IMMIGRATION AND CRIME IN AN ERA OF TRANSFORMATION: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF HOMICIDES IN SAN DIEGO NEIGHBORHOODS, 1980–2000*

Emerging research associated with the “immigration revitalization” perspective suggests that immigration has been labeled inaccurately as a cause of crime in contemporary society. In fact, crime seems to be unexpectedly low in many communities that exhibit high levels of the following classic indicators of social disorganization: residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, and immigration. But virtually all research conducted to date has been cross-sectional in nature and therefore unable to demonstrate how the relationship between immigration and crime might covary over time. This limitation is significant, especially because current versions of social disorganization theory posit a dynamic relationship between structural factors and crime that unfolds over time. The current study addresses this issue by exploring the effects of immigration on neighborhood-level homicide trends in the city of San Diego, California, using a combination of racially/ethnically disaggregated homicide victim data and community structural indicators collected for three decennial census periods. Consistent with the revitalization thesis, results show that the increased size of the foreign-born population reduces lethal violence over time. Specifically, we find that neighborhoods with a larger share of immigrants have fewer total, non-Latino White, and Latino homicide victims. More broadly, our findings suggest that social disorganization in heavily immigrant cities might be largely a function of economic deprivation rather than forms of “neighborhood” or “system” stability.     

Improving Russian Justice with Foreign Assistance: Model Courts and the Tactical Approach

This article argues that as an interactive, tactical approach to sharing good practices, model courts represent an especially fruitful vehicle for accomplishing judicial reform. This contention is illustrated with an assessment of Canadian and American judicial reform projects in Russia in creating model district courts and diffusing their experience to other courts throughout the country. Mechanisms of diffusion included both a new curriculum for the training of court staff and new instructions for case management, as well as the indirect spread of concepts and practices through social learning. The article goes on to explore the reasons for the success of these projects and the conditions under which the tactical approach is most appropriate.     

When Is a Gerrymander Not a Gerrymander: Who Benefits and Who Loses from the Changed Rules for Defining Parliamentary Constituencies?

Members of the British Labour party have, not for the first time, criticised the Boundary Commissions’ proposals for new constituency boundaries as gerrymandering. This represents a misuse of the term: the Commissions have produced recommended constituencies in the context of new rules for such redistributions that give precedence to equality of electorates across all seats and the boundaries of those constituencies have been defined without any reference to the likely electoral consequences. The Conservatives, who were responsible for the change in the rules to emphasise electoral equality, wanted to remove a decades‐long Labour advantage in the translation of votes into seats because of variations in constituency size, and the Commissions’ implementation of those rules has achieved that. A Labour advantage has been removed but not replaced by a Conservative advantage: in terms of electoral equality between the two, the playing field has been levelled. Labour's claim to have been disadvantaged by decisions on the electoral register is also examined; the disadvantage is probably only small.     

Police Strikes and Conventional Crime

Employing FBI "Return A Record Card" data, this study examines the impact of municipal police strikes on reported rates of burglary, robbery, larceny, and auto theft in 11 U.S. cities. Relationships reflecting the view that police presence is essential for crime prevention and social order are examined for variation duration of police strike, city size, and offense category. Overall, analysis yields very limited support for the police presence argument, suggesting that strikes have neither a significant nor a systematic impact on rates of reported crime. Implications of findings for the formulation of police policy are discussed.