Explaining the race/ethnicity–violence relationship: Neighborhood context and social psychological processes

Blacks and Latinos have higher levels of offending than Whites for violent crimes. Researchers have examined a range of explanations that primarily focus on race and have only begun to consider how macro contexts influence individual levels of violence. This study contributes to this literature by including both race and ethnicity, and by examining the role of social psychological processes in mediating the impact of neighborhood contexts on violence. Using the Add Health data, I demonstrate the importance of the neighborhood context, socioeconomic status, and social psychological processes in explaining the relationship between race, ethnicity and violence. Having witnessed and been victimized by violence is by far the most important social psychological process in explaining this relationship.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Relative Group Size and Hate Crime Rates: Linking Methods with Concepts

Abstract

In recent studies, Hipp et al. caution that the selection of the appropriate denominator in computing the rate of intra- and inter-group interactions is consequential for key findings. The present study builds on this work and examines whether adjusting for the structural opportunities for any type of interaction affects the observed relationship between hate crime rates and minority group size. We go beyond prior research by computing distinctive measures of anti-Black hate crime rates across US counties circa 2000. Our findings offer support for the power-differential hypothesis, revealing a negative effect of minority population size on crime motivated by bias. These results also underline the importance of the procedure developed by Hipp et al., showing that that the selection of the “baseline” for the computation of hate crime rates is critical for understanding the relationship between minority group size and crime motivated by bias.     

Economic Development,Change of Age Distribution,and Stream Analogy of Homicide and Suicide: A Cross-National Assessment

The current study tests the stream analogy of lethal violence, proposed by Unnithan et al. on a large sample of 124 nations. Spatial econometric regression models confirm that economic development decreases homicide rate and increases suicide–homicide ratio (SHR). The SHR developed by Unnithan et al. accounts for the impact of economic development better than original measure of suicide rate. The most important finding of the current investigation is that the increase in the population size of the elderly, consequent to economic development, is partially responsible for elevated suicide rates and SHRs.     

How Does Globalisation Affect Regional Inequality within A Developing Country? Evidence from China

Developing countries are increasingly concerned about effects of globalisation on regional inequality. This paper develops an empirical method for decomposing the contributions of two major driving forces of globalisation, foreign trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), on regional inequality and applies it to China. Even after controlling for many other factors, globalisation is still found to be an important factor contributing to the widening regional inequality. The paper ends by investigating the role of factor market segmentations in aggravating the distributional effect of changing regional comparative advantages in the process of globalisation.     

Sexual offenders’ treatment experience: a qualitative and quantitative investigation

Abstract

This research investigates the where and when of sexual assaults to determine what types of sexual crimes are committed at different time and place classifications. Exhaustive CHAID (chi-squared automatic interaction detection) analyses are conducted, examining factors associated with crimes that were committed indoors or outdoors, in private or public places, during the day or at night, and during the week or on the weekend. These methods are applied to a sample of 361 sexual crime events committed by 72 serial sex offenders. The results are strikingly different dependent on which spatial or temporal aspect of the crime is examined, which implies the complexity of sexual crime events and their situational components. This research brings to light possible policy implications with respect to situational crime prevention.     

Who benefits from demand‐driven distribution of HIV/AIDS services? An analysis of the emerging CBO sector in Malawi

Community‐based organisations (CBOs) play a key role in Malawi's multi‐sector programme for responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In this programme they are funded in a demand‐driven manner—which means that only those areas that apply for funds to CBO services are blessed with programme benefits. This paper argues that this funding mechanism is not conducive to either distributing CBO services to areas most in need or enhancing downward accountability. Because areas most in need of services generally also lacked the capacity to attract project funding, the programme did not reach them. Instead, it tended to reach those areas with the greatest capacity to attract funding, though not necessarily the greatest need for it. Furthermore, those CBOs that were funded were unable to facilitate collective action in their communities because of elite capture of decision making. The programme, however, was relatively responsive to the communities' thematic demands. Thus, all in all, the elites were relatively more successful in representing the communities' wishes than in caring for all geographical areas in their constituencies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chalk and Cheese: A Comparative Analysis of Local Government Reform Processes in New South Wales and Victoria

A substantial empirical literature exists on the consequences of local government reform programs. However, much less effort has been directed at examining how reform processes affect the outcomes of reform programs and little work has been invested in the comparative analysis of local government reform processes. To address this neglect in the literature, this article provides a comparative analysis of the contemporary municipal reform initiatives in the New South Wales and Victorian state local government systems. It is argued that the much more deliberative and inclusive Victorian approach represents a superior approach to the hurried “top-down” New South Wales method.     

Attitudes Toward “Fracking”: Perceived and Actual Geographic Proximity

Prior surveys have sought to gauge American public opinion toward shale gas development. Research on environmental hazards has produced conflicting findings related to the role of proximity in predicting attitudes. This study analyzes how perceived and actual proximity to active shale gas development in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas predicts individual preferences for moratoria. We implement a conditionally parametric probit, which accounts for geographic variation in coefficient values. Our results suggest that attitudes toward the potential benefits and risks associated with shale gas development play a larger and more consistent role in predicting preference for moratoria than proximity or other sociodemographic factors. Our methodology allows for inferences related to the extent of geographic variation in coefficient values. Our results indicate that the role of proximity in predicting preference for moratoria differs based on whether a respondent resides in an urban or rural area or within a shale play.     

Co-existing logics of change: The case of the Danish associational development championships

This article addresses modernization processes within the voluntary sector. It examines how volunteer-based sports associations (VSAs) are encouraged to work with their own self-development, when they participate in the Danish Associational Development Championships (DADC). Drawing on Foucault’s concepts of ‘governmentality’ and ‘dispositive’, the article shows how the governmental rationality of the DADC is pieced together by a number of different logics of change. This makes it ambiguous what the function of VSAs is, who they function for, and why they need to change. The article thus advances our knowledge of the socio-political nature of modernization strategies and techniques.     

Putting Equality in Place: The Normative Foundations of Geographic Equality of Opportunity

This article explores the normative principles underlying the geography of opportunity perspective and provides a justification for equalizing the geographic dimensions of economic opportunity. The article proposes a conception of geographic equality of opportunity (GEO) that provides an account of: (a) why geographic equality matters; (b) why opportunities are the appropriate currency of geographic equality; and (c) how the geographic distribution of resources and residential mobility relate to equality of opportunity. GEO requires that certain geographic resources be spatially uniform or equally accessible, and that any differences in economic outcomes be traceable to autonomous choices and not morally arbitrary conditions such as one’s race or birth location.