Exposure Reduction or Retaliation? The Effects of Domestic Violence Resources on Intimate‐Partner Homicide

Rates of homicide involving intimate partners have declined substantially over the past 25 years in the United States, while public awareness of and policy responses to domestic violence have grown. To what extent has the social response to domestic violence contributed to the decline in intimate‐partner homicide? We evaluate the relationship between intimate‐partner homicide and domestic violence prevention resources in 48 large cities between 1976 and 1996. Controlling for other influences, several types of prevention resources are linked to lower levels of intimate‐partner homicide, which we interpret in terms of their capacity to effectively reduce victims' exposure to abusive or violent partners. Other resources, however, are related to higher levels of homicide, suggesting a retaliation effect when interventions stimulate increased aggression without adequately reducing exposure. In light of other research on deficiencies in accessing and implementing prevention resources, our results suggest that too little exposure reduction in severely violent relationships may be worse than none at all.     

Participation in and frequency of delinquent behavior: A test for structural differences

In this paper we address whether there are distinctive differences in the processes determining participation in offending vs frequency of offending. We develop a number of tests to examine not only whether the correlates of participation and frequency are similar but also whether the same underlying statistical model is consistent with the data on both these dimensions of a criminal career. The tests are applied using data from the first two waves of the National Youth Survey. While the findings are not without ambiguities, they do not support the idea that distinguishing among the dimensions of a criminal career is a fundamental requirement for conducting sound research on the causes of crime and delinquency.     

Assessing the Impact of First-Time Imprisonment on Offenders’ Subsequent Criminal Career Development: A Matched Samples Comparison

Using data from the Netherlands-based Criminal Career and Life-course Study the effect of first-time imprisonment between age 18–38 on the conviction rates in the 3 years immediately following the year of the imprisonment was examined. Unadjusted comparisons of those imprisoned and those not imprisoned will be biased because imprisonment is not meted out randomly. Selection processes will tend to make the imprisoned group disproportionately crime prone compared to the not imprisoned group. In this study group-based trajectory modeling was combined with risk set matching to balance a variety of measurable indicators of criminal propensity. Findings indicate that first-time imprisonment is associated with an increase in criminal activity in the 3 years following release. The effect of imprisonment is similar across offence types.