A Closer Look at the Paradox: Examining Immigration and Youth Reoffending in Arizona

The bulk of existing research on immigration and crime suggests that, counter to a number of theoretical perspectives and overall public and political opinion, indicators of immigration are either unrelated or negatively related to criminal behavior. Notably absent from this line of research is assessments of the impact of immigration on the social outcomes of ex-offenders and youth. Youthful ex-offenders in particular represent a vulnerable population that could be expected to benefit most from the protective effects of immigration as identified in the literature. Accordingly, in the present study we determine the importance of concentrated immigration (net of individual-level factors) in reoffending for a sample of previously arrested youth in the state of Arizona. In addition, we examine whether the effects of immigration on reoffending behavior are contingent on the individual characteristics (e.g. race, ethnicity, and gender) of youth. The implications for the ongoing theoretical, empirical, and policy debates surrounding immigration and crime are discussed.     

Schools,Neighborhoods, and Adolescent Conflicts: A Situational Examination of Reciprocal Dynamics

Youths' exposure to school violence is ecologically patterned, occurring disproportionately in public schools located in urban disadvantaged communities. We know less, however, about how situational processes and environmental contexts shape school violence. In addition, limited research has examined the reciprocal nature of school and neighborhood conflicts. Here we draw from a qualitative study of violence in the lives of African American youths from a disadvantaged inner‐city community to examine young men's experiences with school‐based violence. Specifically, we investigate two questions: (1) how conflicts are shaped by the school setting, and (2) how and when such conflicts unfold and spill over between neighborhoods and schools. Our findings highlight the importance of examining the situational and ecological contexts of youth violence to further illuminate its causes and consequences.     

GENDER,NEIGHBORHOOD DANGER,AND RISK‐AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES AMONG URBAN AFRICAN‐AMERICAN YOUTHS*

Research consistently reveals that fear of crime and perceived risk are demographically and ecologically patterned. Women and individuals in disadvantaged community settings report increased fear and perceptions of risk. For women, these fears and perceptions are tied to concerns about sexual violence specifically, whereas for individuals in distressed neighborhoods, crime rates, “incivilities,” and poor police‐community relations are often identified as important correlates. Here, we build from the insights of previous research by examining the gendered nature of perceived risk and risk‐management strategies among urban African‐American adolescents. Our findings suggest that both risk and risk‐avoidance strategies are strikingly different for young women and young men and are shaped by the gendered organizational features of neighborhood life. We propose that future research will benefit by continuing to investigate how social vulnerabilities function in tandem to structure risks across ecological settings.     

Chronic Offenders or Socially Disadvantaged Youth? Institutionalized Males as Missing Cases in School‐based Delinquency Research

Previous criminological studies comparing institutional youth populations with community samples have for the most part focused on youths institutionalized primarily as a result of involvements in delinquency. The present study compares levels of social disadvantage and criminal involvement within a nationally representative sample of Swedish schoolboys with those of a national population of institutionalized males that includes both serious young offenders and youths institutionalized for other reasons. Whilst at the aggregate level, mean levels of offending are higher within the institutional sample, the institutional population includes youths from across the entire range of levels of offending. Levels of social disadvantage are substantially elevated among the institutionalized males by comparison with the school sample. The study notes that institutionalized samples, where these include both young offenders and youths institutionalized for other reasons, may provide a fruitful ground for life‐course research into the way involvements in crime interact with other indicators of social disadvantage to affect the likelihood of continued marginalization into adulthood.     

STRUCTURAL FACTORS AND BLACK INTERRACIAL HOMICIDE: A NEW EXAMINATION OF THE CAUSAL PROCESS*

This study evaluates the assumption that deprivation among African Americans and racial inequality lead to black interracial homicide due to racial conflict and antagonism. Using refined race‐adjusted Supplemental Homicide Report data, Uniform Crime Report data and census data, we test an alternative hypothesis that draws on the macrostructural opportunity theory to assess and more accurately specify the relationship between structural characteristics and black interracial homicide. We find that first, the relationship between economic factors and black interracial homicide can be explained in large part by high rates of financially motivated crime such as robbery, and second, that economic factors are associated with financially motivated but not expressive black interracial killings. Analyses of black intraracial killings are performed for comparison purposes. Collectively, the findings suggest that conflict‐based explanations rooted in racial antagonism and frustration aggression may be premature.     

A follow-up study of sex offenders treated by Thames Valley Sex Offender Groupwork Programme, 1995–1999

The following paper is a reconviction study of 183 sex offenders treated by the Thames Valley Project between 1995 and 1999. Some demographic details are provided about the sample. Subjects were monitored for a mean of 3.9 years. A total of 10 subjects (5.4% of total) were reconvicted for a further sexual offence. A further 19 men (10.3%) either had allegations made against them or committed a behaviour that may have involved or been the preparation for further sexual offending, defined here as “recidivism”. Details about post-treatment behaviour were drawn from three sources: two national police databases which indicated any formal sexual reconviction and the files kept on each sex offender registered with Thames Valley Project (TVSOGP), a multi-funded community-based sex offender treatment programme. The pre-treatment re-conviction risk status of each man was calculated using part one of the Risk Matrix 2000 algorithm (static factors). Risk levels were compared for those where reconviction, re-offending or recidivism was identified and those where it was not and a correlation was found in the predicted direction although this was not statistically significant. The advantages and limitations of this kind of follow-up study are discussed, together with some recommendations for future research.     

Assessing the Risk of Domestic Violence Reoffending: A Validation Study

Little research has been conducted to validate available instruments for assessing the risk of domestic violence reoffending, especially research using some form of prospective design. This study uses a prospective design to determine the reliability and validity of the Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI). The analysis is based on a sample of 1,465 male domestic violence offenders selected consecutively over a 9-month period. Data on reoffending were collected in a 6-month follow-up period from a subsample of the victims (N = 125) of these perpetrators and from official records for all perpetrators during an 18-month follow-up period. The empirical results suggest that the DVSI was administered reliably, and they provide significant evidence of the concurrent, discriminant, and predictive validity of this instrument. Implications for further research and utilization of the DVSI are discussed.     

Complicating the “holy grail”, simplifying the search: a critique of the conventional problematisation of social immobility in elite legal education and the profession

This article challenges the conventional problematisation of and response to insufficient socio-economic diversity in elite legal education and the legal profession. I contend that the entrenched socio-economic stratification of admissions, the undergraduate experience, final degree classification, and career trajectories turns on elite institutions’ failure to recognise that education and educational proxies neither explain the core of socio-economic inequality nor are they the linchpin for improving social mobility. I draw on a case study of an elite UK university’s undergraduate Law programme. My argument proceeds in three parts. Firstly, I contend that justifiable commitment to “meritocracy” continues to be unjustifiably implemented via the indeterminate critical values of “potential” and “talent”, which undermines the meritocratic aim. Secondly, I explain how the inadequacy of the educational proxies employed for socio-economic disadvantage undermines the ability of targeted responses to achieve real improvements, and I call for the adoption of poverty-based proxies. Thirdly, I suggest that the search for mechanisms to increase diversity proceeds on the mistaken assumption that complex problems require complex solutions, which overlooks the transformative potential of “micro-adjustments” or “nudges”. I propose both universal and targeted micro-adjustments, which focus on fostering a universal diversity of excellence; bringing disadvantaged students within the “community of practice” to become expert in critical learning methods and assessment criteria; and enhancing disadvantaged students’ social and cultural capital.     

SPATIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE EFFECT OF NEIGHBORHOOD DISADVANTAGE ON DELINQUENCY*

Research examining the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and adolescent offending typically examines only the influence of residential neighborhoods. This strategy may be problematic as 1) neighborhoods are rarely spatially independent of each other and 2) adolescents spend an appreciable portion of their time engaged in activities outside of their immediate neighborhood. Therefore, characteristics of neighborhoods outside of, but geographically proximate to, residential neighborhoods may affect adolescents’ propensity to engage in delinquent behavior. We append a spatially lagged, distance‐weighted measure of socioeconomic disadvantage in “extralocal” neighborhoods to the individual records of respondents participating in the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (N = 6,491). Results from negative binomial regression analyses indicate that the level of socioeconomic disadvantage in extralocal neighborhoods is inversely associated with youth offending, as theories of relative deprivation, structured opportunity, and routine activities would predict, and that the magnitude of this effect rivals that of the level of disadvantage in youths’ own residential neighborhoods. Moreover, socioeconomic disadvantage in extralocal neighborhoods suppresses the criminogenic influence of socioeconomic disadvantage in youths’ own neighborhoods, revealing stronger effects of local neighborhood disadvantage than would otherwise be observed.     

我国行政司法监督的弊端与行政法院的建构

行政权在国家权力中是一种最庞大的权力,按照权力制约的原理,就要有与之相应的权力加以制约,为此,除了从立法上控制、程序上规范外,司法监督就是最不可缺少、最重要的制约手段。反观我国的行政司法监督,其弊端已影响到其监督功能的实现,为此,在整个司法体制改革的过程中,应积极借鉴大陆法系的行政司法模式,建立适合我国的行政法院,这不论是从传统上看,还是在现实状况上,都是必要的,也是可行的。     

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Individual Economic Distress and Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships

A continuing debate in sociological criminology involves the association of crime with economic disadvantage at both aggregate and individual levels of analysis. At the aggregate level, data from law enforcement sources suggest that rates of intimate violence are higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Disadvantaged neighborhoods may experience higher rates of intimate violence for compositional or contextual reasons, or rates may only appear to be higher because of differential reporting. Similarly, at the individual level, intimate violence appears more common among couples that are economically distressed, but whether economic distress triggers intimate violence is not certain. Using data from waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households and from the 1990 U.S. Census, we investigate the effects of neighborhood economic disadvantage and individual economic distress on intimate violence against women. Controlling for violence at time 1 and other individual level characteristics, we find that neighborhood economic disadvantage, neighborhood residential instability, male employment instability, and subjective financial strain influence the likelihood of violence at time 2. The relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and intimate violence appears to reflect both compositional and contextual effects.