WOMEN IN THE STREET-LEVEL DRUG ECONOMY: CONTINUITY OR CHANGE?*

Images of women in the contemporary drug economy are highly mixed. Most scholars emphasize change in women's roles, some emphasize continuity, and others suggest that both change and continuity are evident. At issue is whether an increased share of women were involved in selling and higher-level distribution roles in the crack cocaine markets of the late 1980s and early 1990s, compared to the heroin markets of the 1960s and 1970s. We present the results of an ethnographic study of women drug users conducted during 1989–92 in a New York City neighborhood. Contrary to those who suggest that crack cocaine markets have provided “new opportunities” for women, we find that such opportunities were realized by men. At the same time, the conditions of street-level sex work, which has traditionally provided women drug users with a relatively stable source of income, have deteriorated.     

GENDER AND VARIETIES OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME*

The Wheeler et al. (1982) data set of white-collar defendants is used to compare men's and women's socioeconomic profiles and occupations and the nature of their illegalities. The results show that a minority of men but only a handful of women fit the image of a highly placed white-collar offender. Most employed women were clerical workers, and most employed men were managers or administrators. Women were more likely to be nonwhite, less likely to have completed college, and owned less in economic assets. Men were more likely to work in crime groups and to use organizational resources in carrying out crimes, and their attempted economic gains were higher. Occupational marginality, not mobility, better explains the form of women's white-collar crime. The results raise questions about white-collar arrest data and the nature of crime and offenders in white-collar sentencing samples. They compel an investigation of the multiple injuences of gender, class, and race relations in generating varieties of white-collar crime and in being caught and prosecuted for white-collar crime.     

Bridging the Gender Gap In Bill Sponsorship

Under what circumstances do men sponsor issues that are traditionally regarded as salient primarily to women? By examining the sponsorship of legislation in the upper and lower chambers of 15 state legislatures in 2001, we explored the conditions under which men are likely to focus attention on policy areas involving women's issues and children's issues. We found little effect of institutional context (such as party control of the legislature or diversity within the legislature) on the sponsorship behavior of either men or women. Personal characteristics such as race, education, age, and family circumstances are associated with sponsorship by men, but not by women. Committee service is also strongly associated with sponsorship behavior, particularly for men. Differences in sponsorship are relatively marked in the sponsorship of legislation that focuses on reproduction or other health issues particularly relevant to women. We conclude that the boundaries of the set of issues traditionally defined as “women's issues” may be changing over time and that it is important to recognize that the influences on the sponsorship of women's issues can be different for men than they are for women.     

THE DYNAMICS OF DELINQUENT PEERS AND DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR*

This analysis examines the dynamic reciprocal relationship between delinquent peer associations and delinquent behavior. It tests the hypothesis, derived from learning and interactional theories, that delinquent peers and delinquent behavior are reciprocally related—delinquent peer associations foster future delinquency, and delinquency increases the likelihood of associating with delinquent peers. It also tests the competing hypothesis, derived from control theories, that delinquent peers do not cause delinquency, but instead, the relationship is (1) spurious due to individual criminal propensity, (2) a result of the effects of delinquent behavior on future associations with delinquent peers, or (3) an artifact of problems of measuring delinquent peers. To test these propositions, we use data from the National Youth Survey and estimate a cross-lagged panel model that corrects for measurement error in indicators of delinquent peers and delinquent behavior. The model species a covariance structure model for ordinal measures. Parameters are estimated by (1) estimating a threshold model relating ordinal measures to continuous latent variables; (2) estimating a matrix of polychoric correlations relating observed variables, and (3) using an asymptotic distribution-free estimator to estimate structural parameters. The results suggest that delinquent peer associations and delinquent behavior are reciprocally related, but the effect of delinquency on peer associations is larger than that of peer associations on delinquency.