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This paper investigates using multiple datasets (e.g., the CPS and NSAL) whether the increasing presence of foreign born blacks and their native-born children are obscuring summary estimates of the progress made by third generation and higher African Americans. Three measures of 'black' were created, (1) a third generation and higher blacks, excluding foreign born blacks, (2) a foreign born black community including first and second generation blacks, and (3) a black-alone group, which included foreign born blacks and third generation and higher blacks. Four estimates of progress were analyzed including percent of high school and college completion, labor force participation rates, the percentage of children living with single mothers, and self-reported arrest rates. It was hypothesized that a summary measure that collapses all blacks into one category--the black-alone group--will not accurately assess the well-being of American blacks, the community of foreign born blacks, and third generation and higher blacks. The analyses generated four findings: First, there are significant gender differences between the foreign born community and third generation and higher blacks. Second, the results revealed that there are substantial differences between the black foreign born community and third generation and higher blacks and that these differences generalize across years and gender. Third, the data indicate that the emergence of the foreign born black community impacts summary indicators of the progress for all African Americans. Fourth, the differences between foreign born blacks and third generation and higher blacks are increasing. It was concluded that summary estimates based on the black alone category overestimate the progress of third generation and higher blacks and underestimate the advances made by the foreign born community., Studies published in the last decade provide clear evidence of the increasing numbers and diversity in the black population (Hernandez, 2012; Manuel, Taylor, & Jackson, 2012; Mason, 2014; Thomas, 2012; [...]

This project investigates the racial divide in support for capital punishment. The authors examine whether race has a direct effect on support for capital punishment and test whether the influence of race varies across class, being a native southerner, confidence in government officials, political orientation, and religious affiliation. Using data drawn from the General Social Survey, they find a substantial racial divide, with African Americans much less likely to support the death penalty. Furthermore, the analysis revealed little support for the "spurious/social convergence" hypothesis; shared factors that might be expected to bring African Americans and Whites together--class, confidence in government, conservative politics, regional location, and religious fundamentalism--either did not narrow African American-White punishment attitudes or, at best, had only modest effects. The Results suggest that the racial divide in support for capital punishment is likely to remain a point of symbolic contention in African American-White conceptions of criminal injustice in the United States. (Contains 2 tables and 19 notes.)

In his recent "Crime and Coercion," Colvin contends that individuals exposed to coercive environments develop social-psychological deficits that enhance their probability of engaging in criminal behavior. Using a sample of 2,472 students from six middle schools, the authors test core propositions of Colvin's differential coercion theory. Thus, they assess whether delinquent involvement is related to four coercive environments: parental coercion, peer coercion, a coercive school environment, and a coercive neighborhood environment. The authors also assess whether the influence of these coercive environments on delinquency is mediated by four social-psychological deficits: coercive ideation, anger, school social bonds, and parental social bonds. The analysis revealed fairly consistent support for the core propositions of differential coercion theory. Thus, they found that students exposed to coercive environments develop social-psychological deficits and therefore engage in relatively serious delinquent behavior. (Contains 2 tables and 6 notes.)

Study assessed the nature and extent of student attitudes toward bullying. Data from surveys of over 2,400 students in six middle schools indicated that a culture of bullying was pervasive among middle school students. Students believed that, in most cases, neither classmates nor teachers would intervene to stop bullying. Most students denied that they would join in bullying a classmate and expressed some degree of empathy for victims. (SM)

Using data from Virginia school districts, this paper concludes that a district's educational-resource level is associated with its socioeconomic characteristics and that interdistrict variations in educational resources are associated with two kinds of student outcomes (attainments and aspiration), but not math and reading test scores. (Contains 52 references.) (MLH)

The recent wave of corporate wrongdoing has raised the issue of whether the public is concerned about the control of lawlessness in the business world. Using a national probability sample, we explore whether Americans want to enact stricter regulations of the stock market and advocate more punitive criminal sanctions for corporate executives who conceal their company's true financial condition. The findings reveal that Americans generally favor getting tough on corporate illegality. The analysis also indicates, however, that group differences exist in public support for punitive corporate crime control policies. Although liberals and conservatives equally support punishing corporate criminals more harshly, African Americans are more likely than Whites to endorse more restrictive and more punitive policies toward corporate criminals. We conclude that punitive attitudes are socially constructed beliefs that reflect the dynamics of conflicted class and racial relations. Keywords: public opinion; race and political orientation; corporate crime

Few public policy issues have inflamed passions as consistently and as strongly as the debate over capital punishment. Religious denominations have been deeply involved on both sides of the issue, drawing both on teachings and traditions of justice and on those that emphasize the dignity of human life. Scholarly researchers have investigated the role that religious beliefs play in shaping sentiments toward crime control policies, with a particular focus on the relationship between belonging to a Christian fundamentalist denomination and support for the death penalty. Researchers have reasoned that Christian fundamentalists should be more likely to support capital punishment than other more moderate denominations because they hold conservative religious beliefs that justify the use of the death penalty. Using 1998 data from the General Social Survey, the authors initially show that contrary to common views, Christian fundamentalist affiliation is unrelated to support for capital punishment. Subsequent analyses reveal, however, that this null relationship is not straightforward but complex: fundamentalists embrace certain religious beliefs and involvement that both increase and decrease punitiveness. The study thus suggests that understanding the impact of religion on crime control attitudes potentially requires disentangling countervailing effects of different features of religiosity. Keywords: death penalty; Christian fundamentalism; punitiveness

In this paper, we explored whether the relationship between externalizing behaviors and impulsivity may have racialized dimensions. To do so, we uniquely constructed an unbalanced panel dataset from the PHDCN-LCS, which allowed us to examine the within-individual relationships between being a Black male, impulsivity, and externalizing behaviors. Based on the tenets of a Black Criminology, we suggested that because of their exposure to racism, Black males may exhibit the greatest volatility—or changes in their level of impulsivity—across time. Additionally, we explored whether the within-individual effect of changes in impulsivity on changes in externalizing behaviors across time may be greater for Black males in comparison to Black females, White females, and White males. The results revealed that Black males exhibited greater changes in their within-individual levels of impulsivity across time and that the within-individual effect of changes in impulsivity on changes in externalizing behaviors was greater for Black males than their counterparts. Our analyses suggest that further testing of the tenets of a Black Criminology is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to reaffirm the value of collective efficacy as a theory of offending and highlight a crucial individual-level mechanism through which collective efficacy may operate: individual-level perceived collective efficacy—subjective collective efficacy. We highlight the need to distinguish between individual-level perceptions of collective efficacy and the macro-level construct of collective efficacy. Analyzing data from the PHDCN, our study revealed that neighborhood levels of collective efficacy did not exert a direct effect on offending. However, neighborhood-level collective efficacy decreased offending indirectly through individual-level subjective collective efficacy. Our research suggests that scholars need to expand upon their conceptualization of collective efficacy and seek a more nuanced understanding of how collective efficacy operates at the macro and micro levels. In particular, we conclude that subjective collective efficacy should be understood as a cognitive landscape—a way of seeing the world—and be given theoretical and empirical attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars argue that racial oppression uniquely causes Black males to construct a definition of their masculinity—the "Cool Pose"—that is different from White male masculinity. In this paper, using a nationally representative survey conducted in 2018, we examined whether young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to conform to the Cool Pose. We analyzed six measures of the Cool Pose. We found no evidence that young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to use violence if provoked. However, we found that young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to be physically and emotionally strong, play sports, and to dominate or control others. We conclude that research needs to move beyond idiosyncratic accounts of Black males' cultural adaptations in order to explicate the developmental processes that affect how Black males living in a systemically racist society express their masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We generated a within-subject analysis that assessed whether changes in delinquency from the same youth were associated with changes in the degree to which the youth perceived the delinquency of their peers across three waves of data. We hypothesized that the effect of within-person changes in perceptions of peer delinquency on changes in delinquency across time should be greatest among young black males. The results revealed that a within-person change in the youths' perceptions that their peers were engaging in greater delinquency increased offending across time. They also showed that young black males were more likely than young white males and young black and white females to increase their level of delinquency, within-person and across time, when they perceived an increase in their peers' levels of delinquency. We conclude that scholars may generate deeper theoretical insights and policies that are more efficacious when they reveal the causes of crime that are universal and those that uniquely affect a specific group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on the relationship between immigration and crime is central to the debate on immigration policies throughout Europe. This article reviews the research on whether immigrants in the Netherlands are more likely to engage in crime with a specific focus on whether Moroccans have a greater propensity to offend than the native Dutch. It is concluded that deficiencies in the research including the potential effects of bias against immigrant groups render the assessment of whether immigrants commit more crime than the native Dutch problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated low self-control/risky lifestyle theoretical framework has proven useful for explaining various types of victimization. Bullying victimization (i.e., verbal, social, or physical attacks), however, may not fit this explanation very well if youths who are bullied do not have to engage in risky behaviors to be singled out by their peers, but could instead be targeted for other reasons (e.g., physical vulnerabilities). In this context, the current paper examines the generality of the low self-control/risky lifestyle model by assessing whether it can effectively explain which youngsters are more likely to be bullied. Using a sample of 1,901 middle school students, the results indicate that, although low self-control significantly predicts whether youths will engage in risky lifestyles (e.g., displaying aggressive attitudes, committing delinquent acts, using illicit substances), participating in such behaviors does not elevate the likelihood of bullying victimization. Instead, the authors’ findings reveal that low self-control directly influences victimization. Further, physical vulnerability is significantly related to being bullied. These findings suggest that the low self-control/risky lifestyle model needs to be revised to accommodate potential age-graded consequences of self-control, and that physical limitations—not “traditional” risky lifestyles—are persistent sources of bullying victimization that should be further evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vast majority of tests of major criminological theories have been conducted on youths in school settings. Following Hagan and McCarthy’s (1997) admonition to engage in “street criminology,” the current study surveyed 254 juveniles drawn mainly from impoverished neighborhoods in Uruguay, who were either confined or in an alternative justice program. Due to limited literacy skills, all youths were interviewed regarding theoretical measures and their delinquent involvement. The results revealed that self-control was unrelated to delinquency in this sample. By contrast, social learning factors and stressful life events were found to increase delinquent participation. The results suggest that the effects of the field’s core theories are general, accounting for as much or more variation in the sample of street youths as among youths attending conventional U.S. schools. The policy implications of the findings are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: This article examines a core hypothesis of Unnever and Gabbidon’s theory that racial discrimination should diminish the ability of African American youths to build strong bonds with their school, which in turn should increase their likelihood of engaging in problematic behaviors over time. Their thesis further argues that these relationships should persist after controlling for affectional ties with parents and other covariates. Methods: This hypothesis is assessed using data from two cohorts included within the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, Longitudinal Cohort Study. Results: The results show that racial discrimination predicts changes in problematic behaviors from wave 1 to wave 3 and weakens the attachment that African American youths have with their teachers and their commitment to their education while controlling for affectional ties to parents and other covariates. Conclusions: The results lend support to Unnever and Gabbidon’s thesis that a holistic understanding of African Americans’ offending must be grounded in their everyday experiences with what it means to be Black in a racialized society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The racial/ethnic invariance thesis is a foundational assumption of the general theories of crime. It assumes that all persons, regardless of their racial/ethnic background, engage in problematic behaviors for the same reasons. This thesis allows general theories to be generalizable and, for the most part, has received empirical and theoretical support. Yet, recent research and new theoretical developments question the validity of the racial/ethnic invariance thesis, breathing new life into the debate over whether the factors that influence African American youths’ problematic behaviors are similar to those that influence the behaviors of other youths. Drawing on data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods–Longitudinal Cohort Study (PHDCN-LCS), our results question the validity of the invariance thesis by showing that the impact of perceived discrimination by the police has a stronger influence on African American youths’ externalizing problems than it does for other youths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests core tenets of the theory of African-American offending proposed by Unnever and Gabbidon. Their theory posits that African-Americans have a common worldview on matters of race that is related to their offending. However, Unnever and Gabbidon further hypothesize that immigrant blacks do not fully embrace the worldview shared by US-born blacks. Using a 2008 national Gallup poll, we examine whether US-born blacks share a common worldview and whether foreign-born blacks differ in their opinions on key issues including: criminal injustices, the state of American race relations, attitudes towards immigration and illegal immigrants, and the perception of mobility within American society. The results partially confirm their two key hypotheses; there are no entrenched differences in the public opinions of US-born blacks on race-related matters while immigrant blacks do not wholly endorse their worldview. We discuss the implications of these two findings in relation to how scholars conceptualize offending among blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: To explore whether the impact of racial and ethnic pejorative stereotypes and prejudice on White support for the death penalty changes over time. Methods: The data were drawn from the 1990 and 2000 General Social Surveys. This trend analysis included a four-item racial–ethnic prejudice scale and two stereotype or “typification” measures that assessed the extent to which the respondents believed that African Americans and Hispanics were more prone to violence than Whites. Controls were introduced for standard demographic measures and for known covariates of punitiveness, such as conservative political ideology and religious beliefs and involvement. The dependent variable was whether the respondents favored the death penalty for persons convicted of murder. Results: The analyses revealed that racial and ethnic prejudice increases Whites' embrace of capital punishment in both periods of time. By contrast, the negative stereotypes that typify African Americans and Hispanics as prone to violence exerted a significant impact on support for the death penalty in 1990 but not in 2000. Conclusions: These findings suggest that Whites' views on minority group members' proneness to violence potentially shift over time and exert significant impacts on death penalty support depending on the broader social context that prevails at a given historical juncture. Racial–ethnic feelings of animus appear to be a stable, if not intractable source of punitiveness. Future research should continue to unpack the complex nature of Whites' racial and ethnic views and to explore how, in given sociopolitical contexts, they potentially serve to justify punitive policy agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholars often have used the group threat thesis to explain why punitiveness varies across places. This research regularly has found that punitiveness is harsher in places with a larger minority population. Yet researchers only have had a rudimentary grasp of why this is the case. Moreover, most prior research has focused only on the United States, giving us little knowledge of whether the group threat thesis is a viable explanation of cross-national differences in punitiveness. In the current study, we postulate that the relative size of the out-group population affects punitiveness indirectly, via its impact on individual intolerance toward ethnic out-groups. We test this thesis cross-nationally with data from individuals residing in 27 European countries. Our findings are consistent with the argument that greater racial/ethnic diversity at the country level affects individuals' attitudes toward minority out-groups, which in turn increases their support for severely punishing criminal offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy decisions with respect to juvenile offenders oscillate between rehabilitation and punishment, and the effectiveness of these two approaches, including which one for which type of offender, has yet to be realized. Less studied is the extent to which the public favors one approach or the other generally, and whether the public believes that there is an age at which it may be too late to help a juvenile offender turn away from a life of crime. In this study, we explore whether optimism about juvenile rehabilitation is a near universal, shared belief, or whether there exist important variations across socio-demographic groups about whether juveniles can be rehabilitated (and if so at what age). Studying this issue is important because public attitudes have the potential to shape policy. In the domain of juvenile justice, the challenge is whether public opinion will breed unfettered punitiveness or, as we anticipate, will serve as an impetus for a richer and more progressive response to juvenile offenders. Using data from a random sample of Pennsylvania residents, our results point not toward a division over the beliefs about 'saving children,' but instead demonstrate a consensus -- that optimism about juvenile rehabilitation is not something citizens argue over. Implications for public policies regarding juvenile offenders are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including racism and crimes regarding African Americans, racial discrimination in the U.S., and racial disparities in outcomes of criminal justice.

Studies reveal that some Americans are more willing than others to endorse harsh measures to control crime. We advance this literature by presenting a model that offers an integrated explanation of why some Americans are more punitive than others. Scholars have found that people construct images of offenders that reflect those disseminated by elites, the media, and popular culture. These images can vary across types of crime and can change over time. We posit that individual differences in punitiveness are related to whether people empathize with the images they construct of 'typical' stereotyped offenders. We conclude by offering a systematic model that summarizes the proposed theoretical perspective and helps to illuminate both implications for macro-level theories and future avenues of investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on traditional conflict perspectives, Hagan et al. (2005) have developed an important model for explaining racial-ethnic differences in perceptions of injustice, especially among Whites, Hispanics, and African Americans. Using data from the 2000 Public Opinion on the Courts in the United States survey, we provide a partial test of core propositions of their "comparative conflict theory." Consistent with the perspective's "racial-ethnic divide thesis," Whites perceived less injustice than members of minority groups. The findings also provide support for the "gradient thesis," which predicts that African Americans perceive the most injustice, followed by Hispanics and Whites, respectively. In our sample, however, we found no evidence for the "differential sensitivity thesis," which predicts that compared to African Americans, Hispanics' perceptions of injustice will be differentially increased by contact with the justice system. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of comparative conflict theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tests two rival theories: low self-control and differential association and social learning and their competing accounts of why bad parenting matters. The analysis revealed that several dimensions of parenting (including monitoring and caring and parental reinforcement of aggression) affected both low self-control and aggressive attitudes. Both low self-control and aggressive attitudes predicted delinquent involvement and were found to partially mediate the effect of parenting measures on delinquency. The influence of self-control on delinquent involvement was found to vary across levels of aggressive attitudes--adolescents who had aggressive attitudes and little self-control were especially likely to engage in criminal behavior. The results indicate that ineffective parenting is likely to produce low self-control and aggressive attitudes through not only direct control (e.g., monitoring and punishment) but also through modeling. Thus, the findings question the claim by Gottfredson and Hirschi and Akers that they have set forth truly general theories of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined the impact of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on self-control and delinquency. Discussion on the Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory of crime; Relationship between self-control and deviant behavior; Impact of effective parenting on self-control; Correlation between ADHD, self-control and crime; Methods used in the study.

Presents a study that examined the influence of low self-control and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder on bullying and bully victimization. Relationship between self-control and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; Discussion on the path analysis for bullying and victimization; Evaluation of the total effects of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder on the bully and bully victimization.

For the most part, prior research on discrimination in sentencing has not been theoretically informed by a context-based theory of decision making. In this article we introduce one of the theories of status characteristics and expectation states, Hembroff's (1982) version, to predict when racial/ethnic sentencing disparities are most likely to occur. The theory predicts that when the caserelated attributes (i.e., a performance characteristic set) are consistent—all point to incarceration or all point to probation—sentencing disparities are not likely to occur based on defendants' race/ethnicity (i.e., diffuse status characteristics). The theory also predicts that as case-related attributes become increasingly inconsistent—some point to incarceration while others point to probation— there is an increasing likelihood that racial/ethnic sentencing disparities will occur. We evaluate the utility of this theoretical model by analyzing data on the sentences of 315 male drug offenders in Miami, Florida. The results support Hembroff's version of status characteristics theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]