THE PLACE OF CONTEXT: A THEORY AND STRATEGY FOR CRIMINOLOGY'S HARD PROBLEMS

I present a theoretical framework and analytic strategy for the study of place as a fundamental context in criminology, with a focus on neighborhood effects. My approach builds on the past 15 years of research from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods and from a recent book unifying the results. I argue that “ecometrics” can be applied at multiple scales, and I elaborate core principles and guiding hypotheses for five problems: 1) legacies of inequality and developmental neighborhood effects; 2) race, crime, and the new diversity; 3) cognition and context, above all the social meaning of disorder; 4) the measurement and sources of collective efficacy in a cosmopolitan world; and 5) higher order structures beyond the neighborhood that arise in complex urban systems. Although conceptually distinct, these hard problems are interdependent and ultimately linked to a frontier in criminology: contextual causality.     

Sanctioning Traditional Crimes with Fines: A Comparative Analysis

Rising crime rates within traditional sanctioning patterns have resulted in a search for alternatives to incarceration in order to control both the economic and the social (humanitarian) costs of punishment. The paper explores this response in four countries: England, Germany, Sweden, and the United States—all modern, industrial democracies. The paper focuses upon the response in terms of the role accorded monetary penalties as an alternative to incarceration. This role is analyzed in terms of the actual use of fines relative to incarceration, as a sentencing disposition for traditional crimes. The major finding is that among the four countries the United States accords fines a very minor role. The reasons for this difference are explored and it is concluded that the use of fines in the United States—when compared to European experience—appears to be far below the level that would minimize the economic and social cost of punishment.     

Case Processing Times in Three Courts

The time it takes a court to process its cases, a critical aspect of court performance, varies widely from case to case, from court to court, and within a given court as the court and its environment change over time. The sources of this variation, however, have remained largely obscure.
This paper examines the structural and case-level influences on processing times in three criminal courts experiencing structural changes, including a number of administrative reforms designed to reduce processing times. We find both similarities and differences between courts, but in general both many structural arrangements and many case characteristics affect processing times, with some case characteristics having different effects under different structural arrangements, and some structural arrangements affecting different sorts of cases differently. We conclude with a discussion of implications for court management.     

A COMPARISON OF CHANGES IN POLICE AND GENERAL HOMICIDES: 1930–1998*

This paper presents a new data series for homicides of law enforcement officers. Available for more than two centuries, it is much longer than series previously examined. Police killings had two extreme peaks, one in the 1920s and another in the 1970s. We use the post‐1930 part of the series in a time‐series regression to explore structural conditions that affect police killings in the short term. Economic conditions, prison populations, and World War II have considerably larger impacts on police killings than on homicide generally. Police killings are less affected by demographic changes and by the crack epidemic.