TRANSITORY MOBILITY,CULTURAL HETEROGENEITY,AND VICTIMIZATION RISK AMONG YOUNG MEN OF COLOR: INSIGHTS FROM AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY IN CAPE TOWN,SOUTH AFRICA

The coupling of racial and economic stratification has been found to result in a range of adverse outcomes for youth of color, including disproportionate exposure to violence and victimization. Primary explanations of these patterns, particularly at the micro‐level, have focused on the impact of street culture. In this article, we draw from a multiyear ethnography in Cape Town, South Africa, to offer a theoretical elaboration of the place of culture in contributing to victimization risks among urban minority young men. The study is based on data collected from a sample of 26 young men of color who lived on the Cape Flats between 2003 and 2006. Using grounded theory methods, we suggest the import of unequal access to spatial mobility as a multifaceted means by which culture mediates young men's risks for victimization in disadvantaged communities. We find that transitory mobility—conceptualized as youth's temporary access to cultural spaces outside their segregated residential neighborhoods—is an important source of cultural heterogeneity in townships that can intensify the strength of local social identities and outgroup antipathies directed at those whose mobility is perceived as a cultural threat. Transitorily mobile young men's cultural repertoires are a key facet of street efficacy that can either insulate them from risk or heighten their vulnerabilities. Our findings are suggestive of important sources of variation in young men's victimization outcomes in disadvantaged communities, offering insights about factors that shape risks beyond those linked to the victim–offender overlap in high‐risk settings.     

THE FUNNY SIDE OF DRUG DEALING: RISK,HUMOR, AND NARRATIVE IDENTITY

In this study, we explore the role humor plays in the narrated identities of drug dealers, in their negotiation of the threat of formal punishment, and in their cultural membership and authority. By drawing from interview and observation data gathered from 33 active drug dealers residing in St. Louis, Missouri, we find that humor facilitates identity work among illicit drug dealers in several ways. Humor is an important symbolic boundary marker distinguishing dealers from others they consider “stupid” or less circumspect. It also indicates dealers’ identities as “smart” and simultaneously establishes and validates their subcultural authority and membership in the symbolic group of “smart” dealers. Furthermore, drug dealers use denigrating humor in their narratives to distance their former and virtual identities from their present identities. Finally, humor also reduces dealers’ perceptions of the threats posed by police and potential snitches by casting dealers’ present identities and former reactions to the threat of punishment in a positive light. We conclude by discussing implications for narrative criminology, extant humor research, and current understanding of symbolic boundaries, identity work, and deterrence.     

DEALERS,THIEVES, AND THE COMMON DETERMINANTS OF DRUG AND NONDRUG ILLEGAL EARNINGS*

Drug crime often is viewed as distinctive from other types of crime, meriting greater or lesser punishment. In view of this special status, this article asks whether and how illegal earnings attainment differs between drug sales and other forms of economic crime. We estimate monthly illegal earnings with fixed‐effects models, based on data from the National Supported Work Demonstration Project and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Although drug sales clearly differ from other types of income‐generating crime, we find few differences in their determinants. For example, the use of cocaine or heroin increases illegal earnings from both drug and nondrug crimes, indicating some degree of fungibility in the sources of illegal income. More generally, the same set of factors—particularly legal and illegal opportunities and embeddedness in criminal and conventional networks—predicts both drug earnings and nondrug illegal earnings.     

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.     

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.     

DELINQUENCY AND GENDER MODERATION IN THE MOVING TO OPPORTUNITY INTERVENTION: THE ROLE OF EXTENDED NEIGHBORHOODS

A long history of research has indicated that neighborhood poverty increases youth's risk taking and delinquency. This literature predominantly has treated neighborhoods as independent of their surroundings despite rapidly growing ecological evidence on the geographic clustering of crime that suggests otherwise. This study proposes that to understand neighborhood effects, investigating youth's wider surroundings holds theoretical and empirical value. By revisiting longitudinal data on more than 1500 low‐income youth who participated in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized intervention, this article explores the importance of extended neighborhoods (neighborhoods and surroundings) and different concentrated disadvantage configurations in shaping gender differences in risk taking and delinquency. The results from two‐stage, least‐squares analyses suggest that the extended neighborhoods matter and they matter differently by gender. Among girls, extended neighborhoods without concentrated disadvantage were associated with lower risk‐taking prevalence than extended neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage. In contrast, among boys, localized concentration of disadvantage was associated with the highest prevalence of risk taking and delinquency. Interactions between the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods were similarly associated with differential opportunity and social disorganization mediators. Among the more critical potential mediators of the link between localized disadvantage and boys’ risk taking were delinquent network ties, strain, and perceived absence of legitimate opportunities for success.     

“IT'S IN THEIR CULTURE”: FAIRNESS AND CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

This essay attempts to critique the prevailing thinking on culture and cultural competency within the context of domestic violence. Current thinking and presentations of culture usually consists of providing court personnel with essentialist pictures of various groups of people with suggestions on how to work with them. These pictures obscure the reality that cultures are often unstable and generalizations that lead to providing more misinformation. The essay develops a critical framework on the issue and provides specific ways in which a more nuanced understanding of culture is helpful for court personnel as they grapple with how to work with a diverse population.     

THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE IN CONTEXT: EXPLORING THE MODERATING ROLES OF NEIGHBORHOOD DISADVANTAGE AND CULTURAL NORMS

Although the cycle of violence theory has received empirical support (Widom, 1989a, 1989b), in reality, not all victims of child physical abuse become involved in violence. Therefore, little is known regarding factors that may moderate the relationship between abuse and subsequent violence, particularly contextual circumstances. The current investigation used longitudinal data from 1,372 youth living in 79 neighborhoods who participated in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), and it employed a multivariate, multilevel Rasch model to explore the degree to which neighborhood disadvantage and cultural norms attenuate or strengthen the abuse–violence relationship. The results indicate that the effect of child physical abuse on violence was weaker in more disadvantaged communities. Neighborhood cultural norms regarding tolerance for youth delinquency and fighting among family and friends did not moderate the child abuse–violence relationship, but each had a direct effect on violence, such that residence in neighborhoods more tolerant of delinquency and fighting increased the propensity for violence. These results suggest that the cycle of violence may be contextualized by neighborhood structural and cultural conditions.     

DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES IN THE IMPACT OF CHILD MALTREATMENT ON LATER DELINQUENCY AND DRUG USE*

Developmental psychopathology emphasizes the impact that early childhood maltreatment has on adolescent and early adult development. The life‐course perspective, however, emphasizes more proximal events—adolescent maltreatment, for example—as developmentally disruptive. Prior research suggests that childhood maltreatment is a risk factor for adolescent delinquency and drug use. However, the results appear to depend on a loose definition of childhood. This study utilizes a four‐category maltreatment classification—never, childhood‐only, adolescence‐only, and persistent—to re‐examine the maltreatment‐delinquency relationship. Using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, we find no relationship between childhood‐only maltreatment and adolescent delinquency or drug use; yet, we do find a consistent impact of adolescence‐only and persistent maltreatment on these outcomes.     

UNDERSTANDING THE INFLUENCE OF VICTIM GENDER IN DEATH PENALTY CASES: THE IMPORTANCE OF VICTIM RACE,SEX‐RELATED VICTIMIZATION,AND JURY DECISION MAKING*

Using data from the Baldus, Woodworth, and Pulaski (1990) study of Georgia's death penalty system, we examine the influence of victim gender in death penalty cases. Furthermore, to improve our understanding of the meaning of victim gender, we consider 1) the joint effects of victim gender and victim race, 2) victimization characteristics that might explain victim gender effects, and 3) the impact of victim gender at different decision‐making stages in the death penalty case process. We find that both victim gender and race are associated with death sentencing outcomes and that an examination of the joint effects of victim gender and race reveals considerable differences in the likelihood of receiving a death sentence between the most disparate victim race–gender groups. In particular, it seems that black male victim cases are set apart from all others in terms of leniency afforded to defendants. We also show that the effect of victim gender is explained largely by gender differences in the sexual nature of some homicides. An examination of prosecutorial and jury decision making reveals that although victim gender has little impact on prosecutorial decisions, it has a meaningful impact on jury decisions.     

GIRLS,BOYS, AND SCHOOLS: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SCHOOL‐RELATED FACTORS AND STUDENT DEVIANCE*

Research has identified several student and school characteristics that might be altered to reduce student deviance. Most of this research, however, fails to address whether gender moderates these relationships; that is, most studies do not distinguish between the effect of school‐related factors on boys' and girls' delinquency and drug use. In the current study, data from a nationally representative sample of 13,450 students in 253 public, nonalternative, secondary schools are used to examine hierarchical linear models of the relationships between student bonding, communal school organization, and male and female delinquency and drug use. Gender differences in the overall model of relationships are found as are differences in the relationships between student bonding elements and delinquency. Gender differences are not found in the relationships between student bonding elements and drug use, nor in the relationships between communal school organization elements and delinquency and drug use. Implications for theory and prevention are discussed.     

WHERE IS THE VILLAGE GOING? MAINTAINING AND INCLUDING CULTURAL STRENGTHS TO PROTECT CHILDREN ORPHANED IN KENYA

This article is the result of a master's thesis about children and their universal right to be included in a family environment. This is not only protected under international law, but also intuitive to human beings. HIV‐AIDS continues to threaten lives of children, particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa in the form of orphaning. Looking at a case study from Kenya, it is revealed that, while legal protection is yet to be fully realized in the state, strong cultural norms of value are alive. Currently, the extended family system is the greatest protection to children orphaned or at risk of being orphaned. However, this system was made invisible in the domestic laws of Kenya under the Children Act 2001. This neglect calls for questions not only regarding the protection cultural norms may offer, according to the best interests of children, but also as to the cultural environment being created with the new law.     

THE NARROWING GENDER GAP IN ARRESTS: ASSESSING COMPETING EXPLANATIONS USING SELF‐REPORT,TRAFFIC FATALITY,AND OFFICIAL DATA ON DRUNK DRIVING, 1980–2004*

We evaluate two alternative explanations for the converging gender gap in arrest—changes in women's behavior versus changes in mechanisms of social control. Using the offense of drunk driving and three methodologically diverse data sets, we explore trends in the DUI gender gap. We probe for change across various age groups and across measures tapping DUI prevalence and chronicity. Augmented Dickey‐Fuller time‐series techniques are used to assess changes in the gender gap and levels of drunk driving from 1980 to 2004. Analyses show women of all ages making arrest gains on men—a converging gender gap. In contrast, self‐report and traffic data indicate little or no systematic change in the DUI gender gap. Findings support the conclusion that mechanisms of social control have shifted to target female offending patterns disproportionately. Little support exists for the contention that increased strain and liberalized gender roles have altered the gender gap or female drunk‐driving patterns.