POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: SITUATIONS INVOLVING VETERANS EXHIBITING SIGNS OF MENTAL ILLNESS*

Drawing on attribution theory, research on police discretion, and public attitudes toward mental illness, we examine attributional processes in police decision making in response to domestic violence situations involving veterans and nonveterans with signs of mental illness. Using data from experimental vignettes varying veteran status, victim injury, and suspect compliance administered to a sample of 309 police officers, the results indicate that 1) veterans are perceived as less responsible for troublesome behavior but more dangerous than nonveterans, 2) suspects’ veteran status has a significant effect on officers’ preference for mental health treatment versus arrest, and 3) part of the effect of veteran status on officer response is mediated by internal and external attributions for problematic behavior and by perceptions of dangerousness. The study empirically demonstrates countervailing processes in police decision making—recognition of the causes for troublesome behavior and the need for mental health treatment on the one hand and concern for community safety and enforcing the law on the other.     

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE: A SUB‐NATIONAL TEST OF INSTITUTIONAL ANOMIE THEORY*

Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory is grounded in the assumption that relatively higher crime rates in the United States are due to (1) the overwhelming influence of economic motives and institutions in society, and (2) the subjugation of all other social institutions to cultural economic interests (e.g., the American Dream). Our analysis is designed to extend the limited body of empirical research on this theory in several ways. First, we seek to test the utility of institutional anomie theory for predicting crime rates across aggregate units within the United States (counties). Second, we draw out the theory's emphasis on instrumental crime and suggest that measures of noneconomic social, political, familial, religious, and educational institutions will be particularly relevant for explaining instrumental as opposed to expressive violence. Third, in contrast to prior research, we develop conceptual reasons to expect that these factors will primarily mediate (as opposed to moderate) the relationship between economically motivating pressures and instrumental violence. Our negative binomial regression analyses of data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports and various censuses indicate that the measures of noneconomic institutions perform well in explaining both instrumental and expressive homicides, but that these measures mediate the impact of economic pressures (as measured by the Gini coefficient of family income inequality) to commit instrumental violence most strongly. Further, we find only very limited support for the more popular moderation hypothesis.     

RESPONDING TO THE "CALL FOR PAPERS": Participation at A.S.C. Annual Meetings

The purpose of this study is to examine the participation of criminology and criminal justice graduate departments at the 1977-1979 American Society of Criminology meetings. Results show that institutional prestige. not productivity, is the leading predictor of meeting participation. In addition, meeting participation does not appear to be influenced by meeting site. Finally, it is suggested that criminologists focus more attention upon professional activities in order to facilitate our understanding of criminology as a science.     

G. A. Cohen's Conception of Law: A Critique*

This note will challenge G. A. Cohen's view of the interaction between legal systems and economic structures; such interaction raises the so-called problem of legality, which Cohen sets out to solve in the eighth chapter of Karl Marx's Theory of History (Cohen 1978, 216–47). In the course of this note, we shall interrogate the presumed rigor of Cohen's theory of base/superstructure relations, to which his understanding of law is central. His approach will not be simply destroyed, but will be resituated in a network of problems that can highlight a certain fissure between his aspirations and his performance.     

GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION: Impact and Ideology

This analysis attempts to measure the impact of state laws upon the rates of gun violence. While controlling for several standard social phenomena and using two different statistical techniques, it appears that laws governing the use of handguns in the various states have little effect on the rates of gun crime. It is suggested that the possible reason for such ineffectiveness is not necessasrily the nature of the solutions (laws), but rather the misunderstanding of the problem (gun violence) by policy implementers.     

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO: ROMANTIC DISSOLUTION,OFFENDING, AND SUBSTANCE USE DURING THE TRANSITION TO ADULTHOOD*

Recent studies have directed attention to the nature of romantic involvement and its implications for offending over the life course. However, this body of research has overlooked a defining aspect of nonmarital romantic relationships: Most come to an end. By drawing on insights from general strain theory, the age‐graded theory of informal social control, and research on delinquent peer exposure, we explore the impact of romantic dissolution on offending and substance use during late adolescence and emerging adulthood. Using data from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we arrive at three general conclusions: 1) Experiencing a breakup is directly related to a range of antisocial outcomes; 2) the effect of a breakup is dependent on post‐breakup relationship transitions; and 3) a breakup is associated with increases in offending and substance use among males and in substance use among females. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for the future of research on romantic involvement and crime over the life course.     

HOW JUDGES THINK ABOUT RACIAL DISPARITIES: SITUATIONAL DECISION‐MAKING IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM*

Researchers have theorized how judges’ decision‐making may result in the disproportionate presence of Blacks and Latinos in the criminal justice system. Yet, we have little evidence about how judges make sense of these disparities and what, if anything, they do to address them. By drawing on 59 interviews with state judges in a Northeastern state, we describe, and trace the implications of, judges’ understandings of racial disparities at arraignment, plea hearings, jury selection, and sentencing. Most judges in our sample attribute disparities, in part, to differential treatment by themselves and/or other criminal justice officials, whereas some judges attribute disparities only to the disparate impact of poverty and differences in offending rates. To address disparities, judges report employing two categories of strategies: noninterventionist and interventionist. Noninterventionist strategies concern only a judge's own differential treatment, whereas interventionist strategies concern other actors’ possible differential treatment, as well as the disparate impact of poverty and facially neutral laws. We reveal how the use of noninterventionist strategies by most judges unintentionally reproduces disparities. Through our examination of judges’ understandings of racial disparities throughout the court process, we enhance understandings of American racial inequality and theorize a situational approach to decision‐making in organizational contexts.