BRINGING PEACE TO THE LATINO COMMUNITY

This study addresses the need for a parent education program for divorcing and separating parents in the Latino community. It is intended to identify special needs and issues that may affect the implementation of such a program and proposes a framework as to how such issues might be addressed and met. This study is based on the implementation of the PEACE (Parent Education and Custody Effectiveness) program, an existing parent education program in New York State. This study will explore how the program may need to be adapted or modified to serve adequately and effectively the Latino community.     

THE PROGRESSIVE APPEARANCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL ELEMENTS IN INTEGRATION PROCESSES. TOWARD A REFORMULATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND A HUMANIST VISION OF COMMUNITY LAW

The success of the European Union is the paradigm that should be kept in mind by other blocs or integration movements （NAFTA, the Andean Community, CARICOM, the African Union, APEC, etc） with the goal not only of building a global commercial space together, through the opening of relations, but also the future reformulation of an international community that, like the European Union, can create its own institutions, which in time may even replace the United Nations, and begin to dream of other kinds of organisations.     

SOCIAL INTERACTION AND COMMUNITY CRIME: EXAMINING THE IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBOR NETWORKS

The social disorganization perspective assumes that social interaction among neighbors is a central element in the control of community crime. Moreover, social interaction among neighbors that occurs frequently, such as every day, is assumed to be most effective. This analysis tests that assumption by exploring the consequences of frequent and infrequent interaction. I construct 10 alternative measures of social interaction and separately examine the effect of each on the rates of three serious crimes across 60 urban neighborhoods. Findings suggest that type of interaction matters. Getting together once a year or more with neighbors has the most consistent and generally strongest effect on burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery. Further this form of interaction mediates a significant proportion of the effect of ecological characteristics on community crime. Implications for community crime research are discussed.     

THE ELUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND CRIME: AN ASSESSMENT ACROSS DISADVANTAGED AREAS OF THE SOUTH BRONX

Several theoretical perspectives posit a negative association between the extent of a neighborhood's organizational infrastructure and crime; yet, empirical support for this proposition has been limited in that researchers generally examine only a few types of organizations or combine them into one aggregate measure. Studies with few measures may omit organizations that are effective at reducing crime, whereas those using aggregate measures obscure differences across organizations in their ability to control crime. Using data from 74 block groups in the South Bronx, NY, this research seeks to specify more clearly the relationship between organizations and crime in a disadvantaged urban environment. We examine the relationship among nine different types of organizations and violent and property crime controlling for prior crime, land use, and area sociodemographic characteristics. Consistent with theories that highlight the importance of organizations for establishing ties outside the neighborhood, we find that block groups with more organizations that bridge to the larger community experience a decrease in crime. Property crime also is reduced in block groups with more organizations that promote the well‐being of families and children. We find that schools are associated with an increase in property crime, whereas the effects of other organizations are context specific and vary based on neighborhood racial composition, commercial land use, and disadvantage.     

SCHOOL DISORDER: THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL,INSTITUTIONAL, AND COMMUNITY FACTORS*

Drawing upon control theory, school climate theory, and social disorganization theory, this study examined the relative influence of individual, institutional, and community factors on misconduct in Philadelphia middle schools. Using U.S. census data, school district data, police department data, and school climate survey data obtained from the administration of the Effective School Battery to 7, 583 students in 11 middle schools, we examined the following predictors of student misconduct: community poverty and residential stability; community crime; school size; student perceptions of school climate (school attachment); and individual student characteristics (e.g., age, race, sex, school involvement and effort, belief in rules, positive peer associations). “Community” was conceptualized in two ways: “local” (the census tract around the school), and “imported” (aggregated measures from the census tracts where students actually lived). We used hierarchical linear modeling techniques (HLM) to examine between- and within-school factors. Individual-level factors accounted for 16% of the explained variance; school and community-level factors (both local and imported) added only small increments (an additional 4.1–4.5%). We conclude that simplistic assumptions that “bad” communities typically produce “bad” children or “bad” schools are unwarranted.     

STYLES OF COMMUNITY POLICING

Police agencies have distinctive philosophies, or styles, of policing. James Q. Wilson identified three policing styles by analyzing the approach of police in order-maintenance and law enforcement situations Styles can also be developed by considering policing methods in relation to their impact upon the general community. The reactive-procrctive emphasis given to wrious combinations of positive and negative methods, or counselor and enforcer roles, is the basis for the four policing styles discussed.     

BEYOND THE BELL CURVE: COMMUNITY DISADVANTAGE AND THE EXPLANATION OF BLACK‐WHITE DIFFERENCES IN ADOLESCENT VIOLENCE*

Disproportionate involvement in violent behavior among African American, versus white, adolescents is a major arena of debate in the social sciences. The individual difference approach draws attention to verbal ability as an explanation of black‐white differences in violence. Sociological theories stress variation in community and family socioeconomic disadvantage. We contrast these causal images of racial differences in serious violence using the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health and contextual modeling. Results indicate that verbal ability has an indirect effect on violence through school achievement, but does not account for the greater involvement in violence among black adolescents. The analysis is most consistent with a sociological model that views the race‐violence link as a spurious outcome of community context.