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.     

伙伴关系特征、网络行为与公共性： 有关可持续发展项目绩效的证据

摘要: 本文探索在复杂的可持续发展政策领域内的伙伴关系特征、网络行为与公共性之间的关系。本研究以香港为背景,该城市正在从命令—控制的政策手段逐渐转向对伙伴关系 和利益相关者参与的运用。本文认为,承诺、平等、相互性和信任等网络伙伴关系特征和网络行为会在公共性程度上有所不同,但它们总体上对于可持续发展项目的绩效具有正面的贡献。本研究的数据来自于28个可持续发展的咨询委员会或代表性组织的成员(57%的回应率),最后得到53个可持续发展项目的可用数据。分析结果显示在可持续发展项目中的政府、企业和公民社会成员并不认为在伙伴关系特征与感知到的项目绩效间存在很大的分别,但认为伙伴关系特征与网络行为存在很大的分别。多重回归分析显示信任有助于促进感知到的项目绩效,私人部门和公民社会团体人员的网络行为特征也有相同效果,尽管对于公民社会团体人员来说,网络行为与项目绩效存在负面关系。文章的结论讨论了这些研究结果对于香港以及其他地区的可持续发展项目的意义。     

Validating Niederhoffer's Cynicism Scale: The Case for Black Officers

Previous methodological reports in the literature about cynicism have concluded that the Niederhoffer Scale is unreliable and meaningless in predicting police officer behavior. The entire research has rested on small samples of white officers, despite the increasing presence of black officers in urban departments.

Past literature has examined the relationship between the cynicism scale and other attitudinal constructs. Despite the fact that the scale is intended to predict behavior, correlations between the scale and behavioral criterion variables have not been reported.

In this paper we present the results of conventional reliability analysis on a sample of black police union activists. The twenty item scale is resubjected to a five factor varimax solution. Only eight items are observed to reload on factors initially observed by Regoli (1976) and indicate little stability within internal factor configurations.     

White-Collar Crime in Socialism: Myth or Reality?

Previous research on the determinants of police expenditures has not risen to the level of empirical understanding in large part because it has failed to explain substantively important variation among local jurisdictions. This suggests a need to reevaluate research strategies and to examine closely those cases which cannot be predicted using traditional, social, economic, and environmental approaches. Incorporating deviant case analysis, the authors outline an alternative approach to determine whether policy maker variables should be added to more broadly based models.     

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.     

Legal Diversity in the Middle East: Some Comparative Research Horizons

This paper sketches the contours of Middle Eastern jurisprudence by focusing on the historical processes which gave rise to Islamic law and the four schools of justice which branched out from the seminal doctrines of Muhammad. Sources of case law and potential research horizons are discussed within the framework of comparative criminal justice.     

The Nature of Programs Used in Response to Delinquent Behavior Among Juveniles

The history of responses to juvenile misconduct indicates that a wide variety of approaches have been used. Even prior to the establishment of the first juvenile court at Cook County, Illinois, in 1899 some alternatives were attempted in an effort to deal with younger offenders. A major premise underpinning the establishment of juvenile court jurisdiction during the early 1900's was to provide a wider range of options by selecting effective responses that would operate in the best interests of the child. To a large extent, this search continues today. In this paper the focus is only on public offense and status offense cases. We will not examine other areas of responsibility such as welfare services for youth, child abuse, neglect and foster care.

An examination of programs in existence reveals a high degree of diversity. The literature on this topic is quite scattered and there are few organized means available by which to compare and contrast so many different programs. A purpose of this paper is to provide students a framework by which to view various courses of action that have characterized responses to misconduct among juveniles. Considering interventions according to (1) focus, (2) process, (3) degree of restriction, and (4) vehicle provides a basis for comparing and contrasting the many different programs in existence.

Liberal use of specific examples of more recent programs are included that reflect contemporary thought as well as possible future direction. Readers should note that the aim is not to evaluate whether a given program is effective. However, contrary to Martinsons' insistence that “nothing works,” Ross and Gendreau provide examples of programs that have demonstrated effectiveness. Examples utilized in this paper were selected from among those indicating positive results.     

STRESS,GENES, AND GENERALIZABILITY ACROSS GENDER: EFFECTS OF MAOA AND STRESS SENSITIVITY ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY*

In the current study, we extend the gene‐by‐environment interaction (cGxE) literature by examining how a widely studied polymorphism, the MAOA upstream variable number tandem repeat (MAOA‐uVNTR) interacts with distal and proximal stressors to explain variation in crime and delinquency. Prior research findings have revealed that MAOA‐uVNTR interacts with single indicators of environmental adversity to explain criminal behavior in general‐population and incarcerated samples. Nevertheless, the genetically moderated stress sensitivity hypothesis suggests that increased risk for criminal behavior associated with variation in the MAOA‐uVNTR can be best understood in the context of both distal stress during childhood and proximal stress in adulthood. Therefore, we employed Tobit regression analyses to examine a gene–distal–proximal environment (CGxExE) interaction across gender in a sample of university students (n = 267) and with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 1,294). The results across both sets of analyses demonstrate that variation in the MAOA‐uVNTR interacts with distal and proximal stress to lead to increased risk for criminal behavior in males. Although proximal life stress is associated with an increase in crime and delinquency, this effect is more pronounced among MAOA‐L allele carriers that have experienced distal stress.     

VERTICAL STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

We report the results of a study examining the effects of vertical strategic alignment (that is, the degree to which strategic stances are consistent across different organizational levels) on public service performance. Longitudinal multivariate analysis is undertaken on a panel of public organizations over four years. We find that alignment on a prospecting strategy leads to better performance, but that no such effect is observed for a defending strategy. We also find that high levels of prospecting alignment produce stronger positive performance effects in centralized organizations and when environmental uncertainty is high. The implications of these findings for research and practice are considered in the conclusion.