ASSAULTIVENESS AND ALCOHOL USE IN FAMILY DISPUTES

Systematic naturalistic observation often contradicts experimental laboratory findings and idiosyncratic personal perceptions. In this study, family disputes managed by police officers trained in interpersonal conflict management yielded uniform observational data on 1,388 cases. The view shared by police and by social scientists that family disputes are likely to involve assaultiveness and that such behavior is typically caused by alcohol use was not supported by these data. Instead, the findings suggest that: assaults do not usually precede arrival of police; disputes are not usually influenced by alcohol use; and, indeed, assaults are less common when alcohol has been used.     

HOMICIDE IN DETROIT The Role of Firearms

This study attempts to determine the role of firearms in accounting for the rising homicide rate of one city. Firearms were examined in relation to other weapons and subsequently firearm availability was examined in relation to other variables that could affect the rate of homicides. A majority of the increase in the homicide rate could be attributed to an increase in handgun murders. Firearm availability accounted for one-quarter of the rise in homicides.     

DIRECT PARENTAL CONTROLS AND DELINQUENCY*

Until recently, “direct controls” by parents have been summarily dismissed by delinquency researchers as theoretically and empirically unimportant. Although prior research indicates that various measures of direct parental controls (e.g., the amount of time spent interacting with parents) are related to delinquency, the correlations are uniformly weak and often not significant. However, when the term “direct control” is reconceptualized to include specific components—normative regulation, monitoring, and punishment—the results indicate that direct controls by parents have as great an impact on delinquency as that of “direct controls” or parental “attachments.” Further, the results suggest that the form of the relation between direct controls and delinquency is not simple, direct, and linear. Depending on which specific component of direct control is examined, its relationship to delinquency may be either linear or nonlinear, positive or inverse.     

DERIVATIVE DEVIANCE The Cases of Extortion, Fag-Bashing, and Shakedown of Gay Men

Derivative deviance is defined as the victimization of stigmatized persons because of their inability to avail themselves of the protections of civil society without threat of discrediting. Whether there is a preexisting relationship between the victim and the victimizer affects the possible forms of victimization. When there is no preexisting relationship, victims must he identified by culturally accepted understandings of which places are deviant and what deviants look like. In these cases, the principal forms of victimization are assault and robbery. When there is a preexisting relationship, greater knowIedge of the victim's significant others permits the more sophisticated victimization of extortion. However, to the extent the victim has reference groups who are also deviant, he is often able to resist extortion attempts. Extortion attempts were found typically to arise our of preexisting relationships among our gay male respondents.     

The Politics of the Rule of Law*

Abstract. The rule of law should be understood as part of the culture of democracy which requires a distribution of power between a periodically elected legislature and executive and an independent, but publicly accountable, judiciary in charge of a more slowly changing legal doctrine. The rule of law is also essential for the protection of individuals in fast changing pluralistic societies. In both its aspects the doctrine is a product of a particular historical culture, and requires a culture of legality, and not merely the introduction of a few legal rules, for its proper functioning.