CRIME DIVERSITY*

Large geographic areas should host a greater diversity of crime compared with small geographic areas. This proposition is reasonable given that larger geographic areas should not only support more crime but also contain a greater diversity of criminogenic settings. This article uses a neutral model to characterize crime richness as a function of area. The model starts with two neutral assumptions: 1) that all environments are statistically equivalent and exert no influence on what types of crimes occur there; and 2) that different crime types occur independently of one another. The model produces rigorous predictions for the mean and variance in crime richness with increasing area. Tests of the model against a sample of 172,055 crimes occurring in Los Angeles during the year 2013 are qualitatively consistent with neutral expectations. The model is made quantitatively consistent by constant scaling. Resampling experiments show that at most 20 percent of the mean crime richness is attributable to nonrandom clustering and assortment of crime types. A modified neutral model allowing for variation crime concentration is consistent with observed variance in crime richness. The results suggest that very general and largely neutral laws may be driving crime diversity in space.     

CRIME REPORTING:

Most of the recent work on crime reporting has yet to be integrated into a coherent theoretical scheme. In response to this theoretical void, the present article outlines a model of the social psychological processes involved in crime reporting. The processes underlying the reporting of an observed crime assume that the bystander is a rational decision maker. After sighting an unusual event. the bystander calculates how discrepant the event is from his personal norms, ponders the sort of label that is appropriate for explaining the event, assumes personal responsibility. and adds up the costs and benefits associated with action. Final action or inaction is the consequence of a long chain of unobservable, cognitive events. The model draws heavily from current theorizing in studies of help-giving and altruistic behavior.     

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME FOR A GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME

Advocates of the concept of white-collar crime have failed to make the case for its scientific value. Steffensmeier's efforts to save the concept further support our view that it is flawed and misleading. His efforts support our contention that the correlates of white-collar crime are the same as the correlates of crime, that the age distribution of offending is the same for white-collar crimes as for other crimes, that official statistics have sufficient validity for many etiological purposes, and that the search for a general theory of crime holds great promise for criminology.     

CRIME AND PERSONALITY REVISITED

The present study explored the effects of MMPI response sets on relatonships between crime and personality in self-report studies. The MMPI-168 and a 21-item delinquent behavior questionnaire were administered to 1680 high school students. The Psychopathic Deviate, Schizophrenia, and Hypomania scales of the MMPI-168 were correlated with delinquent behaviors, with and without control for the L, F, and K scales of the MMPI-168, considered separately and simultaneously. Controlling for F eliminated some relationships and significantly diminished the magnitude of others, while control for L and K had no significant effect. Studies of this nature that fail to control for the F type of response set may produee largely illusory results.     

DETERRING CORPORATE CRIME*

Using event history analysis, we examine the recidivism patterns of a sample of 38 corporations charged with one or more serious antitrust violations between 1928 and 1981 to see whether sanction experience decreases the likelihood of a firm's reoffending. Specifically, we analyze the effects of procedure type (e.g., civil, criminal, and administrative redress) and proxy measures of corporate deterrence while controlling for changes in antitrust law and the economic conditions of the firm, industry, and general economy. Though not robust, there is some evidence that past guilty verdicts and changes in penalties for lawbreaking from misdemeanors to felonies inhibit recidivism. We note, however, that industry characteristics are stronger by far in their effects on future illegality than formal sanction risk or consequence. The implications of these findings for organizational deterrence and corporate crime control are discussed.     

CRIME AND DRUG-USING BEHAVIOR

The purpose of this article was to examine the ecological perspective as an explanation of criminal and drug-using behavior and to present data from a pilot study on the areal distribution of crime and drugs. We found that individuals engaged in narcotics use, those engaged in criminal behavior, and those engaged in both resided in the same area of the community. Those who used other types of drugs were less likely to reside in the same areas as those engaged in criminal behavior. Thus, we concluded narcotics users and criminals were drawn from the same population and both behaviors may be produced by the same environmental variables, rather than have an individual causal relationship.     

NARCOTIC ADDICTION AND CRIME

Arrest rates and self-reported criminal behavior are examined as a function of frequency of narcatic use during the addiction careers first daily narcatic use to last daily use) of a sample of 690 admissions to the California Civil Addict Program. Thirty-five percent of the addiction career non-incarcerated time involved less-than-daily or no narcatic use. During these periods. arrest rates for property crimes and self-reported criminal behavior were substantially lower than for periods of daily use. This approach to examining the relationship between crime and narcatic addiction avoids several of the methodological problems encountered in pre- and pastaddiction and pre- and pasttreatment studies.     

CRIME AS COMMONSENSE THEORY

This article examines sex differences in middle–class delinquency, using self-report data drawn from junior and senior high school students in an affluent suburb of a large midwestern city. A number of familiar techniques are used to assess both quantitative and qualitative sex differences, but none identify strong and systematic patterns of the type commonly expected. In this particulor middle-class population, there is little evidence that there are marked differences in the delinquent activities reported by girls and boys.     

CRIME AS AN OCCUPATION

Students of crime have traditionally stressed the uniqueness of the criminal world and have developed special concepts in their attempt to explain the functioning of this “special” domain. In contrast, others in the field have asserted that the concepts used to investigate the coventional world can also be employed to provide insight into its criminal counterpart. This sentiment has been particularly evident among those who have utilized the concept of “occupation” to analyze criminal behavior. Building on the “crime as work” perspective, this research illustrates that, similar to conventional occupations, criminal work is stratified by prestige and stereotyped by sex. Further, the data suggest that Davis and Moore's (1945) functional theory may be a useful explanation not only of the stratification of conventional work but of criminal occupations as well.     

SOCIAL ALTRUISM AND CRIME*

Drawing on the theoretical statements of Braithwaite (1989), Cullen (1994), Messner and Rosenfeld (1994), this research examines the influence of social altruism on the level of crime for a sample of U.S. cities. The multivariate analyses clearly indicate that the ratio of contributions to the United Way to aggregate city income, a behavioral approximation of the cultural value of altruism, is inversely related to property and violent crime rates. The implications of these findings for the reduction of crime are discussed.