EXPLAINING JAPAN'S POSTWAR VIOLENT CRIME TRENDS*

Japan has long been recognized for its low rates of violent crime, rates that usually seem to be declining. The most common explanation for postwar rates links unique cultural characteristics to a system of exceptionally effective informal social controls that, at the macro level, suggest low levels of social disorganization. Other common explanations include low levels of economic stress, a small proportion of young males and a criminal justice system that delivers a high certainty of punishment. In this paper we test these four explanations for Japanese trends using both an annual time‐series national analysis (1951 to 2000) and a pooled cross‐sectional time‐series analysis of the 47 Japanese prefectures from 1955 to 2000 (at 5‐year intervals). The results from the two analyses are largely congruent. They show that measures of economic stress, certainty of punishment and age structure are–compared to common social disorganization measures–more consistent predictors of Japanese postwar violent crime trends. Our results suggest that the remarkable strength of the postwar Japanese economy may play a larger role in explaining Japanese violent crime rates than is usually recognized.     

VIOLENT OFFENDING AND VICTIMIZATION IN ADOLESCENCE: SOCIAL NETWORK MECHANISMS AND HOMOPHILY*

Although violent offending and victimization share many features, they can affect adolescent social relationships in distinct ways. To understand these differences, we take a network approach to examine the mechanisms responsible for similarities (i.e., homophily) in violent offending and violent victimization among friends. Our goal is to determine whether the social network mechanisms that produce homophily for violent offending are similar to or different from those that produce homophily for violent victimization. By using stochastic actor‐oriented modeling and two waves of friendship network data for 1,948 respondents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we examine homophily mechanisms of preference for similarity, avoidance, and influence with respect to youth violence and victimization. The results demonstrate that homophily observed for violent offending primarily reflects selection of similar others, whereas homophily observed for victimization reflects the tendency among alters to avoid victimized youth. These findings have important implications for future research and suggest that, among adolescents, violent offending and victimization homophily are the result of unique social processes.     

TRENDS IN THE GENDER GAP IN VIOLENT OFFENDING: NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY*

Recent research has compared male and female trends in violent offending in Uniform Crime Report (UCR) arrest data with similar trends derived from victims' reports in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and has concluded that the two data sources produce contrary findings. In this article, we reassess this issue and draw different conclusions. Using pooled National Crime Survey (NCS) and NCVS data for 1973 to 2005, we find that the female‐to‐male offending rate ratios for aggravated assault, robbery, and simple assault have increased over time and that the narrowing of the gender gaps is very similar to patterns in UCR arrest data. In addition, we find that these patterns are in part caused by larger decreases in male than female offending after the mid‐1990s and not by recent increases in violent offending rates among females. We conclude that changes in the gender gaps in aggravated assault, robbery, and simple assault are real and not artifacts; therefore, these changes deserve serious attention in future research. We conclude with a discussion of several hypotheses that might account for a narrowing of the gender gap in nonlethal violent offending over time.     

LAND USE AND VIOLENT CRIME*

Although research has shown specific land uses to be related to crime, systematic investigation of land uses and violent crime has been less common. This study systematically examines links between land uses and violent crime and assesses whether such links are conditioned by socioeconomic disadvantage. We employ geocoded Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data from the Indianapolis police department and information on 30 categories of land use and demographic information from the 2000 U.S. Census. We use land use variables to predict violent crime counts in 1,000 × 1,000‐feet grid cells using negative binomial regression models. Results indicate that, net of other variables, specific land uses predict variation in counts for individual violent crimes and aggregate rates. Some nonresidential land uses are associated with higher violent crime counts, whereas others are associated with lower counts. Specific land uses also condition the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on violent crime. The implications for routine activity/opportunity and social disorganization/collective efficacy theories of crime are discussed.     

EXPLAINING RACIAL AND ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN SERIOUS ADOLESCENT VIOLENT BEHAVIOR*

This study explains racial/ethnic differences in serious adolescent violent behavior using a contextual model derived from prior urban, developmental, and criminological theory. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we compare involvement in serious violence among Asians, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites. Results indicate that statistical differences between whites and minority groups are explained by variation in community disadvantage (for blacks), involvement in gangs (for Hispanics), social bonds (for Native Americans), and situational variables (for Asians). The lesser involvement in violence among Asians compared to blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans is accounted for by similar factors. Differences in violent behavior among the latter three minority groups are not significant. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM FOR EXPLAINING CRIME

General assessments refer to individuals’ overall judgment of their standing on broad dimensions that have special relevance for the explanation of crime, such as their overall bond to society or their prospects for success. These assessments are partly a function of the independent variables that are commonly considered in contemporary crime theories and quantitative research. But these standard etiological variables are far from fully determinative of general assessments because individuals differ in how they interpret, weigh, and combine their standing along these variables. The social–psychological factors that affect the subjective judgments underlying general assessments have yet to be theorized in any comprehensive, systematic manner. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that the incorporation of general assessments in models of offending will greatly enhance their explanatory power because these assessments are the most proximate, comprehensive, and personally relevant causes of crime. Moreover, we anticipate that once these assessments reach certain threshold levels, such as the view that bonds to society are severed irreparably or success is beyond reach, they result in a nonlinear jump in the frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending (i.e., chronic offending). A consideration of general assessments and their associated thresholds should therefore substantially improve efforts to explain crime.     

DIFFERENTIAL COERCION,STREET YOUTH,AND VIOLENT CRIME*

Using a sample of 300 homeless street youths, this study examines differential coercion theory and the role that coercion and the socialpsychological deficits of anger, low self‐control, coercive modeling, coercive ideation, and control imbalances play in the generation of violent crime. Results from cross‐sectional and prospective offending models that examine the individual mediators reveal that coercion has a direct relationship with violent offending as well as a relationship that is mediated by low self‐control, anger, coercive modeling, and coercive ideation. Although control imbalances have a direct relationship with crime, they do not mediate the relationship between coercion and crime. In the cross‐sectional model that contains all the mediators, coercion, low self‐control, anger, coercive modeling, and coercive ideation are associated with crime. In the prospective model that contains all the mediators, only anger, coercive modeling, and coercive ideation remain associated with crime. Results are discussed regarding future theory development and policy implications.     

SOCIAL CLASS AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOR*

This paper examines the relationship between violent behavior and a variety of measures of social class. Police records from one study and questionnaire data from two studies are analyzed. The strength of the relationship between class and violence varies significantly, depending primarily on the measure of class used. The implications of these findings are potentially profound for class-based theories of crime and delinquency. Methodological implications of the findings are significant for sampling issues as well as for conceptualizations of class.     

DOING GENDER: SORTING OUT THE CASTE AND CRIME CONUNDRUM*

Theories that examine the relationship between inequality and crime typically privilege one system of stratification over others. In criminology, the system most often assumed to be primary is social class, but other approaches may emphasize gender or racial oppression to account for observed differences in offending patterns. Few, however, systematically link gender and race oppression as moderating etiological variables in the study of crime. From the theoretical and empirical literature on this subject, we discuss (1) how “hegemonic” masculinities and femininities are framed within social institutions such as work, the family, peer group, and schools; (2) how “doing gender” within these sites is modified by race; and (3) anticipated relationships among social structure, social action, and delinquency. Self-report data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to test research hypotheses. Chow interaction tests and comparisons of slope coefficients reveal that gender and race modify independent-variable effects on property and violent delinquency.     

HISTORICAL CONTINGENCIES AND THE EVOLVING IMPORTANCE OF RACE,VIOLENT CRIME,AND REGION IN EXPLAINING MASS INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES

This article combines insights from historical research and quantitative analyses that have attempted to explain changes in incarceration rates in the United States. We use state‐level decennial data from 1970 to 2010 (N = 250) to test whether recent theoretical models derived from historical research that emphasize the importance of specific historical periods in shaping the relative importance of certain social and political factors explain imprisonment. Also drawing on historical work, we examine how these key determinants differed in Sunbelt states, that is, the states stretching across the nation's South from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, from the rest of the nation. Our findings suggest that the relative contributions of violent crime, minority composition, political ideology, and partisanship to imprisonment vary over time. We also extend our analysis beyond mass incarceration's rise to analyze how factors associated with prison expansion can explain its stabilization and contraction in the early twenty‐first century. Our findings suggest that most of the factors that best explained state incarceration rates in the prison boom era lost power once imprisonment stabilized and declined. We find considerable support for the importance of historical contingencies in shaping state‐level imprisonment trends, and our findings highlight the enduring importance of race in explaining incarceration.     

LOCAL POLITICS AND VIOLENT CRIME IN U.S. CITIES*

Recent research has begun to examine the effects of politics on crime. However, few studies have considered how local political variation is likely to affect crime. Using insights from urban politics research, this paper develops and tests hypotheses regarding direct and conditional effects of local politics on violent crime in 958 cities in 1991. Results from negative binomial regression analyses show that violent crime rates vary by local political structures and the race of the mayor. In addition, the effects of structural factors such as poverty, unemployment, and female‐headed households on violent crime depend on local form of government and the number of unreformed local governmental structures. Implications for systemic social disorganization and institutional anomie theories are discussed.     

NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING INVESTMENTS AND VIOLENT CRIME IN SEATTLE, 1981–2007*

Despite significant advances in the study of neighborhoods and crime, criminologists have paid surprisingly less attention to the extralocal forces that shape violence. To address this issue, we draw on an emerging body of work that stresses the role of home mortgage lending—a resource secured via interaction with external actors—in reducing neighborhood violence and extend it by addressing concerns that the lending–violence relationship is spurious and confounded by simultaneity. We explore the longitudinal relationship between residential mortgage lending and violence in Seattle with a pooled time series of 118 census tracts over 27 years, and we instrument our endogenous predictors (home mortgage lending and violent crime) with changes in their levels from prior periods. Employing Arellano–Bond difference models, we assess both the effect of mortgage lending on violent crime as well as the effect of violent crime levels on mortgage activity. We find that infusions of home mortgage lending yield reductions in subsequent violent crime; yet the impact of violent crime on subsequent lending is not significant. Results underscore the importance of incorporating external forces such as home mortgage lending into explanations of neighborhood violence.     

THE CONTEXT OF MARRIAGE AND CRIME: GENDER,THE PROPENSITY TO MARRY,AND OFFENDING IN EARLY ADULTHOOD*

Marriage is central to theoretical debates over stability and change in criminal offending over the life course. Yet, unlike other social ties such as employment, marriage is distinct in that it cannot be randomly assigned in survey research to more definitively assess causal effects of marriage on offending. As a result, key questions remain as to whether different individual propensities toward marriage shape its salience as a deterrent institution. Building on these issues, the current research has three objectives. First, we use a propensity score matching approach to estimate causal effects of marriage on crime in early adulthood. Second, we assess sex differences in the effects of marriage on offending. Although both marriage and offending are highly gendered phenomena, prior work typically focuses on males. Third, we examine whether one's propensity to marry conditions the deterrent capacity of marriage. Results show that marriage suppresses offending for males, even when accounting for their likelihood to marry. Furthermore, males who are least likely to marry seem to benefit most from this institution. The influence of marriage on crime is less robust for females, where marriage reduces crime only for those with moderate propensities to marry. We discuss these findings in the context of recent debates concerning gender, criminal offending, and the life course.     

COMMUNITY, ENVIRONMENT, AND VIOLENT CRIME

Using regression analysis of community areas of Chicago, patterns of homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault are analyzed for the mid-1970s. It is found that neighborhoods in which very poor and middle-class people live in close proximity are those in which rates of all three types of criminal violence are highest. Of all demographic and crime variables analyzed, proximity was by far the most strongly related to crime rates. This relationship was taken to be another indicator of the extreme burden placed on blacks in heavily segregated cities of the urban North.     

DIMENSIONS OF RACIAL INEQUALITY AND RATES OF VIOLENT CRIME*

The purpose of this paper is to identify systematic sources of discrepancies in the macro-level research on racial inequality and rates of violent crime. A review of the literature suggests three likely sources of discrepant results across previous studies: differing operationalizations of racial inequality, differing samples, and differing specifications. The analyses reveal that while sample composition appears to be relatively unimportant, operationalization of racial inequality in terms of socioeconomic status (SES) rather than income can lead to very different conclusions. For certain models, SES-based measures are clearly superior to income-based measures. However, slight modifications of the regression models can render the effects of racial inequality in SES nonsignificant. These results call for a skeptical assessment of previous evidence indicating a positive relationship between racial inequality and rates of violent crime.     

PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING IN VIOLENT CRIME PLACES: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED EXPERIMENT*

Over the past decade, problem-oriented policing has become a central strategy for policing. In a number of studies, problem-oriented policing has been found to be effective in reducing crime and disorder. However, very little is known about the value of problem-oriented interventions in controlling violent street crime. The National Academy of Sciences' Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior suggests that sustained research on problem-oriented policing initiatives that modify places, routine activities, and situations that promote violence could contribute much to the understanding and control of violence. This study evaluates the effects of problem-oriented policing interventions on urban violent crime problems in Jersey City, New Jersey. Twenty-four high-activity, violent crime places were matched into 12 pairs and one member of each pair was allocated to treatment conditions in a randomized block field experiment. The results of the impact evaluation support the growing body of research that asserts focused police efforts can reduce crime and disorder at problem places without causing crime problems to displace to surrounding areas.     

FIGHTING OVER TRIVIAL THINGS: EXPLAINING THE ISSUE OF CONTENTION IN VIOLENT ALTERCATIONS*

Violent altercations can lead to serious injury and death, and yet some interpersonal disputes that prompt physical violence originate over what are seemingly trivial issues. This study evaluates the theoretical premise that violence stemming from what typically are defined as trivial altercations can be explained by what is at stake in these conflicts; trivial altercations, or fights about “nothing,” actually represent symbolic contests of dominance and deference. These status contests are necessary primarily when the social relationship between opponents is symmetrical—when a dominance hierarchy is not clearly established. Data from interviews with incarcerated women in Ontario, Canada, show that relationship symmetry strongly predicts the issue of contention in their physically violent altercations. These findings suggest that, when violence erupts over trivial issues, both parties to the altercation essentially are locked in a battle for social rank.     

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND NONLINEAR PEER EFFECTS ON ADOLESCENT VIOLENT CRIME*

Although evidence of the strong correlation between deviant behavior and exposure to deviant peers is overwhelming, researchers have yet to investigate whether a nonlinear functional form better captures this relationship than does a linear form. Researchers also have yet to examine the extent to which peer effects vary as a function of the neighborhood context. To address these issues, we use data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine 1) the functional form of the relationship between peer violence exposure and self‐reported violent crime and 2) the extent to which the effect of exposure to violent peers on violence is ecologically structured. Estimates from logistic hierarchical models indicate that the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime decreases at higher values of peer violence, as reflected in a nonlinear relationship (expressed in terms of log‐odds). Furthermore, exposure to violent peers increases along with neighborhood disadvantage, and the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime is attenuated as neighborhood disadvantage increases, which is reflected in a cross‐level peer violence/disadvantage interaction.     

STRAINED LIVES AND CRIME: EXAMINING INTRA‐INDIVIDUAL VARIATION IN STRAIN AND OFFENDING IN A SAMPLE OF INCARCERATED WOMEN*

When applied to the study of changes in an individual's offending, general strain theory posits that individuals will be more likely to offend during periods of high strain. Using 36 months of retrospective data collected from female inmates, we explore the relationship between intra‐individual changes in strain and changes in offending and drug use. We also examine how different dimensions of strain‐recent composite strain, duration, clustering and accumulation, contribute to the explanation of offending. We find that changes in strain are associated with changes in violence, drug use, and property crime and that these relationships remain after the addition of control variables. Moreover, the strain‐crime relationship holds when the correct causal order is specified. When modeling offending, taking various dimensions of strain into account does increase the amount of variation explained for some outcomes, but other dimensions are highly correlated. We conclude that conceptualizing the interaction between strain and crime as a dynamic process is constructive and that general strain theory will be improved if criminologists move beyond static conceptions of strain.