Assessing the relationship between individual characteristics, neighborhood context, and fear of crime

The purpose of this study is to examine citizens’ fear of crime based on the neighborhood in which they live. Integrating individual characteristics, citizens’ perceptions, and neighborhood structure provides a more complete perspective on understanding fear. Individuals were asked to report on proximate level of fear, social cohesion, neighborhood disorder and level of police/citizen satisfaction. Neighborhood structure emerged as a predictor of citizen's fear even after controlling for race, age, gender and education. Results indicated that perceived disorder neighborhood structure was strongly associated with citizens’ fear of crime. Considering individual characteristics, perceptions of disorder, and neighborhood context simultaneously provides an opportunity to develop a more comprehensive understanding of fear and policies to reduce fear.     

Expanding the focus of correctional evaluations beyond recidivism: the impact of halfway houses on public safety

Objective

This article reports the findings of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of residential halfway houses (HHs) on public safety in the immediate vicinity of the facilities.

Methods

Instead of focusing on recidivism reduction or cost effectiveness, as is common, outcome measures for this study are limited to the impact on community crime rates, here defined as offenses committed within 1/8 and 1/4 mi radii around a subject facility. A set of fixed effect Poisson regression models were employed to assess the changes in monthly crime counts associated with the opening or closing of an HH (N =?19). A second difference-in-differences analysis (DiD) compares HHs that ceased operation to HHs that remained consistently open for the duration of the study period. A series of robustness checks were conducted.

Results

We find the presence of an active HH is associated with an increase in crime within the immediate vicinity. We identify significant increases in monthly counts of overall crimes reported to law enforcement, as well as in counts for specific crimes of violence, including assaults and robberies with a firearm; property offenses, such as burglary; and in minor and misdemeanor offenses. A closing of an HH is associated with a decrease in reported crimes.

Conclusions

The location of a community-based correctional facility can have a significant and negative impact on public health, largely through decreased levels of local public safety. Evaluations of residential correctional programs should include indicators of community-level impact in addition to individual-level measures of recidivism, particularly when such programs are clustered in at-risk or vulnerable communities.

     

General Strain Theory and Racial Insurgency: Assessing the Role of Legitimate Coping

While General Strain Theory (GST) recognizes the broad range of legitimate and illegitimate coping behaviors people adopt in reaction to strain, tests of the theory focus almost exclusively on criminal coping. We advance the theory by articulating the role of legitimate coping in the GST process. We test the theory’s assumptions that strain increases both legitimate and illegitimate coping and that negative emotions more strongly increase illegitimate coping. We also draw on recent work by Agnew and expect that these coping strategies co-occur rather than being mutually exclusive. We investigate these hypotheses in relation to black insurgency, specifically nonviolent civil-rights protest (legitimate coping) and rioting (illegitimate coping). Using data from a large 1968 survey of blacks, multivariate findings are consistent with the theory’s expectations regarding the role of legitimate coping. More broadly, our results echo calls to extend the boundaries of the discipline beyond traditional conceptualizations of “crime.”     

Adoption of retrospective Medicare maximization billing practices by state Medicaid home care programs

Home care services funded by Medicare and Medicaid grew rapidly throughout most of the 1990s. During this period some state Medicaid programs transferred costs for home care claims to the Medicare program to reduce their liability and increase beneficiary access to Medicare coverage. This article reports the findings of the first national study of these Medicare maximization billing practices for home care services. Primary data were collected to determine which states conduct retrospective Medicare billing practices and the amounts recovered from Medicare. Our analysis indicates that seven states recovered as much as dollar 265 million from Medicare in state and federal dollars during the 1990s. Ratios of recovered expenditures-to-costs incurred for retrospective billing practices conducted in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts are between 5:1 and 7:1. While retrospective billing practices may aid states in reducing Medicaid outlays and potentially help dual Medicare beneficiaries gain coverage for their home care claims, they increase Medicare expenditures for home care at a time of concern for the long-term financial viability of Medicare and illustrate the need for reforming our national long-term care financing policy.     

Threats to Perceptions of Fairness in the Termination of Parental Rights

Termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings are among the most important family court activities. This study contributes to knowledge of the TPR process by illustrating practices employed in TPR proceedings and considering ways that certain practices can hinder perceptions of fairness. TPR court records from one state were analyzed using inductive coding procedures. The analysis identified nine categories of threats to perceptions of fairness in the TPR process. Findings have implications for procedural justice and the legitimacy of child welfare practice.     

The re-occurrence of violations in occupational safety and health administration inspections

How well do firms in the United States maintain compliance with occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) standards after being cited for a violation? How and why does this vary among standards? This paper identifies serious violations of 91 frequently cited standards at manufacturing plants during 1992–2002 and tracks compliance with that standard in later inspections over 10 years. While formal measures of Repeat violations are quite low, we find considerably higher re-violation rates for some standards once we look separately at how often health standards are cited in later health inspections and safety standards cited in later safety inspections. Characteristics of the standards affect re-violation rates, but not always in the expected direction. Standards whose violations are rated as more hazardous or which received higher initial penalties tend to have more re-violations. These findings could reflect inspector behavior, with those standards getting more attention and thus being cited more frequently. When, as in the case of OSHA and other enforcement agencies, we know about violations only when inspectors cite them, we need to consider bureaucratic behavior as well as employers' incentives.     

Projectile Wound to Head from Modified Electronic Cigarette Explosion

One of the dangers of a rapidly growing technology industry is the risk involved in being intimately close to lithium-ion batteries. When exposed to improper conditions, lithium-ion batteries in a variety of devices have been reported to ignite and, in some cases, explode. With the rise of electronic cigarette use and modifications, the lithium-ion batteries in these devices are subject to a higher risk of malfunction. This is a retrograde analysis of a 38-year-old man who experienced fatal penetrating head trauma while using a modified electronic cigarette device. The findings suggest that the trauma from the explosion was caused by the thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery in the modified e-cigarette.