ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND YOUTH GANG MEMBERSHIP: SELECTION AND SOCIALIZATION

We examine whether gang membership is associated with higher levels of delinquency because boys predisposed to delinquent activity are more likely than others to join. We use 10 years of longitudinal data from 858 participants of the Pittsburgh Youth Study to identify periods before, during and after gang membership. We build on prior research by controlling for ages and calendar time, by better accounting for gang memberships that occurred before the study began, and by using fixed effects statistical models. We find more evidence than has been found in prior studies that boys who join gangs are more delinquent before entering the gang than those who do not join. Even with such selective differences, however, we replicate research showing that drug selling, drug use, violent behaviors and vandalism of property increase significantly when a youth joins a gang. The delinquency of peers appears to be one mechanism of socialization. These findings are clearest in youth self-reports, but are also evident in reports from parents and teachers on boys' behavior and delinquency. Once we adjust for time trends, we find that the increase in delinquency is temporary, that delinquency falls to pre-gang levels when boys leave gangs.     

SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND THE SENTENCING BEHAVIOR OF JUDGES*

This paper explores the extent to which the social background of judges affects their sentencing behavior. An analysis of data on felons convicted in Georgia suggests that background has little direct bearing on sentencing outcomes. Instead, it conditions the weight judges attach to legally relevant and social background factors. Expectations about the role of the judge's age, religion, prior prosecutorial experience, and local background received mixed support. Older judges were selectively more punitive than their younger colleagues, but they did not direct this punitiveness toward disadvantaged offenders. Nor was there evidence that male judges were paternalistic toward female offenders. Baptist and Fundamentalist judges also sentenced more punitively, but they were not more likely than other judges to discriminate against black or disadvantaged offenders. Rather, they appeared to hold white and older offenders to a higher standard of behavior. Former prosecutors were selectively punitive and applied the law more uniformly than nonprosecutors. Local judges appeared to be more responsive to public demands for incarceration and sentenced more particularistically. These results illustrate the importance of considering judicial background in conjunction with case attributes, and they underscore the need for research that increases our understanding of judicial background as a conditioner of differential treatment during sentencing.     

Revisiting the ideological congruence controversy

One of the limits of previous studies using respondents’ self‐placements and subjective party placements to examine levels of citizen‐government congruence is that they were limited to the post‐1995 period. This article extends the number of elections where it is possible to examine levels of citizen‐government ideological congruence with a survey‐based approach. In particular, a unique dataset has been collected that combines data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and several national election studies. The results confirm recent studies that show that levels of citizen‐government ideological congruence are similar under majoritarian and proportional representation (PR) systems. Such studies, however, did not provide evidence that congruence is maintained over the course of a government's mandate. This article introduces, therefore, two measures of citizen‐government congruence that address this issue and that may revive the debate about which electoral systems strengthen the citizen‐government connection: citizen‐government congruence at the end of government mandates and change in congruence between elections. The results indicate that governments stay closer to the median citizens between elections under PR systems than under majoritarian systems. It is found, however, that this decrease in congruence in majoritarian systems is not detrimental to the point of observing smaller levels of congruence at the end of government mandates under majoritarian systems than under PR systems.     

URBAN JUSTICE,RURAL INJUSTICE? URBANIZATION AND ITS EFFECT ON SENTENCING*

Using a sample of felons convicted in Georgia between 1976 and June 1982, this study examines rural-urban diyerences in sentencing. Consistent with previous research, it is found that ostensibly similar oflenders are punished diflerently, depending on whether they were convicted in urban rather than rural counties. Diyerences in outcomes are based both on social background and on factors of explicit legal relevance. They occur for decisions about the type and duration of punishment. Finally, they persist even when selected correlates and consequences of urbanization are controlled. Unlike earlier research, however, this study finds that urbanization usually intensijes rather than reduces differential treatment. The paper concludes with possible explanations for the particularism that appears to characterize urban rather than rural courts. Also considered are the theoretical and empirical implications of the findings.