American Indians and sentencing disparity: An Arizona test

Although a proliferation of research exists examining the extent to which African American criminal defendants receive more harsh sentences relative to Caucasians, comparatively little research has examined the issue of discrimination in relation to other minority groups. This article examines disparities in sentence length received between American Indian and Caucasian inmates incarcerated in Arizona state correctional facilities. Regression analyses were used to predict the sentences received by American Indian and Caucasian inmates convicted of six crimes (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, assault, burglary, and larceny). After prior felony record and other demographic variables were controlled in these crime-specific models, the crimes of robbery and burglary were the only crimes in which American Indians received longer sentences than Caucasians convicted of the same offense. Caucasian defendants received significantly longer sentences than American Indians for cases of homicide. A defendant's prior felony record was the only variable that consistently increased the length of sentence received by defendants across all types of crime. These findings are discussed and interpreted using various theoretical arguments.     

WAGE INEQUALITY AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY: AN EXTREME BOUNDS ANALYSIS FOR THE UNITED STATES, 1975–1990*

The past decades in the United States have been characterized by a widening in the distribution of wage income. While much research has attempted to uncover the causes of these earnings trends, much less is known about their impact upon social and economic factors. This study examines evidence for links between changes in distribution of wage income and criminal activity. Using extreme bounds analysis in conjunction with ordinary least squares regression, the study shows that robust results linking wage inequality and crime are obtainable across a rich set of model specifications for the violent crimes of murder and assault. No evidence is found linking wage inequality with the crimes of robbery and burglary. Results are inconclusive for larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, and forcible rape. These results should be viewed as a first stage in examining the link between wage inequality and criminal activity. Research into the specific behavioral complexities underlying these relationships should be considered to affirm these results.     

Testing the relative importance of contemporaneous offenses: The impacts of fear of sexual assault versus fear of physical harm among men and women

Purpose

The current study tests the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis and extends recent research by examining whether the fear of physical harm or the fear of sexual assault has a greater impact on fear of other crimes.

Methods

To determine the unique interaction between gender and fear, we conduct separate analyses among men and women.

Results

While fear of physical harm and fear of sexual intrusion are both predictive of fear of home invasion, robbery, and murder, fear of physical harm has a significantly greater impact across all types of fear (e.g., home invasion, robbery, murder).

Conclusions

Despite previous empirical evidence that suggests fear operates differently among men and women, our findings suggest that fear of physical harm - rather than fear of sexual intrusion - is a more robust predictor of fear of crime among both men and women.     

In and out of prison: Do importation factors predict all forms of misconduct or just the more serious ones?

Purpose

This study was designed to investigate whether importation factors predict all forms of prison misconduct and recidivism or just the more serious forms.

Methods

Six importation factors were examined: age, marital status, street gang affiliation, criminal thinking, prior drug abuse, and criminal history. Count data for two high severity infractions (assault, escape), two high-moderate severity infractions (fighting, possession of intoxicants), two moderate severity infractions (refusing programs, stealing), two high severity crimes (assault, robbery), and two moderate severity crimes (DUI, failure to appear) were regressed onto these six importation variables in samples of 2488 (prison infractions) and 1101 (recidivism) male inmates.

Results

The importation variables successfully predicted the four infractions that were rated high and high-moderate in severity and the two crimes that were rated high severity but not the two infractions or two crimes that were rated as moderate in severity.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that importation factors are differentially predictive of more serious forms of infraction and recidivism and that the importation model may have as much to offer the study of community adjustment and recidivism as it does the study of institutional adjustment and disciplinary infractions as part of the more general theoretical construct of criminal propensity.     

Criminal victimization and low self-control: An extension and test of a general theory of crime

Using data on victimization from a national sample of college students, we replicated, refined, and extended Ferraro's models to test the “shadow of sexual assault” thesis and to explore factors that heightened women's age-specific fear of rape. We took into account temporal dimensions of crime-specific fear (during the day and at night) and used a domain-specific model. Overall, fear of rape among college women “shadowed” their fear of other personal crimes. Our age-specific results concerning college women's fear of rape largely mirrored Ferraro's results for women more generally. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Mental Disorders and Types of Crime in Inmates in a Brazilian Prison

This cross‐sectional study conducted in prisons in the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, investigated the association between the presence of psychiatric disorders in 462 prisoners and the types of crimes committed by them. Psychiatric diagnosis was obtained by means of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Mini‐International Neuropsychiatric Interview. A statistically significant association was found between some psychiatric disorders and specific groups of crime: lifelong substance addiction with sex crimes and homicide; antisocial personality disorder with robbery and with kidnapping and extortion; borderline personality disorder with sex crimes; and lifelong alcohol addiction with fraud and conspiracy and with armed robbery and murder. It was concluded that the mental disorders considered more severe (psychosis and bipolar disorder) were not associated with violent crimes, suggesting that the severity of the psychotic disorder may be the factor that has caused psychosis to be associated with violent crimes in previous studies.     

On the Limits of Social Control: Structural Deterrence and the Policing of “Suppressible” Crimes

The present study examined the relationships between patterns of police arrests and subsequent variations in robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault in New York City police precincts from 1989 to 1998. Grounded in the structural deterrence theoretical perspective, and using a two‐stage fixed‐effects statistical framework, the study found that while controlling for indicators of social disorganization, increases in arrest vigor (i.e., arrests per officer for violent crimes in each precinct and raw arrest counts) predicted decreases in robbery and burglary, but that the relationships were non‐linear: as arrest vigor increased, robbery and burglary crime decreased; when arrest thresholds were reached, however, both robbery and burglary crime rates became positively associated with arrest aggressiveness. Conversely, variations in aggressive arrest patterns had no significant effect on aggravated assault, supporting the suppressible crimes arguments that primarily economically motivated crimes, and those that tend to occur in public settings, are most likely deterred by aggressive police practices.     

STRUCTURAL SOURCES OF VARIATION IN RACE-AGE-SPECIFIC RATES OF OFFENDING ACROSS MAJOR U.S. CITIES*

Recently, much attention has been focused on the structural determinants of variations in crime rates across U.S. cities. Virtually all research in this area has utilized aggregate reported offense rates as the dependent variable. While it provides a good indicator of the total volume of crime, the aggregate crime rate suffers two major disadvantages-it obscures individual- and aggregate-level effects, and it does not allow testing of criminological theory which specifies differential effects of economic variables (for example, poverty, inequality) on offending rates for various population subgroups (for example, black adults, white adults). The present study addresses these issues by examining the economic determinants of age, race, and crime-specific offending rates for a sample of the nation's largest cities. The overall results suggest that income inequality has a direct positive effect on black offending rates for serious crime, whereas black poverty has no effect. In contrast, white poverty has positive effects on white violence, while inequality significantly increases white robbery and burglary. The implications of findings for recent theoretical developments of conflict and relative deprivation theory are assessed.     

Trends in Police-recorded Offences

This article presents 10-year trends (1998–2007) on some common crimes: homicide, assault, rape, robbery, car theft, domestic burglary and drug offences. In addition, a few less common offences in police statistics, such as money laundering, corruption, offences against computer data and systems are discussed, even though trends of these crimes are not available. Trends are shown from Western, Central and Eastern Europe, where significant sociopolitical changes have occurred. Although police data actually describes more the recording practices of the officials than the amount of crime, police data is highly valuable for research purposes. Most countries continuously collect information about police activity, and the police is mostly the starting point for proceeding with a case in the criminal justice system. In the USA, all common offences recorded by the police have decreased during the recent years. In Europe, property crimes, homicide and robbery have decreased in most countries, but violence and drug crimes have increased. According to the crime victim surveys, the increase in assault cannot be explained by the increasing reporting activity of victims; the increase seems real. The level of crime differs considerably in different areas: for instance, homicide is most common in Eastern Europe, but assault is much higher in Western Europe.     

The influences of incident and contextual characteristics on crime clearance of nonlethal violence: A multilevel event history analysis

Using multilevel event history analyses, this article investigates the effects of both incident and contextual (social disorganization and police resources) factors on crime clearance by arrest for robbery, forcible rape, and aggravated assault incidents in 106 cities. The analysis found that victim's age, the number of concomitant offenses and victims, victim's injury, and weapon use played important roles in crime clearance for all three types of nonlethal violent incidents. Among social disorganization variables, higher unemployment and racial segregation significantly decreased the odds of clearance for robbery and aggravated assault, but not for rape. Instead, higher divorce rates significantly decreased the odds of rape clearance. This suggests that social disorganization may play a different role in the clearance mechanisms for sexual than for nonsexual violent offenses. The effects of police resource variables on clearance were not significant in the expected direction for any of the three types of incidents.     

Predicting symmetry in female/male crime rates

This paper examines changes in female criminality. Data were obtained from 1943 through 1998 on six index crimes: murder, robbery, assault, burglary, auto theft, and larceny. Rape and arson are not included because rape is almost exclusively a male crime, while statistics for arson have not been consistent for the period studied. A review of the literature on female crime is presented. Percentage differences between males and females were obtained for specific crimes for each year. A regression line was computed for this difference by year. Each line is characterized by R², as a measure of confidence in future predictions and “b” levels to determine slope, and the expected year in which male and female crime will achieve equality if current trends continue. The authors also suggest using the year generated as an index on which to compare growth or decline of female crime.     

CAPINDEX: Abstract descriptors

Both research and public policy efforts to determine levels of spouse abuse have been compromised, with significant incidence either uncounted or undercounted, owing to numerous factors: social stigma, victim guilt, evasive public policy, and sparse and/or technically inadequate research attempts. The CAPINDEX (Crimes-Against-Persons Index) is an estimation technique that tackles this persistent problem by using rates of well-reported violent crimes to predict the incidence of poorly reported violent crimes like spouse abuse. The numerical bases of the CAPINDEX, murder and aggravated assault, are well-reported and not subject to social class skewing. The relational approach of the technique is consistent with structural, cultural consistency, and ecological theories of violence. The technique is not only efficacious in estimating spouse abuse, but applicable to estimating sexual assault rates.     

Self-reported crime rates of women prisoners

This paper presents findings from the first study of female prisoners' self-reports of criminal activity. Using the criminal career paradigm to frame the analysis, self-reported estimates of crime participation and frequency rates were examined for eight felony crimes. Important similarities between women and men were found in overall patterns of crime. Specifically, a small proportion ofboth women and men described committing a large portion of the total crimes reported. These data also suggest that women and men are similar in violent crime participation — a finding that varies from the current literature. Once active in a crime type, women and men committed assault, theft, and forgery at significantly different rates; no gender differences were found in the annualized frequency rates of burglary, robbery, motor vehicle theft, fraud, and drug dealing. However, although statistical differences were not found in the overall frequency of drug dealing, specific patterns of drug dealing reflected considerable gender variation, with a larger proportion of the female sample committing very frequent (daily) drug dealing activity. The findings reflect the value of the criminal career paradigm for the study of gender differences. Future research should include largescale quantitative designs that allow detailed analyses of correlates of the distinct criminal career dimensions.Points of view are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.This research was funded in part by the National Institute of Justice, Grant 87-IJ-CX-0048.     

The impact of race on the adjudication of sexual assault and other violent crimes

This study assessed whether sexual assault offenders were differently adjudicated from other violent felons and to what extent any differences in adjudication decisions were explained by the defendant's race. Five court decisions were analyzed using a weighted sample of 41,151 cases adjudicated between 1990 and 1996 that were representative of cases in the seventy-five most populous United States counties. The results did not support the hypothesis that sexual assault cases were given, on average, more leniency than less serious violent offenses, however, various adjudication decisions for the four violent offenses were moderated by the defendant's race. Interaction models showed minorities were treated more punitively compared to Whites when they were charged with an assault, robbery, or murder, but they were treated more leniently when they were charged with a sexual assault. Explanatory models that accounted for the differential processing of minorities that were disproportionately lenient or punitive, depending on the crime, are discussed.     

Women,Work, and Crime: An International Test of the Emancipation Hypothesis

This study analyzes Interpol statistics on female crime for the 1963–1970 period for a sample of Western nations with the purpose of testing two popular explanations of female criminality. Six measures of female economic participation in society were correlated with female proportional involvement in overall crime rates, theft, fraud, murder, and robbery/burglary.

It was found that women's contribution to the overall arrest rate is neither directly proportional to their employment in the commercial work force, nor to the degree in which their jobs are comparable to those of males. The analysis of the crimes of theft and fraud provided support for the “opportunity” version of emancipation theory. Adler's “aggressive” variant of the emancipation hypothesis was only partly borne out by the data for murder and not supported for robbery and burglary.     

Sex differences in the likelihood of arrest

Using data from the new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), this study analyzed the impact of a criminal offender's sex on the likelihood of arrest for 555,752 incidents of kidnapping, forcible rape, forcible fondling, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation in nineteen states and the District of Columbia during 2000. The data used in this study advanced the literature by enabling the authors to determine the likelihood of arrest for males and females based on sex-specific offending as reported by crime victims. Controlling for offense seriousness and a variety of other factors, logistic regression results showed that the probability of arrest for females was 28 percent lower for kidnapping, 48 percent lower for forcible fondling, 9 percent lower for simple assault, and 27 percent lower for intimidation than for males. A supplemental analysis also revealed that Black females had a higher probability of arrest than did White females for aggravated and simple assault. No discernable impact of an offender's sex on the prospect of arrest was noted for the crimes of forcible rape and robbery. Overall, these findings suggest that the lower arrest rate for females is partly the result of leniency shown women by law enforcement personnel.     

Discrepancies Between Crime Reports and Crime Surveys:

The absence of strong zero-order associations between victimization and official crime rates for cities has been a puzzle for social scientists since the data for making such comparisons became available. Using the 26 large central cities for which data on both types of rates are available, we analyze the extent to which discrepancies between the rates can be accounted for by aspects of urban social structure that differ from city to city. After introducing such structural controls, we find a much closer correspondence between the two types of rates for motor vehicle theft, robbery, burglary, and forcible rape, but not for aggravated assault and larceny-theft. These results are explained by citing evidence that we have identified some critical "suppressor" variables for the former crimes (i.e., variables that are positively associated with one type of rate and negatively associated with the other). By contrast, the heterogeneous nature of the phenomena subsumed by the latter two crime categories may preclude identification of a similarly parsimonious list of suppressors. One implication of these conclusions is that cross-sectional analyses of intercity variation in official rates may produce results that are in reasonably close correspondence with what would be obtained with victimization rates for certain index crimes, provided that sufficient structural control variables are utilized.     

Examining the relationship between childhood animal cruelty motives and recurrent adult violent crimes toward humans

Few researchers have studied the predictive ability of childhood animal cruelty motives as they are associated with later recurrent violence toward humans. Based on a sample of 180 inmates at one medium- and one maximum-security prison in a Southern state, the present study examines the relationship among several retrospectively identified motives (fun, out of anger, hate for the animal, and imitation) for childhood animal cruelty and the later commission of violent crimes (murder, rape, assault, and robbery) against humans. Almost two thirds of the inmates reported engaging in childhood animal cruelty for fun, whereas almost one fourth reported being motivated either out of anger or imitation. Only one fifth of the respondents reported they had committed acts of animal cruelty because they hated the animal. Regression analyses revealed that recurrent animal cruelty was the only statistically significant variable in the model. Respondents who had committed recurrent childhood animal cruelty were more likely to have had committed recurrent adult violence toward humans. None of the motives for committing childhood animal cruelty had any effect on later violence against humans.     

Crime and punishment in Russia and the United States: 1990–1998

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, dramatic sociopolitical changes have affected the ability of the Russian criminal justice system to effectively process violent crimes. This paper compares the police and court processing of selected violent crimes in Russia and the United States during the period 1990–1998. Using data from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, we examine the disposition of homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (i.e., serious bodily injury) cases in both countries during this period. Our findings indicate that while arrests and rates of homicide, robbery and aggravated assault decreased in the U.S. during this period, they increased in Russia. On the other hand, rape rates and arrests decreased in both countries during this period. Conviction rates as well as the percentage of defendants sentenced to prison in Russia were both higher than in the U.S. for each of the offenses studied during this period. We discuss implications of the findings and suggest additional research.     

Self-Reported Violent Offending Among Subjects with Genius-Level IQ Scores

While research indicates offenders have IQ scores approximately eight points below the population average of 100, very little is known about the crimes of individuals with above-average IQ scores. The current research is not limited to acts of family violence, but it describes the self-reported offending of 465 high-IQ subjects for eight violent crimes: robbery, carrying a concealed weapon, making a serious threat, serious assault, homicide, constructing an explosive device, kidnapping, and attempting suicide. Rates of prevalence and incidence are reported and compared to the rates from a control group of 756 individuals with average IQ scores. High-IQ subjects reported higher rates of prevalence, incidence, and arrest, but lower levels of conviction, than controls. A significant positive correlation exists for offenders between IQ score and lifetime incidence rate for robbery, homicide, and kidnapping, and a significant negative correlation exists between IQ score and incidence of attempted suicide.