GENDER,FAMILIAL CONTROL,AND DELINQUENCY*

This research addresses a key process in power-control theory, namely, the gender stratification of social control. Using a multidimensional measure of familial control, the authors find evidence that the types of familial control employed are stratified by gender: male children are more typically aligned with paternal support and appearance rules, and female children are more often the objects of maternal support and curfew rules. All four dimensions have significant negative effects on delinquency. Brief attention is given as well to the effects of these variables on contact with formal social control agencies.     

COERCION,SOCIAL SUPPORT,AND CRIME: AN EMERGING THEORETICAL CONSENSUS*

Two themes, coercion and social support, have emerged over the past two decades in criminology that can be used to build a new integrated theory of crime. The authors provide a review of recent theoretical developments in criminology to demonstrate that two interconnected themes provide the basis for a new consensus in theory and crime policy. With some important exceptions, coercion causes crime and social support prevents crime. The authors develop a theory of differential social support and coercion that integrates concepts from a broad range of criminological theories. Implications of this integrated theory for public policy are explored.     

THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-CONTROL: TESTING THE GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME*

Gottfredson and Hirschi's recently introduced general theory of crime has received considerable empirical support. Researchers have found that low self-control, the general theory's core concept, is related to lawbreaking and to deviant behaviors considered by Gottfredson and Hirschi to be “analogous” to crime. In this article, we extend this research by assessing the effects of low self-control on crime and analogous behaviors and by using two distinct measures of self-control, an attitudinal measure and the analogous/behavior scale. Thus, following Gottfredson and Hirschi, we use analogous imprudent behaviors as outcomes of low self-control and as indicators of low self-control's effects on crime. We also examine an important but thus far neglected part of the theory: the claim that low self-control has effects not only on crime but also on life chances, life quality, and other social consequences. Consistent with the general theory, we found that both measures of self-control, attitudinal and behavioral, have effects on crime, even when controlling for a range of social factors. Further, the analysis revealed general support for the theory's prediction of negative relationships between low self-control and social consequences other than crime—life outcomes and quality of life.     

BEYOND ADOLESCENCE‐LIMITED CRIMINOLOGY: CHOOSING OUR FUTURE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2010 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

For over a half century, criminology has been dominated by a paradigm—adolescence‐limited criminology (ALC)—that has privileged the use of self‐report surveys of adolescents to test sociological theories of criminal behavior and has embraced the view that “nothing works” to control crime. Although ALC has created knowledge, opposed injustice, and advanced scholars’ careers, it has outlived its utility. The time has come for criminologists to choose a different future. Thus, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in life‐course criminology, brings criminologists closer to offenders and to the crime event, prioritizes the organization of knowledge, and produces scientific knowledge that is capable of improving offenders’ lives and reducing crime.     

Do Human Rights Require a Strong State?

Will China's authoritarian leaders succeed in building a future by erasing the past? Can the ideology of “nationalist consumerism” obliterate memory altogether? Will the Olympic applause drown out the weak and exiled witnesses of the Tiananmen crackdown? In this section we listen to a key Tiananmen student leader two decades on as well as check in with today's young elites in Beijing. A political leader from the reformist regime in 1989 calls for justice from house arrest and a young Chinese novelist wonders what kind of identity is possible without memory.     

CAMEROON: A COUNTRY UNITED BY ETHNIC AMBITION AND DIFFERENCE

This paper attempts an answer to the question: What keeps Cameroontogether despite widespread instability in Africa, despite theturbulence of the subregional environment in which it findsitself, and despite its own internal contradictions? The mainargument is that the politics of regional and ethnic balance,the chronic lack of vision as a country, the lack of real commitmentto democracy, the propensity to vacillate on most issues ofcollective interest, together with an infinite ability to developsurvival strategies, have acted to counter all meaningful attemptsto pursue common interests and aspirations. All that appearsto unite Camerooni ans is a common ethnic or regional ambitionto preserve their differences under the delusion of maximizingopportunities. However, as the ‘national cake’ diminisheswith the worsening economic crisis, corruption, mass miseryand ethnicity, making it more illusive for the bulk of smallpeople to claim the same benefits from their connections withthe big—or the not so big—men and women of power,one can legitimately wonder just how much longer the systemcan continue to deflate the disaffected.     

Explaining public education expenditure in OECD nations

Abstract. This article seeks to explain cross-sectional variation in public education expenditure levels and change since 1960. Five possible explanations are located: the incremental push of programme inertia, demographic and related pressures, economic resource growth, the impact of party and the cultural impact of Roman Catholicism. A multivariate analysis demonstrates that educational expenditure is an arena in which monocausal explanations are wholly inappropriate. With the exception of programme inertia, each of the explanations is seen to have an important bearing on this aspect of the people's welfare.