MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION RESEARCH

It can be argued that any objective reexamination of the marijuana laws and reformulation of public policy should necessarily be undertaken within some type of cost/ benefit perspective. As such, a paradigm might be structured which could examine the costs and benefits of the criminalization of marijuana vs. the benefits and costs of its decriminalization. On the one hand, there are the psychosocial costs of marijuana use which include any effects which might flow from the use of the drug. What the benefits of marijuana use might be, beyond the euphoric states and feelings of well being it offers, are yet to be fully determined. Yet by contrast. there are the human, social, and economic costs which flow from the criminalization of marijuana use. It is argued in this commentary that this paradigm can be used as a guide for decriminalization research. A variety of data sets and historical issues are briefly examined which fall within the parameters of this paradigm, and a series of research protocols which flow from the paradigm are addressed.     

ADOLESCENT MARIJUANA AND ALCOHOL USE

Most tests of differential association theory focus on the basic relationships rather than the causal process specified by the theory. This study provides a more thorough test of Sutherland's differential association hypothesis by deriving and testing a causal model of alcohol and marijuana use among adolescents. The findings provide strong support for the causal process specified by differential association theory. However, two unexpected findings suggest that the theory may have to be modified to account for the differential impact of peer pressure, independent of internalized definitions, on individual behavior and for the differential impact of specific primary groups on the formation of individual definitions.     

SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY AND DELINQUENCY: A LONGITUDINAL TEST

Hirschi's (1969) control theory has received much empirical support and, as a consequence, has become one of the dominant theories of delinquency. Virtually all tests of the theory, however, have been conducted with cross-sectional data. This is a serious problem since there is good reason to believe that delinquency may have a causal impact on social control. This paper describes a longitudinal test of Hirschi's theory using panel data from a national sample of adolescent boys. Data indicate that the social control variables explain only 1%-2% of the variance in future delinquency, suggesting that cross-sectional studies have exaggerated the importance of Hirschi's theory. Possible reasons for the small longitudinal effect of the control variables are discussed.     

THE METHODOLOGICAL ADEQUACY OF LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH ON CRIME*

This paper argues that the increasing dominance in contemporary criminology of the longitudinal or cohort study is not justified on methodological grounds, that this research design has taken criminological theory in unproductive directions, has produced illusory substantive findings, and has promoted policy conclusions of doubtful utility. In addition, it is noted that longitudinal research is very expensive and therefore has high opportunity costs, costs that have not been properly evaluated. The positive thesis is that many of the apparent benefits of longitudinal research can be obtained by carefully designed and reasonably conceptualized cross-sectional studies, at substantially reduced cost.     

DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION AND MARIJUANA USE: A CLOSER LOOK AT SUTHERLAND (WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM BECKER)*

Based on Sutherland's differential association theory and Becker's early research on marijuana use, a contingency model estimating the exact probability of getting high on marijuana under various associational and motivational conditions is specified and tested. Data from surveys at two universities fit this model closely. Predicted first-order interactions and nonlinear effects of motivational balance and peer association are statistically significant and generate highly precise estimates of the probability of getting high. These results suggest that linear main-effects models employed in previous research on differential association processes do not adequately reject the complex casual structure of Sutherland's theory. In addition, this study raises serious questions about claims that differential association theory is untestable and has been made outdated by social learning theory.     

CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENT PREDICTORS OF PHYSICAL ASSAULT: A PROSPECTIVE LONGITUDINAL STUDY*

Data gathered over the course of an 18‐year prospective longitudinal study of more than 1,000 New Zealand children was used to examine the contextual, lifestyle, and childhood risk factors associated with young people's exposure to physical assault in late adolescence. Twenty‐three percent of males compared with 14% of females reported an assault between the ages of 16 and 18 years. However, although the prevalence and nature of young people's physical assault experiences differed in gender specific ways, the concurrent and antecedent risk factors that placed males and females at risk of physical assault were similar. The major predictors of physical assault during late adolescence included childhood measures of behavioral disturbance and parental dysfunction, in addition to measures of adolescent participation in a delinquent lifestyle, such as violent offending, status offending, and the misuse of alcohol. These findings support previous research suggesting a strong link between juvenile delinquency and victimization risk, and they contribute to an understanding of the role of gender and childhood experiences in predicting later risk of physical assault.     

RELIGIOSITY,PEER ASSOCIATIONS,AND ADOLESCENT MARIJUANA USE: A PANEL STUDY OF UNDERLYING CAUSAL STRUCTURES*

This paper examines the relationship between the religious factor and adolescent marijuana use. Using panel data from a sample of 264 high school youth, several three-wave, four-variable models derived from social learning theory and social control theory are estimated. Each model specifies causal links between measures of religious attitude and predispositions (religious commitment and an act-specific religious belief), involvement with marijuana-using friends, and self-reported marijuana use. The results provide evidence that the impact of religion is indirect through its influence on the variable Peer Associations. The findings also show the emergence of a direct effect of the act-specific belief on behavior over time. This effect is interpreted to be more a function of within-group attitude-behavior similarity due to social selection than to socialization to peer group standards. These findings extend rather than refute previous research which fails to control for the effects of peer influences.     

LONGITUDINAL PREDICTORS OF SERIOUS SUBSTANCE USE AND DELINQUENCY*

The present study tests the validity of a common-cause model in explaining both serious substance use and serious delinquent behavior among youths. Longitudinal data on 441 male and 441 female adolescents are analyzed. Youths originally tested at Time 1 when they were 12, 15, or 18 years old were retested three years later when they were 15, 18, or 21 years old. The results provide modest support for a common-cause model. While a number of predictor variables drawn from control theory and differential association theory are related to both behaviors, those drawn from the literature on psychological correlates of adolescent deviance tend to be more strongly related to subsequent serious substance use than to serious delinquency. The findings suggest that there is a degree of etiological independence in serious adolescent substance use and serious forms of delinquency. The implications of these results for theory development and policy implementation are discussed.     

A LONGITUDINAL PERSPECTIVE ON PATTERNS OF CRIME

This article addresses the possibility of prospectively identfying chronic criminal offenders using identifiers available to the criminal justice system. Data were collected as part of a longitudinal study of the lives of men who were in a delinquency prevention program in the early 1940s. For the half who were randomly assigned to the treatment group, a discriminant function correctly identified 67% of the men as recidivists or nonrecidivists. When tested on the control group, it correctly sorted 76% of the men. The author argues that although prospective identification of recidivists may be possible, legal action based on predictions would be wrong.     

DELINQUENT PEERS IN CONTEXT: A LONGITUDINAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF SELECTION AND INFLUENCE EFFECTS*

In this article, longitudinal social network data are analyzed to get a better understanding of the interplay between delinquent peers and delinquent behavior. These data contain detailed information about the social networks of secondary school students from the same grade, their delinquent behavior, and many relevant correlates of network formation and delinquency. To distinguish selection and influence processes, a method (Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analyses, SIENA) is used in which network formation and changes in delinquency are simulated simultaneously within the context of other network processes and correlates of delinquency. The data and the method used make it possible to investigate an unusually wide array of effects on peer selection and delinquent behavior. The results indicate that similarity in delinquency has no significant effect on the selection of school friends when other network dynamics are taken into account. However, the average delinquency level of someone's friends in the school network does have a significant, although relatively small, effect on delinquent behavior of the respondents, beyond significant effects of changes in the level of self‐control and morality. Another peer‐related change, leaving or joining informal street‐oriented youth groups, also appears to have a substantial effect on changes in delinquency.     

DELINQUENT PEERS,BELIEFS, AND DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR: A LONGITUDINAL TEST OF INTERACTIONAL THEORY*

Three theoretical models of the interrelations among associations with delinquent peers, delinquent beliefs, and delinquent behavior are examined. The socialization model views delinquent peers and beliefs as causally prior to delinquent behavior, whereas the selection model hypothesizes that associations with delinquent peers and delinquent beliefs are a result of delinquent behavior. The interactional model combines aspects of both the socialization and the selection models, positing that these variables have bidirectional causal influences on one another over time. Data to test for reciprocal causality are drawn from three waves of the Rochester Youth Development Study. Results suggest that simple unidirectional models are inadequate. Associating with delinquent peers leads to increases in delinquency via the reinforcing environment of the peer network. Engaging in delinquency, in turn, leads to increases in associations with delinquent peers. Finally, delinquent beliefs exert lagged effects on peers and behavior, which tend in turn to “harden” the formation of delinquent beliefs.     

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY,AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING AND DELINQUENCY: A LONGITUDINAL TEST OF A MODEL INTEGRATING COMMUNITY‐AND FAMILY‐LEVEL PROCESSES*

In this paper, we develop and test hypotheses on how authoritative parenting and collective efficacy combine to increase a child's risk of affiliating with deviant peers and engaging in delinquent behavior. Analyses using two waves of data from a sample of several hundred African American caregivers and their children largely supported the predictions. Over time, increases in collective efficacy within a community were associated with increases in authoritative parenting. Further, both authoritative parenting and collective efficacy served to deter affiliation with deviant peers and involvement in delinquent behavior. Finally, there was evidence of an amplification process whereby the deterrent effect of authoritative parenting on affiliation with deviant peers and delinquency was enhanced when it was administered within a community with high collective efficacy.     

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH THEFT,MARIJUANA USE,DEPRESSION, AND POOR ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE*

Explanations for the fact that crime tends to run in families have focused on the deprived social backgrounds of criminal parents, methods of child‐rearing, modeling processes, and genetic mechanisms. However, parental involvement in the criminal justice system itself also might contribute to the intergenerational transmission of crime and have other adverse effects on children's well‐being. We investigated the development of youth problem behavior in relation to parental arrest, conviction, and incarceration in the youngest and oldest samples of the Pittsburgh Youth Study, a longitudinal survey of 1,009 inner‐city boys. Parental arrest and conviction without incarceration did not predict the development of youth problem behavior. Parental incarceration was not associated with increases in marijuana use, depression, or poor academic performance. However, boys experiencing parental incarceration showed greater increases in theft compared with a control group matched on propensity scores. The association between parental incarceration and youth theft was stronger for White youth than for Black youth. Parenting and peer relations after parental incarceration explained about half of its effects on youth theft. Because the effects of parental incarceration were specific to youth theft, labeling and stigma processes might be particularly important for understanding the consequences of parental incarceration for children.     

A LONGITUDINAL TEST OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY: FEEDBACK EFFECTS AMONG COHESION,SOCIAL CONTROL,AND DISORDER*

Social disorganization theory holds that neighborhoods with greater residential stability, higher socioeconomic status, and more ethnic homogeneity experience less disorder because these neighborhoods have higher social cohesion and exercise more social control. Recent extensions of the theory argue that disorder in turn affects these structural characteristics and mechanisms. Using a data set on 74 neighborhoods in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands spanning 10 years, we tested the extended theory, which to date only a few studies have been able to do because of the unavailability of neighborhood‐level longitudinal data. We also improve on previous studies by distinguishing between the potential for social control (feelings of responsibility) and the actual social control behavior. Cross‐sectional analyses replicate earlier findings, but the results of longitudinal cross‐lagged models suggest that disorder has large consequences for subsequent levels of social control and residential instability, thus leading to more disorder. This is in contrast to most previous studies, which assume disorder to be more a consequence than a cause. This study underlines the importance of longitudinal data, allowing for simultaneously testing the causes and consequences of disorder, as well as the importance of breaking down social control into the two dimensions of the potential for social control and the actual social control behavior.     

TESTING SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY USING REINFORCEMENT'S RESIDUE: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS OF SELF‐REPORTED THEFT AND MARIJUANA USE IN THE NATIONAL YOUTH SURVEY*

Critics have expressed concerns regarding measurement strategies or analytic techniques often used in social learning research (Horan and Phillips, 2003; Krohn, 1999; Sampson, 1999; Tittle, 2004). In response to these concerns, this study tests the hypothesized causal relationships among reinforcement, general definitions, and self‐reported crime (theft and marijuana use) using a multilevel modeling approach with longitudinal data from the first five waves of the National Youth Survey (NYS), as well as with indirect parent and friend reinforcement measures that incorporate both the assumed products of reinforcement (expected consequences of behavior) and the efficacy of reinforcement (expected influence of the reinforcement source). Within‐subject analyses present a challenge to the theory as social learning variables do not covary significantly over time with criminal offending rates. Between‐subject analyses offer support for the theory as across‐person differences in average parent and friend reinforcement are significantly related to offending rates, and these reinforcement–crime relationships are mediated partially or fully by learned definitions. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

PLEA BARGAINING AND THE RESEARCH DILEMMA

Plea bargaining has been traditionally assumed to play no part in the administration of criminal justice in England. Research conducted by the authors casts serious doubts on this assumption. Their report on this research provoked a vituperative response from leaders of the English legal profession who attempted to suppress its publication. Some implications of this reaction for the independent conduct of research are examined in this article.