THE CONTRIBUTION OF GANG MEMBERSHIP TO DELINQUENCY BEYOND DELINQUENT FRIENDS*

Both being involved in a gang and having friends who are delinquent have been shown to contribute to an individual's own delinquency. However, the unique contribution of gang membership to delinquency, above and beyond having delinquent peers, has not been well studied. Increased delinquency among gang members may not be due to gang membership per se, but to the members' association with delinquent peers. Using data from the Seattle Social Development Project, this research compared involvement in delinquency for gang members, nongang youths with delinquent friends, and nongang youths who did not have delinquent friends. MANOVA and follow-up ANOVA were conducted to determine differences on measures of delinquency among the three groups at ages 14 and 15. Gang members were found to have a higher rate of offending in the past year when compared with the other groups. The contribution of gang membership to delinquency above and beyond having delinquent friends was also examined using structural equation modeling. Gang membership was found to independently predict both self-reported and officially recorded delinquency beyond the effects of having delinquent friends and prior delinquency. Implications of the results for delinquency prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.     

Stuntman for the State: Loughlin's Idea of Public Law

Abstract. This paper provides a critical analysis of Martin Loughlin's pure theory of public law as developed in his more recent work. I argue that the pure theory makes a series of errors and rests on a set of assumptions that make it inappropriate to provide the legal framework for any social‐democratic polity. Specifically, the theory concedes too much latitude to the functional needs of the state and organised politics, and pays too little deference to processes of political opinion and will formation in civil society. As such, it only succeeds in establishing law's connection to the public realm, at the cost of effacing its internal relationship to the rule of law and democracy.     

PROTESTANT FUNDAMENTALISM AND THE RETRIBUTIVE DOCTRINE OF PUNISHMENT*

In Gregg v. Georgia in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that public opinion, including the public's presumed desire for retribution, can be a legitimate basis for penal policy. Subsequently, the retributive doctrine has guided sentencing reform across the nation. But variation among the public in support for retribution as the goal of punishment and the effects of religion in shaping public sentiments about punishment have received little attention from researchers. Drawing from recent work on attribution theory and religion, this paper proposes and reports evidence that public support for the retributive doctrine is closely linked to affiliation with fundamentalist Protestant denominations and fundamentalist religious beliefs. The normative implications of such a connection are addressed.     

Cycles of the fourth kind: A reply to Mohler's cycles of values

Abstract. Mohler (1987) claims that German culture does not display thematic cycles like those found by Namenwirth and Weber (1987) in America and Great Britain. We argue that Mohler's claim is not supported by the emperical evidence he presents. We also find his claim to be flawed conceptually and theoretically.     

ON THE INITIATION AND CONTINUATION OF DELINQUENCY*

An ongoing debate among criminologists concerns the merits of studying different dimensions of offending, such as initiation, frequency, and duration. One critical point of contention is whether separate models are necessary to explain different aspects of offending. The current study uses empirical data to assess whether different models are required to explain initiation and continuation of delinquent behavior. Using the first four waves of the National Youth Survey, we focus on the predictive ability of variables central to social control, labelling, differential association, and urbanism perspectives. We find many similarities and some differences between models for initiation and continuation of delinquency. We discuss the relevance of these results for developing a more comprehensive understanding of criminal behavior.