RANDOM ASSIGNMENT TO TREATMENT GROUPS:

A persistent problem in evaluation research relates to the difficulty of using true experimental designs. In particular, random assignment of subjects to treatment groups is both very important to insure the internal validity of the design and very difficult to implement due to logistical and ethical aspects of field research. This paper reports on a strategy for randomization which was adapted to judicial research: specifically to the evaluation of o program for adjudicating minor traffic offenders. It is demonstrated that through careful planning and coordination, designs involving random assignment can be instituted without involving significant difficulties.     

Class and social policy in the knowledge economy

Recent studies of welfare state attitudes in the knowledge economy find very high generalized support for generous welfare state policies, both among the working and the middle classes. Has class become irrelevant as a predictor of social policy preferences? Or do we simply mis-conceptualise today's class conflict over social policy? To what extent has it changed from a divide over the level of social policy generosity to a divide over the kind of social policy and – more specifically – over the relative importance that should be given to different social policies? Answering these questions is not only relevant to understand welfare politics in the twenty-first century, but electoral politics as well: only when we understand what working- and middle-class voters care about, can we evaluate the role distributive policies play in electoral processes. We use original survey data from eight West European countries to show that middle- and working-class respondents indeed differ in the relative importance they attribute to social investment and social consumption policies. Middle-class respondents consistently attribute higher absolute and relative importance to social investment. We also show that this emphasis on investive policies relates to the middle class expecting better future economic and social opportunities than the working class. This divide in anticipated opportunities underlies a new kind of working- versus middle-class divide, which contributes to transforming the class divide from a conflict over the level of social policy to a conflict over the priorities of social policy.     

THE EFFECTS OF DIRECTED PATROL AND SELF‐INITIATED ENFORCEMENT ON FIREARM VIOLENCE: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED STUDY OF HOT SPOT POLICING

Targeted policing has proven effective in reducing serious crime in areas where it is highly concentrated, but the enforcement mechanisms responsible for the success of so‐called hot spots strategies remain poorly understood. This study evaluates the effects of a 9‐month randomized controlled hot spots field experiment on firearm assaults and robberies in St. Louis, Missouri. Thirty‐two firearm violence hot spots were randomly allocated to two treatment conditions and a control condition. Directed patrols were increased in both treatment conditions, whereas the experimental protocol limited other enforcement activity in one of the treatment conditions and increased it in the other. The results from difference‐in‐difference regression analyses indicate that the intervention substantially reduced the incidence of nondomestic firearm assaults, with no evident crime displacement to surrounding areas, to times when the intervention was not active, or to nonfirearm assaults. By contrast, we find no effects of the intervention on firearm robberies. Less definitive results suggest that the certainty of arrests and occupied vehicle checks account for the treatment effects on nondomestic firearm assaults.     

Dissecting White-Collar Crime: Offense Type and Punitiveness

It is commonly asserted that the public is indifferent toward white-collar crime and hence is reluctant to “get tough” with more “respectable” criminals. However, such a contention fails to consider that there are many varieties of upperworld criminality and that the punitiveness of the public may differ markedly according to the type of offense involved. Based on a 1981 survey conducted in Galesburg, Illinois, we have attempted to investigate whether the criminal sanctions prescribed by citizens will vary when the broad category of white-collar crime is “dissected” into its component types. The data suggest that (1) there is considerable variation in punitiveness by type of offense; (2) while street crimes are generally given the harshest sentences, violent forms of white-collar illegality are accorded severe sanctions that exceed those meted out for some F.B.I, crimes; and (3) there is little support for the notion that the public responds leniently to upperworld crime.