THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ON ROBBERY AND PROPERTY CRIME: THE ROLE OF CONSUMER SENTIMENT*

Despite its long history in criminology, research on the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and rates of common crime remains limited. That is in part because many analysts doubt that any systematic relationship exists and in part because of disagreement with regard to the validity of the indicators typically used to measure economic conditions. We argue in this article that good theoretical reasons exist to expect macroeconomic effects on crime rates, but many theories imply that collective perceptions of economic hardship should have effects on crime that are independent of those of more “objective” economic indicators. To evaluate this argument, we examine the relationships between the Index of Consumer Sentiment and regional robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft rates in the United States between 1970 and 2003, which was a period of large swings in both consumer sentiment and instrumental crime. Controlling for several factors thought to influence temporal variation in crime rates, we find that consumer sentiment had significant effects on robbery and property crime rates over the period that were largely independent of the effects of unemployment and economic growth. We also find that consumer sentiment accounted for a sizable fraction of the crime decline during the 1990s and yields reasonably accurate predictions of changes in the four offenses in 2004 and in two of the four offenses in 2005. We conclude that the effects of collective economic perceptions should become an important focus of future research on crime trends.     

RESISTING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF VICTIM ACTION ON THE OUTCOMES OF CRIMES

This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27, 595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and nonforceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action.     

THE POLITICS,AND PLACE,OF GENDER IN RESEARCH ON CRIME*

The study of gender and crime has grown exponentially over the past 40 years, but in some fundamental respects, it remains underdeveloped. Few scholars have considered both the similarities and the differences in the predictors of offending among males and females and the implication of this for middle‐range theories. Victimization has been put forth as a major explanatory factor for female offending; yet the study of female victimization has been ghettoized because it has failed to address the ways in which it is related to the larger literature of victimization. Female inmates have always been characterized as having special needs, but the basic necessities (housing and employment) inmates require once they are released from prison are in fact gender neutral. These bodies of research all have suggested that the salience of gender varies in different contexts and is intermixed with other forms of stratification. As such, we would do well to attend to those situations and relational processes that foreground gender and focus our efforts on where gender‐based paradigms are important and can have a real impact.     

CRIMINOLOGY, CRIMINAL JUSTICE, AND THE WAR ON CRIME

This detailed assessment reviews the nation's “war on crime” during the past ten years, examines what has heen accomplished in that period, and outlines the likely prospects for the future. Although important and tangible progress in improving criminal justice has been made. it has not produced relief from high crime rates. In fact, “things are worse than ever.” For the future, there will be both more advances and frustrations in the war on crime. It is emphasized that the progress achieved so far has been to create a more efficient and fairer rystem of justice and that we should take pride in this. If not eclipsed by the quarterly release of crime statistics, we can maintain our momentum and gain even more significant improvements in the next decade.     

THE CENTRAL PLACE OF RACE IN CRIME AND JUSTICE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY'S 2011 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

In the United States and elsewhere, racial and ethnic disparities in crime and criminal justice are relatively ubiquitous. Yet the meaning of such disparities is not well understood. To address this concern, periodically there have been calls for research that takes into account the broader structural context of the racially and ethnically inequitable crime and justice patterns. However, a comprehensive approach to understanding such inequality is seldom applied in research. In this article, I review findings from a program of research on crime across race–ethnic neighborhoods that I have undertaken with Lauren J. Krivo and other colleagues to provide, and assess, such a framework. The starting point of our approach is that ethnoracial inequality in neighborhood crime is an outgrowth of a racialized social structure maintained largely through racial residential segregation. As anticipated, the findings illustrate the value added from research that embeds its assessment of crime and justice within an understanding of structured societal inequality. From these results, I call for placing race and ethnicity at the center of the study of crime and justice.     

EXPLAINING AND PREVENTING CRIME: THE GLOBALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 1999 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

During the 1990s, there has been an enormous increase in influence in criminology of the risk factor prevention paradigm. This aims to identify the key risk factors for offending (in longitudinal studies) and implement prevention methods designed to counteract them (in experiments). In addition, protective factors are identified and enhanced. This paradigm has fostered linkages between explanation and prevention, between fundamental and applied research, and between scholars, practitioners, and policy makers. It has encouraged the globalization of knowledge, cross‐national comparative studies, and the application of similar strategies for research and action in several different countries. The main challenges for the paradigm are to determine which risk factors are causes, to establish what are protective factors, to identify the active ingredients of multiple component interventions, to evaluate the effectiveness of area‐based intervention programs, and to assess the monetary costs and benefits of interventions. The paradigm can be improved using longitudinal and experimental studies, which aim to retain its advantages while overcoming its problems. Ideally, an international network of researchers should collaborate in investigating and explaining results in different countries.     

A NOTE ON THE EFFECTS OF POPULATION DENSITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT ON URBAN CRIME

This note presents a brief review of reported studies analyzing the effects that population density and unemployment may have on urban crime rates. Very few such empirical studies have been conducted. and their Jindings have been quite contradictory and not entirely conclusive. However, for certain types of crimes, the evidence seems to indicate that the unemployment rate has a positive effect on the crime rate, while the effect of population density, if significant at all, is a negative one.     

ON THE ASSOCIATION AMONG SELF-CONTROL, CRIME, AND ANALOGOUS BEHAVIORS

In a paper previously published in Criminology (Paternoster and Brame, 1998), we used data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development to investigate the association between criminal activity and a set of so-called "analogous behaviors" (i.e., excessive drinking, smoking, gambling, involvement in accidents, etc.). Our reading of Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) self-control theory led us to hypothesize that both of these outcomes should depend on self-control. It seemed to us that the implication of this position is that self-control should explain any association that exists between involvement in criminal activity and involvement in analogous behaviors. Our analysis suggested that the association between criminal activity and analogous behaviors persisted even after conditioning on our measure of self-control. We drew the qualified conclusion that this result constitutes negative evidence for Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory. In this paper, we reexamine the analytic framework on which we relied in our earlier work.     

PRODUCING PERSONAL SAFETY: THE EFFECTS OF CRIME RATES, POLICE FORCE SIZE, AND FEAR OF CRIME

Aggregate data from a sample of 23 Canadian cities are used to examine relationships among crime rates, police staffing rates, fear of crime, and citizens'crime prevention behaviors. Bivariate and path analyses reveal positive correlations between fear of crime and parallel production (crime prevention behaviors) and negative impacts of police force size on such behaviors. Crime rates have both direct and indirect positive effects (via fear of crime) on parallel production. while police force size does not have any real effect on fear of crime.     

LABELING,LIFE CHANCES,AND ADULT CRIME: THE DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF OFFICIAL INTERVENTION IN ADOLESCENCE ON CRIME IN EARLY ADULTHOOD*

Scholars have recently revitalized labeling theory as a developmental theory of structural disadvantage. According to this approach, official intervention increases the probability of involvement in subsequent delinquency and deviance because intervention triggers exclusionary processes that have negative consequences for conventional opportunities. The theory predicts that official intervention in adolescence increases involvement in crime in early adulthood due to the negative effect of intervention on educational attainment and employment. Using panel data on urban males that span early adolescence through early adulthood, we find considerable support for this revised labeling approach. Official intervention in youth has a significant, positive effect on crime in early adulthood, and this effect is partly mediated by life chances such as educational achievement and employment.     

FEAR,TV NEWS,AND THE REALITY OF CRIME*

Data from a 1997 survey of 2, 250 Florida residents are used to assess whether and how the reality of crime influences the relationship between watching TV news and fear of crime. Local crime rates, victim experience, and perceived realism of crime news operationalize the reality of crime and are included in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the TV news and fear of crime relationship. These measures of reality are also used as contexts for disaggregating the analysis. Local and national news are related to fear of crime independent of the effects of the reality of crime and other controls. Local news effects are stronger, especially for people who live in high crime places or have recent victim experience. This contextual pattern of findings is consistent with a conclusion that TV news is most influential when it resonates the experience or crime reality of respondents.     

ESCAPING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT VICTIMIZATION ON MOVING*

This article investigates the impact of criminal victimization on household residential mobility. Existing research finds that direct experiences with crime influence mobility decisions, such that persons who suffer offenses near their homes are more likely to move. The current study extends this line of inquiry to consider whether indirect victimization that involves neighbors also stimulates moving. The analysis uses the National Crime Survey to estimate multilevel models that incorporate data from individual households and their spatially proximate neighbors. The results show that the link between direct victimization and moving continues to hold after controlling for neighborhood context. Indirect property victimization also leads to moving, with effects about equal in size to those of direct victimization. In contrast, no evidence is found that violent victimization that occurs in neighboring homes influences mobility, probably because most of these events are nonstranger violence that provokes less anxiety for neighbors.     

RELIGION AND CRIME REEXAMINED: THE IMPACT OF RELIGION,SECULAR CONTROLS,AND SOCIAL ECOLOGY ON ADULT CRIMINALITY*

Since Hirschi and Stark's (1969) surprising failure to find religious (“hellfire”) effects on delinquency, subsequent research has generally revealed an inverse relationship between religiosity and various forms of deviance, delinquency, and crime. The complexity of the relationship and conditions under which it holds, however, continue to be debated. Although a few researchers have found that religion's influence is noncontingent, most have found support—especially among youths—for effects that vary by denomination, type of offense, and social and/or religious context. More recently the relationship has been reported as spurious when relevant secular controls are included. Our research attempts to resolve these issues by testing the religion-crime relationship in models with a comprehensive crime measure and three separate dimensions of religiosity. We also control for secular constraints, religious networks, and social ecology. We found that, among our religiosity measures, participation in religious activities was a persistent and noncontingent inhibiter of adult crime.     

ON THE CAUSES OF "WHITE-COLLAR" CRIME: AN ASSESSMENT OF HIRSCHI AND GOTTFREDSON'S CLAIMS

This article assesses Hirschi and Gottfredson claims about patterns and explanations of White-collar crime. It points out several flaws in their analysis and shows (1) that the UCR offense categories of fraud and forgery are not appropriate indicators of white-collar or occupational crime because the typical arrestee in these categories committed a nonoccupational crime; (2) that the demographic distribution (age, sex, race) of these "white-collar" crimes is not the same as it is for most ordinary crimes; and (3) that the occurrence of these "white-collar" crimes is not relatively rare. The implications of the findings for research and theory on crime are also discussed.     

THE UNREPENTANT HORSE‐SLASHER: MORAL INSANITY AND THE ORIGINS OF CRIMINOLOGICAL THOUGHT*

This paper raises questions about the origins, definition and nature of criminological knowledge by seeking to identify the earliest examples of scientific criminological thought. Pushing the story further back in time than previous studies of criminological history, it proposes a way to think about criminology before criminologists—that is, efforts to study crime scientifically before the emergence of specifically criminological discourses and before the formation of the professional specialization of criminologist. The roots of scientific criminological thought lie in late 18th‐ and early 19th‐century discourses on the phenomenon of moral insanity, or uncontrollable, remorseless criminal behavior. Examination of these texts reveals both the origins of criminological knowledge and the birth of idea that crime can be studied scientifically.