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.     

Perceptually contemporaneous offenses: Gender and fear of crime among African-American university students

There is consensus in the fear of crime literature that women are more afraid of crime than men. Research has explored perceptually contemporaneous offenses to explain the differences in male and female fear, and to explore the possibility that different crimes shape their respective fears. Victimization studies consistently find that African-American citizens are at a higher risk of crime and fear of crime. Using a 2013 sample of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the south, the present study will 1) report gender differences in fear of crime, 2) test whether gender differences in fear of crime are explained by perceptually contemporaneous offenses, and 3) assess whether or not men and women share the same master offenses.     

Drug Policies and Drug Prevalence: The Role of Demand and Supply

Changes in drug policy within countries and variations in drug policy across countries do not show clear cut relationships with drug prevalence levels. Neither liberal nor repressive policies promote or reduce drug use. Though policy might affect supply, factors associated with demand seem to exert a greater impact. Socio-economic conditions and attitudes of the populations towards drugs and related areas might be more important than policy in determining the prevalence level of cannabis and the turnover rate to hard drug use.     

The Effects of Childhood Physical Abuse or Childhood Sexual Abuse in Battered Women's Coping Mechanisms: Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies and Severe Depression

What role does childhood abuse have on the coping choices made by a battered woman? Ancillary to a depression study (Bailey, 1996) in 79 battered women from a Houston area women's shelter were compared for past abuse experiences and how the women were coping with abuse in adulthood. This study compared coping styles between two groups of battered women: those who experienced childhood physically abuse (CPA) (n=35), and those who did not experience childhood physically abuse (NCPA) in childhood (n=44). All of the women filled out a battery of questionnaires including The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and a scale for learned helplessness. A t-test conducted on obsessive-compulsive tendencies (OCT) scale of the BSI found that women who were NPPA had significantly lower BSI-OCT scores t(77)=−2.05, p < .05 than women who were PPA. No statistically significant differences were found between groups for learned helplessness. Out of the 35 battered women who reported physical abuse in childhood were more likely to report sexual abuse as girls than battered women who were not physically abused, t(77)=−3.40, p < .001. Battered women who had been physically and sexually abused in childhood were more severely depressed. Battered women who were not abused in childhood had more obsessive compulsive tendencies. The ramifications of these findings for therapeutic treatment are discussed.     

Getting Caught and Getting Hitched: An Assessment of the Relationship Between Police Intervention,Life Chances,and Romantic Unions

Little research has assessed the link between formal police intervention, financial hardship, and the formation and quality of romantic relationships. Using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, we contribute to this literature by examining effects of police intervention at two time points on marriage stability and romantic relationship quality. We find that police intervention during adolescence is associated with increases in financial hardship during young adulthood, which, in turn, decreases the odds of entering into a stable marriage by age 31 and the extent to which those who have a romantic relationship feel their partner is supportive. Early police intervention also is indirectly associated with a reduction in partner satisfaction and an increase in partner violence via young adult arrest. We conclude that even minimally invasive contact with the criminal justice system during adolescence has long-lasting collateral consequences in the family arena.     

Micro-models of criminal careers: A synthesis of the criminal careers and life course approaches via semiparametric mixed poisson regression models,with empirical applications

Much recent research and debate in criminology have centered around how to conceptualize and model longitudinal sequences of delinquent and criminal acts committed by individuals. Two approaches dominate this controversy. One originates in thecriminal careers paradigm, which emphasizes a potentialheterogeneity of offending groups in the general population—thus leading to a distinction between incidence and prevalence of criminal offending, a focus on the onset, persistence, and desistence of criminal careers, and the possibility that criminals are a distinctive group with constant high rates of offending. Another approach places criminal events within a broader context ofstudies of the life course by explicitly substituting the conceptualization of “social events” for that of “criminal careers”. With respect to analytical models, this approach emphasizes a potentialheterogeneity of offenders with respect to order of criminal events from first to second to higher orders and thus suggests an analysis of the “risks” or “hazards” of offending by order of offense. Some extant commentaries on the criminal careers and life course approaches to conceptualizing and modeling longitudinal sequences of delinquent and criminal events committed by individuals have emphasized their differences and incompatibilities. In contrast, we apply recently developed semiparametric mixed Poisson regression techniques to develop conditions under which the two conceptual/modeling approaches are formally equivalent. We also modify the semiparametric mixed Poisson regression model of criminal careers to incorporate information on order of the delinquent/criminal event and develop an empirical application. This modification demonstrates the complementarity of the criminal careers and life course approaches, even though they have somewhat different foci.     

The Relationship Between Adolescent Physical Abuse and Criminal Offending: Support for an Enduring and Generalized Cycle of Violence

Prospective investigations have demonstrated support for the cycle of violence theory. However, few studies have examined whether or not abuse occurring during adolescence increases the prevalence and frequency of criminal involvement, or explored the long-term consequences of such victimization. In addition, there has been little investigation of whether or not the effects of abuse vary depending on characteristics of the victim, such as sex, race/ethnicity, age, family structure or income. Using data from the National Youth Survey, this study demonstrates that adolescent physical abuse has immediate and enduring effects on the prevalence and frequency of a variety of self-reported offenses, including violent and non-violent crimes, drug use and intimate partner violence. Furthermore, the study reveals that while victimization increases the prevalence of offending for victims of varying backgrounds, the frequency of offending is moderated by family income, area of residence, and family structure. Implications for prevention are discussed.     

Revolving Roles in Drug-Related Crime: The Cost of Chronic Drug Users as Victims and Perpetrators

Numerous studies have established a strong connection between the use of illicit drugs and the commission of other illegal activities, including both predatory and property crimes. No study, however, has examined the cost of crimes associated with drug users both as victims and as perpetrators. In the present study, recent data were analyzed from a targeted sample of chronic drug users (CDUs) and a matched sample of non-drug users (NDUs) in Miami-Dade County, Florida, to estimate the incremental cost of crime associated with CDU. Two separate models were employed to estimate (1) the probability of being a victim or a perpetrator of crime and (2) the cost of crime for both situations. The cost measures were transformed to reduce the influence of extreme outliers, and a smearing technique was used to compare the cost of crime for CDUs relative to NDUs. The findings illustrate that criminal activity among CDUs is circular, extensive, and costly. Implications for law enforcement, criminal justice policy, and substance abuse treatment are discussed.     

Sexual orientation as a justice issue: Issues of postmodern social philosophy and religion for civil rights

This essay theoretically explores three core concerns for social justice research and analysis in the transition from social and legal philosophical foundations based upon Enlightenment categorical universals to a postmodern context that recognizes concurrent globalization and the constructed nature of particular status identities. Utilizing sexual orientation as a case study, the concerns are, what constitutes a civil right in a postmodern context, how useful are categories versus behaviors in protecting civil rights, and how does religion affect the civil morality that justifies and legitimates justice criteria? The argument is made that a justice construct for sexual orientation must rely both on behavioral freedoms and ontological status for adequate protection of human dignity and equality. It also is argued that interreligious discourse is essential to reparticularize religiomoral assumptions that have justified inequality and to provide an adequate negotiated grounding to legitimate shared norms upon which postmodern justice philosophy can be built.     

Cutting the Grass: A Reexamination of the Link between Marital Attachment,Delinquent Peers and Desistance from Marijuana Use

Recent work indicates that marriage contributes to desistance from crime. However, two prominent interpretations of this relationship have been offered. The first, rooted in informal control theory, suggests that the marriage effect is a direct result of social bonds that tend to accompany matrimony. The second contends that the effect is indirect and due to the impact of marriage on patterns of delinquent peer association. Using data from waves 5 and 6 of the National Youth Survey, this study re-analyzes these interpretations by examining the relationship between marital attachment, delinquent peer association and desistance from marijuana use. Although change in delinquent peer association is a powerful predictor of marijuana desistance, findings are also consistent with the control theory interpretation of the marriage effect. Implications and limitations of the current study are noted.A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2000 meeting of the American Society of Criminology in San Francisco, CA.     

Measuring Client Satisfaction and Engagement: The Role of a Mentor Parent Program in Family Drug Treatment Court

Parent engagement is an important intermediate outcome in Family Drug Treatment Court (FDTC) and child welfare services. This study explored the utility and reliability of a client satisfaction and engagement survey designed to measure interim outcomes of a Mentor Parent Program, operating in conjunction with a FDTC. Findings suggest the survey is a useful, parsimonious and reliable tool for measuring key dimensions of parent mentor services including client engagement; client‐centered support and empowerment; and help with systems navigation and accessing resources. The survey may be adapted for use in other FDTC or parent mentor contexts.     

Distinguishing Between Damage to Clothing as a Result of Normal Wear and Tear or as a Result of Deliberate Damage: A Sexual Assault Case Study

Abstract:  This paper focuses on bra damage, specifically damage observed in hook and eye fasteners that are generally located at the backstraps of bras. We describe bra design including the method by which hook and eye fasteners are generally constructed. We assess bra damage in two situations where the damage observed was unexpected given the case scenarios. These were: (i) the complainant of an alleged rape attributed damage to her bra hooks to force during a struggle and (ii) the complainant had earlier manipulated her bra hooks in an incident not related to her complaint. Steriomicroscopy and reconstruction experimentation were necessarily used to assess the bra damage. A systematic approach to damage analysis was employed by the forensic practitioners to correctly identify damage as being a result of mechanical manipulation and therefore as falsified. This paper suggests that more examples of falsified damage should be documented.     

Scale 8 Elevations on the MMPI-2 among Women Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Evaluating Posttraumatic Stress, Depression, and Dissociation as Predictors

This paper investigated elevations on Scale 8 of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) in women survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in order to assess whether symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, or dissociation account for such elevations. Participants were 73 women seeking outpatient treatment for CSA after-effects at a university-based community mental health center. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted, including measures of commonly reported symptoms in CSA survivors: depression, posttraumatic stress, and dissociation. Regression analyses revealed that the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) accounted for the most variance in Scale 8 scores (59%), with the BDI as the best predictor. The Impact of Event Scale (IES) did not predict Scale 8 scores significantly above that achieved by the model above. Cross-validation results indicated good generalizability. Results suggest that depression and dissociation contribute most to scores on Scale 8. Implications of these findings for the clinical and empirical use of the MMPI-2 with CSA survivors are discussed.