HEURISTICS AND BIASES,RATIONAL CHOICE,AND SANCTION PERCEPTIONS*

The relevance of several cognitive heuristics and related biases for rational choice perspectives on crime, and for perceptions of sanction risk, were investigated. We present findings from a series of randomized experiments, embedded in two nationwide surveys of American adults (18 and older) in 2015 (N = 1,004 and 623). The results reveal that offender estimates of detection risk are less probabilistically precise and more situationally variable than under prevailing criminological perspectives, most notably, rational choice and Bayesian learning theories. This, in turn, allows various decision‐making heuristics—such as anchoring and availability—to influence and potentially bias the perceptual updating process.     

“I GOT YOUR BACK”: AN EXAMINATION OF THE PROTECTIVE FUNCTION OF GANG MEMBERSHIP IN ADOLESCENCE*

The threat of victimization has been regarded as a central feature in both the development and the continuation of youth gangs. Although many studies find the need for protection to be a common reason youth join gangs, recent literature suggests that gang members are at an increased risk of victimization. Given this seeming contradiction between expectations and reality, the current article examines the “objective” and “subjective” dimensions of gang member victimization using panel data collected from youth between the ages of 10 and 16 years. Findings reveal that gang members report higher levels of actual victimization and perceptions of victimization risk than non‐gang‐involved youth. Gang membership is associated with reduced levels of fear, however. Overall, although gangs may not be functional in terms of actual victimization, they seem to decrease anxiety associated with the threat of future victimization.     

LOW SELF‐CONTROL,ROUTINE ACTIVITIES,AND FRAUD VICTIMIZATION*

Recent research has used both routine activity/lifestyle frameworks and self‐control theory to explain victimization. Thus far, combined tests of these theories have focused on offending populations and street crime victimization. Whether these frameworks also explain exposure to and likelihood of nonviolent victimization (e.g., fraud) in general‐population samples remains an open empirical question. Building on prior work, we assess the independent effects of routine consumer activities (i.e., remote purchasing) and low self‐control on the likelihood of fraud targeting and victimization. Using a representative sample of 922 adults from a statewide survey in Florida, the results confirm our expectation that remote‐purchasing activities increase consumers' risk of being targeted for fraud. Low self‐control has no effect on whether consumers are targeted, but it does significantly increase the likelihood of fraud victimization.     

GENDER,NEIGHBORHOOD DANGER,AND RISK‐AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES AMONG URBAN AFRICAN‐AMERICAN YOUTHS*

Research consistently reveals that fear of crime and perceived risk are demographically and ecologically patterned. Women and individuals in disadvantaged community settings report increased fear and perceptions of risk. For women, these fears and perceptions are tied to concerns about sexual violence specifically, whereas for individuals in distressed neighborhoods, crime rates, “incivilities,” and poor police‐community relations are often identified as important correlates. Here, we build from the insights of previous research by examining the gendered nature of perceived risk and risk‐management strategies among urban African‐American adolescents. Our findings suggest that both risk and risk‐avoidance strategies are strikingly different for young women and young men and are shaped by the gendered organizational features of neighborhood life. We propose that future research will benefit by continuing to investigate how social vulnerabilities function in tandem to structure risks across ecological settings.     

THE DIFFERENTIAL RISK OF RETALIATION BY RELATIONAL DISTANCE: A MORE GENERAL MODEL OF VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION*

This research attempts to elaborate a routine activity model of violent victimization by incorporating an explicit rational choice perspective on potential targets’ decision making to avoid violent encounters. We propose that the costs associated with a violent attack and the probability of offender retaliation depend on whether the offender's targeting strategy is opportunistic or deliberate—a function of the relational distance between the offender and target. Specifically, we propose that victim efforts to limit exposure to an offender may motivate a violent retaliatory response when the victim and offender are intimates compared to when they are strangers. We develop hypotheses based on these ideas and test them using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1992–2000). The results suggest that female targets are more sensitive to an offender's targeting strategy than are males. We conclude with a discussion of how knowledge of the potential risk of violent retaliation on the part of intimate and spousal offenders can be used to create more efficacious policies to protect victims of violence.     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROPERTY CRIME: A TARGET‐SPECIFIC ASSESSMENT OF OPPORTUNITY AND MOTIVATION AS MEDIATING FACTORS*

Most recent unemployment‐crime (U‐C) research is informed by the possibility that unemployment could both increase motivation for crime and decrease criminal opportunities. The mediating links of motivation and opportunity, though often assumed, have almost never been measured. We directly test for the potential mediating effects of opportunity and motivation using county‐level data for target‐specific crime rates such as convenience store robberies, motorcycle thefts, etc. We link these with data on the supply and value of corresponding crime targets (e.g., number and annual sales of convenience stores). Opportunity levels were generally unrelated to property crime rates and do not appear to mediate the U‐C relationship.     

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY TO CRIME: EFFECTS OF RESIDENTIAL HISTORY ON CRIME LOCATION CHOICE*

Many offenses take place close to where the offender lives. Anecdotal evidence suggests that offenders also might commit crimes near their former homes. Building on crime pattern theory and combining information from police records and other sources, this study confirms that offenders who commit robberies, residential burglaries, thefts from vehicles, and assaults are more likely to target their current and former residential areas than similar areas they never lived in. In support of the argument that spatial awareness mediates the effects of past and current residence, it also is shown that areas of past and present residence are more likely to be targeted if the offender lived in the area for a long time instead of briefly and if the offender has moved away from the area only recently rather than a long time ago. The theoretical implications of these findings and their use for investigative purposes are discussed, and suggestions for future inquiry are made.     

NEIGHBORHOOD DISORDER,INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOSITY,AND ADOLESCENT USE OF ILLICIT DRUGS: A TEST OF MULTILEVEL HYPOTHESES*

We hypothesize about the relationships among perceived neighborhood disorder, individual religiosity, and adolescent use of illicit drugs, marijuana and hard drugs; and the age‐varying effects of religiosity on illicit drug use. Applying hierarchical linear models to analyze the National Youth Survey data, we first find that neighborhood disorder and religiosity have hypothesized effects on illicit drug use independent of social bonding and social learning variables that partly mediate the effects. Second, religiosity buffers the effects of neighborhood disorder on illicit drug use. Third, the effects of religiosity on illicit drug use become stronger throughout adolescence. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

PARENTING,SELF‐CONTROL,AND DELINQUENCY: A TEST OF SELF‐CONTROL THEORY*

Self‐control theory has received extensive empirical attention in the past decade, but most studies have not tested its arguments about the effects of parenting on self‐control and delinquency. Using data collected from a sample of urban high school students, this study addresses this void by examining two parenting‐related hypotheses derived from the theory. For one of the hypotheses, the results with self‐control theory are contrasted with those obtained with Baumrind's theory of authoritative parenting, a theory that also is concerned with the link between parenting and self‐control. Results generally support self‐control theory's two hypotheses, but also point to empirical limitations of the theory.     

Fear of Crime among Gang and Non-Gang Offenders: Comparing the Effects of Perpetration,Victimization, and Neighborhood Factors

This is the first study to examine adult offenders’ fear of property, personal, and gang crime. We examine five research questions among 2,414 jail inmates, focusing on how afraid offenders are of crime. We compare current, ex-gang, and non-gang members. We ask if more experience with crime perpetration and victimization and more perceptions of social disorganization increase offenders’ fear of crime. Finally, we ask if the importance of these factors in predicting fear varies by gang status. Results show that offenders, generally, were not very afraid of crime. Although ex-gang and current gang members believed they were more likely to experience property, personal, and gang crime, they reported less fear than non-gang members. Crime perpetration did not influence offenders’ fear, but less experience with personal crime victimization predicted fear of personal and gang crime among non-gang members. The results also indicate that perceptions of social disorganization better explain fear among non-gang members than ex-gang and current gang members.     

PERCEIVED SANCTION THREATS,GENDER, AND CRIME: A TEST AND ELABORATION OF POWER‐CONTROL THEORY*

This research addresses the need to incorporate the perceived threats of informal sanctions, specifically, shame and embarrassment, into the power‐control model. First, the possibility that gender differences exist in the perceived threats of shame and embarrassment, as well as legal sanctions, and that these differences vary between more patriarchal and less patriarachal households of origin is explored. Second, the relative impact of the informal sanction threat variables compared with the formal legal sanctions is ascertained. Results indicate that significant gender differences exist in the perceived threats of embarrassment and formal sanctions, and that these differences vary by household of origin type. In addition, among those individuals reared in more patriarachal households, the perceived threat of shame accounts for a significant proportion of the gender‐crime relationship.     

A CROSS‐NATIONAL TEST OF BONGER'S THEORY OF CRIMINALITY AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS*

Using international data for 100 countries, we test two hypotheses derived from Bonger's Marxian theory of crime. The analyses support the hypothesis that the degree of capitalism significantly predicts homicide rates, but they fail to confirm that the de‐moralization of the population (loss of moral feelings for others) mediates the relationship between capitalism and homicide. Although capitalism is not the best predictor among those considered, overall, the results underline the importance of Bonger's ideas because both capitalism and corruption (our indicator of de‐moralization) show reasonably strong relationships with homicide rates and compete with other variables commonly used as predictors of international homicide rates. The results confirm the usefulness of attempting to subject Marxian ideas to positivist, quantitative tests, with an eye to integrating Marxian theories with other mainstream theories, such as institutional anomie theory.     

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY,AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING AND DELINQUENCY: A LONGITUDINAL TEST OF A MODEL INTEGRATING COMMUNITY‐AND FAMILY‐LEVEL PROCESSES*

In this paper, we develop and test hypotheses on how authoritative parenting and collective efficacy combine to increase a child's risk of affiliating with deviant peers and engaging in delinquent behavior. Analyses using two waves of data from a sample of several hundred African American caregivers and their children largely supported the predictions. Over time, increases in collective efficacy within a community were associated with increases in authoritative parenting. Further, both authoritative parenting and collective efficacy served to deter affiliation with deviant peers and involvement in delinquent behavior. Finally, there was evidence of an amplification process whereby the deterrent effect of authoritative parenting on affiliation with deviant peers and delinquency was enhanced when it was administered within a community with high collective efficacy.     

A CROSS‐CULTURAL EXAMINATION OF THE LINK BETWEEN CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND ADOLESCENT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR*

Several studies with older children have reported a positive relationship between parental use of corporal punishment and child conduct problems. This has lead some social scientists to conclude that physical discipline fosters antisocial behavior. In an attempt to avoid the methodological difficulties that have plagued past research on this issue, the present study used a proportional measure of corporal punishment, controlled for earlier behavior problems and other dimensions of parenting, and tested for interaction and curvilinear effects. The analyses were performed using a sample of Iowa families that displayed moderate use of corporal punishment and a Taiwanese sample that demonstrated more frequent and severe use of physical discipline, especially by fathers. For both samples, level of parental warmth/control (i.e., support, monitoring, and inductive reasoning) was the strongest predictor of adolescent conduct problems. There was little evidence of a relationship between corporal punishment and conduct problems for the Iowa sample. For the Taiwanese families, corporal punishment was unrelated to conduct problems when mothers were high on warmth/control, but positively associated with conduct problems when they were low on warmtwcontrol, An interaction between corporal punishment and warmth/Wcontro1 was found for Taiwanese fathers as well. For these fathers, there was also evidence of a curvilinear relationship, with the association between corporal punishment and conduct problems becoming much stronger at extreme levels of corporal punishment. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that it is when parents engage in severe forms of corporal punishment, or administer physical discipline in the absence of parental warmth and involvement, that children feel angry and unjustly treated, defy parental authority, and engage in antisocial behavior.     

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE: A SUB‐NATIONAL TEST OF INSTITUTIONAL ANOMIE THEORY*

Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory is grounded in the assumption that relatively higher crime rates in the United States are due to (1) the overwhelming influence of economic motives and institutions in society, and (2) the subjugation of all other social institutions to cultural economic interests (e.g., the American Dream). Our analysis is designed to extend the limited body of empirical research on this theory in several ways. First, we seek to test the utility of institutional anomie theory for predicting crime rates across aggregate units within the United States (counties). Second, we draw out the theory's emphasis on instrumental crime and suggest that measures of noneconomic social, political, familial, religious, and educational institutions will be particularly relevant for explaining instrumental as opposed to expressive violence. Third, in contrast to prior research, we develop conceptual reasons to expect that these factors will primarily mediate (as opposed to moderate) the relationship between economically motivating pressures and instrumental violence. Our negative binomial regression analyses of data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports and various censuses indicate that the measures of noneconomic institutions perform well in explaining both instrumental and expressive homicides, but that these measures mediate the impact of economic pressures (as measured by the Gini coefficient of family income inequality) to commit instrumental violence most strongly. Further, we find only very limited support for the more popular moderation hypothesis.     

SOCIAL SUPPORT,INEQUALITY, AND HOMICIDE: A CROSS‐NATIONAL TEST OF AN INTEGRATED THEORETICAL MODEL*

Social support, institutional anomie, and macrolevel general strain perspectives have emerged as potentially important explanations of aggregate levels of crime. Drawing on insights from each of these perspectives in a cross‐national context, the analyses show that 1) our measure of social support is inversely related to homicide rates, 2) economic inequality also maintains a direct relationship with homicide rates, and 3) social support significantly interacts with economic inequality to influence homicide rates. The implications of the analysis for ongoing discourse concerning the integration of these criminological theories and the implications for the development of effective crime control policies are discussed.     

UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS AS PERCEIVED CRIMINAL THREAT: A TEST OF THE MINORITY THREAT PERSPECTIVE*

The link between immigration and crime has garnered considerable attention from researchers. Although the weight of evidence suggests that immigration is not linked to crime, the public consistently views immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, as criminal and thus a threat to social order. However, little attention has been paid to why they are perceived this way. By drawing on the minority threat perspective, this article investigates the effects of objective and perceptual measures of community context on perceived criminal threat from undocumented immigrants. Analyses of data collected from four Southwest states and the U.S. Census show that the perceived size of the undocumented immigrant population, more so than the actual size of the immigrant population and economic conditions, is positively associated with perceptions of undocumented immigrants as a criminal threat. Additional analyses show that objective measures of community context do not affect native respondents’ perceptions of the size of the undocumented immigrant population. The study's findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy are discussed.     

SELF‐CONTROL AND VICTIMIZATION: A META‐ANALYSIS

A consequential development in victimization theory and research was the idea that individuals with low self‐control self‐select into the various risky behaviors that may ultimately result in their victimization. To establish the empirical status of the self‐control–victimization link, we subjected this body of work to a meta‐analysis. Our multilevel analyses of 311 effect size estimates drawn from 66 studies (42 independent data sets) indicate that self‐control is a modest yet consistent predictor of victimization. The results also show that the effect of self‐control is significantly stronger when predicting noncontact forms of victimization (e.g., online victimization) and is significantly reduced in studies that control directly for the risky behaviors that are assumed to mediate the self‐control–victimization link. We also note that the studies assessing self‐control and victimization are not representative of victimization research as a whole, with intimate partner violence (IPV), violence against women, and child abuse being severely underrepresented. We conclude that future research should continue to examine the causal processes linking self‐control to victimization, how self‐control shapes victims’ coping responses to their experience, and whether self‐control matters in contexts where individuals may have limited autonomy over the behavioral routines that put them at risk for victimization.     

The impact of after‐school programs on the routine activities of middle‐school students: Results from a randomized,controlled trial*

Research Summary Unsupervised after‐school time for adolescents is a concern for parents and policymakers alike. Evidence linking unsupervised adolescent socializing to problem behavior outcomes heightens this concern among criminologists. Routine activities theory suggests that, when youth peer groups congregate away from adult authority, both opportunity for and motivation to engage in deviant acts increase. After‐school programs are a possible solution to unsupervised teen socializing during afternoon hours and are much in demand. However, empirical research has yet to test the relationship between the availability of after‐school programs and youth routine activities. This study presents evidence from a multisite, randomized, controlled trial of an after‐school program for middle‐school students in an urban school district. Policy Implications Youth in the treatment group engaged in less unsupervised socializing after school than youth in the control group but not as much less as would be expected if the after‐school program was providing consistent supervision to youth who would otherwise be unsupervised. Additional analyses examined why the influence of the after‐school program was not more pronounced. We found that, although program attendance was related to decreases in unsupervised socializing, the program did not attract many delinquency‐prone youths who were unsupervised, which suggests that the students most in need of the program did not benefit. Furthermore, data obtained from a mid‐year activity survey revealed that youth in the study were highly engaged in a variety of after‐school activities. The addition of the after‐school program into the mixture of available activities had little effect on the frequency with which students participated in organized activities after school.     

SELF‐CONTROL THEORY AND THE CONCEPT OF OPPORTUNITY: THE CASE FOR A MORE SYSTEMATIC UNION*

The purpose of this study is to advance the idea that low self‐control—one of the strongest known predictors of crime—likely has effects that are conditional on the supply of criminal opportunities. Some scholars initially interpreted the theory to make this exact prediction, but Gottfredson and Hirschi (2003) have rejected this interpretation. They have insisted that the simplistic nature of most crimes ensures that opportunities are limitless and that variation in opportunity simply reflects variation in self‐control. We trace the history of this uncertain position of opportunity in self‐control theory and argue that it should play a significant role in the theory, even if Gottfredson and Hirschi did not originally envision this. Next, we draw on routine activities theory and applications of it to individual offending to offer a theoretical statement of how opportunity should be incorporated into self‐control theory. Last, using data from a national sample of juveniles, we test the arguments that have been made. The analysis suggests that the effects of low self‐control on delinquency partially depend on the availability of criminal opportunities, as indicated by the time juveniles spend with their friends or away from the supervision of their parents.