Capitalizing on Criminal Accomplices: Considering the Relationship between Co-offending and Illegal Earnings

This study investigates whether co-offending offers an avenue towards criminal success. Specifically, it considers if current and prior co-offending experience is related to the probability of reporting illegal earnings as well as the amount of these earnings. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, we estimated fixed-and random-effects models to test whether co-offending experience is related to self-reported illegal earnings. The models also estimated whether “historical” co-offending experience predicted current illegal earnings. Across both modeling strategies, current and historical co-offending predicted the probability of reporting non-zero illegal earnings, net of offending frequency and controls. There is minimal evidence of a relationship between co-offending experience and the amount of illegal earnings, however. These findings lead us to conclude that access to a relatively common criminal connection—the co-offender—offers tangible benefits to adolescent offenders, primarily by affecting their ability to translate criminal opportunities into monetary gain.     

Maybe I Should Do This Alone: A Comparison of Solo and Co-offending Robbery Outcomes

There has been a notable increase in co-offending research in recent years, with most studies focusing on the causes and correlates of co-offending. There is little known, however, about the consequences of co-offending and how it may influence crime event outcomes for the offender. The present study compares the monetary reward and arrest risk of solo and co-offending robberies. Data from the National Incident Based Reporting System were analyzed to examine the characteristics and outcomes of robberies perpetrated by one, two, three, and four or more offenders. Though co-offending incidents were associated with greater total property value stolen, co-offending incidents resulted in significantly less property value per offender, controlling for other incident characteristics. The likelihood of an incident resulting in an arrest significantly increased with the number of offenders. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and research on the real and perceived benefits and costs of co-offending.     

Gender inequality and homicide: a cross-national examination

Studies examining gender inequality and crime have often explored the connection between female victimisation and crime. However, feminist theories do provide a rationale for gender inequality affecting all crime, not just female victimisation. Using the ameliorative and the backlash hypothesis the current analysis examined gender inequality and homicide in 94 countries. Using a gender inequality index, we found that as gender inequality increased the homicide rate increased. This finding supports the ameliorative hypothesis, which states that as societies become more equal crime will decrease.     

Incorporating Co-offending in Sentencing Models: An Analysis of Fines Imposed on Antitrust Offenders

Analyses of sentencing (and other criminal justice processes such as the decision to prosecute, plea bargaining, and contact with the police) often use the isolated individual as the unit of analysis. However, the criminal justice system often processes either offenses or court cases rather than persons. If court cases always involved one individual, this would have little impact. However, offenses involving co-offending—two or more persons acting together—comprise a substantial proportion of criminal activity (Reiss, 1980, 1986). Depending on the prevalence of co-offending, it may be very likely that two or more individuals involved in the same case will be selected as members of the same sample of criminal justice or criminological data. Unless it can be shown that both the individual-level variables of co-offenders and their error terms are mutually independent, analyses based on methods such as ordinary least-squares multiple regression would violate the underlying assumptions of such models. However, alternatives to linear models assuming either type of independence are available. Among the most useful of these are mixed models, specifically those assuming compound symmetry. This is illustrated with an analysis of fines imposed on criminally convicted antitrust offenders. These models may yield results which are substantially different than those from models which ignore co-offending. In a model of fines imposed on antitrust offenders, models which ignore co-offending generally overstate both estimates and statistical significance of offense-level variables and understate those of offender-level variables.     

Hospitals, finance, and health system reform in Britain and the United States, c. 1910-1950: historical revisionism and cross-national comparison

Comparative histories of health system development have been variously influenced by the theoretical approaches of historical institutionalism, political pluralism, and labor mobilization. Britain and the United States have figured significantly in this literature because of their very different trajectories. This article explores the implications of recent research on hospital history in the two countries for existing historiographies, particularly the coming of the National Health Service in Britain. It argues that the two hospital systems initially developed in broadly similar ways, despite the very different outcomes in the 1940s. Thus, applying the conceptual tools used to explain the U.S. trajectory can deepen appreciation of events in Britain. Attention focuses particularly on working-class hospital contributory schemes and their implications for finance, governance, and participation; these are then compared with Blue Cross and U.S. hospital prepayment. While acknowledging the importance of path dependence in shaping attitudes of British bureaucrats toward these schemes, analysis emphasizes their failure in pressure group politics, in contrast to the United States. In both countries labor was also crucial, in the United States sustaining employment-based prepayment and in Britain broadly supporting system reform.     

Exploring the consequences of erratic data reporting for cross-national research on homicide

This paper examines the common practice in cross-national research on homicide of using crime estimates for a multiyear period based on a smaller number of years than theoretically desired because of erratic data reporting for selected nations. Correlations between hypothetical baseline rates and various alternative estimates are examined to simulate the potential consequences of using temporally incomplete data rather than data for the full multiyear period of interest. The results reveal that this common practice is likely to be highly acceptable for certain national samples but less acceptable for others. The paper concludes with suggestions for dealing with potentially problematic cases.     

Rethinking retirement-age policy in the United States and Canada

More than legislation, the recent amendments to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act also symbolize a growing interest in the older working population, both in the United States and Canada, particularly the question of their "failing" job skills and the effects of retirement age on the economy. Sociologist Rix examines this issue in terms of demographic, economic and biomedical factors, discussing their implications for management, employee counselors, insurance and pension planners, the tax payers and employees of all ages.     

Intimate Violence in Canada and the United States: A Cross-National Comparison

Using data from the 1985 U.S. National Family Violence Resurvey and the 1986 Canadian National Family Life Survey, this paper compares incidence of intimate violence or “common couple violence” (Johnson, 1995) in both countries. As expected, gender symmetry characterizes common couple violence, which is a product of the privatized setting of many American and Canadian households. Although the United States exhibits significantly higher rates of societal violent crime than Canada, Canadian women and men were more likely than their American counterparts to use severe intimate violence and to inflict it, as well as minor violence, more often, which is contrary to the culture of violence theory that guided the study. Similarly, the higher rates of wife-to-husband severe violence across the life course in both countries are inconsistent with the theory. Several ad hoc explanations are presented to account for these unexpected findings.     

The Rwandan diaspora in Canada and the United States: reconciliation and justice

Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, many Rwandans fled and a modest diaspora was established throughout Canada and the United States. Diaspora are subject to many of the same concerns regarding justice and reconciliation as those who remain in Rwanda. This research focused primarily on how this diaspora attempted to achieve justice and reconciliation, if institutional mechanisms (gacaca) in Rwanda had a residual effect, and if they created any specific mechanism to facilitate justice and reconciliation among themselves. In-person and telephone interviews were conducted with eight members of the diaspora in the United States and Canada between May 2015 and March 2016.

Interviews suggested that justice among the diaspora is inherently connected with justice in Rwanda, and participants felt that justice has not been achieved in either location. Reconciliation among the diaspora, while tied to reconciliation in Rwanda, may be its own construct. Interviews demarcated ‘thin’ reconciliation and ‘thick’ reconciliation, suggesting that ‘thin’ reconciliation exists among the diaspora, but that ‘thick’ reconciliation is rare. Discussion of gacaca was limited, as participants stated it did not address justice and reconciliation in Rwanda. Participants did not report any diaspora specific mechanism regarding attempts at justice and reconciliation.     

Partner killing by men in cohabiting and marital relationships: a comparative, cross-national analysis of data from Australia and the United States

Using a national-level U.S. database, T. K. Shackelford (2001) calculated rates of uxoricide (the murder of a woman by her romantic partner) by relationship type (cohabiting or marital), by ages of the partners, and by the age difference between partners. Women in cohabiting relationships were 9 times more likely to be killed by their partner than were married women. Within marriages, the risk of uxoricide decreases with a woman's age. Within cohabiting relationships, middle-aged women were at greatest risk of uxoricide. The risk of uxoricide increased with greater age difference between partners. We sought to replicate the findings of Shackelford (2001) using a national-level database that includes information on more than 4,400 homicides that occurred in Australia between 1989 and 2002. Despite the higher rate of partner killing in the United States, and despite other cultural differences between the two countries, we replicated key patterns with the Australian data.