Urban Environment, Genetics, and Crime

Gene-environment interactions are important for the development of much human behavior. We examined the possibility that a genetic propensity to criminal behavior interacts with the type of environment in which an individual is raised. Using a cohort of adoptees, we found evidence for independent contributions of biological parent criminality (genetic influence) and urban environment rearing to prediction of adoptee criminality, but no evidence for a gene-environment interaction involving these factors.     

Poverty, Inequality, and City Homicide Rates

Messner's recent investigation of homicide and relative and absolute economic deprivation is replicated here, but cities rather than SMSA's and three years (1950, 1960, 1970) rather than one (1970) are considered. Because of tremendous intra-unit variation for SMSAs with respect to homicides and sociodemographic characteristics (an important variation that is masked when data are aggregated on a SMSA level), cities are a preferable unit of analysis in cross-sectional investigations of homicide. Where M e s m found a significant negative relationship between percentage of poverty (absolute deprivation) and homicides, I consistently find the opposite pattern as predicted. In both studies, however, there is only a slight and nonsignificant relationship between relative economic deprivation (income inequality) and homicides. Unlike Messner, however, I do not consider this finding surprising. At best, there is only a weak theoretical linkage between homicide and relative economic deprivation. Accordingly, the results of this investigation for both absolute and relative deprivation are neither "perplexing" nor do they warrant the "serious reconsideration of the linkages between poverty, inequality and the homicide rate" that Messner (1982: 112) calls for.     

THE INDEX OF SOUTHERNNESS REVISITED

Abstract A study by Gastil concludes that the Southern area of the United States constitutes a regional subculture of violence. Loftin and Hill (1974) empirically challenge Gastil's findings at the ecological level of analysis. This study adds a further dimension to that line of research by examining violence-related items from a national survey at the individual level of analysis. Results fail to confirm the existence of a divergent value system among Southerners today. It is suggested that if a "regional culture of violence" once existed, it has vanished over the years.     

POLITICAL CRIME, POLITICAL JUST1CE, AND POLITICAL PRISONERS

Few attempts have previously been made systematically to define or interrelate the concepts of political crime, political criminal, political justice, and political prisoner. To establish a more adequate conceptual base for research, political crime and political criminals are herein defined in terms of motiwtions underlying criminal acts, regardless of the nature of the acts themselves; political justice is defined in terms of the state's reaction to perceived threat; and political prisoners are defined as those incarcerated because of either political crime (politico1 criminals) or political justice (victims of repression). Dimensions for a taxonomy of political crime are suggested.     

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND LETHAL ASSAULTS AGAINST POLICE

This investigation provides a multivariate analysis of the deferrent effect of the death penalty on the rate of lethal assaults against the police. Examining statelevel data for the period 1961 to 1971, we hypothesize a significant inverse relationship between the rate of police killings and (1) the statutory provision for capital punishment and (2) the execution rate of convicted murderers. Contrary to the deferrence hypotheses, no support is found for the argument that the provision and use of the death penalty provides an added measure of protection for the police. Rather, variation in police killings rates, like the general homicide rate, would appear to be largely a function of various sociodemographic factors.