CRIME AS HAZARD: PERCEPTIONS OF RISK AND SERIOUSNESS*

The study of crime suffers from an inattention to the social consequences of criminal acts. Conceiving crimes within the larger context of “hazard,” data are reported on the relative seriousness of conventional and white-collar crimes, as well as other hazards, using a sample of Washington state respondents. The results indicate that there is an inverse relationship between the perceived likelihood of a hazard and its seriousness. Generally, the more immediate the threat of a hazard, such as white-collar crimes, the more serious it is perceived to be. There are also implications from these consequences for perceptions of institutional effectiveness and interpersonal relationships. This suggests that future studies of the consequences of criminality, especially white-collar and corporate violations, might be directed toward the notions of risk and, eventually, social trust.     

THE ECOLOGY OF GANG TERRITORIAL BOUNDARIES*

Within any type of system, the actors in the system inevitably compete over resources. With competition comes the possibility of conflict. To minimize such effects, actors often will partition the system into geographic territories. It is against the larger ecological backdrop of competition and conflict that we examine territory formation among urban street gangs. Although previous studies have examined the social and built environment where gangs form, and how the presence of a gang influences local levels of violence, we know little about how competitive interactions are tied to the formation and maintenance of gang territories. We use formal spatial Lotka–Volterra competition models to derive hypotheses about competition‐driven territory formation. By using data on 563 between‐gang shootings, involving 13 rival street gangs in the Hollenbeck Policing Division of Los Angeles, we show that violence strongly clusters along the boundaries between gangs in a way that is quantitatively predicted by the theory. The results suggest that even weak competitive interactions between gangs are sufficient to drive gang territory formation without recourse to other processes or assumptions.     

DISPUTES INVOLVING YOUTH STREET GANG MEMBERS: MICRO‐SOCIAL CONTEXTS*

This paper examines microsocial contexts of violent and nonviolent dispute‐related incidents involving gang members. Data consist of reports of field observations of twelve black and eight white youth street gangs in Chicago between 1959 and 1962. Dispute‐related incidents (N = 2,637) were classified according to three primary pretexts: normative or order violations, identity attacks and retaliation. Findings show that disputes associated with each of these generally unfolded consistently with expectations based on the extent to which status concerns were likely to be outweighed by such situational constraints as a close relationship between disputants and audience intervention. We suggest that understanding violence in the gang context will be enhanced greatly by further consideration of the microsocial level of explanation and linkages to its macro‐ and individual‐level counterparts.     

Creating Peer Sexual Harassment: Mobilizing Schools to Throw the Book at Themselves

This paper describes how peer-to-peer sexual harassment rapidly was transformed from an unremarkable reality of secondary school life into a serious social and legal problem. First, it shows how organizations and professionals served as an entry point for social change and legal mobilization. I argue that schools were quick to address peer sexual harassment because activists framed it as a moral and pedagogical issue that resonated with educators' deeply held professional values. Second, the paper shows how law and organizations developed endogenously. Without any legal mandate, schools created and institutionalized harassment policies. Courts then looked to these organizational practices to determine the content and scope of Title IX. In this way, schools literally "enacted" the law through their practices. This finding goes beyond previous work on endogeneity in that school policies influenced law at the level of doctrine, not simply at the level of meaning, enforcement, or application.     

THE LEVEL OF EXPLANATION PROBLEM REVISITED—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 1997 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

This presentation revisits the “level of explanation problem” in criminology (a personal project begun more than 35 years ago). I develop the problem historically, paying tribute to those who have led the way and those who continue it. I distinguish between the situational and interactional levels of what has previously been termed the “microsocial” level of explanation. I then elaborate the interactional level and its application to the study of youth collectivities discussed.     

Editor's Introduction: Toward a Sociolegai Paradigm of Risk

Increasingly, law and legal institutions must deal with hazards and their attendant risks. This special issue of Law and Policy examines a variety of organizational responses to this challenge. Examples of the behavior of firms and of regulatory agencies suggest the outlines of a sociolegai paradigm of risks and risk-related behavior.