Search

Intra-national conflicts with racial or ethnic elements can complicate post-war reconciliation. From 1992 to 1995, much of the former Yugoslavia, a nation largely drawn from three distinct ethnic groups, was embroiled in such a conflict. After the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord, it was feared that schools would become a surrogate battlefield for school-aged children within the newly created nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Group threat theory and the imbalance of power thesis provide differing views on such conflicts. Group threat theory posits that as a population – in this case a school – approaches maximum ethnic diversity, the residents – in this case the students – will feel increasingly threatened, resulting in higher cross-group victimizations. The imbalance of power thesis suggests that a group's decision to victimize another group depends on the relative lack of ethnic diversity: the extent to which one ethnic group dominates a school, the likelihood of victimization of any smaller groups increases. We explore which of these two theories best explains victimization levels within a sample of 2003 school-aged BiH adolescents born in areas dominated by Muslim Bosnians, Eastern Orthodox Serbians, or Roman Catholic Croatians. We find that there is an ethnic component to victimizations: students born in Serbia face higher levels of victimization than do their Bosnian-born counterparts under conditions that fit better with group threat theory than the imbalance of power thesis. We speculate about the significance of these findings for national ethnic harmony in BiH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L. Thomas Winfree Jr. [a,*] Frances P. Bernat [b] Finn-Aage Esbensen © Abstract Delinquent gangs have attracted the attention of social scientists for most of the twentieth century. The current [...]

This book deserves close scrutiny for several reasons. First, Bachman examines a population too often forgotten by criminologists: American Indians. Second, not content simply to described this group's criminal violence [...]

Empirical and conceptual literature in the United States and Western Europe provides robust evidence of victimization as a risk factor for juvenile offending and parental monitoring as a protective factor. The current study examines relationships among victimization, monitoring, and offending using a sample of youth from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Findings indicate monitoring has a protective effect, victimization increases risk, monitoring level moderates the effect of victimization on offending, and moderation effects vary by age and gender. Discussion of findings identifies implications for efforts in BiH to develop a comprehensive strategy for preventing and responding to juvenile offending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late-nineteenth century, scholars have investigated how structural elements within a community--what is now called social support--relate to suicide. However, social support has rarely been used to study adolescent suicide, particularly within a nationally representative sample. The current study, using the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), explores the ties between social support mechanisms and adolescent expressions of suicide ideation and suicide attempts. Using the 2-level hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) technique, the current study found that such phenomena can be understood in terms of social support and certain individual factors, some common to both ideation and attempts, others unique to one or the other. Moreover, suicide ideation and attempts were linked to the risk-taking behaviors of the youths, their friends, and their family members. Feeling safe at school was one of the most consistent protective factors included in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expunging a criminal conviction in the United States is a rare event and often limited to persons who committed offenses as juveniles or adult misdemeanants. Criminal convictions in Canada, however, are routinely set aside through pardons alter offenders have demonstrated a period of crime-free behavior. Sealing an offenders criminal record, the practice in Canada, is a significant step in his or her reentry into society and official acknowledgment of society's forgiveness. This exploratory study of pardons in Canada has two clear findings: First, despite the relatively easy process, few individuals with criminal records make application for pardons. Second, of those who do apply, few applications are ever denied, and a very small percentage of successful applicants reoffend. Although setting aside criminal convictions seems inconsistent with the increasing use of collateral consequences for U.S. offenders, taking this approach might contribute to increased public safety in the long term by easing offender reintegration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gottfredson and Hirschi claimed, as part of their general theory of crime, that a child's criminal propensity, what they called level of self-control, is fairly fixed by age 10. Low self-control children, they further claimed, exhibit greater proclivities for delinquency and analogous behaviors than children with high levels of self-control. They see self-control levels for children at both ends of the spectrum—and their propensities for crime and analogous behaviors—as immutable over the life course. The authors explore the self-control levels, self-reported illegal behavior, and supporting attitudes exhibited by a panel of youths from in six cities at five points in time. Some of our findings substantiated Gottfredson and Hirschi's claims (e.g., claims linking self-control, sex, and race or ethnicity); however, other findings are at odds with their theory (e.g., the unchanging nature of self-control). The authors review the implications of these findings for self-control theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although living in prison is difficult for all inmates, anecdotal evidence and a small number of qualitative studies on women's prisons suggest that females have greater social support needs while incarcerated. This claim is important for a more complete understanding of adjustment to prisons. In particular, extra- and intrainstitutional social support mechanisms may reduce the inmate-perceived stresses associated with imprisonment and yield fewer official rule infractions. Using a multilevel analysis, the authors explore ties between social support mechanisms and reported rules infractions of a nationally representative sample of male and female state prison inmates. Findings suggest that female inmates experienced more social support than did their male counterparts. Some of the included social support mechanisms seem to affect inmates' adjustment to prison, and the effect of marital status on misconduct varies by gender. The implications of these findings for understanding prison life and for prison administrators are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In New Zealand, selected sworn police officers called youth aid officers participate in discussions and deliberations concerning the actions required to restore the sense of community balance upset by the actions of juvenile offenders. The author explores a representative sample of all sworn police officers serving in the New Zealand Police, including a subsample of youth aid officers, looking at the nature of support for the philosophical underpinnings of restorative justice and the likely impact of such work and values on officer attitudes toward the workplace. A 1996 management survey of all branches of the New Zealand national policing organization contained a number of specific questions that tap dimensions of both restorative justice philosophy and workplace orientations. This study represents a descriptive examination of these self-reported perspectives for all sworn officers, including breakdowns by selected personal-biographical variables. Implications for the implementation of restorative justice practices within a policing organization are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines possible gender differences among personnel of the New Zealand Police. Comparison between the workplace perceptions of male and female officers; Factors that contribute to the occupational segregation in policing; Implications of a male-dominated vocation for female employees; Background on policing in New Zealand; Types of officers required to serve contemporary policing programs.

Medium security prisoners in two nations provided personal insights into the inmate social systems found in their facilities: Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility is located near New Mexico's border with Mexico; Christchurch Prison is in New Zealand's South Island. Besides personal biographical and sociolegal questions, the inmates in both facilities responded to a series of closed- and open-ended questions about inmate values and norms. The only modification was to cast them in terminology relevant to the prisoners in each facility. In this analysis, the authors turn to three critical dimensions of alleged inmate values. Inmate orientations on qualities or features in others that they respect provide the first focus. The second explores the respect given to a series of 15 different types of criminal offenders. The final focus is the nature and extent of prison code adoption in both facilities. The authors also address several theoretical and practical concerns revealed by these analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which examined the youth gang phenomenon in the United States using five increasingly restrictive membership definitions. Definition of gang; Discussion on delinquency theory, gangs and criterion-related validation; Theoretical and policy implications.

Probes the personal characteristics, crime histories and attitudes of non-alcoholic first and second time driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) offenders, alcoholic first and second time DWI offenders and chronic DWI offenders. Differences in levels of formal justice system processing; Implications of findings for public policy analysts.

This article deals with the evolution of the Gang Resistance Education and Training program (G.R.E.A.T.), from conceptual idea to policy implementation. In late May 1991, U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini attended a "town hall meeting" of Phoenix-area police agencies. At that meeting, informal discussions about a law enforcement-based anti-gang program similar to Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) was discussed. By the spring of 1992, a prototype program was presented to a school in the Phoenix area. Within months of this offering, the resulting program was being offered in schools across the nation. From that point to the present, there seems to be little disagreement as to what has transpired. It is toward the origins of the program that this article is directed, and to the sometimes tortuous path that the program and its progenitors followed to go from idea to implementation or G.R.E.A.T. Ultimately our goal is to compare and contrast this instance of intergovernmental cooperation with the extant literature and determine the extent to which the creation of G.R.E.A.T. as a case study adds to our understanding of how criminal justice policy moves from an idea to implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an exploratory examination of factors associated with the use of genetic fingerprinting in felony prosecutions. Impact of DNA evidence on decision making of prosecutors and sentencing authorities. Value of certainty over uncertainty; Evaluation of evidence-related and victim-related variables; Influence of personal biographical features.

Examines the utility of applying selected elements of social learning theory to the examination of youth gangs. Gang behavior and social context; Conceptual links of social learning theory and youth gangs; Gang membership; Social learning measures.

Evaluates the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, a school-based gang prevention program in Phoenix, Arizona. Provision of youths in the elementary grades with tools necessary to resist gang membership; Need to examine criminological theories behind the program.

The article provides insights into the problem of jail deaths in the U.S. by drawing upon relevant data from the 1978 and 1983 National Jail Censuses and other official sources. The goal of the research is to compare national death trends with jail death trends in order to determine (1) if the problem is as grave as the available literature suggests and (2) if any major changes have occurred as a result of federal court activism. Indeed, researchers found that when an adjusted general population death rate is employed certain cause-specific rates are actually lower in jail.

Social learning theory has been used to explain substance abuse among adolescents literally from its inception in the 1960s. This theory suggests that basically good children learn to become substance abusers due to such social forces as internalized definitions supportive of delinquent behavior, the influence of delinquent peers, the presence of powerful social reinforcers, and the absence of adequate social punishers. Self-control theory, a more recent theoretical entry, has rather different views about adolescent misbehavior: children become, delinquent owing to inadequate parenting and poorly developed self-controls. Taken together these two perspectives should provide unique insights into the self-reported substance abuse of eighth grade students in two rather different cities: Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, despite the considerable differences between the two cities. We address the following question: to what extent do social learning theory and self-control theory provide insights into the city-specific patterns of self-reported substance abuse. We also review the theoretical and policy implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youthful drug use violates both formal law and informal norms for conventional behavior. Analyses of influences on permissive drug attitudes and behaviors among adolescents should, therefore, focus on both attitude toward the law and the informal normative climate of these youths. Legal attitude and norm qualities, however, can vary depending on the cultural and situational context. We examine the effect of legal attitude and norm qualities on drug permissiveness attitudes, as well as actual alcohol and marijuana use of 196 adolescents comprising three cultural groups: American Indian residents of a rural community, non-Indian residents of the same community, and transient Indians attending a job-training program in the community. In general, for all three groups, legal attitude primarily affects permissiveness toward drug use, while norm qualities of peers and personal permissiveness influence actual substance use. However, the three cultural groups vary in the relative salience of these variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note presents findings from cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of possible influences on the numbers of inmate suicides and natural deaths in 204 U.S. jails. Results revealed that both inmate suicides and natural deaths became less prevalent over time in larger facilities and in jails where medical tests of inmates on intake were added. Inmate suicides also became less prevalent in jails where the ratio of staff to inmates increased. Inmate deaths due to natural causes also declined in jails where standards of humane confinement are implemented, in facilities that experienced a decline in the degree of inmate crowding, and in jails where infirmaries designed for overnight stays were added. The implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social learning theory is tested in a rural middle school setting from which survey data were obtained in 1975 and 1979. A combined regression equation including major variables drawn from social learning theory (i.e., social reinforcements, social/nonsocial reinforcements, differential associations, and supportive definitions) is able in account for 34 percent of the variance in the level of marijuana use by the 1975 cohort and 52 percent of the variance in the use of the same drug by the 1979 cohort. The results of the analysis provide substantial empirical support for social learning theory as an explanatory framework for adolescent marijuana use and also provide insight into inter-cohort differences in explained variance. In addition, the findings indicate that changes in patterns of drug use are occurring in rural America and suggest the utility of social learning theory in the assessment of the nature and direction of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research reported here attempts to examine the recidivist impacts of probationary sentences versus incarceration. Statistically controlled comparisons were run on a probability sample of 100 offenders sentenced for residential or commercial burglary convictions in 1971. Subsequent arrest, conviction, and imprisonment data were gathered from official agency records through March of 1975. The results of this study indicate that for persons sentenced for burglary the likelihood of subsequent conviction for a felony or for any crime is less for probationed offenders than for any other sentence type. The strongest predictors of recidivism (defined as subsequent conviction for crime) were age, previous incarceration experience, and sentence type. Length of sentence, type of release, and number of previous arrests were essentially unrelated to subsequent rates of recidivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All formal organizations are faced with the problem of securing and retaining qualified, competent employees. For the office of the criminal prosecutor, this problem is exacerbated by the values, attitudes, and motives that define the duties and responsibilities of the job. In a study of the organizational socialization of law school interns, we observed that some of the students were assimilated quickly and completely into the role of prosecutor, while others were less socialized. We believe that the organizational structure and level of control exercised over the interns accounted for these discrepancies. These factors, in turn, delimited the level of intern involvement in the prosecutorial role. The better-integrated interns were considered to be "apprentice recruits" in their respective offices; the more poorly socialized interns were looked upon as temporary help with limited skills, or "pseudo-recruits." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States that `prisonization,' or prison socialization, has been recognized for a long time as a process with goals that are antithetical to the reintegration of ex-offenders. Examines three groups within a prison community in order to determine the extent to which levels of prisonization can be used to predict group membership; Drug treatment as one solution to the drugs-crime connection; More.

The present study compares the ability of selected psychological and sociological factors to predict the level of punitive criminal sanction supported by a community's residents. Personality characteristics, particularly those developed in the pioneering work of Adorno on authoritarianism, represented psychological influences; sociological views on punitive sanctions were drawn from the Drukheimian tradition of social condemnation, in which group norms are established by the general level of consensus about the perceived threat of a particular criminal act, or crime seriousness. Little support was found for the link between authoritarianism and specific sanctioning endorsements. The sociological concept of normative endorsements. The sociological concept of normative outliers, on the other hand, proved to be the much more useful construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing records from the Seattle Police Department, we explored questions of a new "masculinized" female offender and a "chivalrous" criminal justice system. Crime-specific arrest statistics provided a means to study both questions. Arrest statistics were recoded three separate ways: according to traditional views of the "masculinity" of an offense; legalistic crime categories; and seriousness ratings. These three categories were com- pared by sex across a four-year period. Comparisons of final dispositions provided the basis of a final look at the "chivalry" issue. The findings suggest that females are not making great inroads into either traditionally masculine crimes or crime in general, and while there is little in the data to suggest prejudicial treatment based on sex, chivalry is supported by certain arrest and disposition rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study on the attitudes of eight grade students toward police in the United States. Comparison of the attitudes of adults and juveniles for police; Importance of understanding youthful attitudes; Discussion of factors explaining the attitudes of students.