DEVELOPMENTAL AND LIFE‐COURSE CRIMINOLOGY: KEY THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ISSUES‐THE 2002 SUTHERLAND AWARD ADDRESS*

The main aim of this paper is to advance knowledge and (especially) theories about developmental and life‐course criminology (DLC). First, I review the widely accepted DLC findings that all DLC theories have been designed to explain. Second, I review more contentious and unresolved empirical DLC issues that might present challenges to DLC theories. Third, I describe my own DLC theory and specify how it addresses key empirical and theoretical questions. Fourth, I summarize five important DLC theories, by Catalano and Hawkins, Sampson and Laub, Moffitt, LeBlanc, and Thornberry and Krohn. Fifth, I identify differences in assumptions and predictions between my theory and the other five theories. Finally, I recommend a detailed comparison of the key features of all DLC theories, of their answers to key empirical and theoretical questions, and of their predictions regarding key unresolved empirical DLC issues.     

SCHOOLS AS COMMUNITIES: THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG COMMUNAL SCHOOL ORGANIZATION,STUDENT BONDING,AND SCHOOL DISORDER*

Research has indicated that school factors such as communal school organization and student bonding are predictive of school disorder, with greater communal organization and greater student bonding leading to less delinquency and victimization. Data from a nationally representative sample of 254 public, nonalternative, secondary schools were used to examine structural equation models representing hypothesized relationships among communal school organization, student bonding, and school disorder. The hypothesis that communally organized schools would have less disorder held true for teacher victimization and student delinquency, but not for student victimization. In addition, the hypothesis that the relationship between communal school organization and school disorder would be mediated by student bonding was supported for student delinquency, but not for teacher victimization.     

A note on the status of discretion in police research

“Discretion” holds an unrivaled position at the core of the notional inventory employed in the study of criminal justice generally and policing particularly. Efforts to systematically define the term have been irregular and its status in the empirical literature is an ambiguous one. While spoken of as a quantitative aspect of the policing which influences behavior, measurement is rarely addressed. After sketching problems in present formulations, discretion is recast in terms of perceived job autonomy and an outline of two general constructs is contributed in hopes of renewing consideration of the potential relevance of the concept for police theory and research.     

Constructing Population Control: Social and Material Factors in Norm Emergence and Diffusion

To demonstrate that norms have independent causal power, constructivists de-emphasise material factors related to state interests and highlight social factors. Similarly, they conceptualise international organisations as autonomous from state influence, and focus on cases featuring non-state actors that stimulate a “tipping point” of norm diffusion among states in advance of state sponsorship. By contrast, this article utilises an historical materialist approach that admits both social and material data to examine the contrasting case of population control. It finds that US corporate foundations, eugenist demographers, feminist birth control activists and related NGOs conceptualised and promoted population control in the United States, at the United Nations, and across developing countries. However, the tipping point of norm diffusion occurred only after the United States publicly advocated population control. Indeed, material and social factors were inextricably bound together.     

The Australian Welfare State: Has Federalism Made a Difference?

This paper examines the historical development of the Australian welfare state with a view to identifying the role that Australia's federal constitutional arrangements have played in shaping that development. Theoretical paradigms have been unanimous in their prognoses: that federal states are likely to be slow in developing welfare state programmes and typically spend less on them than unitary states. But recently it has been argued that federal institutions may have a “ratchet effect” of slowing down the pace of change, irrespective of its direction. The purpose of this chronological account of significant stages in the development of the Australian welfare state is to use the unfolding of historical events — far too rich in nuance and detail to be captured in quantitative modelling — as a test‐bed for establishing whether, and, if so, to what extent, federalism has impacted on the trajectory of Australian welfare state development.     

Hispanics and the death penalty: Discriminatory charging practices in San Joaquin County, California

Following reinstatement of the death penalty after the Supreme Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), social scientists carefully documented evidence of racial and gender bias against defendants and victims at all stages of the death penalty system, from charging to conviction and sentencing. Despite these consistent findings, questions remained. One crucial unknown was whether or not racial bias uncovered in investigations of African Americans and Whites also negatively impacted members of other minority groups, in particular the largest minority group in the U.S.-Hispanics. Are Hispanics, as both victims and defendants, treated more like non-Hispanic Whites or African Americans? This research examined all death-eligible homicides in San Joaquin County, California from 1977 through 1986. Using logistic regression analysis, the investigation uncovered patterns of racial and gender bias, finding defendants in Hispanic victim cases were less likely to face a death-eligible charge than defendants in White victim cases. Evidence of discrimination may have implications for how Hispanic integration and race and ethnicity are understood and for evaluating the success of statutory reforms designed to insure fairness and constitutionality of the death penalty.