Developmental Pathways into Social and Sexual Deviance

Path analysis was used to assess the contribution of four exogenous developmental variables (sexual abuse, physical abuse, exposure to violence, exposure to pornography—each occurring prior to age 13) and four personality constructs (“psychopathic and antagonistic attitudes,” “psychosocial deficits,” “pedophilia,” “hostile masculinity”) to the prediction of non-sexual delinquency and number of male child victims in a sample of 256 adolescent males with a history of “hands-on” sexual offending. “Psychosocial deficits” was found to partially mediate the effects of the exogenous variables on both outcomes. Exposure to violence both directly, and indirectly through “psychopathic and antagonistic attitudes,” contributed to the prediction of non-sexual delinquency. Sexual abuse by a male directly, and indirectly through “hostile masculinity” and “pedophila”, contributed to prediction of number of male child victims. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Unmasking Deviance: The Visual Construction of Asylum Seekers and Refugees in English National Newspapers

This paper explores the visual representation of asylum seekers and refugees delineating how English newspaper imagery constructs such groups as deviant and dangerous. A qualitative visual analysis of nine of the major national newspapers demonstrates how mediated images of asylum seekers focus upon three distinct ‘visual scenarios’ in the discovery of deviance, which collectively demonstrate how the social portrayal of the criminal immigrant fuses the otherness of the stranger with the otherness of the deviant. First, the faceless and de-identified stranger enables the construction of a panoply of feared subjects. Second, stigma is implicitly illustrated, deviance obliquely intimated and ‘spoiled identities’ constructed. Third, the mask is removed, the asylum seeker is identified and their deviant status confirmed. Such a process is reinvented, repeated and reworked in news stories, with deviance becoming increasingly engrained and entrenched in the image of the asylum seeker. This paper details how the repetition of specific visual scenarios in newspaper reporting contribute to the construction of ‘noisy’ panics about asylum seekers and asylum seeking. Moreover, it argues that such imagery is key to the construction of asylum as an issue of security, which necessitates a policy approach that is exclusionary in nature.     

NEIGHBORHOOD DISADVANTAGE AND POLICE NOTIFICATION BY VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE*

This research uses data from the Area‐Identified National Crime Victimization Survey to examine the influence of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on the likelihood of police notification by victims of violence. The results indicate that neighborhood disadvantage does not significantly affect the likelihood of police notification among robbery and aggravated assault victims. However, a significant curvilinear effect of neighborhood disadvantage is observed for simple assault victims. The implications of these results for community‐level crime research and for theoretical perspectives on police notification are discussed.     

PROTECTING VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND THEIR CHILDREN AFTER DIVORCE

This article discusses the issue of domestic violence in the postdivorce context and how abused women who have children with their abusers are at a particular high risk of becoming victims of this phenomenon. It discusses recent state legislation that has been enacted to deal with the problems of domestic abuse after divorce. More specifically, this article looks at the American Law Institute's proposed model statute on child custody and visitation and how it addresses the issue of domestic violence both during and after divorce. This article will also explore potential flaws of the American Law Institute's model as well as some ideas for further development in this area .     

The Design of Environmental Regimes: Social Construction, Contextuality, and Improvisation

While much of the literature on environmental regimes has focused on effectiveness, this article takes a new look at a lesser-studied topic, the evolution of regime design. Understanding how regimes differ in design, and how various factors and processes shape such design, is important if we are to more carefully craft these regimes. We should also pay close attention to the formative role of social construction and context. Focusing on transboundary marine programs, we see that their designs basically follow a common template, namely that of the UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) Regional Seas Programme. However, the action of context (i.e., local actors and political processes) can modify these designs away from the common template. The extent to which these programs begin to differentiate from each other may be an important sign of program maturity and responsiveness to context. In this article, we examine a set of transboundary marine programs to uncover what the important dimensions of differentiation are. Then, we focus on one specific program, the SSME (Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion) and closely trace how its specific form and organization came about. The analysis is informed by a model of institutional coherence that portrays institutions as the product of multiple generative mechanisms (e.g., social construction, ecological fit, and others). While it is premature to make definite judgments about the relative merits of competing regime designs, the work provides us with a new mode of analysis that can provide helpful directions for institutional assessment.     

VULNERABLE VICTIMS,MONSTROUS OFFENDERS,AND UNMANAGEABLE RISK: EXPLAINING PUBLIC OPINION ON THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF SEX CRIME

With the possible exception of terrorists, sex offenders in the United States experience a greater degree of punishment and restriction than any other offender group, nonviolent or violent. Members of the public overwhelmingly support “get tough” sex crime policies and display an intense hostility toward persons labeled “sex criminals.” The theoretical literature has identified three models potentially explaining public opinion on the social control of sex crime: the victim‐oriented concerns model, the sex offender stereotypes model, and the risk‐management concerns model. However, empirical work that directly tests these models is absent. This article addresses that gap by analyzing national survey data that includes measures of the key concepts outlined in the different theoretical models and items gauging support for punitive sex crime laws as well as support for sex offender treatment. The findings provide partial support for all three models but suggest that extant theories can better explain support for punitive sex crime policies than views about sex offender treatment.     

A REAPPRAISAL OF THE OVERLAP OF VIOLENT OFFENDERS AND VICTIMS*

Because research shows a close association between offending and victimization, recent work has argued that theories that account for crime should explain victimization as well. The current study uses a new approach to examine the extent of the overlap between offenders who commit violent crime and victims of violence to determine whether it is worthwhile to pursue separate theories to account for these phenomena. Specifically, we take the statistical approach that Osgood and Schreck (2007) developed for analyzing specialization in violent versus property offending and apply it to analyzing tendencies to gravitate toward violent offending versus victimization. In doing so, we treat the differentiation into victim and offender roles as an individual‐level latent variable while controlling for confounding between the likelihood that individuals will take either role in violent acts and their overall numbers of encounters with violence (as either offender or victim). Our purpose is to examine 1) whether significant differentiation can be observed between the tendency to be an offender versus the tendency to be a victim, 2) whether any such differential tendency is stable over time, and 3) if it is possible to predict whether individuals will tend toward violent offending versus victimization. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore these objectives, we find significant and stable levels of differentiation between offenders and victims. Moreover, this differentiation is predictable with explanatory variables.     

SERVICE UTILIZATION AND SATISFACTION WITH SERVICE PROVIDERS IN VICTIMS OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT

The aim of the present study was to investigate service utilization and satisfaction with service delivery among victims of rape and sexual assault. The victims completed a questionnaire comprising questions about whether they felt they received the appropriate help following an assault and whether they were met with positive staff attitudes within the public treatment system. The victims completed the questionnaire at three different time points： one month, three months and six months following an assault. Results showed that a high number of victims were satisfied with the support and treatment they received from psychologist and other part of the public help system. However, a high number of victims also reported receiving insufficient help from the social service and the police. Results are discussed in terms of consequences for victim recovery and the importance of receiving feedback from the victims in order to improve public service provision for victims of rape and sexual assault.     

The Consequences of Knowledge about Elite Deviance

The present study sought to understand the consequences of knowledge about elite deviance. Four hundred and eight participants completed an online questionnaire that measured (1) their level of knowledge about white-collar crime and (2) their perceived seriousness of, and punitiveness toward, it. Results of statistical analyses suggest a positive relationship between knowledge and punitive sentiments toward crimes of the powerful. Conversely, less knowledgeable subjects, comprised disproportionately of men, politically Conservatives, Republicans, and conservative Protestants were often more lenient toward elite offenders, both in terms of perceived seriousness of the offenses and punitiveness toward them, when compared with street crime. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Virtually Criminal: Discourse,Deviance and Anxiety Within Virtual Communities

While it would be appropriate to state that criminologists and those in legal disciplines have recently discovered that new technologies are worthy of research, they have yet to tap into growing concerns over sub-criminal activity within increasing populated virtual environments. As a result we find new forms of sociopathic behaviour, which present themselves in abundance, being disregarded due to their 'virtual status', while similar crimes in the real world are subject to intensive investigation. This study considers forms of 'virtual deviance' that manifest themselves within online communities as viable forms of inquiry. Through a multi-method approach, including ethnographic methods, linguistic, case source and discourse analysis, this research project aims to unravel the link between the aetiology of online deviance and the discourses of surveillance, regulation and mediation. It is hoped that the analysis will provide for a virtual regulatory model that curtails disruptive behaviour within online environments while simultaneously maintaining relevant justice models and forms of human/ avatar rights.     

The Social Construction of Illegality and Criminality

In this article illegal immigrants, a relatively new group of immigrants living at the margins of society, are discussed. The question of the significance of crime for groups that are officially excluded from the formal labour market and public provisions, is presented within the framework of the Unknown City research project, conducted in the four largest Dutch cities (interviews with illegal immigrants; an ethnographic study to determine the extent of support by various ethnic communities; and an examination of the ways in which the restrictive policies towards illegal immigrants were implemented by the police, the Aliens Departments, and by professionals within public or semi-public institutions in the fields of education, healthcare and housing). Both the relatively limited involvement in crime in general and the differences between groups can be explained by the embeddedness of illegal immigrants in the labour sphere and the support by ethnic communities. Attention is paid to the social and legal construction of the illegal immigrant through new legislation and to the observation that illegality is increasingly linked to crime. The majority of illegal immigrants are not criminally active. One exception is the category that is active in the lower levels of the hard drug trade. The authors' analysis suggests that the perception of the criminal illegal immigrant first and foremost reflects the division between wanted and unwanted immigrants, which is the result of the shift towards a restrictive policy.     

Lay-Perspectives on Criminal Deviance,Goals of Punishment,and Punitivity

Empirical studies corroborate a relatively close relation between goals of sentencing and punitiveness. However, it is not clear what aspects of sentencing goals motivate harsh punishment. This study analyzes the structure of sentencing goals and scrutinizes in particular whether the idea of retribution is associated with punitiveness, or whether punishment considerations from a societal perspective (macrolevel) are the source of more punitive responses. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample drawn in Bern, Switzerland. A total of 357 persons responded to items measuring constructs including goals of sentencing, punitiveness, target of justice considerations, and perceived threat to society, after reading one of three short stories about specific crimes (fraud, physical injury, assault). Results of this study reveal a two-dimensional structure of sentencing goals. One dimension represents readiness to punish and exclude the offender socially. The other dimension refers to concerns of the victim versus the needs of the society as a whole. The analysis provides a new interpretation of sentencing goals.