke

Where are all the victims?: Understanding the determinants of official identification of human trafficking incidents
Amy Farrell, Jack McDevitt, Stephanie Fahy

The passage of new laws that criminalize the trafficking of persons for labor and sexual services has raised public awareness about the problem of human trafficking. In response, police must understand the problem, identify human trafficking victims, and make arrests. The numbers of victims identified to date, however, has paled in comparison with official estimates, which leads some to question the existence of a human trafficking problem. Missing from this debate is information about how frequently police encounter human trafficking and how well prepared officers are to handle these cases. Analyzing survey responses from a national sample of police agencies in the United States, we found that less than 10% of police agencies identified human trafficking cases from 2000 to 2006. Larger agencies were more likely to identify cases of human trafficking but the agency leader perception about the problem in their local communities as well as taking steps to prepare officers to identify and respond were the most important factors to increasing human trafficking identification by police.

This study provides much needed information about why U.S. officials have identified so few human trafficking victims. By understanding how often and under what conditions police find, investigate, and prosecute cases of human trafficking we will be in a better position to identify and overcome barriers to police responses to trafficking and understand the limitations of official statistics about human trafficking. Data from a national survey also provide a baseline measure of police identification of human trafficking against which we can gauge the progress of future anti-trafficking efforts.

Building the infrastructure of anti-trafficking: Information, funding, responses1
Fiona David

Identifying child victims of trafficking: Toward solutions and resolutions
Elzbieta M. Gozdziak

Measuring the immeasurable: Can the severity of human trafficking be ranked?
Kristiina Kangaspunta

Human trafficking: Policy
Barbara Ann Stolz

Crime Costs across Offender Trajectories

Finding the path to optimal deterrence by tracking the path that leads to crime: An introduction to "Studying the costs of crime across offender trajectories"
David A. Anderson

Studying the costs of crime across offender trajectories
Mark A. Cohen, Alex R. Piquero, Wesley G. Jennings

Longitudinal studies of delinquency and crime have generated an important source of descriptive information regarding patterns of offending across the life course, and have helped inform and spur theoretical and methodological contributions. One particular method that has received considerable attention is based on offending trajectories, but applications of this method have not extended much beyond descriptive accounts of offending. This study links offender trajectories to monetary costs associated with criminal offending by members of the Second Philadelphia Birth Cohort. Results indicate that chronic offenders who frequently commit crimes when they are young turn to more serious crimes when they are adults and impose far greater costs than low-frequency chronic offenders and those whose offending peaks during adolescence.

Preventing individuals from becoming high-rate chronic offenders would yield significant cost savings of more than $200 million. In terms of overall costs, offending frequency accounts for the bulk of costs in the juvenile years, whereas the seriousness of individual crimes drives total costs in the adult years. Moreover, because some trajectory groups impose higher costs in their juvenile years, whereas others impose higher costs in their adult years, policies that target particular (high-rate chronic) trajectory groups as opposed to all at-risk youth, for example, have the potential to provide significantly greater benefits at lower costs. These findings suggest that the allocation of prevention and intervention efforts should be targeted differentially across the offender population, with those individuals exhibiting early, frequent, and chronic offending deserving the most attention. Promising programs aimed at such individuals include early childhood prevention programs, such as those based on family–parent training, self-control improvement, and cognitive therapies.

The costs of crime
Jens Ludwig

Offender trajectories, crime trends, and costs: An invited policy essay on studying the costs of crime across offender trajectories
Robert M. O'Brien

Juveniles' Right to Counsel

Juvenile law reform: Ensuring the right to counsel
Donna M. Bishop

The right to counsel in juvenile court: Law reform to deliver legal services and reduce justice by geography
Barry C. Feld, Shelly Schaefer

The U.S. Supreme Court in In re Gault granted delinquents the right to counsel in juvenile courts. Decades after Gault, efforts to provide adequate defense representation in juvenile courts have failed in most states. Moreover, juvenile justice administration varies with structural context and produces justice-by-geography. In 1995, Minnesota enacted juvenile law reforms, which include mandatory appointment of counsel. This pre- and post-reform legal impact study compares how juvenile courts processed youths before and after the statutory changes. We assess how legal changes affected the delivery of defense services and how implementation varied with urban, suburban, and rural context.

We report inconsistent judicial compliance with the mandate to appoint counsel. Despite unambiguous legislative intent, rates of representation improved for only one category of offenders. However, we find a positive reduction in justice by geography, especially in rural courts. Given judicial resistance to procedural reforms, states must find additional strategies to provide counsel in juvenile courts.

Does having an attorney provide a better outcome?: The right to counsel does not mean attorneys help youths
Kimberly Kempf-Leonard

When a "right" is not enough: Implementation of the right to counsel in an age of ambivalence
Robert G. Schwartz, Marsha Levick

Forensic Evidence Processing

Forensic identification evidence: Utility without infallibility
Simon A. Cole

Unanalyzed evidence in law-enforcement agencies: A national examination of forensic processing in police departments
Kevin J. Strom, Matthew J. Hickman

This study investigated forensic evidence processing in a nationally representative sample of state and local law-enforcement agencies (n = 3,153). For a 5-year period, agencies reported that 14% of all unsolved homicides (an estimated 3,975 cases) and 18% of all unsolved rapes (an estimated 27,595 cases) contained forensic evidence that had not been submitted to a forensic crime laboratory for analysis. Approximately 40% of these unanalyzed homicide and rape cases were reported to have contained DNA evidence. The lack of a suspect in the case was the most frequently cited reason for not submitting forensic evidence for analysis.

Despite an increased diffusion of knowledge regarding the value of forensic evidence in the prosecution and defense of criminal cases, the investigative capabilities of forensic science are not being realized by law enforcement. Additional training for law enforcement on the use of forensic science to develop investigative leads is critical, as is the creation of departmental policies that prioritize and streamline the analysis of forensic evidence for homicide and rape cases—even in "no-suspect" cases. Ensuring adequate resources and information sharing for forensic processing especially of violent crimes, is also critical.

The promises and pitfalls of forensic evidence in unsolved crimes
Kevin M. Beaver

An economic perspective on "Unanalyzed evidence in law-enforcement agencies"
E. James Cowan, Roger Koppl

Database-driven investigations: The promise—and peril—of using forensics to solve "no-suspect" cases
Andrea Roth

Criminology and Public Policy, May 2010: Volume 9, Issue 2