Investigating Friendship Quality: An Exploration of Self-Control and Social Control Theories’ Friendship Hypotheses

While associations with deviant peers are well understood to impact individual development, less is understood about the relationship between friendship quality and delinquency. Two criminological theories-social control theory and self-control theory-are able to offer an explanation for the latter relationship. Social control and self-control theories both premise that delinquents will have largely fractured, weak, and "cold and brittle" friendships. This study investigates how variations in perceptions of friendship quality are related to the delinquency, maternal attachment, school attachment, and self-control levels of both a participant and his/her close friend. To explore these relationships, we use a diverse (14% black; 18% Hispanic; 9% Asian) sample of 2,154 emerging adults within 1,077 friendship pairs (66% female). In each dyad, both members perceived the friendship's quality and reported personal markers of delinquency, social bonds, and self-control. Several series of multilevel models are estimated that regress each participant's friendship quality perception onto the participant's and their friend's delinquency, attachments, self-control, and demographic characteristics. Results show that delinquents have as intense, or more intense, friendships as non-delinquents. However, low levels of both actor and partner attachments and self-control are independently related to low friendship quality, and this is especially true for self-control. Supplemental analyses demonstrate that the effect of self-control on friendship quality may be reduced when individuals in dyads are delinquent. In conclusion, studies that address friendship quality without including characteristics of multiple members of the friendship are only capturing part of one's estimate of friendship quality.     

Delinquency and family life among male adolescents: The role of ethnicity

This study addresses the role of ethnic and racial diversity in the relationship between family processes and delinquency. The study evaluates the overall role families play in the etiology of delinquency across different ethnic/racial groups, and investigates the relative role of specific issues such as family involvement, family attachment, and family control among Hispanic, African American, and white male adolescents. This analysis utilizes two waves of data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, a longitudinal project investigating the causes and correlates of delinquency among a high-risk urban sample of youth. Results of this study indicate that family variables as a group are more important in constraining delinquency for Hispanic adolescents. In addition, the relative influence of particular family processes on delinquent conduct appears to differ among diverse populations. We also find that living in a single-parent home has less impact on family processes than living in a situation of economic hardship.Prepared under Grant No. 86-JN-CX-0007 (S-3) from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Grant No. 5 R01 DA05512-02 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Grant No. SES-8912274 from the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to thank Terence P. Thornberry and Alan Lizotte for their helpful comments. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the funding agencies.Received Ph.D. from University at Albany. Research interests include the family etiology of delinquency and the impact of the social context on parenting.Received Ph.D. from Florida State University. Research interests include adolescent substance use and juvenile delinquency.     

The dissemination and utilization of welfare‐to‐work experiments in state policymaking

Abstract This paper reports the results of a telephone survey of state‐level officials as to the influence of evaluations of three state welfare innovations: California's GAIN, New York's CAP, and Florida's Project Independence. The three experiments were known to those interviewed, yet they did not have dramatic, decisive effects on policymaking. However, GAIN and CAP appear to have influenced policymaking in less dramatic and more subtle respects. Much more important than empirical findings about the effects of tested programs was information about how these programs actually operated in the field along with evidence that the policies tested in welfare‐to‐work experiments were logically consistent (that is, there was no obvious reason to think that they would be unsuccessful), could clear federal waivers, and would not encounter major political resistance. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Racial Bias and the American Criminal Justice System: Race and Presentencing Revisited

A controversy within criminology involves the extent to which race affects criminal processing. Investigators on different sides of the issue have relied predominantly on studies of sentencing, leaving largely unexplored the less visible area of presentencing. After a discussion of nine of the most prevalent shortcomings in previous research, this article critically examines the contemporary presentencing literature to ascertain the extent to which a discrimination thesis (DT) receives empirical support. It reviews the findings from 52studies conducted since 1970 that employ multivariate statistical analysis. Special attention is devoted to critiquing the methodological shortcomings of studies that support a nondiscrimination thesis (NDT). The implications of these weaknesses for the race/criminal processing nexus are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Busting the Myth of the Unavailability of Insurance Rule's Application to Loss Allocation for Pollution Liability Claims Since 1986

Tens of millions of dollars in pollution liability losses have been mistakenly allocated to general liability insurers under the “Unavailability of Insurance” rule in jurisdictions that employ it. Under this rule, a policyholder is not allocated losses for years when they claim that pollution liability was unavailable – mainly after the advent of the 1986 “absolute” pollution exclusion. Recent research has been compiled to include thousands of pages of evidence that by 1986 and to this date there was and has been a viable pollution liability insurance market that would not only underwrite a current year's risks, but also erase any prior pollution insurance coverage gaps by insuring decades of prior acts. This article looks at this rule and the enormous impact it could have on insurers' pollution liability reserves if it continues to be misapplied.     

A Rising Naval Challenger in Asia: Lessons from Britain and Japan between the Wars

The end of Great Britain's standing as a superpower conjures up a frightening picture of how a post-American world might come about, not by a gradual, managed decline of the United States, but rather by a sudden defeat at sea. Some 70 years ago, Britain's navy suffered staggering losses at the hands of an emerging peer competitor in Asia. Could a reversal of fortune of this magnitude—the world's leading naval power being soundly beaten by a rising challenger—happen again? Britain's naval downfall in Asia provides a sobering parable, warning of potential dangers looming for the United States in the twenty-first century.     

Alternative Pathways to Violence in Persons with Schizophrenia: The Role of Childhood Antisocial Behavior Problems

Violence in schizophrenia patients may result from many factors besides the symptoms of schizophrenia. This study examined the relationship between childhood antisocial behavior and adult violence using data from the NIMH CATIE study. The prevalence of violence was higher among patients with a history of childhood conduct problems than among those without this history (28.2% vs. 14.6%; P < 0.001). In the conduct-problems group, violence was associated with current substance use at levels below diagnostic criteria. Positive psychotic symptoms were linked to violence only in the group without conduct problems. Findings suggest that violence among adults with schizophrenia may follow at least two distinct pathways-one associated with premorbid conditions, including antisocial conduct, and another associated with the acute psychopathology of schizophrenia.