EXPLAINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYMENT AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY*

Most criminological theories predict an inverse relationship between employment and crime, but teenagers' involvement in paid work during the school year is correlated positively with delinquency and substance use. Whether the work–delinquency association is causal or spurious has been debated for a long time. This study estimates the effect of paid work on juvenile delinquency using longitudinal data from the national Monitoring the Future project. We address issues of spuriousness by using a two-level hierarchical model to estimate the relationships of within-individual changes in juvenile delinquency and substance use to those in paid work and other explanatory variables. We also disentangle the effects of actual employment from the preferences for employment to provide insight about the likely role of time-varying selection factors tied to employment, delinquency, school engagement, and leisure activities. Whereas causal effects of employment would produce differences based on whether and how many hours respondents worked, we found significantly higher rates of crime and substance use among nonemployed youth who preferred intensive versus moderate work. Our findings suggest the relationship between high-intensity work and delinquency results from preexisting factors that lead youth to desire varying levels of employment.     

MICROANOMIE: THE COGNITIVE FOUNDATIONS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ANOMIE AND DEVIANCE*

Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton spawned a century of research on the effects of anomie on rule‐breaking behavior. During that time “strain” emerged as the social psychological mechanism producing deviant behavior from the effects of anomie. This research challenges the primacy of the affective strain mechanism, arguing that anomie produces a cognitive state—referred to as microanomie—where self‐enhancing values are higher priority than self‐transcending values. Data from a sample of university students support the association between dominant self‐enhancing values and deviant behavior. These data also demonstrate how the microanomie condition can explain gender differences in offending. A synthesis with the affective strain mechanism is suggested.     

FORGIVENESS AND FUNDAMENTALISM: RECONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORRECTIONAL ATTITUDES AND RELIGION*

Although research typically has failed to establish a relationship between religious affiliation and correctional attitudes, recent assessments have revealed that fundamentalist Christians tend to be more punitive than are nonfundamentalists. These studies have advanced our understanding considerably, but their conceptualization of religion and correctional attitudes has been limited. Using a statewide survey, the present study demonstrates that compassionate as well as fundamentalist aspects of religious beliefs are related to public correctional preferences. Further, our results reveal that religion influences support for rehabilitation as well as punitiveness. These findings suggest the need for scholars to think more broadly about the role of religion in criminology.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDHOOD MALTREATMENT AND ADOLESCENT INVOLVEMENT IN DELINQUENCY*

Recent research suggests a link between childhood maltreatment and later involvement in delinquency. This study examines this issue using official and self-report data from the Rochester Youth Development Study. The analysis addresses three central issues: the magnitude of the relationship between early child maltreatment and later delinquency, official and self-reported; the possibility of spuriousness in this relationship; and the impact of more extensive measurement of maltreatment on later delinquency. A significant relationship between child maltreatment and self-reported and official delinquency is found and this relationship, especially for more serious forms of delinquency, remains when controlling for other factors. The results also suggest that more extensive maltreatment is related to higher rates of delinquency. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

RECONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SES AND DELINQUENCY: CAUSATION BUT NOT CORRELATION*

Many theories of crime have linked low levels of socioeconomic status (SES) to high levels of delinquency. However, empirical studies have consistently found weak or nonexistent correlations between individuals' SES and their self-reported delinquent behavior. Drawing upon recent theoretical innovations (Hagan et al., 1985; Jensen, 1993; Tittle, 1995), we propose that this apparent contradiction between theory and data may be reconciled by recognizing that SES has both a negative and a positive indirect effect upon delinquency that, in tandem, results in little overall correlation between the two. We tested this proposal with longitudinal data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. We used measures of parental SES recorded at study members' birth through age 15, social-psychological characteristics at age 18, and self-reported delinquency at ages 18 and 21. We found that low SES promoted delinquency by increasing individuals' alienation, financial strain, and aggression and by decreasing educational and occupational aspirations, whereas high SES promoted individuals' delinquency by increasing risk taking and social power and by decreasing conventional values. These findings suggest a reconciliation between theory and data, and they underscore the conceptual importance of elucidating the full range of causal linkages between SES and delinquency.     

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY STRUCTURE AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: PARENTAL COHABITATION AND BLENDED HOUSEHOLDS*

In the last several decades, the American family has undergone considerable change, with less than half of all adolescents residing with two married biological parents. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we construct an elaborate measure of family structure and find considerable heterogeneity in the risk of antisocial and delinquent behavior among groups of youth who reside in what are traditionally dichotomized as intact and nonintact families. In particular, we find that youth in “intact” families differ in important ways depending on whether the two biological parents are married or cohabiting and on whether they have children from a previous relationship. In addition, we find that youth who reside with a single biological parent who cohabits with a nonbiological partner exhibit an unusually high rate of antisocial behavior, especially if the custodial parent is the biological father.     

UNPACKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ADOLESCENT EMPLOYMENT AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: A MATCHED SAMPLES COMPARISON*

A large body of research has consistently found that intensive employment during the school year is associated with heightened antisocial behavior. These findings have been influential in prompting policy recommendations to establish stricter limits on the number of hours that students can work during the school year. We reexamine the linkage between first‐time work at age 16 during the school year and problem behaviors. Our analysis uses group‐based trajectory modeling to stratify youths based on their developmental history of crime and substance abuse. This stratification serves to control for preexisting differences between workers and nonworkers and permits us to examine whether the effect of work on problem behaviors depends on the developmental history of those behaviors. Contrary to most prior research we find no overall effect of working on either criminal behavior or substance abuse. However, we do find some indication that work may have a salutary effect on these behaviors for some individuals who had followed trajectories of heightened criminal activity or substance abuse prior to their working for the first time.     

THE STOCHASTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PATENTS AND ANTITRUST

This article develops a novel theory by which to construe theinteraction between the patent and antitrust laws. The rulesof these respective disciplines are often portrayed as conflictingin means, yet harmonious in purpose. Although the intellectualproperty and antitrust laws have ostensibly divergent viewson the role of competition, their interaction is typically limitedto one of constraint. More specifically, antitrust rules havebeen (poorly) designed to limit the exclusivity inherent ina patent grant to the claimed invention alone. This article,however, articulates a new vision for the role of antitrust:it posits that competition rules operate as a stochastic regulatorof exclusionary patent rights. The Sherman Act constrains patentees'efforts to positively transform the probabilistic nature oftheir intellectual property rights through contract. Yet, becausethe empirical calculation of optimal innovation rates is anelusive, if not Sisyphean, task, the normative desirabilityof the foregoing fact is abstruse. Nevertheless, policymakers'inability to pinpoint precisely the ex post rewards requiredto trigger ideal levels of ex ante investment need not bindour hands to inaction. If contemporary rates of innovation aredeemed acceptable (even if not necessarily perfect), there maybe ways to trigger equivalent levels of ex ante investment withlower social cost. In this regard, it is clear that currentlyenacted competition rules significantly accentuate the uncertaintysurrounding patents' apotropaic effect. Concluding that contractssecuring otherwise stochastic rights may be highly desirable,the article calls for the incorporation of this concern intocontemporary rules, with modest substantive effect, and furtheradvocates a qualified antitrust immunity for "gold-plated" patentsif and when they are introduced.     

EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MILITARY SERVICE AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR DURING THE VIETNAM ERA: A RESEARCH NOTE*

Throughout U.S. history, the military has played a role in the lives of a large proportion of the U.S. population. However, little research has focused on this topic, particularly in criminology. This study seeks to determine whether military service changes an individual's criminal behavior and/or whether the military provides another setting for the continuation of prior behavior. To address these questions, this study uses Wolfgang's 1945 Philadelphia birth cohort and Shannon's 1949 Racine, Wisconsin birth cohort data sets. Statistical methods were used to account for potential differences in selection and the presence of unobserved heterogeneity. Results suggest that military service reduces later offending in general. However, there is no significant effect of service on later violent behavior.     

GENDER AND CRIMINAL COURT OUTCOMES: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS*

Research on gender differences in criminal sanctions generally finds a pattern of more lenient outcomes for female offenders, while noting that the effect of gender varies in relation to a number of contextual influences. As yet, however, little attention has been paid to how the relationship of gender to court outcomes varies across different historical periods. This paper examines this issue, using data on male and female offenders committed to Middlesex County Jail, Ontario, during the Urban Reform Era (1871–1920). The findings reveal an overall pattern of more severe dispositions for female offenders in the past. At the same time, there is considerable variability in the impact of gender across different measures of sanction severity, various offender and offense attributes, and from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The study highlights the need for research in this area to be sensitive to the historically specific nature of the relations among gender roles, formal and informal control mechanisms, and criminal sanctions.