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.     

Cognitive Skills,Adolescent Violence,and the Moderating Role of Neighborhood Disadvantage

Numerous studies uncover a link between cognitive skills and adolescent violence. Overlooked is whether the relationship changes at varying levels of neighborhood disadvantage. We examine the issue by contrasting two models that place individual difference in cognitive skill within a social‐structural framework. Using five waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a three‐level hierarchical model, results indicate that cognitive skill is inversely associated with violence and that the relationship is strongest in non‐disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, the cognitive skills–violence relationship is indistinguishable from zero in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The findings are therefore consistent with the hypothesis that social expression of developed ability is muted in disadvantaged contexts.     

A Move Toward Specificity: Examining Urban Disadvantage and Race-and Relationship-Specific Homicide Rates

The purpose of this research is to estimate the differential impact of structural conditions on race- and relationship-specific homicide rates for U.S. cities in 1990. The structural conditions commonly employed in race-specific homicide research are examined, such as job accessibility, economic deprivation, racial segregation, and racial inequality. Furthermore, four relationship categories of homicide—acquaintance, family, stranger, and intimate—are disaggregated by racial group. The detailed relationship-specific homicide rates are compared to a baseline homicide rate to determine whether structural factors associated with urban disadvantage similarly influence homicide rates across relationship types. The results indicate that differences emerge in the impact of structural conditions on homicides disaggregated by race- and relationship-specific categories. Theoretical explanations consistent with criminology and race-relations literature are discussed, as well as the potential benefits and implications for studies that pursue more meaningful and detailed classifications in homicide offending.     

Racial Inequality,Ethnic Inequality,and the System Involvement of At-Risk Youth: Implications for the Racial Invariance and Latino Paradox Theses

Drawing from the inequality and crime, racial invariance, and Latino paradox literatures, the effects of inequality on youth reoffending are examined. Specifically, hierarchical logistic regression models are estimated to determine: (1) whether racial and ethnic inequality have similar contextual effects on the continued delinquent behavior of at-risk youth and (2) whether these effects are specific to black or Latino/a youth residing in Maricopa County, Arizona (N = 13,138). Findings suggest that racial inequality increases reoffending while ethnic inequality decreases reoffending. Additionally, Latino/a youth are less likely to reoffend in areas characterized by high income and racial inequality. Structural theories of crime should continue to account for the importance of culture and the resilient responses employed by Latinos/as living in criminogenic environments.     

Sex-Based Predictors of Male and Female Property Crime Arrest Rates: Disadvantage and Drug Use

A large body of research has considered the relationship between crime and structural indicators. However, despite trends in the gender gap in offending, fewer studies have separately examined the effects of structural variables on both male and female offending. The present study examined that question through a macro-level examination of property crime across large U.S. cities using data from the Uniform Crime Report and the American Community Survey. The predictors included theoretically supported indicators of disadvantage and drug accessibility/use that were disaggregated by sex. Although the findings indicated some similarities in predictors of male and female arrest rates, they highlighted some important differences as well.     

Ethnicity,Concentrated Minority Disadvantage,and Perceived Risk of Victimization

Abstract

There has been little systematic research on how the characteristics of locales condition the relationship of ethnicity to crime-related attitudes, and none of it has examined southwestern Hispanics. Addressing these issues, this investigation examines the effects of ethnicity and concentrated minority disadvantage on confidence in the police and perceived risk of victimization. Data collected in telephone and personal interviews in El Paso, Texas, were analyzed using OLS multiple regression. The analyses show that Hispanics residing in the locales with the greatest concentrated minority disadvantage expressed less confidence in the police than did Hispanics residing in other areas and, irrespective of locale, Anglos. People residing in areas of concentrated disadvantage perceived greater risk of victimization than did those who resided elsewhere. In addition, confidence in the police was related negatively to perceived risk of victimization. These findings indicate that concentrated minority disadvantage has an important influence on crime-related attitudes.     

The Double Paradox of Juvenile Justice

This article considers the history of a century of juvenile justice. Illinois 'invented' the separate 'children's court' in 1899 and this concept was spearheaded in Northern America, Great Britain and continental Europe in the first decades of the new century. However, a century after its foundation the future of the juvenile court is in doubt everywhere in the Western world. Some conclude that there is a cyclical pattern in juvenile justice policies. That proposition is rejected in this article. The proposition of a cyclical pattern also presupposes that there is no real problem at stake in treating juvenile offenders. The main point of this article, however, is that juvenile justice cannot escape trying to solve a very complicated foundational issue. This issue is a double paradox, that is, juvenile justice has to solve two philosophical questions: the justification of punishment and the justification of punishment for non-adults. This diagnosis presents a new conceptual framework for an analysis of the history of juvenile justice.     

The Correctional Experiences of Youth in Adult and Juvenile Prisons

This article analyzes data from interviews with inmates to examine the correctional experiences of young men incarcerated through criminal (adult) courts in a large Northeastern state. The sample (N = 95) includes respondents from five correctional institutions; some of these inmates have been sentenced to adult department of corrections facilities, and some to juvenile facilities operated by the state's children's services bureau. Relative to the adult facilities, the juvenile facilities are smaller, have much lower inmate‐to‐staff ratios, and they place greater emphasis (in their official guidelines) on treatment, counseling, education, and mentoring of inmates. As a result, one might expect juvenile‐facility inmates to report a relatively more supportive, mentoring‐focused style of staff–inmate interactions than adult‐facility inmates. Yet surprisingly, inmates in adult facilities report better access to education and treatment/counseling services offered in their facilities.     

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.     

Juvenile Court Context and Detention Decisions: Reconsidering the Role of Race,Ethnicity, and Community Characteristics in Juvenile Court Processes

The relationship between race/ethnicity, community dynamics, and juvenile court processes has long been established. Prior research has relied on city‐ or county‐level measures of community characteristics (e.g., racial composition, poverty) to examine how racial groups are processed within juvenile courts. To date, no study has utilized finer scale measures of geographic areas to examine how characteristics of juveniles’ communities impact court decisions. By utilizing official juvenile court data from a city in the southwest, this study draws upon attribution theory to examine how economic and crime community‐level measures directly and indirectly influence detention outcomes. Findings reveal that the effect of race and ethnicity in detention outcomes varies across communities, and the effect of ethnicity in detention decisions is mediated by economic community‐level measures. The theoretical and policy implications of the study findings are discussed.     

From Centre Stage to Spear Carrier: The Repositioning of the English Juvenile Court

The approach of the new millennium poses significant challenges for the way in which the youth justice system in general, and the juvenile (now youth) court in particular, develops in the future. The past one hundred years of the juvenile court in England and Wales have seen its role both flow and ebb. It currently faces further significant repositioning. The author distinguishes four themes which have influenced the marginalisation of the juvenile court: bifurcation, diversion, manageralism and legislation of the court.     

The Path of Least Desistance: Inmate Compliance and Recidivism

Scholars have speculated that inmate behavior may provide a signal about the probability of desistance. One such signal may be the successful avoidance of prison infractions or the cessation of them during the course of incarceration. Drawing on studies of prison socialization, recidivism, and desistance, we assess whether patterns of inmate misconduct throughout the course of incarceration provide insight into the likelihood of a successful transition back into society. Specifically, using data on a cohort of state prisoners, this study examines whether, after controlling for potential confounders, inmate misconduct trajectories predict recidivism. The analyses indicate both that unique misconduct trajectories can be identified and that these trajectories predict the probability of recidivism and desistance net of factors associated with recidivism. Results of the study lend support to scholarship on desistance and signaling, which emphasizes the salience of in-prison experiences for understanding reentry and, in particular, reoffending.     

Juvenile Courts after 100 Years: Past and Present Orientations

Juvenile institutions were developed in the nineteenth century. In the United States, they prompted an extension of the parens patriae doctrine, which provided a basis for the creation of the juvenile court a century ago. The protective orientation of the court was intended both for juvenile delinquents and children in danger. Important changes have occurred since the 1960s. Procedural guarantees for delinquents and de-institutionalisation of children in danger have created a clear distinction between the two groups. Diversion has introduced an alternative to the court process. Policies aimed at young offenders have moved gradually in the direction of the adult criminal court model. The article presents an overview of this evolution, essentially for North America.     

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority of Bridewealth in a Post‐Apartheid South African Community

This article examines the persistent authority of lobola, the customary practice for forming marriages in many South African communities. South African marriage rates have sharply fallen, and many blame this on economic challenges completing lobola. Using in‐depth, qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu‐Natal, where lobola demands are the country's highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola's authority survives because lay actors have innovated new approaches for pursuing emerging desires for marriage via lobola. I argue that dyadic narratives of marriage increasingly circulate alongside “traditional” extended‐family narratives, especially among the young women who strongly support lobola while yearning for gender‐egalitarian marriages. My argument synthesizes actor‐oriented analyses of legal pluralism with Ewick and Silbey's theorization of lay actors’ role in producing legality to illuminate how lay actors contribute not only to the form and content of different legal systems, but also to the reach of their authority.     

“柔性”矫正:未成年人社区矫正的理论溯源与实践路径

当前世界各国对未成年人犯罪的处遇越来越向非刑事化、轻刑化和非监禁化的方向发展,对未成年人采取特殊保护的理念在国际上已经达成共识。特殊保护理念在我国未成年人社区矫正中,可以理解为与成年犯矫正有着本质区别的"柔性"矫正理念和措施的应用。"教育刑""国家亲权"和"儿童利益最大化"等理论可以合理的诠释"柔性"矫正的逻辑起点和理论依据。在我国新颁布的《社区矫正法》里,"柔性"矫正的相关原则亦有具体的立法体现。我国未成年人社区矫正应当重视社会控制理论的应用,运用该理论"社会联系"中"依恋""参与""抱负"和"信念"四个要素,重新认识未成年人犯罪的原因,并分别从家庭治疗、社区融入、认知行为干预和重塑角色认同等方面矫正干预,充分发挥"柔性"矫正在未成年人社区矫正工作中的效能。     

The Juvenile Delinquency Problem in Japan: Application of a Role Relationship Model

The purpose of this paper is to seek a better understanding of the social conditions within Japan which may be related to the increasing rates of juvenile delinquency. This trend is in sharp contrast to their overall crime patterns. In fact, as reported by Ames (1981:1), Japan has the lowest crime rate in the industrialized world, and its crime totals have declined since 1955. Within this article, we discuss youth crime trends, explain the applicability of a role relationship model, discuss the breakdown in informal social control/social relationship areas, and suggest implications for Western societies.