POLICE VIOLENCE AS A FUNCTION OF COMMUNITY CHARACTERISTICS

The authors find that existing models concerning police violence are not i designed to explain variation among the states in the rates of police use ‘of deadly force. This variation correlates significantly with numerous cultural attributes of the public. The strongest correlates are with the public rates of violence. Therefore, the authors propose to moody existing modeb, and explain the police use of violence as a response to community characteristics. Where public violence is neither normative nor commonly occurrent. the police will be self-restrained. Where the incidence of violence reveals a common means of conflict resolution, the police will adopt its use. Thus, the police use of violence is a culturally determined characteristic and not a police pathology.     

AWAITING THE CROWN'S PLEASURE The Case of Daniel M'Naughton

This article seeks to place the Daniel M'Naughton case in its political context: to argue that the court's verdict of insanity cannot be satisfactorily understood unless it is recognized that Daniel M'Naughton was apolitical criminal. The insanity verdict served to discredit M'Naughton and the political ideas he represented by interpreting his act as the product of a diseased mind. The widespread political problems that the Tory government was experiencing throughout Britain were reduced to a personal problem plaguing Daniel M'Naughton. By regarding Daniel M'Naughton as a criminal lunatic incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, the court indicated that the explanation for his behavior would have to be sought in medical or psychiatric terms instead of in political terms.     

ORGANIZATIONAL NORMS AND POLICE DISCRETION.

This essay explores the issues involved in designing public policies. It suggests that those programs not well designed will generate inappropriate expectations for success. This lack of design sophistication may not lead to well-conceived methods for achieving stated objectives. Taking the Low Enforcement Assistance Administration's Community Anti-Crime Program as an example, the paper analyzes the implicit sociological theory which guided the development of this new and important program. The essay concludes by highlighting some of the important contributions the Community Anti-Crime Program can make in the criminal justice policy arena despite its conceptual shortcomings. While design problems may hinder the implementation of programs, they do not necessarily have to cripple them.     

DOING GOOD WELL: The Use of Quantitative Social Science Data in Advocacy Proceedings

When social scientists participate in advocacy proceedings as expert witnesses, they find themselves subjected to pressures beyond those of scientific quality. This paper considers a range of problems when the demands of scientific merit interact with the exigencies of vigorous advocacy and suggests some rough guidelines for expert testimony.     

THE VICTIM-OFFENDER RELATIONSHIP AND CALLING THE POLICE IN ASSAULTS*

The revised National Crime Victimization Survey is used to examine the effects of the victim's relationship to the offender on whether assaults are reported to the police by either the victim or by third parties. The results indicate that the offender-victim relationship affects third-party but not victim reporting. The former effect occurs in part because third parties are unlikely to witness assaults involving people in ongoing relationships, particularly couples, and in part because third parties are reluctant to report minor assaults (i.e., those assaults that involve a threat but no actual attack and no weapon). We discuss possible explanations for why no effect of relationship on victim reporting was found.     

RECONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SES AND DELINQUENCY: CAUSATION BUT NOT CORRELATION*

Many theories of crime have linked low levels of socioeconomic status (SES) to high levels of delinquency. However, empirical studies have consistently found weak or nonexistent correlations between individuals' SES and their self-reported delinquent behavior. Drawing upon recent theoretical innovations (Hagan et al., 1985; Jensen, 1993; Tittle, 1995), we propose that this apparent contradiction between theory and data may be reconciled by recognizing that SES has both a negative and a positive indirect effect upon delinquency that, in tandem, results in little overall correlation between the two. We tested this proposal with longitudinal data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. We used measures of parental SES recorded at study members' birth through age 15, social-psychological characteristics at age 18, and self-reported delinquency at ages 18 and 21. We found that low SES promoted delinquency by increasing individuals' alienation, financial strain, and aggression and by decreasing educational and occupational aspirations, whereas high SES promoted individuals' delinquency by increasing risk taking and social power and by decreasing conventional values. These findings suggest a reconciliation between theory and data, and they underscore the conceptual importance of elucidating the full range of causal linkages between SES and delinquency.