Bail agents and bounty hunters: Adversaries or allies of the justice system?

Bounty hunters are employed by the bail industry to locate and apprehend criminal defendants who “skip” bail and, subsequently, fail to appear for court appointments. While some scholars have examined bounty hunters, this work is concerned primarily with the origins, history, and legal challenges to the industry and its practices. Popular literature on this subject has created the “myth” of the bounty hunter, but it has failed to provide an accurate portrayal of the activities these individuals perform. Through the use of field research methods, this study provides a better understanding of the role that bail agents and bounty hunters play in the criminal justice system.     

Parental influences on deviant behavior in early adolescence: A logistic response analysis of age- and gender-differentiated effects

We used data from a 601-family longitudinal study to estimate the separate and combined effects of three risk factors—parental psychiatric disorders (principally depression and substance abuse), supportive parent-child communications, and household income—on the development of deviant behavior in boys and girls aged 11–14. Using logistic response models, we concluded that having fewer than two supportive parents generally increases the risk of deviant behavior, but more so for boys than for girls. This effect is amplified when one or more parent(s) has a chronic mental disorder, but thecombination of fewer than two supportive parentsand one psychiatrically impaired parent has a particularly marked effect on girls. Moreover, older children's behavior is affected more dramatically by parental mental disorders, especially among girls; 13 to 14-year-old girls with both parental risk factors are virtually as deviant as male agemates with both risks. Each one of these effects is present regardless of family income level; however, net of these risks, household income is negatively associated with deviant behavior—a 10% increase in income is associated with a 1.3% decrease in adolescent deviance.     

A measure of risk taking for young adolescents: Reliability and validity assessments

Researchers often define adolescent risk taking in terms of individual behaviors such as alcohol and drug use, early sexual activity, and reckless driving. It is not clear whether these behaviors defined by adults as risky have the same meaning for adolescents. This paper describes the development and preliminary testing of an instrument to assess risk taking among young adolescents. The six item scale was constructed by asking small groups of eighth grade boys and girls to describe things that teenagers your age do for excitement or thrills. The measure was then used in a longitudinal study of 758 young adolescents from three rural counties in Maryland. The scale shows good reliability, as indicated by coefficient alpha and factor analyses. Eighth-grade scores on the scale are associated with the initiation of sexual activity and substance use in ninth grade among virgins and nonusers of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and pills in eighth grade.