Crime & Delinquency 61(6)

Crime & Delinquency, August 2015: Volume 61, Issue 6

Race, Gender, Crime Severity, and Decision Making in the Juvenile Justice System
Michael J. Leiber and Jennifer H. Peck

Based on interpretations of an integrated focal concerns and loosely coupling framework, individual and joint relationships involving race and gender with case outcomes were examined as well as possible tempering effects by crime severity and the stage in the proceedings. The results from multiple logistic regression indicate mixed support for the theoretical framework in terms of the ability to determine at what stages race and gender effects would be most evident. Crime severity was predictive of decision making and in some cases had a conditioning effect on the discovered race/gender relationships with case outcomes. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Measuring the Reading Complexity and Oral Comprehension of Canadian Youth Waiver Forms
Joseph Eastwood, Brent Snook, and Kirk Luther

The reading complexity of a sample of Canadian police youth waiver forms was assessed, and the oral comprehension of a waiver form was examined. In Study 1, the complexity of 31 unique waiver forms was assessed using five readability measures (i.e., waiver length, Flesch–Kincaid grade level, Grammatik sentence complexity, word difficulty, and word frequency). Results showed that the waivers are lengthy, are written at a relatively high grade level, contain complex sentences, and contain difficult and infrequent words. In Study 2, high school students (N = 32) were presented orally with one youth waiver form and asked to explain its meaning. Results showed that participants understood approximately 40% of the information contained in the waiver form. The likelihood of the rights of Canadian youths being protected and the need to create a standardized and comprehensible waiver form are discussed.

Lifetime Benefits and Costs of Diverting Substance-Abusing Offenders From State Prison
Gary A. Zarkin, Alexander J. Cowell, Katherine A. Hicks, Michael J. Mills, Steven Belenko, Laura J. Dunlap, and Vincent Keyes

Prisons hold a disproportionate number of society’s drug abusers. Approximately 50% of state prisoners meet the criteria for a diagnosis of drug abuse or dependence; however, only 10% of prisoners receive drug treatment. Diverting offenders to community-based treatment has been shown to generate positive net social benefits. We build on a lifetime simulation model of a nationally representative state prison cohort to examine diversion from reincarceration to community-based substance abuse treatment. We find that diversion provides positive net societal benefits to the United States and cost savings to the national criminal justice system. Our study demonstrates the societal gains from improving access to the community drug treatment system as an alternative to prison.

Alcohol Outlets and Neighborhood Crime: A Longitudinal Analysis
Garland F. White, Randy R. Gainey, and Ruth A. Triplett

This article examines the relationship between the number of alcohol outlets in block groups and the number of incidents of street crimes in Norfolk, Virginia. Cross-sectional and longitudinal panel designs are used to explore the relationship. Results were corrected for spatial autocorrelation and controlled for variation in size of population, socioeconomic disadvantage, and a dummy variable for being the downtown area. The cross-sectional analysis revealed a strong relationship between the number of alcohol outlets and the number of street crimes for on-premises and off-premises outlets. A panel design was then used to examine the effects of newly established outlets on the change in the number of street crime events over three periods. All three panels showed significant relationships between the number of alcohol outlets and the number of street crime events controlling for prior levels of crime, socioeconomic disadvantage, population size, and a spatial lag.

Assessing the Cost of Electronically Monitoring High-Risk Sex Offenders
Marisa K. Omori and Susan F. Turner

In addition to housing, employment, and registration restrictions, sex offenders have been subjected to electronic monitoring with the idea that they may be either surveilled or deterred from committing additional crime. This study evaluated the supervision costs of placing high-risk sex offender parolees on Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) monitoring as part of a pilot program by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Using a quasiexperimental design, the study tracked parolees’ costs of supervision and their parole violations for 1 year. GPS was not cost-effective; the overall cost of parolees on GPS was greater than parolees not on the monitoring, the two groups committed similar parole violations, and parolees on GPS were retained on parole longer.