CORRECTIONAL POLICY AND PUBLIC VALUES

Since 1960, research on various options in correctional policy has emphasiz ‘two basic dimensions: the offender and the community. Under the assumptions that the community and the offender are not separable concerns and that the community is a complex system with many different and conflicting elements, this study examines public values regarding several popular correctional options. Data obtained demonstrate two normative clusters, one concerned with retribution and one with rehabilitation. Examination of the social status of respondents suggests a complex relationship between community structure and norms concerning correctional programs. Recommendations for further research are outlined, as well as for ways that correctional officials could reduce public resistance to the programs favored by officials.     

ORGANIZATIONAL STATUS A PERFORMANCE: SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS

Hypotheses derived from the public choice and other literatures on the relationship between ownership and performance were tested on ten UK organizations which had undergone status change, within the public sector or between the public and private sectors, in the last twenty years. Results on tests of performance in productivity, employment, and financial ratios against change in status, competition and internal management failed in most cases to support the thesis that change in ownership improves enterprise performance, even in its more sophisticated form where ownership change is assumed to be accompanied by increased competition and improved managerial incentives.     

POLICE CYNICISM RECONSIDERED An Application of Smallest Space Analysis

Niederhoffer, following Durkheim, proposed a linear causal model to explain police anomia. Using data from an availability sample of New York City police, he breaks into the chain of variables at frustration and terminates the analysis with cynicism measured by a twenty-item scale. This study replicates Niederhoffer's research with a population of urban police, examines the nature and incidence of cynicism, and tests the relationships between various indices of frustration, cynicism, and anomia. Contrary to Niederhoffer's expectations, cynicism is not prevalent among police outside New York City; cynicism my be described adequately only with reference to three dimensions; most indices of frustration do not significantly correlate with two subscales of cynicism; and cynicism does not intervene in the relationships between a number of independent variables and anornh. An alternate model based on Merton's conceptualization of anomin as the result of a discrepancy in cultural values and institutionalized means for attaining such goals was tested. It was found that perceived means-goals discrepancy vis-à-vis legal norms and goals intervened in the relationships between rank and anomia and years on force and anomia.     

GANG HOMICIDE,DELINQUENCY, AND COMMUNITY*

Analysis of community-level data on community areas in Chicago substantiates two conceptual differences: the first. between gang crime and delinquency as community-level phenomena; and the second, between theoretical associations of each of the former to community-area patterns of social disorganization and poverty. One pattern is more common in Chicago's Hispanic communities; the other, in Chicago's black communities. Five measures of the quality of community life used are gang homicide rate, delinquency rate, unemployment rate, percentage living below the poverty level, and mortgage investment per dwelling. Identifying communities as white, black, Hispanic, or mixed and applying discriminant analysis reveal the racial-ethnic communities as distinct social worlds. Regression analyses of gang homicide and delinquency rates show that the two measures display very different patterns of association with other community characteristics. An analysis of the residual change score for gang homicide rate over two time periods indicates the relative stability of community patterns with poverty measures explaining much of the change in patterns. It is concluded that gang homicide rates and delinquency rates are ecologically distinct community problems. The distribution of gang homicide rates conforms to classic theories of social disorganization and poverty, and the distribution of delinquency rates is more generally associated with poverty.     

THE ONSET AND PERSISTENCE OF OFFENDING*

This paper assesses the need for and focus of developmental theories of crime by analyzing three questions: (1) whether age of onset of criminal behavior has a causal impact on subsequent behavior, (2) whether the determinants of onset vary, at least in part, with age, and (3) whether the determinants of onset and continuation of offending differ in some respects. The inverse association between age of onset and persistence of offending is found to be entirely attributable to time-stable individual differences and, thus, is not attributable to a causal linkage. However, evidence is found of the covariates of onset changing with age and differences in the covariates of onset and of the continuation of offending.