RECIDIVISM AMONG PAROLED PROPERTY OFFENDERS RELEASED DURING A PERIOD OF PRISON REFORM*

Data from four successive yearly cohorts and one special early release cohort of parolees are used to explore the question of whether rapid statewide changes in the administration of criminal justice affected the patterns of recidivism among persons on parole for property offenses. Given the earlier broadly constructed research reported by Ekland–Olson et al. (1993), and their conclusion that variation in shifting policies would have different effects on different types of offenses, we decided to sharpen the focus of the research questions posed by concentrating on recidivism patterns among property offenders. Three alternative explanations—compositional effects, administrative discretion, and deterrence—are explored to interpret the differences found across cohorts While suggestive, these alternative explanations remain open to question given the limitations inherent in quasi-experimental research. Conclusions related to issues of prison construction policy suggest that more attention be paid to the “replacement factor,” whereby “vacancies” left by incarcerated offenders are rapidly filled by others. If future research supports the rapid replacement hypothesis, increased levels of incarceration will yield a larger, more experienced criminal “work force” and ironically a heightened collective potential for crime.     

DELINQUENCY AND THE STRUCTURE OF ADOLESCENT PEER GROUPS*

Gangs and group‐level processes were once central phenomena for criminological theory and research. By the mid‐1970s, however, gang research primarily was displaced by studies of individual behavior using randomized self‐report surveys, a shift that also removed groups from the theoretical foreground. In this project, we return to the group level to test competing theoretical claims about delinquent group structure. We use network‐based clustering methods to identify 897 friendship groups in two ninth‐grade cohorts of 27 Pennsylvania and Iowa schools. We then relate group‐level measures of delinquency and drinking to network measures of group size, friendship reciprocity, transitivity, structural cohesion, stability, average popularity, and network centrality. We find significant negative correlations between group delinquency and all of our network measures, suggesting that delinquent groups are less solidary and less central to school networks than nondelinquent groups. Additional analyses, on the one hand, reveal that these correlations are explained primarily by other group characteristics, such as gender composition and socioeconomic status. Drinking behaviors, on the other hand, show net positive associations with most of the network measures, suggesting that drinking groups have a higher status and are more internally cohesive than nondrinking groups. Our findings shed light on a long‐standing criminological debate by suggesting that any structural differences between delinquent and nondelinquent groups are likely attributable to other characteristics coincidental with delinquency. In contrast, drinking groups seem to provide peer contexts of greater social capital and cohesion.     

RACIAL TYPIFICATION OF CRIME AND SUPPORT FOR PUNITIVE MEASURES

This paper assesses whether support for harsh punitive policies toward crime is related to the racial typification of crime for a national random sample of households (N=885), surveyed in 2002. Results from OLS regression show that the racial typification of crime is a significant predictor of punitiveness, independent of the influence of racial prejudice, conservatism, crime salience, southern residence and other factors. This relationship is shown to be concentrated among whites who are either less prejudiced, not southern, conservative and for whom crime salience is low. The results broaden our understanding of the links between racial threat and social control, beyond those typically associated with racial composition of place. They also resonate important themes in what some have termed modern racism and what others have described as the politics of exclusion.     

A COMPARISON OF DEFENSE STRATEGY AND RACE AS INFLUENCES IN DIFFERENTIAL SENTENCING

This study compares the influence of defense strategy and the race of the defendant on the variance in felony sentence length for a sample of 2,090 convicts in a state penal system Defense strategy includes the subsequent plea of the defendant and the type of defense counsel. Control variables are age, marital status, urban-rural childhood, education, prior criminal record, and type of crime. A comparison is made for both burglary and homicide. The findings for butglay show defense strategy explains 16.5% of the variance in sentence length (because of the type of plea), while race of the defendant explains only I% of the variance (due to the positive relationship between being black and sentence length). For homicide the unique explanation of the defense strategy model accounts for 3% of the variance (due more to type of attorney than plea), while the race of the defendant accounts for another 3% (because of the negative relationships between being Indian or Mexican-American and sentence length).     

Foreign Debt and Literary Credit: Pablo Neruda and Walt Whitman

The article draws in relief how translators carry with them cultural and ideological horizons that necessarily imbue their literary production with distinctly situated historical, political, and personal dimensions. It does so first by examining how The New York Times 's translation of Pablo Neruda's 1972 address to the PEN Club reframes (or distorts) his views on political and literary issues ranging from the negotiation of the Chilean national debt to his literary indebtedness to Walt Whitman, and then by examining how Neruda's 1955 translation of Whitman's 'Salut Au Monde!', refashions and relocates Whitman's work, imbuing it with a communist ethos consistent with Neruda's own.     

Nowhere to Run,Nowhere to Hide? The 2010 General Election and the Defence of First‐past‐the‐post

The 2010 general election threw traditional arguments about electoral reform into chaos: defenders of the status quo suddenly found themselves defending outcomes the existing system is supposed to prevent, while advocates of reform were obliged to praise outcomes arising from current arrangements. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of first‐past‐the‐post in the light of the 2010 result and asserts that—contrary to many claims—FPTP remains a defensible electoral system. In doing so, the article highlights the peculiar political circumstances attending the last general election, while reminding readers that other recent UK elections, conducted under other electoral systems, have not been free of serious anomalies.