A REAPPRAISAL OF THE OVERLAP OF VIOLENT OFFENDERS AND VICTIMS*

Because research shows a close association between offending and victimization, recent work has argued that theories that account for crime should explain victimization as well. The current study uses a new approach to examine the extent of the overlap between offenders who commit violent crime and victims of violence to determine whether it is worthwhile to pursue separate theories to account for these phenomena. Specifically, we take the statistical approach that Osgood and Schreck (2007) developed for analyzing specialization in violent versus property offending and apply it to analyzing tendencies to gravitate toward violent offending versus victimization. In doing so, we treat the differentiation into victim and offender roles as an individual‐level latent variable while controlling for confounding between the likelihood that individuals will take either role in violent acts and their overall numbers of encounters with violence (as either offender or victim). Our purpose is to examine 1) whether significant differentiation can be observed between the tendency to be an offender versus the tendency to be a victim, 2) whether any such differential tendency is stable over time, and 3) if it is possible to predict whether individuals will tend toward violent offending versus victimization. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore these objectives, we find significant and stable levels of differentiation between offenders and victims. Moreover, this differentiation is predictable with explanatory variables.     

Growing Strong in the Practice of ＂Going Global＂--An Interview with Ren Xiaojian,CEO of the Creat Group

REN Xiaojian, CEO and director of the board of the Creat Group, concluded after analyzing the challenges and opportunities for Chinese private enterprises in the global financial crisis, ＂The capital support represented by the RMB 4 trillion government stimulus package is basically a feast for large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises. The government＇s resource allocation policy is basically inclined towards state-owned enterprises, and the enterprises in monopolistic industries are basically all state-owned. In contrast, most private enterprises are engaged in highly competitive industries. Seen from this perspective, as the global financial crisis spreads from the virtual to real economy, the private economy has been most vulnerable to damage.＂     

A TEST OF LIFE‐COURSE EXPLANATIONS FOR STABILITY AND CHANGE IN ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR FROM ADOLESCENCE TO YOUNG ADULTHOOD*

Using longitudinal data from a sample of 236 young adults and their romantic partners, we tested a life‐course model that integrates social control and peer influence arguments with the idea of assortative mating. For both males and females, adolescent delinquency and affiliation with deviant peers predicted having an antisocial romantic partner as a young adult. Involvement with an antisocial romantic partner, in turn, had both a direct effect on crime as well as indirect influence through adult peer affiliations. For females, quality of the romantic relationship also predicted crime. The analyses revealed several moderating influences in addition to these mediating effects. For females, a conventional romantic partner, strong job attachment, and conventional adult friends all served to moderate the chances that a woman with a delinquent history would graduate to adult crime. In contrast, only conventional adult friends served this function for males.     

The Middle Kingdom and the Coming World Disorder

Despite grand visions of a cosmopolitan planet living in peace, the first globalization at the turn of the 20th century descended into World War I as the old empires scrambled to preserve themselves as others sought self‐determination. Powers on the losing end of that war reasserted themselves in yet another worldwide calamity within decades. After World War II, in the early 1950s, with the victorious American‐led alliance in the driver's seat, institutions such as the United Nations and the Bretton Woods arrangements created a global stability that enabled peace, prosperity and the “rise of the rest.” In 2014, the world order is shifting again with the rise of China reviving in Asia the very kind of nationalist rivalries that led Europe to war twice in the 20th century. Will we be able to build new institutions that accommodate the new powershift without resorting to war, or will the second globalization collapse as well? Top strategists from the US, Japan and China respond to this momentous question.