Prosecuting Juveniles as Adults

In Minnesota, the 1980 legislature statutorily defined a class of juvenile offenders presumed on the basis of age, alleged offense, and record of prior felony offenses to be unfit for treatment in the juvenile court. In this article we evaluate the effect of Minnesota's revised waiver statute by comparing cases in which waiver proceedings were initiated and in which transfer occurred for two time periods, before and after adoption of the legislatively defined presumptive criteria. Our findings suggest that the objective criteria adopted by the Minnesota legislature are not, in themselves, an adequate means for selecting juveniles for transfer to adult court. The criteria identify many juveniles whose records on close examination do not appear to be very serious and fail to identify many juveniles whose records are characterized by violent, frequent, and persistent delinquent activity.     

A Multilayered Jurisdictional Patchwork: Immigration Federalism in the United States

This article focuses on the immigration‐related demands currently being placed on local police in the United States and the emergence of what we call a “multilayered jurisdictional patchwork” (MJP) of immigration enforcement. We report results from nationwide surveys of city police chiefs and county sheriffs and intensive fieldwork in three jurisdictions. The enforcement landscape we describe is complicated by the varying and overlapping responsibilities of sheriffs and city police, and by the tendency for sheriffs to maintain closer relationships with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the MJP—for immigrants, for their communities, and for the evolving relationship between levels of government in the federal system.     

IT WAS MY IDEA: CONSIDERING THE INSTIGATION OF CO‐OFFENDING*

More than twenty years ago, Albert Reiss (1988) recognized that some individuals are responsible for instigating group offending, whereas others follow accomplices into crime (or offend alone). Since this initial discussion by Reiss, however, little clarity has emerged regarding the factors that predict or explain the instigation of co‐offending. Specifically, some literature has suggested that the tendency to instigate varies systematically across individuals, such that chronic or serious offenders are more likely to instigate group crime. Instigation also may vary across crime types (i.e., within‐individuals), according to whether individuals have crime‐specific skill or experience. Using data from inmates in the Colorado Department of Corrections to investigate these hypotheses, the results reveal that individuals with earlier ages of criminal onset are more likely to report they instigate group crime, net of controls. At the same time, indicators of crime‐specific expertise predict the tendency to instigate group crime. The Discussion section considers the implications of these results and offers directions for future research.     

GUARDIANSHIP IN CONTEXT: IMPLICATIONS FOR BURGLARY VICTIMIZATION RISK AND PREVENTION*

Survey data from 4,227 Seattle residents nested within 100 “neighborhoods” (census tracts) were analyzed to discern interrelationships between various dimensions of individual‐level and neighborhood‐level guardianship. We focused on four dimensions of guardianship–physical (target hardening), personal (home occupancy), social (informal control), and natural (surveillance through environmental design)–at both individual and neighborhood levels. A multilevel opportunity, theoretical framework guided hypotheses, which suggests that each of the four dimensions of individual guardianship would be related more negatively to burglary as each of the four dimensions of aggregate guardianship increased. Multilevel logistic regression analysis revealed support for many of such hypothesized moderating effects of aggregate guardianship. More specifically, 6 of the 16 possible interaction effects were statistically significant at the .05 level and an additional 3 interaction effects were significant at the .10 level. In particular, individuallevel target hardening, place management, and natural surveillancewere related more negatively to burglary as neighborhood‐level target hardening increased, as neighborhood‐level informal social control increased, and as neighborhood‐level natural surveillance increased.     

Interpreting the U.S. Human Trafficking Debate Through the Lens of Symbolic Politics

By enacting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, U.S. policymakers acknowledged trafficking in persons as criminal behavior, punishable under federal law. The legislation was developed through the congressional policy-making process, usually studied from the perspective of who gets what, when, and how. To expand our understanding of criminal justice policymaking, this article analyzes the act from an alternative perspective—symbolic politics. It examines how the act performs symbolic functions identified in the criminal justice literature—reassuring the law abiding/threatening the lawbreaker, communicating a moral message, providing a model for the states, and educating about a problem.