Public perceptions of crime seriousness in Israel:: native-born versus new immigrants

The broad consensus generally found with regard to public perceptions of crime seriousness has been shown to reflect “consistency” in relative rankings rather than “absolute agreement” in ratings among sample groups. The present study compared the crime seriousness perceptions of native-born Israelis with those of two groups of new immigrants (one from the former Soviet Union and the other from Ethiopia). Questionnaires including 30 different criminal offenses for evaluation were distributed by means of face-to-face interviews to a representative sample of the Israeli adult population. As expected, the three groups provided very similar rankings of offenses but much less absolute agreement (ratings). It is suggested that the significant gaps in the perceptions of the groups stem from “culture conflict” (Culture Conflict and Crime, Social Science Research Council, New York, 1938), that is, differences in the social and cultural norms of the immigrants’ countries of origin and those prevailing in the absorbing society.     

Public perceptions of white collar crime seriousness: A survey of an Australian sample

During the past decade or so a number of studies in the United States and Canada have offered a challenge to the commonly held belief that the public is indifferent or somewhat ambivalent to white collar criminality. The present research replicated the Rossi et. al., survey in 1972 of the seriousness of 140 offenses to test if similar results were possible in Australia. The results presented here show that the public do perceive these offenses as being serious, and the degree of seriousness depends on the impact of harm particular types of offenses have on victims.     

Predicting perceptions of crime seriousness among Native American Indians: a research note

Strongly held cultural values may lead to development of pro-social behaviors and subsequently values against committing crime among people belonging to targeted racial or ethnic groups. In this study, the author examines measures of Native American Indian cultural values and measures of collective efficacy to determine which set of values best predict perceptions of crime seriousness from within a population of Native American Indians. The author uses data collected from 312 Indians and 355 non-Indians during the Southern Ute Indian Community Safety Survey to determine which set of values are more closely aligned with perceptions of crime seriousness. This study found that those who held stronger Native American Indian cultural values also had stronger perceptions of crime seriousness. In the past, little scientific work has been done to associate specific cultural values to those held by cultural groups other than Euro-Americans. Findings from this work suggest that strengthening cultural values specific to a targeted group may be a promising method in the effort to reduce victimization among minority group members if said members view crime as serious and report it as such.     

Similarities and differences between perceptions of peer delinquency,peer self-reported delinquency,and respondent delinquency: An analysis of friendship dyads

Purpose

Despite the peer delinquency measurement debate having profound implications for research, looming questions remain about the validity of various forms of peer delinquency operationalizations. This study examines whether perceptions of peer delinquency form identical latent constructs to both respondent and peer self-reported delinquency.

Methods

Using a dyadic dataset of friendship pairs, confirmatory factor analysis and model comparison tests are used to determine the degree of similarity between perceptions of peer delinquency, respondent self-reported delinquency, and peer self-reported delinquency.

Results

Peer self-reports and respondent perceptions of peer delinquency load on unique constructs across a number of different behaviors. For most behaviors, respondent perceptions of peer delinquency and respondent self-reports load on separate constructs. Results further indicate that respondent and peer self-reported delinquency are separate latent constructs. Finally, the strength of the association between respondent and peer delinquency is substantively smaller in magnitude, by as much as a factor of three in some instances, when peer delinquency is measured via peer self-reports in place of respondent perceptions.

Conclusions

Reports of peer delinquency provided directly from peers demonstrate strong discriminant validity in relation to self-reported delinquency, while perceptions of peer delinquency demonstrate poorer discriminant validity, particularly for theft and violence constructs.     

Blacks,self-esteem,and delinquency: It's time for a new approach

For decades, sociology and social psychology has debated the nature of self-esteem and its role in determining behavior. More recently, race has been added to the mixture, as social scientists have sought to explain black self-esteem and the involvement of black youth in delinquency. The article reviews a number of studies to explore the relative importance of race as an explanatory factory. Questions of the validity of prior measures of self-esteem are raised, especially where racial comparisons of self-esteem and delinquency were made. This article identifies various conceptual and methodological problems inherent to studies of race, self-esteem, and delinquency. In doing so, distinctions are made among personal and group identity measures of self-esteem in an effort to further the cause of research in this area.     

Ivy league delinquency: A self-report analysis

Since the 1940s, self-report technology has been utilized to improve our understanding of the frequency and distribution of crime and delinquency. Findings based upon self-reports have called into question the traditional class-based view of criminality. It is now apparent that middle- and upper-class young people are involved in delinquent activity, although the precise extent and nature of such involvement remains unclear. The research detailed in this report attempts to add to our understanding of class and illegal activities by examining a sample of Ivy League undergraduates for evidence of participation in serious forms of delinquency. It can be argued that such a sample is especially interesting both because these respondents represent the “best and the brightest,” and because they possess relatively advantaged positions regarding access to conventional kinds of power and success. The findings indicate that serious delinquency is by no means rare among these youth. Involvement in violence, however, appears to be relatively infrequent and weighted toward the less serious end of the continuum of violent delinquency. In addition, the delinquent activity of this sample was highly diverse. Even for the most serious offenders the results provide little evidence of offense specialization.     

A shortened child behavior checklist for delinquency studies

This study examines the reduction of the number of items in the scales of the Child Behavior Checklist, while maintaining the reliability and predictability of its original scales. For that purpose, the original scales were replicated with data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study. New, abbreviated scales were constructed using the most potent items. This process yielded trimmed scales that were highly correlated with the full scales and that still reflect the original meanings of the scales. Further, there was no loss of reliability or predictability with the trimmed as opposed to the full scales. The results were replicated in an analysis with identical variables from the Rochester Youth Development Study. This replication produced equally high reliabilities with similar levels of prediction of delinquent behavior.We would like to thank Terence P. Thornberry for helpful comments and advice on early drafts of this paper.     

Low self-control and coworker delinquency: A research note

Since the publication of Gottfredson and Hirschi [A General Theory of Crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990], a large amount of research has shown a link between low self-control and delinquency. Some research has revealed that low self-control has not been able to account for the strong effects of peer delinquency on delinquency. Criminological literature has, until recently, neglected the interactional relationship between low self-control and delinquent peers in predicting delinquency. This study used a sample of employed high school seniors to assess the interaction between low self-control and coworker delinquency on occupational delinquency. Regression analyses indicated that the interaction term was a strong predictor of occupational delinquency, even after controlling for several established predictors of delinquency.     

医学新媒体背景下的新型法律冲突与对策

在当代新媒体迅猛发展并以多种形式广泛介入医疗行业的前提下，由医学多媒体传播而引发的隐私权、名誉权、虚假宣传、散布谣言、准医疗行为的侵权等法律冲突的新形式不断涌现。此类医学新媒体法律纠纷的类型、责任主体和责任的承担方式有自己的特征，因此管理者有必要重新审视防范此类法律冲突，具体可采取疏导、改进管理方式、设置法律底线等管理原则与举措。     

Actor, situation, and context: A framework for delinquency theory integration

Survey data are presented and discussed as they relate to juvenile involvement in serious and violent delinquency. Juveniles confined in two detention centers were administered self-report questionnaires (n=127). An integrated model that combines social structural variables (i.e., neighborhood disorganization and strain) with social process variables (i.e., parental control, social bond, and delinquent peer associations) was tested by way of path analysis. The data generally support the integrated model, explaining as much as 44% of the variance. Two variables, delinquent peer associations and an overall social bond indicator, directly and significantly predict serious delinquent behavior. Delinquent peer associations are significantly related to neighborhood disorganization, while the social bond is significantly related to parental control and strain. Thus, the data support a systems approach to explaining delinquent behavior, where social structural variables affect social process variables. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annul meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Albuquerque, NM, 1998 and at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Washington, D.C., 1998.     

iGovernment: A new perspective on the future of government digitisation

Innovative use of ICT applications is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of modern government policy in every area of service, care and control. Looking beyond the individual applications and layers of digitisation, we find a hodgepodge of information flows running within and between the various public authorities, policy domains, and crossing the public/private boundary. This has consequences for the relation between government and citizens. Step by step, decision by decision, the everyday work of government is changing ‘the rules of the game’ and giving rise to “information Government” (iGovernment), without this being based on any overall strategic agenda or awareness among political decision-makers. This article places this development in a new framework and suggests a perspective on a necessary paradigm shift.     

Racial and ethnic perceptions of injustice: Testing the core hypotheses of comparative conflict theory

Comparative conflict theory is a theoretical statement proposed by Hagan, Shedd, and Payne (2005) to explain racial and ethnic variation in perceptions of injustice. Their theory asserted that White respondents perceive considerably less injustice than both African Americans and Hispanics (the racial-ethnic divide hypothesis) and that African Americans perceive less injustice than Hispanics (the racial gradient hypothesis). They also proposed that prior criminal justice experiences serve as a “tipping point” for Hispanics in that Hispanics with prior negative criminal justice contacts will perceive more injustice than African Americans with similar prior negative experiences. This study tested these three hypotheses, finding support for the racial-ethnic divide and racial-gradient hypotheses, but not the differential sensitivity hypothesis. In addition, this study explored the racial and ethnic identity of Hispanics (i.e., “White Hispanic” and “Black Hispanic”) and found that Hispanics, who were younger, less educated, and perceived some forms of injustice were more likely to identify themselves as being both Hispanic and Black.     

The Labeling perspective and delinquency: An elaboration of the theory and an assessment of the evidence

The labeling theory of deviance was extremely popular during the 1960s and 1970s. After a series of influential critiques, however, the validity of the theory had fallen into question by 1980 and was pronounced dead by 1985. In this paper we examine the application of the labeling perspective to one particular area, juvenile delinquency. We discuss the general theoretical origin of labeling theory in both conflict theory and symbolic interactionism, and use it to present two main labeling hypotheses: 1) that status attributes are influential in determining who is labeled (the “status characteristics hypothesis”) and 2) that labeling experiences are instrumental in producing problems of adjustment and in causing subsequent commitment to further deviance (the “secondary deviance hypothesis”). We note that what is often passed off as a critique of labeling theory itself is frequently a caricature of the theory. The major point of the paper is an elaboration of the full complexity of each labeling hypothesis, a suggestion for empirical research to test it, and a review of the extant literature. We suggest that labeling theory is not as invalid as its critics have claimed, and that what is needed is a restatement and revitalization of a labeling theory of delinquency.     

IQ and delinquency: A test of two competing explanations

In the past, sociologists either dismissed or ignored the well-established empirical relationship between IQ and juvenile delinquency. More recently, however, they have come to accept the IQ/JD connection but now debate the most valid explanation for it. Some have advanced what we characterized as a school performance model, while others adhere to what may be called a school reaction model. The major bone of contention between the competing models is over the school variables thought to mediate the IQ/JD relationship. In this study, we specified the most dominant versions of the competing models as well as a model integrating the concepts of each. Using three waves of data from the Youth in Transition project, we first estimated parameters for each of the competing models and then parameters for the integrated model. Considered independently, each model was supported by the data. However, when each of the separate models was forced to take into account the explanatory contribution of its competitor, only the school performance model was supported. Implications of the findings for schooling and delinquency are discussed.     

Race,female headship,and delinquency: A longitudinal analysis

Two recent studies support the hypothesis of a positive association between the “broken family” and crime; one repeats an earlier finding that this relationship is stronger for blacks than for whites. The alarm over the upsurge in female family headship in the United States led to a test of the hypothesis with previously neglected longitudinal data. For the years 1971 to 1986, despite tremendous increases in female family headship among blacks, only one of eight index offenses (arrests) showed an increase among black juveniles. Among white juveniles, increases in three of eight index offenses accompanied the increase in female headship. More important, multiple regression analysis yielded no significant relationship between female headship and any of the eight index offenses or total index offenses for black or white juveniles. The findings may be explained in part by changing attitudes toward birth outside marriage, divorce, and women's competence to rear children by themselves. Also, proposed explanations of the broken family/crime association, such as ineffective supervision by single parents and weakened attachment to single parents, are rendered irrelevant by our findings.     

Perceived injustice and delinquency: A test of general strain theory

Purpose

While a growing body of empirical literature supports many key predictions of General Strain Theory (GST), the subjective perception of injustice remains a theoretically important but empirically under-researched type of strain. The present study therefore examines the relations among perceived injustice, anger, and rule-violation.

Methods

Using a sample of middle- and high-school students from 12 schools in Southern New Hampshire, the present study tests GST via a series of OLS, negative binomial, and structural equation analyses using a more precise measure of perceived injustice than prior work and extensive statistical controls for such variables as self-control, differential association, attitudes toward delinquency, and alternative strain measures in a longitudinal context.

Results

Results yield strong support for the notions that perceived injustice promotes delinquency and that this relationship is mediated by situational anger.

Conclusions

Perceived injustice appears to be an important type of strain that should be incorporated into future research and addressed by future delinquency prevention efforts.     

Comparing targeted intervention modalities for high conflict co-parents: A quasi-experimental study

High conflict co-parents engage in recurrent litigation that significantly strains the court system and exacerbates their conflict. Given barriers to their engagement in service delivery (e.g., level of conflict, transportation, child care), it is vital to evaluate targeted interventions and to examine different intervention modalities (e.g., online, hybrid). This study compared court involvement and rates of parental agreement among 178 high conflict cases that received a multi-component intervention, either in-person or in a hybrid version. Results demonstrated no significant differences between groups in the change in number of court negotiations, child-related issues, or court services from before to after-intervention completion or in the proportion of parenting cases who reached an agreement. Both versions demonstrated significant reductions in parents' court involvement from before to after-intervention completion. These findings suggest the need for future research to evaluate the comparative efficacy of hybrid programs and in-person programs for high conflict co-parents with greater methodological rigor in light of the current study's findings and limitations.